d, next, because that which I printed had the
signature punched out, which made it obvious that it was not in force.
My object was to lead the Equitable into the positive statement that it
was an ordinary advertisement, when I would have reproduced the
proposition that accompanied it and which the Equitable made in probably
the most elaborate set of documents ever assembled by an insurance
company for the purpose of inducing one of the "best risks" in America
to take out a "great big policy." These constitute the complete argument
which was made by the Equitable Life Assurance Society to persuade me to
take a million dollars' worth of insurance. They are engrossed upon
parchment and bound in a specially gotten-up morocco cover, and, I was
told, cost the insurance company between four and five hundred dollars.
They were presented to me as the result of my demanding that all the
inducements they offered to come into their company should be put down
on paper, so that there could be no mistaking them. The documents as
engrossed and the terms of the contract were carefully copyrighted by
the Equitable, and are now on my table before me as I write.

The question which the publication of the million-dollar policy was to
settle was whether or not I had been importuned to take out great sums
of insurance in the leading insurance company of America, and it proved
exactly what I had contended--that I had been so importuned.

Up to and including my April, 1905, instalment I have made specific
charges against the great insurance companies, the Mutual, the New York
Life, and the Equitable:

1st. That the control of the officers of these great corporations over
the billion dollars of their policy-holders' funds is as absolute and
unrestricted for all practical purposes, as is their control of their
own personal affairs, and is largely exercised for their personal
enrichment.

2d. That the policy-holders have absolutely no voice in the management
of these companies or the control of their funds, because of the
manipulation of proxies in the New York Life and the Mutual and the
control of the stock of the Equitable.

3d. That those who do control the big companies are votaries of the
"System," and as such are subject to the "System's" orders as absolutely
as is James Stillman, president of the "Standard Oil" National City
Bank.

4th. That the insiders of these insurance companies, not one but several
of them, have accumulated for