uneral benefit of
twenty-five dollars will cost each member of the union about fifteen
cents annually.

The consideration of the cost of the death benefit has been deferred
until an examination of the cost of the disability benefit and of the
wife's funeral benefit had been made, since the member's death benefit,
the disability benefit and the wife's funeral benefit are regarded in
the unions with the most highly developed systems as parts of a single
benefit. In only a few unions are the payments for these several
purposes separated. The unions thus differ so widely in the character of
the death benefit paid that it is impossible to institute any comparison
as to the relative expense of maintaining the benefit. Some of the
systems combine death and disability benefits, some group the death and
disability benefits, some pay a wife's funeral benefit while others do
not. It will be possible to describe certain typical systems and to
indicate the cost of the benefit in the particular system and certain
general differences.

The death benefit of the International Typographical Union may be
regarded as the simplest type. The greater number of the death benefit
systems found in American trade unions are of this general character.
The union pays a benefit on the death of any member in good standing. It
pays no wife's funeral benefit nor any disability benefit. The benefit,
when established in 1892, was fixed at sixty dollars, and has since been
raised to seventy dollars in 1906. The annual per capita cost of the
benefit has never exceeded eighty-four and has averaged less than eighty
cents. This extremely low rate has been due to the large number of
lapses. The beneficiary system of the union has not been highly
developed and members of the union quitting the trade drop their
membership. There is no sort of provision whereby members may retain
their beneficiary rights on the payment of less than full dues. Only a
small part of the dues are devoted to beneficiary purposes. The net
result in such systems is that the members of the union get insurance at
a low rate at the expense of those leaving the trade.

A second type is that of the Brotherhood of Carpenters. In their system,
death and disability benefits are combined and a benefit is paid on the
death of a member's wife. The benefits are graded but the maximum
amounts are not large. The following table shows the system as a whole:

BENEFICIARY SYSTEM OF THE BROTHERHOOD O