"Brown Book of Life Insurance Economics" shows that the sum laid by
annually for future tontine or other dividends ranged in the ten years
ending with 1903 from $2,936,026 to a minimum of $956,597, these amounts
being savings after payment of dividends. In 1904, however, for the
first time in the tontine history of the company--also the first year of
maturity of non-forfeitable tontine contracts with their largely reduced
dividends--the dividends paid and credited, $6,018,202, actually
exceeded the year's earnings, as shown by the company's sworn statement,
by $76,595.

I want to call policy-holders' attention right here to what this means
to those who are now being beguiled into taking policies on the strength
of "adjusted" estimates placed by the company in its agents' hands,
showing dividend results ranging from fifteen to fifty per cent. higher
than those of 1904, with, however, the saving (?) clause that, depending
upon future unforeseeable conditions, the same "may be higher or may be
lower." It may be added that, but for a profit realized from sale of
securities, the company's gross surplus would have shown shrinkage.

In order to realize what such a showing means, let us make a comparison,
using the figures of a well-known Western company (partly tontine, but
operated on diametrically opposite lines from the New York Life), for
the three years 1901-03, this company being barely four-tenths the size
of the New York Life as regards outstanding business:

COMPARISON OF TOTALS, THREE YEARS, 1901-03

Dividend Laid by for future
earnings. Dividends. dividends.

New York Life $16,826,289 $13,189,278 $3,636,091
Western Company 17,788,820 12,284,255 5,504,565
----------- ----------- ----------
-$962,531 +$905,023 -$1,867,574

After mulling these over, I dug further in regard to the "prosperity" as
shown by the business of 1904. The company boasts of its enormous volume
of new business, $345,722,000, which is $15,000,000 in excess of the
1903 business. Here is the story: While this new business was being
secured, the

Total terminations were $162,326,114
Less those inevitable terminations by death
or maturity of endowments 26,767,873