ADDRESS 
PREPARED FOR THE 
NATIONAL INSURANCE CONVENTION 
ANNUAL MEETING, 1874, 
BY 
LAMBERT, M.D., LLJ> 
* 
Mr. President, and 
Superintendents and Commissioners, 
Gentlemen" :—When meeting your Secretary in Concord, ip 
the early part of summer, lie invited me to be present at this Con- 
vention and read a paper, I had the idea that I could not expect 
that pleasure, and said so to him. 
But, as the season wore away, I was glad to find that I could 
‘ accept the invitation, which had fortunately been an open one, and 
wrote to him accordingly. 
I confess that as I revolved the matter of meeting you together, 
I felt particularly desirous of presenting to your honorable body 
several ideas of great import to the public welfare, for the’ expres- 
sion of which, it appears to me, that the time is fully ripe. 
It might at first appear that, as I am well acquainted with most 
of you, I could better have visited you in your several offices, and 
presented my views personally. But it is more difficult for you in 
private social conversation to bring your minds into the judicial 
attitude, while it would be quite impossible for me to be as strictly 
logical and argumentive in a social relation as when addressing a 
high court of adjudication. Each one here feels a weight of re- 
sponsibility, whether as speaker or hearer; and it is important that 
the highest responsibility should be solemnly accepted by all hav- 
ing anything to do with the management of Life Insurance. 
The time is not only ripe for a thorough observation of our 
whereabouts, but it demands in ominous forebodings, that we 
should know, without any half doubts, whether we are drifting, or 
scientifically advancing. 2 
The great value of insurance is acknowledged by the people, by 
the very act of placing it under the supervision of State officers. 
That act also distinctly expresses a suspicion that the officers of 
the companies may conserve the interests of the companies as 
against those of the insured, and their own as against those of the 
companies; to wit, that the unenlightened self-interest of the 
officers jeopardizes the rights and property of both the Company 
and the assured, and that therefore the business should be supervised 
by other supervisors than those who theoretically are the guardians 
of the interests of both Company and insured; supervisors who 
shall, with pure disinterestedness, conserve the interests of all. 
While I shall freely, yet earnestly, allow that there is a measure, 
even large measure, if you insist upon it, of truth in this view—since 
it is an axiom that unenlightend self-interest is always short-sighted. 
—yet I wrill also suggest that there is another unenlightened self-in- 
terest that much more strongly threatens the safety of life insurance 
contracts than does any real or suspected act of the managers of the 
companies. 
I do not wish to be misunderstood, and certainly not to be mis- 
represented because I speak with freedom, with entire frankness, be- 
fore this honorable body. I do not wish to be thought, nor said to 
speak adversely to the most stringent State Supervision. 
Whatever my opinion is upon that subject, I do not argue it pro 
nor con, but ask to be allowed to assume that it is desirable, and to 
argue in that view in regard to its true functions. 
We have, one and all, I am sure, but one object, to wit: the mak- 
ing of the business secure and beneficent; we shall all shake hands 
upon the motive which actuates us. 
I am thus careful to guard against erroneous deductions, be- 
cause I know that new ideas often startle the imagination and 
induce irrelevant deductions, when more familiarity with the same 
ideas not only robs them of their startling novelty but shows them 
to be angels of light; they are also apt to seek utterances in strong 
expressions. I do not mean that I shall speak words the off-spring 
of momentary excitement, quite the contrary; the ideas have been 
conned until they are like the pictures in old Noah Webster’s spell- 
ing-book ; apparently something ante-natal. 
My first proposition is, that of all the jeopardies to which life in- 
surance is exposed,—great and fully realized as is that to which it is 
subject through the temptations acting upon officers of companies, 
—the greatest are the very laws which have been instituted for the 
express purpose of rendering the institution secure. 3 
I desire to argue this point here, not because this honorable body, 
or any of its members, were or are responsible for those laws, at least 
not for their inception,—since none of those constituting this con- 
vention were either the fathers or the god-fathers of the ideas which 
induced the institution of the present insurance laws,—but because, 
although I believe this doctrine true, some of you may not, and I 
wish to convert any unbeliever to what seems to me to be the 
truth. 
But I would have you converted to this specific truth, not as I 
would have all men receive it, but because in regard to it you are 
by your official position a mighty power in the land. If you cannot 
have the law changed so as to fulfil truly its intention of being a 
safeguard, you can have it so modified that it will not be an instru- 
ment, as it now is, necessarily productive of jeopardy to this great 
interest which it was intended to conserve. 
Nothing can be good which is not true, nothing can be perman- 
ent nor useful which is false and not based upon a scientific founda- 
tion. But such “ a goodly seeming falsehood hath,” in many cases, 
that we are often led to place reliance upon what will prove an un- 
substantial basis. 
Are then the bases upon which all the life insurance laws in all 
the States are founded, true or false ? 
False, I say, not having the first iota of science in their en- 
gendering, and, in their outworkings they are expensive, inequit- 
able and insecure. 
Not one of the assumptions of the laws is scientifically assum- 
able, and, therefore, they must work with friction, expense and 
hazard. 
The law assumes that there is an increment of the risk of dy- 
ing in case of each person, with each year of age. All its computa- 
tions assume this error as if it could not be debated, and, as one ac- 
tuary said, when he heard the correct idea broached, “ That may be 
true, but, if it is, What will become of all our calculations ?” / 
I will first illustrate by what will, must, deeply interest you. 
That there is an increment of risk to each person, with each in- 
creasing year of age, is a dogma without even a shadow of truth 
for its foundation. 
Its apparent truth is produced-by an abnormal, illogical process 
of reasoning. It is produced by including within those observed, 
persons of severally different capabilities of living, and by distri- 
buting equally among all, the risks which belong only to a few. 
I will illustrate my meaning. Suppose, White, Brown, Green 4 
and Black, eacli 30 years of age, are averaged in regard to the risk of 
dying that year ? 
White has, I will presume, no chance of living through the year, 
and his real risk of dying is therefore 1,000 in 1,000. Brown, say, is 
sure to drop off within two years, and say that his chances are equal 
between the two years—that is his risk that year, is 500 in 1,000 ; 
while Green and Black are in every respect best grade risks, not ex- 
ceeding 2 each in 1,000. All together have 1,504 chances in 4,000 
of dying in that year, or 376. in 1,000, and their net premiums, 
correspondingly averaged, would be expressed accordingly as $376. 
The absurdity of such a procedure is so plainly seen that this 
illustration can hardly be believed to be a fair one. 
To remove any such impression we will suppose White’s risk to 
be but 30 to 1,000, Brown’s but 20, and the other two as before. 
This supposition gives in all 54 in 4,000 or 13.50 chances in 1,000 
to each. This looks so near like the ordinary figures in the table 
that it is not at all startling and is readily accepted, especially as 
the decimal .50 gives an appearance of great exactness. 
Yet, in fact, this illustration is as absurd as the other, and the 
error is precisely the same in each supposition. 
I am quite aware that these are crude illustrations in one view, 
but they are perfect in another, that in which I wish to use them. I 
am also quite aware that it may be said that the small number of 
persons in these illustrations prevents their application to a case 
where the very point is to have the average among a large number 
of persons. 
Because sometimes we are apt to think a person ignorant or 
thoughtless, I will notice this objection, for, although it has not any 
validity, it will aid in illuminating the very error that I am 
combating. 
The apparent necessity for having an average made among a 
large number arises from the assumption that these persons will be 
very different in their characteristics—and a large number is taken 
in the hope that thus a sufficient number of superior risks will be 
entangled in the scoop-net to bring up the average of the inferior 
risks. In results this is always an uncertain, unreliable assumption. 
It is a fundamental law of mathematics that ratios can be insti- 
tuted only between quantities having the same unit. 
The persons compared and adjusted must be very similar to each 
other in order that there may be any equity or security in the work, 
since, if latitude is allowed, there is always a tendency to accept the 
inferior—too largely; but if the proposition is to select together 5 
those who naturally are alike capable of living—like Black for ex- 
ample—the task is easy, as it also is if they are to he like White. 
The tendency or the necessity to die during any year is depend- 
ent upon two causes—one inherent the other incidental. The 
former Ave are hound to look up, since the indications may he found 
either in the ancestral record or in the person’s own constitution. 
To announce the correct formula will, perhaps, best bring out 
the point that Ave wish to exhibit. 
Every life, every living thing, has a plateau of life, that Avhich 
may be called its constitutional longevity, at the end of Avhich, at 
best, it must die—its earlier death is incidental. 
This fact is seen in every plant, in every animal; it exists none 
the less in man. It varies in species, in varieties, in individuals. 
As we ahvays insure individuals, the individual indications of 
probable longevity are ahvays Avhat Ave Avish to knoAV. 
Perhaps there is no living thing in which there is so much varia- 
tion as in case of men. Their several natural plateaus of life, Avith 
only incidental risks of dying, range from a moment up to an 
hundred years. This great variation has, probably, been the reason 
Avhy the idea has gained ground that the uncertainties gathering 
about man’s life are more numerous than they really are, and has 
induced too many deaths to be attributed to incidental causes, Avhen 
the prime cause Avas in their natural constitutions. 
As the persons Avith varying natural or constitutional longevities 
have been observed together, and as a larger number are born to die 
naturally at forty, in proportion to those born to survive forty, than 
there are of those born to die naturally at thirty, in proportion to 
those born to survive thirty, of course the increment shoAvn in the 
mortality tables must exist Avhen they are based upon the deaths of 
all these people aggregated. To fully account for the increment, or 
its irregularity, Ave must go back to the source thereof, in the an- 
cestral tendencies. 
It appears then, that, because persons have the common names of 
men and women, it is not to be assumed that the same facts are to 
be predicated of each and of all in regard to the probabilities of liv- 
ing or of dying, but that the general idea Avhich Ave all have in re- 
gard to different kinds of living things, and in regard to different 
races and families of men, must be applied to individual men 
and Avomen. 
We must not think that the same liability pertains to all persons, 
but Ave should perceive the fact that a very different liability may 
pertain to different individuals—who may have not only different 6 
Capacities of resisting death-causing tendencies—at any one time, 
but for different periods of time: thus of two men, there may he 
no more present liability to death in one case than in the other, yet 
this condition may naturally continue only for a short period in one 
and naturally for a very long period in the other. 
This proposition may also be varied, to state that of these per- 
sons one may be a large risk with one variety of conditions about 
him, and the other risk not increased, but perhaps diminished 
thereby. So that the plateau may be looked upon in a double 
light; as absolute, and as contingent, and in both these aspects 
must the case of every individual be considered, and his risk must 
be determined accordingly. 
I will use an ad hominem illustration of this idea. 
Is there any one here who supposes that your worthy Secretary 
—merely because he is one year older—has any more risk of dying 
this year than existed in his case last year ? 
Judging from his “ make up,” and knowing nothing of his 
history, I should say that his apparent plateau had improved since 
he was 25 years of age, and that, although many years older, he 
has not actually as much probable risk of closing his life this 
year as he probably had at the much younger age mentioned. 
I know that it is said that the machine gradually wears out and 
that each hour brings us nearer to the grave. 
Herein, however, are two ideas blended—one of which is true 
and floats the other which is not correct. 
The human machine, if rightly treated, does not “wear out.” 
It will wear or rust out by non-wear the quicker. Nor does it take 
on an increased liability to die year by year until it has reached 
the verge of its plateau. Some seem hardly to have a plateau, 
since their strength increases from year to year for many years, 
while others have a gradual diminution of strength ; and again, 
others have many plateaus, now higher now lower. But the long or 
short plateau, with a more or less sharp declivity towards the close 
of life, is the natural constitution of most persons. 
Is a horse any more likely to die when nine than when eight 
years old ? Is a rose more likely to fade or a vine to die with each 
added hour of its prime of life ? 
True, all living things are nearer to their death by each passing 
moment. So, if a man takes a policy payable at death, or at any 
specified age, the “ level premiums ” assessed must be larger at each 
higher entering age, as the premiums will be fewer with each year of 
age, and therefore they must be larger to equal the same assurance. 7 
That is probably why the minds of many have become so deeply 
fixed on the general idea that there is an increased risk of dying 
each year in case of each person. But the idea that each added 
year of life diminishes our distance from the grave is very distinct 
from the yearly risk of dying, and per se has nothing whatever to 
do with it. These are two distinct facts, although in some indi- 
viduals they may be coincident. 
Should a person have only the same risk of dying each year dur- 
ing all the period of an endowment taken at 50 and payable at 60, 
yet there must be higher premiums than if the policy had been 
taken at 25 and was payable at 60. 
As soon as the endowment idea is withdrawn from the view of 
the mind’s-eye, and it is fixed upon the true proposition that, as a 
rule, there is a discernible, a computable plateau of life natural to 
each individual, varying from a short period to four score years and 
ten, the correctness of the idea is at once recognised. At least 
with a very little consideration, it is perceived, that the whole phi- 
losophy, and the exemplifications of the increasing risk of dying at 
each age, in case of each man, has no foundation; if this be true of 
each man, then is it certain that it cannot be true of any group of 
men, unless each man of a group has been properly assorted for the 
purpose ; doing which must be primarily and conscientiously de- 
pendent upon a proper measurement and adj udication of each risk. 
Yet all the laws, all their assumptions, and all their computa- 
tions, by which reflections or comments upon the solvency, integ- 
rity, and standing of companies and their officers are made, have 
for one of their basal elements, this serious fallacy, that there is a 
regular increment of liability to die with each year of age. 
Nor is this fallacy peculiar to the laws. It saturates the minds 
of all the writers, speakers, thinkers, and formalists of life insur- 
ance, who would doubtless be nonplused if told to leave the incre- 
ment idea out of their minds. 
One voluminous writer, ridiculing his brother professionals in 
Great Britain, says, “ They vastly magnify the importance of fur- 
ther scientific observations to ascertain the law of the decrement of 
human life, &c.f not perceiving that the great error of thinking 
that any “ law ” exists was common to himself and to them. 
The complete and undebated acceptance of this error is the 
more surprising since it is positively contradicted by the results of 
“ medical selection,” even as generally applied. This at once inter- 
feres with the increment, retarding it for a less or greater number 
of years. Now, as the “medical selection” does not increase the 8 
length of the lives selected, it must merely, to a degree, distinguish 
those who are naturally longer-lived than those discarded. 
It may be said that the selection only discards those who have 
become inferior risks through incidental causes. But all know that 
if a person is perfectly sound at twenty-five years of age, but whose 
mother—whom he much resembles—died of consumption at 30, no 
medical examiner would be so ignorant as to recommend his insur- 
ance, at least until that age is fully passed. Here we have a case of 
a well defined plateau expected—or prevised—and only a corres- 
ponding but more complete knowledge properly applied is needed 
to previse with greater certainty the probable plateau of most men 
and women. Most of them do not sicken and die from incidental 
causes, but three-fourths to four-fifths of them die near to the age 
at which some ancestor died, and of the same class of diseases. 
It is also to be noticed that no man is a perfect unit in regard 
to the natural longevities of all parts of his body, for while one 
part may naturally have a long-lived plateau, another part, perhaps 
of the same organ, may have a very short-lived plateau, and, if of 
sufficient consequence in the human economy, it will, by dying, com- 
mit homicide upon all the naturally long-lived parts. This is illus- 
strated by what we every day see. 
The roots of some of the hairs in some persons live out their 
full period in early life, and dying, never regrow. While other hair- 
roots or glands of the same person inherit a long-lived vigor that is 
gratifying to the possessor. 
It is often curious to notice how certain special small spots will 
become bald early in several generations ; also how the whole head 
is bald, or has thin or thick hair, or a spot of gray hair, following 
the ancestry most curiously in instances. This proves that the 
secretory tissue of different hairs may naturally have very different 
lengths of life, and that these differences are owing to inheritance. 
It is very seldom that slight or extensive baldness is produced by 
incidental causes, and no one expects such a result often; neither 
should we reason otherwise about the causes of short or long life in 
other parts ; it is related to the natural plateaus of their life. 
Some of the gastric tubes or glands of the stomach may be short- 
lived naturally, while others may be naturally long-lived ; the same 
may be said of the cells of the liver, or of the lungs, or of the parts 
of any other organ, which is so evident in regard to the hair roots, 
bulbs, or glands. 
It is therefore perceived that the longevity of any person is not 
to be estimated by the indications of great longevity in some parts only, of his body, nor is his longevity a resultant or average of the 
various plateaus which are natural to his different organs, but it is 
an individual matter, depending upon the shortest-lived plateau of 
any parts essential to life. 
These doctrines are not new to some of you now, but are accepted. 
I am also happy to say that they have not met the misfortune that 
most new and practical ideas do meet, for they have been accepted 
heartily, and at once advocated, so far as I know, by every med- 
ical man to whom they have been submitted ; indeed they appeal so 
strongly to the scientific sense, harmonize so completely with the 
experience, and so clearly explain the daily observations of every 
medical man that, as soon as apprehended, they appear self-evident 
to him. 
This doctrine or idea of diverse natural plateaus and longevities 
in different persons, and in different parts of the same person, is 
also intensely interesting, very satisfactory, and of the greatest im- 
portance, in all its modifications and ramifications, to every non- 
professional man, since it affords to him also a simple basis for the 
explanation of many observed facts which vitally concern him, and 
which otherwise seem to be fortuitous or mysterious, and not 
amenable to any'law or correlation ; for instance, it instructively 
suggests that, if a considerable part of an organ is incapacitated, no 
matter what the vigor of the other parts, the person must do no 
more of anything than corresponds to the remaining capacity of 
that organ, or he will suffer, and perhaps die, when by care in re- 
gard to the amount that he does, he might live for many years, etc. 
It also suggests an explanation why a person at one ’time of life 
will succumb to incidental causes of disease, when he escapes their 
influence at another time, and again, others are exempt to a very 
high age. A vocation, residence or habit may, therefore, to one man, 
family, or to a whole neighborhood of people be apparently innoc- 
uous, while to others the same will be deadly. To those who are 
naturally long-lived in all their organs the frequent use of alcoholics 
seems not to be harmful, and, although really injurious, at least 
never useful, the evil works so gradually that more than one gen- 
eration will usually be required to show deleterious accumulations 
of the bad influences which will show themselves in a short time 
in bodies, the longevity of parts of which are in the process of ter- 
minating. If, therefore, we see persons living to a high age using 
liquor, or indulging some other bad habit, the long life does not 
argue in favor of the bad habit, as at first appears to be the case. 
Again, some, all of whose organs are short-lived, will have none 10 
which are much shorter-lived than the others, and while they live, 
therefore, show just as remarkable vigor of health, as those who 
are naturally very long-lived, and will, during this time of their 
life, or until near its close, naturally resist all the incidental causes 
of disease equally with the best; but as a rule, those who are nat- 
urally long-lived, or first grade risks in regard to longevity, are also 
first grade in respect to vitality or power to withstand unfavorable 
conditions for the time being, while those inferior in regard to lon- 
gevity are also usually inferior in respect to vitality. 
It is evident, therefore, that what are called extra hazards will 
almost uniformly be much more so to the naturally short-lived than 
they are to the naturally long-lived. Even on the battle field, where 
it would be supposed that fortuities would be distributed impar- 
tially, the longevity and vitality of superior risks often carry them 
home alive, when the inferior risks will die. True, if a large 
cannon ball should squarely strike the head of a natural candi- 
date for ninety years, it is not argued that his chance would be any 
better on account of his ancestry, constitution, or habits, than that 
of an inferior risk; but half a dozen bullets might, as has been 
known, pass through different parts of his body without causing 
death, which would be induced in an inferior risk by merely the 
shock caused by a single one. 
In some cases of great prospective longevity, and present vitali- 
ty, persons have been known to pass through visitations of yellow 
fever, cholera, and the like, even tending the sick with impunity. 
These, and like instances, prove that risks are individual, and that 
the law and the books are fallacious in assuming that large numbers 
of risks Avide-spread are an element of security, and an essential ba- 
sis for insurance. That depends upon their character. Have not 
some of the Companies found that risks at ordinary premiums 
spread through the South did not cover their cost ? Would not one 
hundred average risks in .New Hampshire make a more secure 
Company than five hundred of those averaged with five hundred 
risks in the South, or in most of the Western States ? 
I know it is said that epidemics may rage in one section, es- 
especially if small, and invalidate security, and the question is often 
put,—Where Avould be the security of insurance if a A\ide spread, 
devastating epidemic should prevail ? To this the books have no 
answer. But I answer that epidemics prevail only among inferior 
risks, and in Avhose constitution the epidemic finds a favorable con- 
dition. The best grade risks Avithstand the unfavorable influences 
so well that security will not be invalidated by them, and the in- 11 
ferior risks must be charged a premium covering their risk, and so 
few of them insured that they cannot disturb the security; (by in- 
ferior I do not here refer to unsound risks, hut to those who are 
sound and usually insured as good, are so for the time being, but 
who will not last.) 
It is a burlesque and mockery of science to assume for a mo- 
ment that all men and women are equally amenable to epidemics, or 
to other incidental causes of death. Indeed the causes thus called 
are not really so except in a few cases; the so-called incidental 
causes are also usually combined with constitutional conditions 
favoring disease. Hence in one season we notice many sudden 
deaths, in another season many lingering cases die, in another the 
very old drop olf in unusual numbers. So also we see in one long 
settled section of our country that nearly all persons have light 
complexions, hair, etc., and in another they have dark hair, com- 
plexions, etc.; partly owing perhaps to inheritance, but chiefly 
owing to the fact that the observed hair and complexions are the 
“ fittest75 for the section; those who had other constitutions dying 
out through the effect of the unfriendly condition. Peculiar con- 
stitutions must therefore seek the conditions “ fittest” for them. 
It has been said that statistics show that a somewhat larger pro- 
portion of Jews than of Christians attain 70 years of age, which is 
doubtless true ; but it is also true that a hundred times larger pro- 
portion of Christians than of Jews attain 90 years of age. 
The western part of Vermont, touching upon the mountains, 
is one of the healthiest sections in the world, having very little 
sickness, most of those born there attaining a moderate old age, 
yet very few reach extreme old age, compared with the number 
in Eastern Vermont, which again is much exceeded by New Hamp- 
shire, which bears the palm in all the world for the proportion of 
the very long-lived among its native inhabitants. Its original set- 
tlers were the select of the select long-lived. 
Thus in every case the antecedent inherited constitution is the 
foundation, the sine qua non, to which incidental causes are sec- 
ondary, and of which they are only modifiers. 
I am often asked if I mean that the plateau of life corresponds 
to the “ expectation of life.” Not at all. 
The “expectation of life” is another of those grand fictions of 
the slate and pencil that has no reality, nor any utility, but which, 
like all untruth, if believed and applied, will be apt to do much 
harm. - 
“ Expectation of life ” means the averaging of many so utterly 12 
unlike that the result is exceedingly unjust if applied, as it not un- 
frequently is, on account of the unfortunate exaltation which the 
idea has received. 
By this idea of “ life expectation,” all of you gentlemen at birth 
were said to have no more “ expectation ” than any of the good-for- 
nothings bom the same year with you, and who could not, by any 
possibility, live the year out. What nonsense to make up any such 
averages, and then dignify them with the name of “ vital statistics.” 
They are as valuable to be sure as most of those tabulations and 
deductions which pass under the same name, and the figuring of 
which gives a look of profoundness, that pseudo-science is often 
able to exhibit, deceiving the public, and, doubtless, not unfre- 
quently itself. 
This “ Expectation ” of life also, as from its method of produc- 
tion must be the case, is constantly changing with each year of 
life. At birth a man has 40 years “ expectation,” but at 40 he has 
yet 26 years ‘‘expectation.” 
The natural plateau does not vary. It is individual. It is that 
stock of life which belongs to the constitution. It is a man’s phy- 
sical capital, upon which he should base all his financial calcula- 
tions, providing by insurance against the unavoidable incidental 
contingencies which otherwise induce anxiety, which diminishes his 
labors as well as his happiness. To insure against these contingen- 
cies is the function and the only province of life insurance. 
To insure beyond the plateau period, and against natural or 
necessary death, will always cost a man or a company too much. It 
is the business of the latter to avoid such business. 
“ Expectations ” are always based upon inequity, “ robbing Pe- 
ter to pay Paul,” and although Peter cannot lose nor Paul gain any 
real length of life by the averaging, which is the basis of “ expecta- 
tions,” yet, by the application of the “expectation” idea, money can 
be and often is unjustly taken from one and given to another by 
“ due process of law.” The wrong and unscieuce of which is well 
set forth by one of the eminent lawyers of New York City, R. L. 
Guernsey, Esq., as follows, in part : 
“ These tables are still used by all courts in England and in the United 
States in estimating the value of life annuities in wills and on dower 
rights, and in case of all life interests in property where a gross sum in 
lieu of such interest or income is paid to the party who is entitled to it. 
“ The mode of calculating the probable length of life by the tables 
was at that time the best at hand, but now we see that it is very unjust to 
the healthy and notably long-lived in all cases ; for, as we before said, all 13 
classes of individuals and deaths by all diseases were included in these 
calculations.” 
“It is apparent that justice demands that it should not be so. Why 
cannot a statute be passed so that the question of the probable life of a 
particular individual may be tried or inquired into by a judicial investiga- 
tion, and have the annuity calculated upon the probable length of the life 
so ascertained of that particular individual? This is a proper subject for 
the Medico-Legal Society of New York to consider, and let it also propose 
plans by which this may be accomplished, and justice rendered. ” 
We will add an ad hominem illustration :—If the Hon. Deputy 
Commissioner representing Massachusetts, should have occasion to 
settle some property matter in Court, say pay the present value of 
money falling due at his death, would it not be a perfect absurdity 
to compute that value by averaging his probable life with that of 
all other men of his age; or to charge him a premium for insurance 
upon a similar basis? It might perhaps answer to average him with 
the Hon, Commissioner from Kentucky; but dissolve his probabili- 
ties with those of the whole public, and he loses greatly and unfairly. 
We have received different inheritances naturally. This is a 
necessity, and neither to our credit nor to our discredit; yet to pos- 
sess a favorable physical inheritance is a superlative advantage bet- 
ter than gold or silver, indeed better than any and all the other 
possessions of earth. To appreciate the fact is important; to be de- 
prived of its enjoyment by any error or fiction, especially of law, is 
wrong. Surely Insurance Departments, whose particular business is 
to study these things, should discard and condemn the baseless 
formulas and ideas which rob a man of his heritage. 
In conclusion upon this very interesting and, in regard to life 
insurance, all important topic of my address, I will say that the pla- 
teau of life or of organs does not correspond to longevity ; it would 
be more nearly, yet not correctly, expressed by vitality. Longevity 
means the whole life; probable longevity means the period to which 
similar lives will reach upon an average—the actual “expectation” of 
similar lives. A plateau refers to the period of life during which 
the life having attained the highest vigor possible in the given case, 
continues without increment or decrement of the risk of dying 
yearly. Its vigor may be great or small, and the period long or 
short, or there may be a combination of these. It may be very 
weak and easily overcome by incidental causes, yet by care may 
have great longevity; it may be very vigorous but very short; it 
may be weak and also necessarily very short-lived; it may be won- 
derfully enduring both in vigor and longevity. The plateau does not usually begin until the early unproductive 
period of life is past, and usually its termination marks the time 
when the second unproductive period begins. The plateau, there- 
fore, corresponds usually to the productive, the insurable period of 
life, all three being shorter or longer in different persons; an earlier 
or later insurance has usually no reason, is an expense without use, 
is a name and not a reality. The plateau is therefore both quali- 
tative and quantitative; it is the business of medical insurance 
supervision to measure both the vigor and duration of the plateau; 
the amount of its risk being thus determined, protection can be af- 
forded most favorably to the assured coincident with perfect secur- 
ity to the company. 
I will now point out another fallacy of a basic legal assump- 
tion, of which there will not be any doubt in your minds as 
soon as your attention is directed to the matter, for you are all 
familiar with it. I am surprised that it has not furnished a topic 
for comment oftener; indeed I do not know that it has ever been 
touched, except in an able Report of one of your committees. 
Almost every State Report notices the great number of lapses. 
Is it not certain that always, and in all companies, there have been 
and always will be, many lapses ? 
But does the law allow you when computing the standing of a 
company upon the legally assumed basis, to assume a certain per 
cent, of lapses ? Does it not enjoin you, on the other hand, to as- 
sume that every policy will surely continue according to the name 
thereof, unless terminated by death according to the assumed legal 
ratio ? Yet nine-tenths of those very policies will not be continued 
fifteen years from their inception. We are told that an average con- 
tinuance of the policies is only eight years. 
What an absurdity to assume a mortality to which the insured 
will be subject, which is uncertain, to assume a rate of interest 
which a company will probably receive fifty years hence, also un- 
certain ; yet not assume any lapses, some of which are certain to 
occur,—still worse, to assume that there will be none! 
Gentlemen, permit me to ask, with the utmost courtesy, if you 
have ever computed the improved standing of any company effected 
by assuming say fifty per cent, of the lapses that you are certain 
that it will have ? Is it not quite possible, even probable, that a 
number of those numerous lapses which you deplore, would have 
been prevented by the improved standing produced by the just 
assumption suggested ? Would not, by the effect of these two re- 
sults, some companies have achieved success with less hard work ? 15 
Indeed it has been said by one influential insurance journal that 
“ there have been times in the lives of all the old Companies when 
they would have succumbed if the present laws had always been 
in existence \ and that no Company can start now and reach ma- 
turity.” Not quite true, yet this is a matter of great moment. No 
company should be branded if it really deserves applause. 
It is a very serious thing if the safety of a business demands 
that it remains a franchise in the hands of those who have it; if, 
however, this wrong is produced solely by an abnormal law, it can be 
changed ; if it result from a wrong application of the law, that is 
still more easily corrected. 
I will venture to ask, without any disrespect to the law, if it is 
in accordance with the golden rule for the law or its application to 
misrepresent by one iota the standing of any Company ? 
I will now call your attention to another fallacy of the law with 
which all of you are acquainted. 
Wo see general mortality tables beautifully graded from birth 
to one hundred years, as if, with each yearly trip of old Sol round 
the Earth a regular number of mortals, by mathematical clock- 
work, were called upon to “pass in their checks.” 
Again, we see mortality tables of those said to die while insured, 
which look very much like the “ general mortality tables.” 
Yet, when we examine the facts we find that very few, if any, are 
insured when very young, and few remain until old age, so that the 
figures are purely assumed in both extremes of the tables, and we are 
sure of this when in one experience table the last man of all the 
assured dies at 95, while in the other the same fact is shown at 99. 
Yet the law accepts these figures as correct, and assumes data 
based thereon, multiplies those with other assumed data, and then 
assumes that a company is or is not sound, or solvent, according as 
it appears to tally with the figures which are the outcome of the 
aforesaid composite and complex processes, but for which, in reality, 
as we see, there are no data. Is it not strange, is it not passing 
strange that matters of such very grave importance should thus rest 
upon the “ baseless fabric of a dream ?” Is it not a marvel that such 
a figment of the brain, or such a cunning device, if you like that 
term better, should ever have been accepted as a reality ? 
Men do not die in the world at large, in accordance with the 
general mortality tables, still less do those who are insured. The 
numerous high ages given by the general collectors of vital statist 
tics are very apocryphal. A, Age. B, Deaths, per thousand persons insured ; 
also, adding a dollar mark, it shows the “ net ” 
cost premiums at the end of the year (to be dis- 
counted, to show them at the beginning of the 
year.) C shoivs 40per cent, added to B. J) shows 
25 per cent, added to Ji. E shows the level, uni- 
for mor fixed whole life premium, loaded 40 per 
cent, from 25 to 65. 
There are yery few who 
live to be an hundred years 
of age; still more unfrequent- 
ly does any one pass that 
age. There are not, proba- 
bly, a dozen persons an hun- 
dred years old in the United 
States—and there is no prob- 
ability of there being one 
aged 105. There are not 
probably 50 persons in our 
whole land 99 years old. 
Yet, by the Actuaries’ table 
one person in every 100,000 
born must attain to 99. 
The relevant significance 
of these facts will be appre- 
ciated, if it is remembered 
that, upon these conjectural 
and very erroneous mortali- 
ty tables, all the computa- 
tions of the ordinary or level 
whole-life premium tables of 
the companies, and also the 
amount of the correspond- 
ing “reserve” required by law, 
are computed; the whole of 
which would be much modi- 
fied, higher or lower, by the 
facts. 
Following this thought 
will bring into full relief an- 
other fallacy of the law, and 
its awkward effects. 
I will illustrate: 
You have before you an 
“experience table” of mortal- 
ity, showing, in column A 
the ages from 25 to 99 inclu- 
sive, and in B the number 
of deaths per thousand per- 
sons dying at each age. 
F, “ Actuaries' Experience ” of deaths per thousand in 17 English Companies; called dollars and cents and discounted, It shows the ilEet" Premiums. 
bSSSS83SeSS£SSSSS8SS?a8888SSSS8PSgf8SSS88SSSSSS8S8SS8SSS338S£SS8S3£8888S8SS8 
e>egeossMg^«n»^ggg^^|jg|ggg^^^3gssg@2ggS 
gg§?SSgSS?Sig?§8£:i2Sg5?28$£ggS8Sg£;;§sggiS8$iSS8;g : : : : 
W|pig«g{S{Sia3£gSS8gSSg3gSg3$353ESKSSg$g£S3igSg| : : : : 
52£S$SS£38g2gS£g£gS”ggS8$Sg2ggi££a82S$8SS$25Sg888828£8gS8S5S§BS8S2gg§$2SS5i2?38 ; : : : 
fi j 1 j j 
: : : 
te I : : 
nSSSSS3SS£SSS83SSSSSSSSSSSSS383SS8SS@S8SSS£S88S££8S38SSeS8883SSSgSSS£gSS : : : 17 
Prefix a $ mark to column B, and you have the dollars and 
cents of “ net ” premiums (not discounted). 
Add respectively 40 and 25 per cent, of themselves to the figures 
of col. B—called dollars and cents—and you have columns C and D. 
Trace C to the highest age, 95, and there stands the very “gross” 
premium of $1,400, receivable by a company, with which to pay 
$1,000 at death! $1,400 premium to insure $1,000 one year ! ! A 
sum of assurance less by $400 than the insurer pays as premium. 
That is to say, he merely insures himself and pays $400 for the pre- 
cious privilege. 
But it may be said : That is only a harmless proposition, no one 
would pay any such sum. Certainly not, if presented in that bald 
manner; “ nor in any other way,” the outside world would say. 
But the members of this convention understand the facts too 
well for me to expend precious time in explaining them. I would 
merely say a word or two in illustration of a few grotesque aspects 
of the matter before us that you may not have noticed. 
It is very apparent that a person would not wittingly pay such 
a large premium as $1,400 on $1,000 assurance at 95, nor at any 
time, even if wanting insurance. But the world at large do not 
understand that when they pay whole-life-ZewZ-premiums, of any 
number of payments, they pay a part of this aforesaid enormous 
premium, in each and every of the early years of their policies. 
They are not aware that these enormous premiums, that every man 
would be too wise to pay when due, are raked back and leveled over 
the early years of their policies to produce “ level premiums- ” They 
are not aware that they are asked to pay a part of a premium 70 
years before it is due, which, when due, is $1,400 to insure $1,000 
for one year ! 
Does the man at 35 have the least idea that when he pays his 
“ ZeyeZ-whole-life-premium ” he is paying seventy years in advance, 
a part of what, with other contingents, will, at a low rate per cent, 
interest, amount to $1,400, and then yield to him only $1,000?/ 
Let also the other premiums of the other high ages of 0 attract 
attention and elicit comment. 
How much is the grand total of premium money called for by 
the column 0, in its highest 20 years ? The incredible amount of 
$9,946.62 !!! to insure only $1,000 during those years, or to insure 
$10,000 the premium will be $99,466.20 !!! “A good investment ” 
forsooth! 
This might be called farcical if that word had not been already 
appropriated to ridiculous absurdities of a somewhat higher grade. 18 
Recall the premiums of the highest five years;—at 95, $1,400; at 
94, 11,199.94 (I like to be exact when reading scientific matters, 
hence, I mention the cents); at 93, $1,027.88; at 92, $888.02; at 
91, $745.50, in the aggregate, $5,061.34! to insure $1,000 five years ! ! 
This cannot be called farce, it is nothing short of high tragedy, 
when a young man, from his hard earnings, at 25 years of age is 
asked to begin to pay 70 years in advance parts of such monstrous 
premiums for the “ beneficent purpose of protecting his dependent 
wife and little ones! ” I have no heart for laughter when I think of 
the thousands and tens of thousands who have, noble souls, been 
beguiled of their savings in this fashion; my laugh turns to a deep 
indignation; to a profound execration of the inventions that have 
betrayed the holy cause of life insurance into such disgraceful 
absurdities. 
Cicero says that the “ Diviners of Old Rome could not look each 
other in the face without laughing.” What would he have expected 
of those who concoct “mortality tables” out of imaginary data, and 
compute over $5,000 as the essential premiums for insuring $1,000 
for five years, and then manage to so hoodwink people as to have 
them pay parts of that enormous amount in their early years before 
the evil days draw nigh, when they shall say “ it is not convenient! ” 
But as the law only uses “net” premiums, it may be objected 
that I have made a “ gross ” display. 
We will then take the “ net ” column B. In this, at 95, only 
$1,000 is demanded; at 94, $857.10 ; at 93, $734.20; at 92, $634.30 ; 
at 91, $532.50, in all $4,158.10 to insure $1,000 during five years! 
This is, according to the computation, the exact “net” cost, and 
which must be paid during those years or in advance ; and all who 
insure by “ whole-life-Zeye/-premiums,” the most common form of 
policy, are asked to pay a surplus during all the early years of their 
policies toward making good those monstrosity “net” premiums. 
And the lavj countenances this by permitting such policies to be 
made, computing reserves therefor, and still worse by not denounc- 
ing all such iniquities and inequities. 
I know that it may be said that a part of these high premiums 
are provided by the surplus paid above yearly cost by those who die, 
or otherwise retire, that dividends will offset, etc., etc.; but this idea 
is the most baleful and demoralizing possible. The wish to profit 
by the misfortunes of others should be checked, not encouraged; 
no profit should be allowed as right which is not squarely earned. 
But admit all of this that can be claimed as favorable, and how is 
the case really changed at all ? 19 
I wish to ask this intelligent and disinterested body of gentle- 
men, if this method of computing premiums and conducting life 
insurance business is not simply abominable, a disgrace to the age 
in which we live, and if it ought not to be “ consigned to the tomb 
of the Capulets ?” 
But the mention of “Net” and “Gross” premiums suggests 
another fallacy or two of the law : It will be noticed that a per 
cent. “ loading” of the high ages produces a very large amount—at 
95, $400. Yet the law takes no note of this amount, assuming that 
it will all be needed for the general expenses of the Company. 
But if the policies continue, in accordance with the assumption 
of the law, will there be any need of the great amount of loading as * 
per column C ? Ought not a portion of that at least to be allowed 
to the credit of any company requiring of policyholders that exces- 
sive amount, which most companies do require ? 
Is there any wonder that the actuaries of high and low degree 
hold warm contests over the point, whether the solvency of com- 
panies should depend upon “ net ” or upon “ gross ” premiums, or 
upon a mean between both ? 
But our thoughts in this connection tend to note the very great 
difference between the amount of the “ per centage ” loading of the 
high and of the low ages. 
For while at 95 the loading is 1400 ; at 25, it is only $3.24; 
again, at 53 it is $6.52, or twice as much as at 25. Is it not worth 
as much to do the business at 25 as at 53,—or at 95, even ? Yet at 
95 it appears by the computation to be worth more than 100 times 
as much as at 25. 
But again, when we notice the surplus added to the natural pre- 
miums of the lower ages to produce the level premiums of those 
ages, we notice that the “loading ” of that surplus is a very large 
ratio of it, as of course it must be to produce the enormous loadings 
of the high ages, especially as they are computed at a very low in- 
terest. I will illustrate: 
Suppose the level premium of an annual-for-life policy, at 25, is 
$19.89, see col. E., and the natural premium by the same ratio of 
loading, column C, is $11.34, making $8.55 difference,—the surplus 
paid, as is pretended, for the future use and behoof of the party 
assured (?) 
But the fact is, as you all know, that this $8.55 is composed of 
two parts, the “ net,” $6.11, and the loading, $2.44, (in the same 
manner as the $11.34, column 0, is composed of $8.10 “net” and 
$3.24 loading,) and the entire amount reservable for the use and 20 
behoof of the assured is only $6.11. He pays $3.44! to the Company 
for conserving the $6.11 at four per cent, interest, until it, with 
other like sums paid in to the Company, shall equal the enormous 
“net” premiums of the high ages before mentioned, (70 years). 
But at the age of 53 the level premium is, by the same ratio, 
$54.31, column E, or $31.49 more than the premium $32.83, which, 
by column C, is seen to be the real premium for that year. Of this 
$31.49 one part, $33.50, is “net,” the loading of which is $9.00. 
This the party pays for the gracious privilege of having his $23.50 
cared for at four per cent, interest assumed, until at some dim dis- 
tance in the future the company, if living, shall use it for his 
behoof. 
If this loading $9.00 is added to $6.53 the loading part of the 
cost $33.83, as per column C, of age 53, the whole loading on a 
level premium at 53 is $15.53 against $5.69 loading upon a level 
premium at 35. Why this difference ? 
Bnt does the law make any difference between the probable solv- 
ency of a company that is filled chiefly with persons above 40, when 
taken, and on whom there is a very large loading, and a company of 
persons, young when taken, and whose premiums, therefore, have a 
small loading? Yet upon ten thousand of the older, and in fact, 
inferior policies, there would be received $100,000 more of “ load- 
ing,” and so much better showing given to the really inferior com- 
pany. 
If the law takes no note of loading, of course it takes no note of 
these differences. But these differences are observable and not a 
matter of assumption. Ought they not to be observed and their 
values computed ? 
Is there not also observable herein a muchness of improper pay- 
ment by the insured for, as is pretended, the care of parts of his 
money? It would appear that $9.00 for taking care of $33.50 was 
a trifle too much! That abuse of confidence should be most ear- 
nestly condemned by the law, directly or indirectly. 
Another fact to which I wish here to call your attention, and 
which you must have noticed, since it has been often enough men- 
tioned, yet not as I remember, in just the view in which I will 
present it. 
If a man pays these surplus premiums in advance, he is insuring 
himself to just so great a degree, while all the time his premiums 
are by computation made for a larger sum. 
We will illustrate by the single premium at 35, $326.58. The 
real cost of that year, by column 0, is $11.34, leaving $315.24 sur- 21 
plus above the cost of insurance during that year, with a year’s in- 
terest to be added at end of year. 
Now, the above premium, $11.34, is said to be for $1,000—while 
in fact it is only for that amount less $315.24, or for $684.76—for 
which the premium of $1,000 is paid ! 
The same idea exists in whatever way a person pays a surplus or 
excess, toward a future premium, in advance. He insures himself 
in just so much, diminishing by just so much the risk that the 
company carries which continues to charge him the full amount of 
premium for this whole $1,000. For if he dies, this, which was his 
during life as a deposit, immediately becomes the property of the 
company; and although he has paid the full amount of premium 
for $1,000, besides the deposit, the company returns no part of it 
with the assurance. Is this right, or equitable, or necessary ? 
Suppose that in our imaginations we follow a person through, 
from 25 to the age of 95 years, whether he pay by increasing prem- 
iums, or by level annual premium, or by single premium, what 
would be his condition, what would be the character of his “in- 
vestment ?” But it may be said that “ If he was sure to live, he of 
course would not need insurance at all; but suppose he dies—the 
contingency against which he insures ?” Then he certainly does 
not wish to pay in advance premiums, nor any part of them, for 
years to which he cannot live ! 
The paying of premiums at or for the high ages is a wicked 
absurdity, in whatever form and under whatever pretext it is pre- 
sented—and however unwittingly the people are beguiled of their 
money. It should not only be discouraged and denounced by law 
but it should be prohibited, as it is directly or indirectly the Pan- 
dora box from which issue out all the leprous ills that fester and 
ulcerate in life insurance. 
But there is a very inconsistent fallacy of the law in this, that 
while by its computations of reserves for the high ages, and its in- 
direct, if not direct laudations of large assets, it encourages and ap- 
pears to approve of the taking of premiums for the high ages, and 
also in the very worst form, viz.: 60 to 75 years in advance ! yet 
the same time all this is contrary to law; its spirit if not its letter 
and present interpretation. 
It is certainly the spirit of the law to prohibit the making of in- 
surance where there is no insurable interest; and although by many 
companies this has been loosely construed, or carelessly or wickedly 
neglected, inducing in numerous instances, without doubt, murders 
and various villainies; and although the courts have tolerated vari- 22 
ous ways of getting around the true objection, yet, in face of all 
this the great truth stands out, and will ever stand out, that where 
there is no interest in the life insured—vesting in the assured— 
there can be no true assurance. Has not the law been sadly remiss 
in not having among its many tocsins sounded one upon this im- 
portant subject. 
With few exceptions there cannot be any insurable interest in 
any person’s life under 15 to 20, or over 65 to 70; and the law 
should definitely indicate that fact so clearly that there cannot be 
any mistaking it. In short, should prohibit everything of the kind 
both indirectly and directly. 
Did I hear the word “ arbitrary ” ? I did not expect that. But I 
now remember that I am surrounded by those who have been 
trained in that true American school, whose precepts are the tradi- 
tions of the fathers, and by which liberty is held to be the founda- 
tion and capstone of all human blessings. 
I also am your compeer in this; few will go so far as I in love 
of liberty or in hatred of the arbitrary, none farther. 
You will not, therefore, have your good sense, nor your love of 
extreme American ideas, even if Western men, offended by me nor 
by the arguments which I will, with your permission, now adduce. 
Dr. Edward Jarvis, in his very excellent paper upon the Politi- 
cal Economy of Life, in the last and best “ Keport of the Massa- 
chusetts Board of Health,” says: 
“The periods from birth to 20, and from 70 until death, are (with ex- 
ceptions,) the unproductive periods of labor. From 20 to 70 is the pro- 
ductive period : during which labor not only supports itself, but stores for 
its old age, and supports several others under the supporting age.” 
This terse, very suggestive description, defines the insurable 
period, and the reasons for its existence, most admirably. 
It is doubtful if many cases could be found in which a scientific 
and unbiased court would permit an assurance to be paid upon a 
risk outside the ages mentioned, but would, as it should, declare 
almost every such assurance void. 
First,—Because it is against public policy to allow such policies. 
Second,—Because there is no insurable interest in an unpro- 
ductive life. 
Third,—Because it is against the law voiding bets to make pol- 
icies in which there is no insurable interest, or to continue them, 
since that which would be wrong ah initio would be wrong in con- 
tinuendo. 23 
Fourth,—Because a contract becomes per se void when the prime 
conditions no longer exist. 
Whatever might now be the outcome of a Judicial decision, I 
feel sure that in the near future in the legal opinion of all courts, 
whole-life policies, and any “ term-life” extended beyond the pro- 
ductive periods, will not be considered subjects of a legitimate 
contract. 
But there is another reason why it would be desirable to have 
the law—even if esteemed arbitrary—prohibit policies from pre- 
tending to cover assurance outside of the productive years of life. 
Any life insurance law has, as the sole reason for its existence, 
the pretense of security to policyholders; for this there is but 
one panacea, the restriction of policies to the productive years of 
life; any more latitudinarian form jeopardizes security, which can 
be prevised by no man except under the above-named restriction. 
Can the gentlemen who hear me say whether any company giv- 
ing unrestricted policies has the vitality, or if you choose, the mor- 
tality correlative to its adopted tables ? (In a parenthesis I may 
say just here, in passing, that the idea of the vitality of a company 
is not practically the exact correspondent of the idea of mortality. 
If the mind of the management of a company is constantly directed 
toward obtaining vitality there will be less mortality than if the con- 
stant endeavor is to avoid mortality; the mental state is different 
in the two cases, and if the question in regard to an applicant is, 
“ How long can he live at best ? ” the effect will be more favorable 
upon a company than it will be if it asks, “ How soon may he die ?”) 
Have you, gentlemen, any means of knowing whether any com- 
pany, much less whether each of them, has the conditions in regard 
to vitality and mortality which by the law you are compelled to 
assume that it has ? 
This thought suggests another very serious and fundamental 
fallacy of the law. It assumes that the mortality of all companies 
will be the same, whether in the higher ages about which nobody 
knows anything in regard to any company, or in the lower ages in 
respect to which all of you must have noticed that there is a very 
great difference in different companies—many of them being far 
above the table mortality assumed by the laws. Such assumption 
appears preposterous to the last degree. 
To refresh your minds I will exhibit the following table. 
Certainly, gentlemen, it would not be in good taste for me to 
spend a moment in endeavoring to impress the minds of this au- 
dience with the lesson which this table teaches. It stands out too 24 
No. of Deaths per thousand per annum in all Companies now living which 
did business in Massachusetts in the following years: 
1869 
1870 
1871 
1872 
1873 
1869 
1870 
1871 
1872 
1873 
8.3 
8.1 
9.6 
10.0 
10.7 
6.5 
7.8 
10.4 
10.2 
10.1 
9.5 
9.7 
11.7 
11.6 
11.3 
7.3 
7.5 
6.5 
10.1 
12.4 
9.9 
10.8 
10.8 
12.9 
12.9 
9.4 
10.8 
10.8 
13.4 
18.2 
8.6 
10.6 
10.7 
11.9 
12.0 
6.3 
10.8 
15.5 
13.3 
19.5 
7.4 
7.3 
8.9 
10.8 
9.6 
8.9 
6.6 
8.2 
12.8 
12.0 
9.1 
9.9 
11.0 
13.0 
13.8 
6.1 
7.5 
7.5 
9.5 
. , 
8.3 
13.1 
11.3 
14.6 
14.0 
7.2 
9.9 
11.1 
12.2 
11.7 
7.8 
8.2 
9.9 
8.9 
10.4 
6.0 
5.5 
5.2 
9.5 
7.8 
8.4 
10.4 
10.1 
12.0 
13.3 
8.9 
8.4 
11.9 
9.2 
9.7 
7.9 
11.1 
8.7 
9.6 
9.3 
8.7 
9.2 
6.8 
7.5 
9.2 
9.0 
11.1 
9.8 
13.8 
15.1 
6.1 
5.4 
7.1 
11.2 
6.7 
9.2 
10.5 
6.2 
8.2 
10.0 
5.6 
6.2 
5.4 
4.7 
3.7 
12.2 
10.5 
12.0 
12.3 
13.7 
6.2 
6.9 
9.5 
17.5 
12.6 
8.9 
9.9 
6.8 
10.3 
12.7 
4.4 
5.9 
7.7 
7.8 
10.8 
9.9 
9.0 
8.5 
10.0 
10.3 
8.5 
5.8 
12.4 
11.7 
21.7 
8.1 
7.2 
10.6 
10.1 
10.3 
4.1 
3.1 
7.7 
7.0 
10.0 
12.0 
13.0 
15.3 
18.1 
17.9 
5.6 
5.5 
5.9 
9-4 
9.1 
6.2 
7.5 
9.4 
8.6 
9.1 
7.0 
7.3 
8,0 
10.0 
17.9 
8.5 
9.6 
10.3 
11.5 
3.6 
7.4 
8.8 
10.3 
9.6 
9.7 
11.7 
14.0 
16.6 
3.5 
6.0 
7.9 
8.7 
14.3 
12.5 
14.4 
12.3 
14.0 
17.9 
4.4 
7.0 
6.2 
8.3 
10.6 
7.6 
8.0 
7.3 
10.4 
9.9 
prominently to the mind’s-eye of those who know what it means to 
need any comment. 
Note, if you please, the great difference in the number of deaths 
per thousand last year in different Companies. In one of the 
younger, 21 ; in a still younger 17; in another, 14; in older ones, 
19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 7, 6, 3, and some tenths each. 
Again, during the five years we find one with the figures: 12,14, 
12, 14, 18 ; another, 12, 13, 15, 18, 17; both old. One of the 
younger runs, 8, 5, 11, 11, 21, Avhile the oldest of all stands only 
8, 8, 9, 10, 10, and the smallest ratio of all is 5, 6, 5, 4, 3,—with 
some tenths in all these cases. 
Can it be possible that it is just to assume one measure of mor- 
tality as applicable to all, when the figures show so plainly that it is 
not applicable to all; and to require of all the same reserves, and 
only the same reserves, and compare together the standing of com- 
panies by this unitary measure, when some are very much above it, 
and .others as much below ? Is it not time, and does not this table 
show that it is, to scout the wholesale averaging idea, both of in- 25 
dividuals in companies and of companies together. Is there any 
language which the dignity of this occasion will permit me to use 
that will properly portray the absurdity and the gross wrong of this 
computing of the standing of companies ? I beg of you, gentlemen, 
to give this matter considerate attention, and proceed in your sev- 
eral States to influence the revising of the law, that its requirements 
upon you may not be such a burlesque upon truth and science as 
the averaging of the mortality of companies must be. 
Indeed, was not the ‘‘Actuaries’ ” table the result of averaging 
the losses in seventeen companies ? Could it be a measure then for 
each of them ? Since they did not have a common treasury was it 
a fair rule for all ? 
Is not the “Am. Experience” table chiefly the “experience” 
of one company ? Shall it be assumed as the “experience ” of the 
same company at a different time and under other management ? 
Much less may it be assumed as the “ experience ” of other com- 
panies, as the preceding table proves. 
In fact, is there, or can there be any rule or assumption that shall 
hold good for the mortality of any company during any great length 
of time, particularly if obligations are undertaken which extend 
through 50 to 75 years or more, involving millions of dollars ? 
But it appears that, for a company to pass muster with the law, 
all that is necessary is for it to have assets corresponding not to 
the death losses of its factitive history—but to the assumption of 
the State at a much lower or higher figure than the reality. 
Does it appear appropriate with pencil and slate to figure out 
liabilities upon average computations and wholesale assumptions, 
which are, in fact, dependent upon the correctness of the intelli- 
gence and judgment used in transacting the business, especially 
when the success or security of Life Insurance business is almost 
wholly dependent upon intelligence and judgment? 
It will be allowed, upon all hands, that it would not answer to 
open the doors and insure all comers. It is allowed that the ex- 
pert judgment and intelligence of some one is essential to keep the 
mortality doivn to the table limit, much more to keep it below. 
The most important elements needed, therefore, for computing 
or assuming the liability of a company in regard to its mortality, 
current or ultimate, is a knowledge of the intelligence and judg- 
ment with which its medical examinations are made, or rather 
with which its “medical supervision” is conducted. 
A table showing the degree of the medical intelligence and judg- 
ment having control in any company, would be the best test of the 26 
company’s security and of its real value to the assured policyholders. 
Yet is is easy for this condition to be changed for the better or 
for the worse. There is no sure anchorage nor security which 
can be the certain basis of a long period computation. 
Upon this subject I will refer you to a paper by Dr, Moreau 
Morris, not partisan, but written as the well-known papers and 
Reports of that gentleman were written when, (before he became 
Surgeon-in-Chief, and the responsible medical supervisor of the 
Company with which I am co-related,) for a long period he was at 
the head of the Sanitary Bureau of New York City, and wrote so 
much and so well for the public welfare in relation to Sanitary 
matters. It is his last Report to our Directors, yet will be equally 
instructive to any other Directors ; it is very interesting to the 
general reader, and still more so to those at all interested in insur- 
ance topics, exhibiting the true methods of Medical Supervision 
and illustrating how it pertains to security, or rather is the corner- 
stone of security. 
Again, I would ask the members of this convention if they have 
any security that large assets on hand to-day, for use 50 to 70 
years hence, will be sacredly reserved with interest in each case ? 
Is it not then a decided fallacy of the law to assume that they 
will be kept ? Is it not quite certain, that in many cases, by em- 
bezzlement, by ignorance, by misjudgment, by carelessness, by pub- 
lic disturbances, or otherwise, the so-called sacred fund will be ruin- 
ously deteriorated ? 
The question is often asked, that we have answered, about epi- 
demics interfering with the security of life insurance. If the epi- 
demic is a financial one, there is no salvation to the high assets 
methods of life insurance. 
Is not the uncertainty of legal assumptions, the unreliability of 
the future, also observable by the public, and is not its credulity 
staggered thereby ? 
If these uncertainties, these unreliabilities, are necessary to life 
insurance, so great is its importance and value, that even so great 
cost must be undertaken for the sake of the balance of good. 
But fortunately these hazards are not essential, nor any part of 
true life insurance; in fact, they are lets and hindrances to its work- 
ing, they are blots and blemishes, even sins upon its fair character. 
I am not an iconoclast, per se. I would merely remove the old 
that a better may take its place, and because a better is £eady. As 
I would tear down an old house, leaking in the roof, with sills de- 
cayed, ugly in looks, inconvenient, expensive in use, to replace 27 
it tvitli a more substantial, more comely, less complicate, and more 
useful—at the same time much less expensive—structure. I have 
no patent to amuse or to repel you; no monoply to offer, which 
“only one man can work ;” no wonderful do-all without cost, making 
every man his own creator of riches. No, that with which I would 
have you replace the unsatisfactory, expensive and insecure machin- 
ery generally used, is very simple, as you will see. 
Every advantage of true life insurance can be obtained without 
any chance of insecurity. The simple plan of policies restricted to 
the “productive period of life,” with natural premiums, will be a 
perfect panacea to “ all the ills ” that so-called life insurance is lit- 
erally and numerously “ heir to.” 
These periods must also vary with individuals; for while the gen- 
eralization of Dr. Jarvis extends the productive period from 20 to 70, 
it would not answer when applied individually. If it was so applied 
in insurance it would lead to a ruinous accumulation of inferior 
risks. He whose productive period will necessarily terminate at 50 
must not be allowed a term of insurance extending to 70; again, 
one whose plateau extends to 80 need not be limited to 70. 
The plateau of each man’s life must be correctly judged, and his 
productive “term-life” conditioned thereby, or security will be 
jeopardized. It will be jeopardized under any mode of life insurance 
unless thus conditioned; for, although under the high premiums 
of endowment, ten-payment, and level annual-for-life, etc., more 
money is obtained than in “ term-life,” there is never enough obtain- 
ed to allow the insured to choose his “ term,” or he will, nine cases 
in ten, “ beat ” the company; his term must be dictated to him by de- 
liberative science after a full consideration of his risk. No com- 
pany can afford to insure at ordinary rates against deaths from 
constitutional causes. Insurance should be sought only against in- 
cidental causes; nor can it be done otherwise with security. 
As in every other important matter, every case must be viewed 
in regard to its differentiations, and only associated with others of 
its kind in the respects differentiated. The basic principle of ma- 
thematics is infracted every time that the doctrine of averages is 
applied to characteristics which can be differentiated; either pre- 
vised or in any way discerned. 
If it is determined that there is an increased risk of dying each 
year among the insured, either from their natural constitution, 
which I deny, or from the accumulation of inferior risks, which I 
doubt, why not allow this increase to be paid each year ? Why 
make the problem more complex by a “ level ” premium plan ? 28 
The pay as yon go, “ natural ” “ normal ” business-like plan, seems 
to be the proper one—it is the proper one; the only proper one. 
To pay money before it is due for something you may never 
want, and if you do want, can pay for it at the time when it is want- 
ed, is not what men do in any other case. 
To pay money before it is due, is to produce all the ills of so- 
called life insurance; for the law to encourage it, to countenance it, 
not to condemn it, not to prohibit it, is a serious fallacy in its con- 
sequences, very burdensome upon the officers of the State, upon 
companies, and upon policyholders. 
In proof of the fallacy of the law, its unreliability, in regard to 
mortality, assets, etc., and its consequent burdensome effects, I think 
I can appeal to every Insurance officer, whether as members of this 
Convention, or at home in the performance of their duties, to bear 
witness that their duties are attended with great anxiety and a 
heavy burden of responsibility, on account of the uncertainty with 
which the life business is laden. 
All of it, gentlemen, has its source and origin in the one cause, 
the provision for the pre-payment of premiums for the high ages. It 
is this which makes necessary the prodigious reserves of a large busi- 
ness: with all their temptations, and their certain uncertainties. 
It is this which makes doubtful the interest to be assumed, and the 
apparent necessity for assuming so low a rate that practically it ap- 
pears extremely absurd. It is this which makes the probable mor- 
tality of a company baseless and conjectureless. It is this which 
makes the whole business assume gigantic proportions in every 
respect, and especially in respect to mystery and absurdity. 
Gentlemen, cut off this provision for the pre-payment of prem- 
iums, cut off insurance at the high ages, and witness the result. 
The plague spot which was the source of all your anxieties, and of 
all the ridiculous absurdities that we have seen, is cauterized, and 
life insurance becomes healthful, pure and beautiful, lovely and at- 
tractive, the joy of the world. It is relegated to the category of 
fire and marine insurance. It becomes simple, more easily com- 
prehended and supervised, than fire and marine insurance, as well 
as determinable in respect to security with much greater certainty. 
The question merely is. What is the mortality—from year to 
year—of the practical or productive years of life, and what must be 
the loading (not by percentage) for doing the business ? Let the 
amount corresponding to these be paid year by year, with such 
excess as is necessary to provide against any contingency, and when 
a person lapses his policy, or his “ term ” expires, let him receive a 29 
return of any surplus to which he is equitably entitled,—and life 
insurance is perfectly simple, just, economical and secure. 
If this be not a correct, practical method of life insurance, then 
is there no foundation for any other form; for every other is this 
one with something added. 
Observe how little trouble State officials would have. The end- 
less maze of contradictions and inconsistencies now so perplexing 
and vexing, would be as completely and instantly wiped out as the 
figures on a boy’s slate are extinguished by a wet sponge. 
Throw off the excess of endowment premiums, throw off the ex- 
cess of ten- and other equal-payment premiums, including therein 
the excess of the level annual-for-life premium, and limit the per- 
iods to those years the labor of luhich is productive, and what do 
you have ? Every thing that any body needs for protection of his 
family, for securing to them the income equivalent to that of his 
labor—something that is very simple, plain and efficient—all ac- 
complished not by some prodigious mystery, but simply by cutting 
off unnecessary excesses of premiums which should never have been 
permitted to exist for a moment, but which have been invented and 
affixed for anything but creditable reasons; though the pretense has 
been that the assured were served, and they have been often so un- 
reasoning as to believe and be beguiled to their great detriment. 
Introduce this simple reform-—this measure of it only—and 
the existence of large assets will be inexcusable, the expense of 
gathering them and again dispersing them will be saved—the great 
evil of taking them from the country and concentrating them in 
the business centres will cease at once ; the speculation in real es- 
tate in the centres, encouraged by the ease with which loans upon 
that property can be effected through life companies, will subside, 
greatly to the advantage of those who wish practically to use real 
estate; and the money stored in it for a rise, to the detriment of 
every body, will be disseminated into and along all the channels of 
active living business, and promote in three ways at once, the pros- 
perity and welfare of society; while morality will be promoted both 
by taking from agents the temptations to deceive, and from the 
public the temptation to induce officers to make loans for the sake 
of bonuses and commissions upon property not quite up to stand- 
ard. While the extravagance now displayed in expensive buildings 
and furniture will have no sustenance, and the methods of doing 
life insurance will be relegated to the category of other honest busi- 
ness, sustained by integrity, intelligence, industry, and economy. 
Another important result will be the annihilation of one of the great dangers to our liberties, the trust accumulation of immense 
money power in the hands of a few. 
Indeed, the good which will result from the restriction of poli- 
cies to the productive period of life, with natural premiums, will be 
two-fold ; first, by the prevention of evils that wait upon the pre- 
payment of high age premiums, and second, by the great develop- 
ment of the use of genuine insurance. 
Another great advantage in this method will certainly be al- 
lowed. If any failure is about to occur it can be easi1y prevised, 
and if it occur after the premium is paid for the year, a person loses, 
as in case of a fire insurance, only a part of the year’s premium. 
True, if he is in ill health, he cannot equally well become insured in 
another company—and this occasionally would be a calamity—but 
not so great as if insured under any other form, since he would 
have so much less to lose. 
I know full well what objections will be made; made, observe, 
not found, for they do not exist. 
First, and most without reason, it will be said that a person 
would not wish to pay “natural” increasing premiums because, as 
one says, “ they would become too large to pay, &c.” To this, answer 
is made that they would not be inconveniently large until past the 
productive period. It certainly will not be Avell for any person to 
pay them now if he would not wish to pay them then. 
Second. It is said that in “ term ” life a person will have no re- 
turns or dividends. That is a non-sequiter. That should depend 
upon how much he pays and what the business costs. Returns can 
be made if surplus exists, in “ Term” Just as well as in whole-life. 
As a practical fact, the Stock Company with which I am asso- 
ciated makes a return this year to all its term-life policyholders, 
they have cost so little it could not honorably do otherwise. 
Third. It is said that the premiums are not largo enough to 
pay for doing the business. Especially it is said that the loadings 
are not sufficient. All that depends upon whether the net prem- 
iums are large enough, and whether the loadings are large enough. 
The cost of the deaths of a company and of doing its business are 
necessarily paid by the assured, whatever the form, and certainly 
it is as well for the assured to pay these costs under the name of 
“ Term-life ” premiums as under any other name. The beauty of 
the “ term premium ” is that it does not propose to cover more than 
the absolute cost yearly, and a surplus for extreme contingencies, 
returnable if not needed. Certainly the “ Term-life” does not, and 
need not, cover a reserve for the “net” and “loading” of the mon- 31 
strosity premiums of the very high ages—especially many years in 
advance. Whatever is needed for that purpose need not be taken, 
and yet equal safety exist; there can be no disallowing so much. 
Fourth. It is said that the superior risks will lapse increasing 
premium policies, and leave an accumulation of inferior risks. 
To this I might say that the same remark would be more true of 
any other form ; but will answer that, inasmuch as the “ exper- 
ience” of companies has been under the lapsing privilege, and as a 
large j>art of the insured in all companies have lapsed, then of 
course their “ experience ” shows the effect of accumulation during 
the productive years of life, although no “ experience ” does yet, in 
this country, tell all the truth in regard to the high ages. Hence 
premiums based upon “ experience ” during productive years ought 
to cover an accumulation of inferior risks corresponding to that of 
the “experience” upon which the premiums are based. 
If, in addition to this, the party applying is measured in regard 
to his plateau of life, there would be no possible danger of insecur- 
ity from the accumulation of inferior risks, particularly if a very 
small margin as part of the premium was paid therefor. The dan- 
ger may and does exist in case of whole-life policies. 
(I wish to say, in parenthesis, that the pretense that a part of 
the surplus paid by the assured should not be returned to him when 
he surrenders his policy, by lapsing, or by death, because of the ac- 
cumulation of inferior risks, is undermined and exploded by the 
above conclusive argument.) 
Fifth. It is also boldly said, “ our experience has proved that the 
term-life business cannot be done without loss, since the policyhold- 
ers select against the company,” etc. To this I say, “ our experience ” 
is just the contrary; we have fewer losses among term-life than 
among any other kind of policyholders. It is a poor Medical Super- 
visor, indeed, who cannot usually checkmate the intent of the pol- 
icyholder. If he cannot, wliat is the particular saving by not giving 
the term-life P If a party is compelled to take an “ annual-for-life 
level premium,” he pays only a little more compared with what he 
will receive, and he only has to take an extra thousand assurance 
to be ahead of the company, in that respect. That reasoning is, as 
the boys say, “too thin;” there is a reason back of the one given. 
Sixth. If there be any other objection invented it has not yet 
been mentioned, to my knowledge. 
I will now bring forward a high authority upon this matter. 
The Hon. William Barnes, in a New York State lleport, says— 
“If life jDremiums were graduated according to the annual risks of 32 
death [viz.: were natural premiums] the accounts of life companies would, 
by their actual results, demonstrate the safety or danger of those compan- 
ies to the same degree as the accounts of fire and marine companies de- 
monstrate their safety or danger.” 
All that is to be said, then, is—Let the “life premiums” bo 
“graduated according to the annual risk of death,” and then let 
“ the accounts of life companies * * by their actual results, dem- 
onstrate the safety or danger of those companies to the same degree 
as the accounts of fire and marine companies demonstrate theirs.” 
I will also, with pleasure, adduce two recent very high authori- 
ties. In a State Report, one Commissioner says: 
“A Term-Rfe policy to tide over the uncertain result of business en- 
terprises, or the period in which the family is dependent upon its natural 
supporter, viz. : before children arrive at a suitable age to provide for 
themselves, is a valuable possession. This form of policy is now com- 
mending itself to general favor.” 
The beautiful truth of the expression “tide over” is worthy of 
note, as it so admirably contains the pith of all life insurance argu- 
ment. Another goes still farther, and says: 
“ A policy of life insurance should have but one object,—the indemnity 
against loss to the beneficiary by the death of the insured, [and therefore 
it must be no other than the “Term-life”]. If other objects are kept in 
view,—large current dividends, tontine distributions, diminishing pre- 
miums, and the like,—the contract becomes a speculation, and is outside 
of a purely legitimate business, if there is not a true gambling feature in it. 
“ When the system is divested of all speculative features, and compan- 
ies and agents learn to promise no more than is within a reasonable proba- 
bility of fulfillment, the business will revive and the people will seek the 
security, their dependents need at the hands of companies able to give it. ” 
These gentlemen become the strongest of authorities, because 
they announce the truth. Others might be quoted, and if we should 
go to the insurance press, we should find its writers almost unan- 
imously wheeling into line. 
That so many should, at various times, have stepped so near to 
the line of truth and yet not have seen the exact path should not 
excite criticism. It is ever thus in the history of the development 
of truth. It is often nearly touched yet not quite hit upon, and the 
slightest falling short is sometimes equal to the greatest distance in 
preventing the finding of it. Hence, life insurance, essentially 
English until very lately, has been regarded as mysterious, profound, 
a labyrinth of difficulties, instead of being recognized as the simple, 
comprehensible, beautiful provision for man which it is now seen to 
be when popularly Americanized. 33 
Gentlemen, having finished my general discussion, to which I 
have endeavored to lend as ranch interest as possible by illustration 
and otherwise, I beg your considerate attention to a very brief ex- 
position of a matter in which I feel a deep personal interest. 
I would not make the requests that I am about to prefer, unless 
thinking that it will please you to grant them, and that the time 
has arrived when this will honor you and advance the grand cause. 
More than one of you can bear witness that we have not sought 
your powerful influence with the public, and, when proffered, have 
thanked the inducing kindness, replying “ not yet, it will only 
make a target for misrepresentation and accusation ; let us wait un- 
til we can be benefited without risk of injury to any courageous 
friend.” We could not feel otherwise towards any State Official with 
whom we now have relations, since from each we have received more 
than courtesy, and a consideration more than satisfactory; for it is 
exceedingly gratifying to have reason to highly esteem those whose 
official positions demand a formal respect. 
None of your terms of office date back to the origin of the 
American Popular Life, and although some of you know its entire 
history, others have had no occasion to learn of its history, its ob- 
ject, or its purport, and to such it is merely one among many. 
Nearly nine years ago it was organized with the intent of effect- 
ing a radical reform in the principles and methods of life insurance, 
chiefly in three respects. 
1st, By demonstrating the correctness of the principles of 
Biometry, or the science and art of measuring life,—especially its 
grand application to life insurance. 
2d, By simplifying the modes or forms of life insurance, and re- 
ducing its cost, by introducing the general use of “term-life” natural 
premium policies, to the exclusion of endowment, whole-life, and 
the whole brood of excessive premium, fungous growths, which had 
covered up the true motive—protection to the family. 
3d, By condemning the lavish extravagance which on every 
hand was and is exciting distrust of a cause which it was pretend- 
ing to support, develope and adorn. 
True, the first of these objects had the first and strongest hold 
upon our affections, since it is of great worth in very, very many 
other relations besides those pertaining to life insurance. 
The only method of demonstrating the correctness and great 
value of our ideas seemed to be through the competitive market test 
of life insurance ; when that was determined upon, it Avas also re- 
solved to do the business right, in the other respects mentioned, 34 
hence we became, nolens volens, radical reformers ; which involun • 
tary position we accepted with zest and the determination that once 
having put our hands to the plough we would not look back. 
We were willing to abide the test of time; we asked not that all 
should lend a willing hand to help, we only asked for so much con- 
fidence as would enable us to test our ideas, for we would not be 
willingly placed in the position of the boy who was told “ not to go 
into the water until he had learned to swim.” We had faith in sci- 
entific prevision, believed it to be more reliable than purblind ex- 
perience, and not attended with costly experiments, but we did not 
ask the whole world to pin their faith upon our sleeve. 
“ There is no such invigorating principle as faith. It is a principle of 
strength, and courage, and hope. Men who believe most are the strong- 
est men. Doubters never accomplished anything. A doubter never dis- 
covered a new world ; nor invented a printing-press, nor a sewing ma- 
chine. Doubters never constructed a Pacific railroad, nor an Ocean tele- 
graph, [nor established the Science of Biometry.] A doubter never wrote 
an epic, nor built a Cathedral, nor painted a Madonna, nor chiseled a 
Yenus de Medicis. A doubter never won a battle, nor founded an em- 
pire, nor inaugurated a successful revolution, nor added a statue to the 
temple of Fame. The world’s best and bravest work has been done by 
believers, not by doubters.—Bev. E. P. Bogeks. 
We were willing to be slow and sure, to let the rising tide float 
us rather than to exert our strength in vain endeavors against an in- 
ertia that we could not overcome. We said it is, it must be, it 
will be. That time has come—we think. 
We have alone, unaided, opposed and bufietted, in the begin- 
ning almost martyrized, for nine long years, worked most earnestly 
for the cause of truth, of justice, of the public welfare in relation to 
Life Insurance. We now politely ask you, gentlemen, the proper 
guardians of the insurance interest to do—not as an act of friend- 
ship, not anything for us, but to the true cause of life insurance— 
simple justice, nothing more, nothing less. 
We also ask of you,—as gentlemen of intelligence, interested in 
science, in the world’s welfare and progress,—a plain, straight for- 
ward, and unflinching recognition of the facts and bearings of 
Biometry—especially upon life insurance—and of term-life methods; 
that you will regard both the principles and methods favorably, and 
commend them decidedly, distinguishing, if you please, between the 
ideas and the company, between the enterprise and the enterprisers, 
but at least giving the full sanction of your private and official in- 
fluence to the true plan upon which the business of Life Insurance 
should be conducted. 35 
The first year of our enterprise, the Hon. Win. Barnes, in his 
Report, speaks of our ideas as follows : 
“Another Company (the American Popular) takes a wider hygienic 
range, and from all the physical and moral signs of longevity exhibited by 
an applicant, and the special law of family vitality, as deduced from ances- 
tral tendencies, exhibited both in the direct and collateral relatives, essays 
to modify the general law of average expectation of human life as stated in 
the Table of Mortality, so as to accord with the special law governing the 
individual case, rating his expectation of life, or assumed age, up or down 
the scale of Table Expectation, according to the particular quantum of his 
unexpended vital force. No physician nor actuary will claim that a thou- 
sand or more lives admitted into a company on a uniform basis as ‘ sound * 
possess an equal amount either of actual vitality or of expectation of future 
life. If an expert was allowed to classify them, taking into consideration 
all the many physical and moral elements entering into the complex prob- 
lem of determining the real expectation of life in each individual case, he 
would undoubtedly subdivide even a thousand lives into several classes. 
Reliable statistics have often shown that even peculiar occupations are 
favorable or unfavorable to longevity, for many of which neither extra 
nor reduced rates of premiums are usually charged by life insurance com- 
panies. Companies can undoubtedly gain advantages in actual status by a 
judicious and skillful selection of lives, although such advantages do not 
appear immediately upon the balance sheet nor annual statement, and can 
only be fully realized when a company attains maturity of growth at the 
end of the period of life of one generation. In this point of view, the 
services of a managing officer and medical adviser can only be thor- 
oughly tested by the next generation. 
If by “ generation ” the Hon. Mr. Barnes meant a life insurance 
generation, eight years upon an average, we will “ rest our argu- 
ment ” by saying that he allowed all that we claimed, while he ex- 
pressed our ideas very fully, forcibly, and beautifully, though sug- 
gesting in other words, perhaps rightly, that we might not be able 
to do the do-able. We will allow that criticism then made, to be 
forcible, but now proudly point to the results of oiw work as express- 
ed in the mortality of the State Reports, and in our own more 
fully. But if, as it was the effort of our opponents to induce people 
to believe at the time, the Hon. Mr. Barnes meant an average life 
generation, 30 to 40 years, we dissent, most decidedly, as in fact 
everybody else, including himself, now dissents. 
Yet, if Mr. Barnes intended, as we understood that he did, to 
emphasize the words “ fully ” and “ thoroughly,” we agree, whatever 
the time included; for Biometrical Science will develope for years, 
as its fundamental truths and deductions have been hundreds, thous 
ands of years gradually coming to light. It appears new to some, 36 
and as having attained maturity suddenly, because in several essen- 
tial particulars, it has recently received a degree of completeness, fin- 
ish, and applicability that is, to the world at large, very striking. 
But its main principles are no novelty; it is no mystery; its few 
rules can be soon learned and expertly applied by any well-educated 
medical man of judgment, skill, and tact. Three gentlemen have 
performed the responsible duties of Surgeon-in-Chief, or “Medical 
Supervisor,” in our Company, in its nine years; the one now hold- 
ing the position, with the shortest practical experience, proves, by 
his work, to be the best, which shows that this is no patent, no 
monopoly. I may also say that, although the language of Mr. Barnes 
does not define at all how much can be done in grading life risks, 
he did not probably suppose, more than we did ourselves, that the 
work could approach the surprising perfection what we find can be 
very easily reached. 
In this, our ninth year, the ratio of our losses has been less than 
in any previous one since the second, less even than the surprisingly 
small ratio of last year, being in all the grades a little more than 3 
per 1,000 policies insured, a ratio so small that its meaning cannot 
be over-looked, nor misunderstood. The diminishing ratio of our 
6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th years surprised us, as it does every one, until 
we noticed the corresponding yearly predominating ratios of the 
best grades, in which the ratio has been very uniform, about 1 per 
],000 policies, which appears to be a marvel to the usual insurance 
student; it is merely a simple, necessary, natural phenomenon of 
life. Science would predict it. 
Are we then egotistical, do we claim too much when we ask 
your approval that applicants can be and are by us graded scientifi- 
cally dovm as well as up the scale of life, which determines the rate 
of their premium more truly—scientifically, equitably, economically, 
and securely—than is done in either fire or marine insurance ? We 
have waited until we could say this without a perchance of denial; 
until even our business opponents allow the facts. If you cannot 
assent,we can go on as we have come thus far. No new action is 
essential to our farther success, but if worthy of your recognition, 
and we receive it, our success will be more rapid, our expenses 
lightened, and the public benefited. 
Do you ask how your judgment shall be expressed ? Let it be 
stated that when any company rates lives up or down upon what the 
Superintendent or Commissioner thinks a scientific basis, the com- 
putations of the standing of that company shall be upon such rat- 
ing of age and premiums,—precisely as you treat fire and marine 
companies in the correlative matter. 37 
Do you ask how you shall determine whether a company does 
rate scientifically ? Easily: call for a random number of copies of 
policies and their correspondent applications, and the inspection of 
a very few will satisfy you; or a medical expert may aid you. 
Doubtless the law now permits you to do this ; if there is doubt, 
it can easily be removed by your influence. 
Certainly the spirit of the law requires you to do this, for the 
sole purpose of the law is to produce security to the policyholders. 
Nothing produces so much security as the insurance of best 
grade risks. To obtain them in large numbers they must be graded 
and receive favorable ratings. They mostly know quite well their 
valuable rights and prospects, and they will not be Insured at aver- 
age premiums; they feel and say that these are too high for their 
risks ; yet they are willing to pay twice what their risks are really 
worth; hence are the most profitable to insurers. 
But this also gives the company smaller premiums, while the 
law, as it has been usually interpreted, demands a reserve as large 
as if the risks were not half as good. If stockholders gladly put up 
the requisite capital as an investment, some of the lleports echo 
“ impaired ! ”; the larger and better the business, the more capital 
needed, the more “ impaired; ” at which, magnified and misrepre- 
sented by competitors the applicant “ starts up alarmed ; ” so that a 
compromise must be made upon a limited business; then comes the 
question: “If the plan is so good, why don’t you do more?” In 
our fourth year, I believe it was, if we had made in November and 
December the 50 policies demanded, at the same rates as our best 
grades, we could not have remained in all the States. Making the 
same policies in the January after, was all right, in fact improved 
the Company the next year; that is to say, in plain Saxon, by the 
working of the law, the better such a company is, the worse it 
seems to be. Ought not such a law to be changed ? 
Again, to produce the larger business it must be advertised, and 
other costly and profitable immaterial investments must be made, 
increasing the “impaired” and the “expenses,” usable against a 
company; since also the construction account is all carried into cur- 
rent expenses, and a young constructing company is treated exactly 
like an old one, its ratio of insurance expeness is increased, which 
a proper law would lighten. It certainly is an artificial and falla- 
cious condition which makes that which is essential to a company’s 
thrift an element of its discomfiture. It must be wrono-. 
O 
But if a business is mostly upon best grade risks, especially if 
insured by u term-life natural premium policies,” the receipts and 38 
assets in ratio to anything usually ratioed must-be yery much lower 
than when level premiums, upon whole-life, endowment, and other 
costly policies, are used. Yet the former are the useful, the scientific, 
the secure ; the latter the extravagant, the speculative, the insecure. 
Do not, however, all Reports under the law give especial prom- 
inence and favor to the latter, and oppress the former, in a most 
discouraging'manner ? ' It is, I know, a very solemn count against 
a law, that, in its working, it depresses the righteous and exalts 
the wicked. But is not the count true? Should not this be 
changed, and Insurance Law become what St. Paul says, that Law 
should he: “a terror to evil doers, and a praise to them who do 
well ” ? 
Is it not becoming in us then to ask, and is it not proper in you 
to remedy all these wrongs ? 
Do you ask what I would suggest ? Nothing wonderful, simply 
“ To others do as ye would others should to you.” 
Let Officials in Reports be just as intelligently scrupulous in 
regard to the rights and facts of each company as, in their private 
capacity, they would be about uttering anything that would injure 
the business of a neighbor, or about commending him to the detri- 
ment of others. A wrong statement, ratio, or comparison, or one 
which can be twisted into a misrepresentation, if unintended, is not 
a libel, nor amenable to the ninth commandment, yet it may be 
equally injurious, and should be avoided, no matter at what pains. 
It is the intent of the law, certainly, to do exact justice and to 
permit and encourage every scientific improvement, since whatever 
is scientific and just pertains to the security of business, and to the 
elevation of morals. 
Can there then be given any reason why every new aspirant for 
honor and success in the conducting of a useful business should 
not have every favor and encouragement shown to him by the pa- 
triarchal guardians of that business ? 
Should he, full of fervor and of some new ideas fresh from the 
forge of science, be repressed and bid to fall back into the limbo of 
the musty past, unless it be quite certain that the legal assumptions 
which condemn him in that manner, are very surely based upon a 
rock ? But when the bases are all sandy assumptions, and quick- 
sands at that, as in case of the legal mortality basis, etc., etc., what 
shall be said ? 
Shall it be held that there is nothing new under the sun? 
Shall it be said," the fathers have eaten sour grapes,” and therefore 
their “ sons’ teeth are set on edge ” forever ? THE AMERICAN POPULAR 
LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, 
CONDUCTS THE BUSINESS OF 
LIFE INSURANCE 
UPON PURELY SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES, 
And it is the only Company that does, since it is the only Company 
which grades and rates applicants in correspondence with their indivi- 
dual life expectation and consequent risk, charging premiums accord- 
ingly, as is done in Fire, Marine, and in all other true insurance. It 
is the only Company which makes its Medical Department the basis 
and groundwork of its business. 
Ignoring the general average plan of insuring all lives by their 
respective ages, without reference to individual peculiarities of consti- 
tution and probable lifetimes, it charges premiums in accordance with 
the individual risk as determined by careful scientific Biometrical 
Medical Analysis in each case. 
It recognizes professional knowledge as paramount to the actuarial 
calculation of “general average” duration of life. 
The results have been fewer losses per thousand policies than in any 
other company ever in existence. Its death ratios have been less than 
four per thousand for all grades, and less than one per thousand for 
the best grade—these so far outnumbering the inferior grades as to re- 
duce the ratio of losses in all grades together, the reverse being true 
in all other companies. 
By perfecting and applying the principles of Biometry to the study 
of life risks, the Amekican Popular secures beyond doubt the true 
probable expectation of life in each given case, and is thereby able to 
afford insurance at the lowest cost compatible with equity and .safety. 
Short-Lived risks are charged higher in the same ratio that probably 
long-lived risks are charged lower premiums, each risk being charged 
according to the grade to which it naturally belongs. 
This Principle of Biometrical or Physiological selection, 
dependent essentially upon professional or medical specialized expert- 
ness, constitutes what is styled 
“BED ROCK” or SCIENTIFIC INSURANCE. 
The very nature of this principle demonstrates that the business 
of life insurance is primarily dependent for its success and safety upon 
medical expertness therein. Hence commends itself especially to the 
consideration and confidence of the medical profession. 
Second.—Best method of Insurance for any grade. 
The methods of insurance are secondary and wholly mathematical 
(actuarial). That recommended by this Company and which is the best for all grades tinder ordinary circumstances, is “ Term Life ” 
Insurance (natural premiums). “ Pay as you go.” “Most assur- 
ance lor the least money.” This is styled 
“ HARD PAX” METHOD OF INSURANCE. 
By combining “Red Rock” Principle with “Hard Pan” 
Method, this Company offers to best grade risks 
$10,000 Assurance for $60 Premium. 
Third.—The transaction of the business between the Company and 
the public is its purely commercial feature. 
These three distinct elements of the business plainly show that it 
can only he conducted safely and equitably upon the basis of the 
application of correct. Scientific, JBiometrical and Physiological knowl- 
edge, such as none other than the medical expert can furnish, for only 
upon the proper selection of the risks primarily, can the Actuarial and 
Commercial elements be brought into successful execution. 
Hence this Company asserts that this business imperatively de- 
mands that the medical profession should insist upon its natural rights, 
and that no Company can safely and successfully prosecute this busi- 
ness until it places its medical department at its head, or at least makes 
it equally responsible with all other of its Executive officers. The 
Emoluments as well as the Honors of this business should go to those 
whose responsibility and intelligence make it successful, and in corre- 
sponding proportion. 
Hitherto the Actuarial and Commercial departments have almost 
wholly absorbed the honors and emoluments of the business, and 
failures have been the consequence. 
This Company has placed the pyramid upon its base, and although 
it has been ridiculed as “a doctor’s company,” it can proudly point to 
results, and accepts the descriptive term as an honor to its directors 
and all who were concerned in its establishment, and are devoted to 
its successful prosecution. 
Send for documents setting forth its death ratios and explaining its 
principles and methods, which cannot fail to be personally interesting 
to every medical man. 
If by mail, send stamp to cover postage to the 
AMERICAN POPULAR LIFE INSURANCE CO., 
419 & 421 Broadway, 
Cor. Canal Street, NEW YORJC CITY. 
T. S. LAMBERT, M.D., LL.D., President, 
Lecturer; author “Physiology, Hygiene,” ‘Biometry,” “Longevity,” Ac., &c. 
MOREAU MORRIS, M.D., Surgeon-in-Chief and Vice-Prest., 
Surgeon 7th Itegt.. N. G. S. N. V. ; formerly Health Commissioner of N. Y. City; 
Physician to the Deaf ami Dumb ami Juvenile Institutions, N. Y.; Late Sanitary 
Superintendent Health Department, N. Y, City, «kc., &c. 
Hon E. nv. KEYES, Acting Agent in Chief, 
Author “History of Savings Hanks.” Late Dep. Supt. N. Y. State Banking De- 
partment ; Savings Hunk Examiner, &c., &c. 
B. F. BANCROFT, Esq., Treasurer, 
President Whiting Manufacturing Company; Yice-Pres. National Trust Company; 
Cashier National Hank, Salem. 
JAMES CRUIKSHANK. LL.D., Secretary, 
Late Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Brooklyn, 
Executive 
Board,