at are lost by reason of
premature deaths was an alluring subject to the insurance men. It gave
to the world what, up to that time, it had lacked--a body of powerful
men who recognized that they had a financial interest in preventing
the needless death of men and women.

A table has been prepared showing that if insurance companies were to
expend $200,000 a year for the purely commercial object of reducing
their death losses, and should thereby decrease them only twelve
one-hundredths of one per cent, they would save enough to cover the
expense.

"If such a plan as this were placed on a purely scientific basis and
carried out by good business methods, and all the companies pulled
together for the common good, I should expect a decrease in death
claims of more than one per cent; and a decrease in the death claims
of one per cent would mean that the companies would save more than
eight times as much as they expended, or would make a net saving of
more than seven times the expense, which would be about a million and
a half dollars a year."[4]

[4] Hiram J. Messenger, Travelers Insurance Co., Hartford, Conn.

"While it would be impossible to state in general terms how rich a
return lies ready for public or private investments in good health,
these examples (life insurance) show that the rate of this return is
quite beyond the dreams of avarice. Were it possible for the public to
realize this fact, motives both of economy and of humanity would
dictate immediate and generous expenditure of public moneys for
improving the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, as
well as for eliminating the dangers of life and limb which now
surround us."[5]

[5] Report on National Vitality, p. 123.

Undoubtedly a moral force is to be strengthened by spreading the
biological lesson that man cannot live to himself alone, but that his
acts or failure to act affect a large number of his fellowmen. Also, a
stimulus to personal ambition is to be supplied in the suggestion of
better health and consequently more money to spend as a result.

Civic pride and private gain will be brought into the endeavor to show
man that to understand himself, to exercise the same control over his
activities that he uses over his machines, is to double his capacity,
not only for work, but for pleasure. This control is now possible
through the application of recently confirmed scientific knowledge as
to man's environment.

It is the aim