fifteen millions--a few brief years ago he was State Superintendent
of Insurance in Albany. The chief associate in the management of the
same corporation, George W. Perkins, J. Pierpont Morgan's partner, is
another very rich man, whose wealth has been accumulated in a few short
years. Do you imagine for a moment that such transactions as I set forth
last year in connection with the New York Security and Trust Company, in
which the interest of the New York Life was sold to a syndicate of its
own directors for a sum far below the market value of the shares, were
put through without the connivance of President McCall and
Vice-President Perkins? Even if the New York Life, as its president
explains, did make a large profit on the sale of the trust company's
stock, he cannot deny that the syndicate paid far less than the then
market value of the shares for the insurance company's holdings.

There is something particularly vile about the crimes of these high
officials and distinguished gentlemen who have been waxing fat and
luxurious on life-insurance graft. In a recent number of this magazine I
drew a parallel between the confidence operator and the burglar to show
that the latter despises the former for a sneak thief who takes no
chances in his thieving operations. Infinitely more depraved than the
sneak thief is the high-placed functionary, presiding over a great
institution built up out of the savings of millions of people, paid an
immense salary for his important services, trusted with vast funds
because of his reputation for integrity and business sagacity--who yet
uses his splendid place to line his own pocket. Of all fiduciary
institutions, life insurance should be the most sacred. Its chief
function is to care for the widow, the orphan, and the helpless. The
millions of revenue paid annually into the life-insurance companies of
this country represent the blood and tears and sweat of millions of
Americans who thus provide for the care of their dear ones for the time
when death shall have put an end to their own income-earning abilities.
The administrator of a trust so solemn and exalted should devote himself
to its safeguarding as a priest dedicates himself to the service of his
Maker. The responsibility conferred on him is the highest and holiest
man can repose in his fellow-man. Remembering all this, consider again
the revelations of greed and plunder in the Equitable; consider that
millions upon millions of dollars h