cent. of the
whole profits, to the stock-holders, in others twenty, and in others
thirty per cent. In all of them, however, with one exception,
participation by the policy-holders in the profits of the business is a
rule. To a greater or lesser extent, in some to the whole profits, it
is the recognized rule that the holders of policies are to receive
dividends or bonuses from the companies out of the profits. In effect,
therefore, so far as participation in the profits of the business goes,
all our companies, with the one exception before mentioned, are mutual
companies.

The act makes no provision for the government of the corporations it
allows to be created. It leaves it to the promoters to state the mode
and manner in which the corporate powers shall be exercised, and the
manner of electing trustees, or directors, and officers. The natural
consequence of this provision is, that the manner of electing trustees
and directors varies in different companies. In some of them the
stock-holders alone have any voice or vote, in others the
policy-holders are allowed, under certain restrictions, to vote, but it
is safe to say that in all of them the power is kept in the hands of
the stock-holders as far as it possibly can be; and the policy-holders
are allowed as little voice in the management of the company as the
stock-holders can permit.

The result of this vice in the formation of the company is shown in
corporations which have amassed a large reserve. There it will be seen
that the owners of one hundred thousand dollars of stock absolutely
control the entire management and disposition of twenty, thirty, or
forty millions of accumulations, as the case may be; and the real
owners of this fund--the policy-holders--have no voice in its
management and no vote for the body or board which exercises the powers
of the corporation.

It is contended by very prominent gentlemen in the life insurance
business, that this plan is the only safe one; that interference in the
management of the company by uninstructed policy-holders, not versed in
the business, would be productive of nothing but evil. They contend
that the necessary unity of management required for a business,
covering as this does long periods of time, and requiring carefully
laid plans extending into the distant future, would be greatly
endangered by the existence of a right to participate in the management
by representation on the part of so numerous and so widely sc