le. It
is regrettable that he was not able to deprive the conspirators of their
power to juggle with the property of the corporation, for only two weeks
later they developed and executed an alternative device which
practically accomplished the result which the Massachusetts authorities
had declared illegal and the courts of New Jersey had enjoined.

There is food for thought here for the policy-holders of American
insurance corporations who have intrusted to the "System" and its
upholders the billions of their savings, to which they are adding every
year hundreds of millions. To them I recommend a reading of the
Forty-eighth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner,
dated January 1, 1903, and the decision of the New Jersey judge who
passed on the case. These men are surely not to be accused of exploiting
my story. Under the head of "Control of Life Insurance Companies" in the
Massachusetts Report will be found the following:

The Insurance Commissioner had the honor of addressing the
insurance committee of the General Court relative to the
control of life-insurance companies by other corporations or
by syndicates. For some years it has seemed to impartial
observers who are conversant with life-insurance matters,
and have also seen the eager quest by promoters for funds to
finance all kinds of enterprises, and the determined
struggle to grasp every opportunity for speculation, that
there would be no cause for wonder if covetous glances
should be turned toward the massive accumulations of
life-insurance companies. It is well, therefore, to pause
and ask what would be the chances for obtaining control of
them, and what might be the result of such control, and in
general whether the funds of such companies are imperilled
by modern methods.

Insurance corporations on a capital stock basis, on the
other hand, give their policy-holders no voice in their
management. To obtain control of such a company it is
necessary only to control by purchase or otherwise a
majority of its capital stock. If a "king of finance" should
start out with the determination to secure a majority of the
stock of such corporations, the chances are that in some
cases at least he would be successful. He might, it is true,
be obliged to pay more than the "book value" of the shares;
but perhaps _control_ of a com