iple has in it any greater efficacy
when applied to the affairs of corporations. The fact is, we have too
much of this thing in all our relations political and social. The idea
that there is a class who are in their own estimation better able to
govern than the rest of mankind has been exploded by the experience of
the people of this country, and it is intolerable that we should be
forced to do homage in our private affairs to a principle which we
have, as regards public business, exploded long ago as a traditional
fallacy.

Most of the evil practices which have made the whole system of life
insurance a by-word and the scorn of the people, have arisen under this
irresponsible management. Investments in extravagant buildings, the
enormous expenditures for payments of salaries to officers and to
agents, are all the result of the secret plan of management. Does any
one suppose that if the affairs of the companies were fully and
completely exposed to the public, such payments would be permitted or
tolerated? Men are entitled to be paid for services rendered the full
equivalent of those services, but they ought not to be allowed to be
the sole judges of the value of those services, and they ought to be at
all times ready and willing to come before the persons interested, and
submit a full, fair, and clear account of their stewardship. Human
nature is of the same quality in the managers of life insurance
companies as in other men. Responsibility to some power, accountability
to some persons or body, is absolutely essential to honest management.
Men who know that they cannot or will not be called to account will
fall into loose and unbusinesslike methods and practices. Nothing can
be more dangerous to the honesty of a man than to place him in charge
of immense interests without a system of periodical accountability. A
man may be ever so honest, yet he will, if this accountability be
absent, be led to do things which he never would do if he were sure
that at a fixed period his doings would become known and he would be
required to justify them.

From these considerations and on these grounds, I come to the
conclusion that the management of a life insurance company by a board
of directors elected solely by the stock-holders is a management which
contains within itself the germs of a fatal disease, which will sooner
or later develop itself. In this respect legislation is needed. Such a
management ought to be forbidden, and a pro