as
absolutely as any of their policy-holders do their personal affairs. If
these men are honest, policy-holders in their companies may rest easy
for the time being; but if they are dishonest, the policy-holders should
call them to account, for these men have it absolutely in their power to
make way with the funds of the companies they manage until there will
not be a dollar left for policy-holders.

Therefore the one thing for policy-holders to settle, the one vital
thing is, Are these men honest, or are they tricksters and liars?

To settle this point they must be weighed in the same way that all other
men and women in this world are weighed--by the simple, ordinary
standards: Do they lie? Do they trick? Do they cheat?

When I made my charges in my first chapters against the votaries of the
"System" who controlled the insurance companies, they met my specific
charges as dishonest men would meet them, not as honest men would. They
impugned my motives, and specifically charged that my reason for
attacking them was that I had been blacklisted by all insurance
companies and could not get insurance from any of them.

While it was immaterial so far as my specific charges went whether this
was so or not, it had a most decided bearing upon the question whether
the officers and controllers of the Big Three insurance companies were
honest or dishonest men. Therefore I picked up their accusation and
began a line of argument to prove they were tricksters and absolutely
devoid of honor.

I showed, by reproducing the personal letters of President McCall, of
the New York Life, to my office and to my house, reenforced by his
special agent's letter, and these reenforced by his Boston agent's
letter, that I had been continuously and urgently importuned to take
insurance during the time he said I was blacklisted. The insurance
people met this by the excuse that these were not personal letters, but
mere advertisements.

I then reproduced the million-dollar policy, hoping to drag from the Big
Three a specific charge that this, too, was an advertisement.

Of course, I did not pretend that the policy in question was in force,
that is, that I was insured in the Equitable Life Assurance Society for
one million dollars. This would have been too childish; first, because
every insurance policy, particularly the very large ones, is as much a
matter of record, to be got at by any one in the insurance business, as
are real-estate records; an