ance, among other things
publishing a fac-simile of a contract of life insurance
between yourself and the Equitable Life Assurance Society
for $1,000,000. On my first reading of your article, I was
certainly impressed with the fact that you had $1,000,000 of
insurance with this company. On a second reading, I note
that you do not say in so many words that this is a policy
in force, but you say: "Well, look at this reproduction of
the document that is now in my possession and always has
been since the date when it was delivered to me by one of
the great representatives of the 'System,' The Equitable
Life Assurance Society." This statement taken in connection
with others, conveys the idea that you are insured in the
company named.

In conversation with a gentleman a few days since, who
claims to know whereof he speaks, having gotten his
information direct from New York, he stated that you had no
policy in the Equitable Life Assurance Society for
$1,000,000, or any other amount, and that the reproduction
referred to above, was of a _sample copy_ of a policy, and
not a real contract.

As your editor states that you will answer any pertinent
question, I will ask the following, trusting that you may
consider it pertinent: Have you a valid subsisting policy in
the Equitable Life Assurance Society for $1,000,000, the
fac-simile of which appears in _Everybody's Magazine_ for
January, 1905?

Trusting you will favor me with a reply, I am,

Very truly, ----

I answered:

Since the chapter which contained the fac-simile of the million-dollar
policy was published I have received many letters similar to the above,
but have not answered any because I wished to see how far the insurance
people would go in this matter. Finding I did not reply to the
different attempts they made in their subsidized journals to draw me
out, they grew bolder, until the use of this million-dollar policy has
become the chief defence of the Big Three companies. I want my readers
to think this point over and weigh its significance carefully. In a
previous chapter I called attention to the fact that there is nothing to
protect the policy-holder from being robbed of the amounts he has
invested to insure his family from poverty after his death but the
honesty of the men who really control the big insurance companies