h case was obliged to hold the agents
blameless, the experience left an unfortunate impression. However,
Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy undoubtedly controlled an unusually large
volume of business. If losses were heavy, so were premiums, and the
relatively small losses which naturally attend a growing business where
no policy has been in force more than a month or two, postponed, for a
time at least, the worst of the evil days. But long before they came
the heavens had grown dark with trouble in numerous other quarters.

The general ruling of the Conference, providing that, except under
almost impossible qualifications and with reduced compensation, no
agent could continue to represent both Conference and non-Conference
companies, was now in effect. And it seemed as though never before had
there been such precision and unanimity in Conference methods; and
Smith, gloomily regarding the grim spectacle of the Guardian's decline,
could only curse under his breath the act of O'Connor that had brought
about this state of affairs.

Certainly there was no hesitancy about the Conference campaign, and the
results became at once apparent in the non-Conference offices. Hardly
a day passed which failed to bring to the Guardian the resignation of
one or more of its agents, with none to take their places except the
vultures, many of whom Mr. Gunterson remembered to have assisted in
accelerating the downfall of some of the other underwriting
institutions with which he had been connected. With a chill of dismay
he read of what a splendid opening awaited the Guardian in the general
agency of Henry Trafalgar and Company of Memphis, or Bates and Newsome
of Atlanta.

From the Guardian's own agents the letters of resignation were very
much alike, for the company was popular in a modest way, and most of
the writers had represented it for many years.

"We are notified by the committee in charge of this district," they
wrote, "that in order to secure the customary graded commission scale
we must resign our non-Conference companies. We are extremely sorry to
let the Guardian go, but the difference to us financially is such that
we would not feel justified in declining the Conference offer."

And so, one after one, they went. Many an agent wrote bitterly
attacking the Conference procedure and asking whether the Guardian
could not arrange to take care of his entire business, and stating that
if this could be done he would retain the Guar