nd at once seize possession of the two great
mutual companies, the New York Life and the Mutual.

I omit the Equitable at this stage, because litigation may be necessary
before the Equitable, being a stock company, can come into the
policy-holders' hands. But in the other two, no obstacles can be placed
in the way of the policy-holders' taking control.

To empower this committee to bring action at once to compel full
restitution and enforce full punishment, and then to change the present
method of conducting the insurance business.

The vital question is: Whom can the policy-holders trust to do this?

The "Big Three" are at present spending vast sums of the policy-holders'
money to prevent some such action as this, in the following ways:

First, by moulding public opinion through paid news and editorial items;
next, by the collection of proxies; and third, by the inauguration of
different moves and dummy suits and investigations.

There are already three of these affairs under way. Almost any way the
policy-holders turn for relief they are confronted with traps which, if
they fall into them, will make relief and rescue impossible.

Any man or body of men who go to the great expense necessary to collect
proxies must have some hidden scheme for reimbursing themselves, or they
must be working in the interests of the thieves now in control.

I therefore make bold to say: I am the natural one to make this move.

Just a minute before you pass judgment. Let us see if I am:

1st. I have already spent in my work over a million dollars of my own
money.

2d. I am willing to spend, if necessary, two millions more.

3d. I will absolutely prove I want nothing in return.

4th. I will absolutely prove on the face of my plans that I cannot in
any way benefit beyond the satisfaction I shall derive from putting
another spike in the "System's" coffin.

I ask of the policy-holders simply this:

Fill out the following form of proxy; sign and seal it, and send it to
me. Quick action is most desirable in view of contingencies.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[20] In the course of the legislative investigation of the great insurance
companies in New York, it developed that the Mutual Life Insurance Company
conducts a publicity bureau, organized to discredit any one who dares
criticise its methods. This bureau is conducted by one Charles J. Smith, on
a salary of $8,000 per annum, and he works through Allan Forman, editor of
the