Will Maupin's weekly. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1911-1912, August 30, 1912, Image 9

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    AUTO TOPS
Made to Fit AH Makes of Machines
Also Slip Covers
Expert Auto Repairing
Lincoln Auto Top Go
W. R. KEAN, Picp.
3o5 So. nth St.
Little Hatchet Flour
" The flour that makes the big white
loaf with the golden tinge
Made from
Selected Hard Nebraska Wheat
The prudent
housekeeper will insist on
getting the Little Hatchet Brand
WILBUR & DeWITT MILLS
63S N STREET
LINCOLN
NEBRASKA
RELIABLE FURS
Our stock comprises a complete assortment of the season's
latest styles in Fur Coats, Neck Pieces and Muffs. We are
able to furnish an absolute guarantee as to quality. Our
prices are extremely low for the quality of the goods we
sell. A visit to our show room will be of mutual advantage
VOELKER, Futtiet Cor. 12th and N St.
MORRIS TRANSFER CO.
Freight - Baggage
Express
Between Lincoln, College View, Havelock, University
Place and Bethany. Street Car Service
TRY OUR
O'Gara Lump and Nut
for Heater, Range and Furnace
$6.75
SMITH McCAIN CO.o
ROCK ISLAND COAL. YARDS
Exclusive Agents
HENRY C BITTENBENDER
ABSTRACTOR
t
Abstracts of Title for All Property in Lancaster County
109 So. 10th Street, Lincoln, Nebraska
GRIEVISH, the DRUGGIST
10th and Q Streets
HOW NEBRASKA ROBS HERSELF
It is the purpose of this article to show thoughtful Nebraskans
how they are deliberately robbing themselves of from $5,000,000
to $7,000,000 a year; also how they may put a stop to the annual
draining of the stle of this immense sum of money, and while keep
ing it at home put it to work building up the state.
During the years 1899 to 1911, inclusive, Nebraska sent to in
surance companies outside of Nebraska $31,663,852.39 in payment
of premiums on life insurance policies. During the same time she
sent out $27,972,958.28 in premiums on fire insurance policies. This
makes a grand total of $59,636,811.67 that Nebraska has sent to
other states in payment of premiums on life and fire insurance
policies: "
During the same term of years, 1899 to 1911, inclusive, Ne
braska spent with Nebraska life insurance companies $8,329,867.38,
and with Nebraska fire insurance companies $9,594,211.10. This
makes a total of $17,924,078.48 spent during the last ten years with
Nebraska life and fire insurance companies.
In other words, for each dollar spent with Nebraska life and
fire insurance companies, Nebraska has been spending approxi
mately $3.50 building up life and fire insurance companies in the
east.
During this ten-year term the largest year's receipts of a Ne
braska fire or life companies was less than the smallest year's re
ceipts of the foreign fire and life companies. In 1911 the premiums
paid to Nebraska fire insurance companies was $216,400.00, while
$3,345,009.00 was spent with foreign companies. And in 1911 the
amount spent with local companies was $100,000 less than was spent
with local fire companies in 1899, while the amount spent with for
eign companies in 1911 was $2,000,000 more than was spent with
foreign companies in 1899.
During that ten-year period the largest year's receipts of local
life insurance companies was $84,561.00 less than the smallest year's
receipts of the foreign life insurance compnies.
The largest year for Nebraska fire companies during this ten-
year period was 1907, when the premium receipts amounted to $1,-
256,955.00. Then began the policy of absorption, hastened by the
constant nagging of local companies and the ambitious plans of
would-be reformers, and in 1911 Nebraska fire companies received
only $216,400.00 and today there is not a single Nebraska fire in
surance company left in business.
There must be some reasons why Nebraska fire insurance com
panies went out of business. What are they t First, a mighty shrewd
insurance lobby maintained by the foreign companies convinced
Nebraskans that they ought to have more stringent "regulation" of
home companies. And these home companies, managed by our own
citizens, and subject to investigation by local authorities, were asked
to submit, while yet in their infancy, to restrictions that only the
century-old and hog-fat companies of New York and Connecticut
could endure and live. The result was inevitable we no longer have
a real Nebraska fire insurance company left to do business with Ne
braskans, and Nebraska is forced to pay her tribute of millions every
year to the eastern companies.
What is true of fire insurance companies is true of life insurance
companies, only in somewhat smaller measure. The life insurance
companies have been able to put up a better fight for existence than
it seemed possible for the fire insurance companies to make. But
the same efforts at "regulation" and "restriction" have been made.
always by our own people, and these usually well-meaning men,
wholly ignorant of the life insurance business and easily deceived
by the smooth-tongued touts for the life insurance combine of the
east. . '
Here is one of the most familiar demands of the would-berin-
snrance reformers: That our home companies be compelled to de
posit with the state auditor all their securities, ostensibly for the
"protection" of the policy holders. But instead of being added se
curity for the policy holders, it would be in reality a weakening oi
that security. Why! Because, in order to be of any effect these
securities would have to be negotiable by the auditor, andj the au
ditor is bonded in the immense sum of $50,000, while he would have
something like $7,500,000 of negotiable securities in his possession.
Nebraska has not always had a safe and honest auditor. The state
does not offer to guarantee these securities ; it merely asks that they
be given into the charge of an auditor bonded in the sum of $50,000.
What is the purpose of demanding any deposit at all from in
surance companies t To protect policy holders, of course. That
being true, would not the same result be achieved by demanding a
deposit equal to the largest policy carried, this deposit to be main
tained at ail times, and if not so maintained the company denied
the right to do business until it was made whole? If you were the
beneficiary of a policy in the sum of $5,000 and had to sue, would
a judgment be just as good against $100,000 as against $5,000,000 1
And wouldn't the company make haste to make good the depletion
in its deposit with the state if it couldn't do business until it had
made goodt
life insurance is simply one phase of banking, yet would-be re
formers are demanding that life insurance companies in Nebraska,
young and just getting on their feet, do business under regulations
that no other state thought of putting upon their companies when
they began business, and regulations that no bank or loan com
pany could do business under for thirty consecutive days.
Nebraska is robbing herself by starving her local life and fire
insurance companies and feeding fat the insurance companies of
the east. She is robbing herself to the extent of nearly $10,000,000
a year by sending it east instead of keeping it in Nebraska for in
vestment. She can only stop the robbery by legislation that will encour
age the building up of Nebraska companies and ceasing this con
tinual agitation on the part of ignorant would-be insurance reform
ers. Stop the flow of a million dollars a month from Nebraska,
and secure its investment within the state, and there'll be some
thing doing. We will have more and better farmers, more indus
trial enterprises, Digger wage lists, more homes, more citizens and
more prosperity. We will have here in Nebraska huge office build
ings crowded with clerks who will spend their salaries with Ne
braska business men, instead of maintaining huge office buildings
and big clerical forces in New York and Hartford. We will keep
millions at home where we will see them again, instead of kissing
them goodby and sending them a thousand miles away.
Every time some ambitious politician wants an issue upon which
to appeal to the "dear pee-pul" he begins harping upon "regulat
ing insurance companies." He never thinks of urging the people
to benefit themselves by helping to build up home companies and
thus keep Nebraska money at home. It is always insinuations that
Nebraska companies are conducted by men who really ought to be
in jail for attempted swindling of confiding policy holders.?
What Nebraska needs is an insurance commissioner who knows
his business, who is under civil service, and who does not owe his
job to political pull. In addition she needs some common sense in
surance laws, laws drawn by men who understand insurance and
not by men who do not know the difference between the "moral
risk" of a fire policy and the "surrender value" of a life policy.
And more than all, she needs a whole lot less of political agitation
by men posing as guardians of the "dear pee-pul," but in reality
seeking to, hoist themselves into fat political jobs.
Nebraska is robbing herself of a million dollars a month to
build up an insurance combine, already hog-fat, in the east. She
can stop it by building up her own insurance companies, and while
putting a stop to the robbery of herself by herself, she will be build
ing herself up commercially, industrially and socially.
Buy your insurance of Nebraska companies. It is -as good as
the best and as cheap as the cheapest.
a SOME FIGURES TO PONDER OVER.
Will Maupin's Weekly presents here some figures of fire and
life insurance that will astonish Nebraskans that is, if Nebraskans
will read them. They present an indictment of Nebraska's , busi
ness sense, because they prove that Nebraskans have failed utterly
to work in their own interests by patronizing home insurance com
panies.. .;.,''
The subjoined tables will show the amounts paid to Nebraska
and foreign life insurance companies during the years 1899 to 1911,
inclusive : , .
. Nebraska Life Co. Receipts. '
1899....... $ 53,946.13
1900.. .... 80,957.54
1901....:....... 265,120.85
1902 ........ 367,178.03
1903............. 427,567.61
1904. ........... 597,268.22
1904..,. . 704,988.00
1906.. 771,426.00
1907............ 854,770.00
1908............ 842,725.00
1909....... 935,822.00
1910. . ...... 1,142,334.00
1911. 1,240,764.00
Foreign Life Co. Receipts.
1899 .'..... , ..... i 1,325,325.43
1900 1,573,853.88
1901. . . 1,964,522.64
1902 ........ , ... 2,122,542.81
1903. ....... .... 2,307,622.09
1904 ............ 2,603,164.54
1905. . 2,593,393.00
1906 2,703,413.00
1907 ,A.. ... . . . 2,676,186.00
1908. ........ .:. . 2,695,954.00
1909. ........... 2,767,938.00
1910. ; , . ... ..... 2,975,596.00
1911. . : . . ... .... 3,354,341.00
Total. . ... $ 8,329,867.38
Nebraska Fire Co. Receipts
1899............$ 311,299.00
1900 381,961.60
1901...:........ 480,415.13
1902........ 624,620.13
1903... :. 659,470.68
1904..... 815,490.14
1905 .......... : . 965,558.42
1906 987,982.00
1907... 1,256,955.00
1908 1,003,233.00
1909 ........... . 1,047,474.00
1910... ..... 843,352.00
1911. . i.. ' . . 216,400.00
Total. .. . . ... .$31,663,852.39
Foreign Fire Go. Receipts.
1899. . ....... . . .$ 1,330,701.00
1900. 1,383,606.57
1901 1,516,671.67
1902 . . . , . . . . 1,614,426.48
1903 1,725,312.42
1904. ........... 1,824,330.77
1905 ........ . ;7 . 2,069,770.37
1906 . 2,064,774.00
1907. ..... . .... 2,829,664.00
1908............ 2,56411.00
1909 2,719,491.00
1910. ........ . . . 2,948,990.00
1911. . . ..... .... 3,345,009.00
Total. . ..... . .$ 9,59411.10
Total. ... . . . . .$27,972,958.28
These figures are worth studying by men and women interested ;
in developing business in Nebraska; men and women who are inter
ested in keeping Nebraska money at home to develop .the resources
of Nebraska. , '
NEBRASKA'S MILITARY RECORD.
During the Civil War Nebraska, then a territory, sent more
men into the Union army in proportion to population, than any
other state or territory. f ,
During the Spanish-American war Nebraska sent three regi
ments into the field; more soldiers in proportion to her population
than any other state. - - -
And just as the Territory of Nebraska was among the first to
send troops to the front during the Civil War, so the State of Ne
braska was among the first to answer the call for troops when the
Spanish-American war began.
Nebraska didn't have any colonels in the Spanish-American
war to win undying fame by swimming rivers easily fordable at
high water without .wetting the seat of the trousers, but she did
have a Colonel Stotsenburg who fell with his face. to the foe. Her
regiment in the Philippines did not have any press agent, but that
regiment has got a record for real service in the field, even if it
did not show up so well in the efforts of the penny-a-liners. , ..
IN PROSPEROUS NEBRASKA.
In the entire United States there is one motor vehicle, auto
mobile, motorcycle or auto-truck for each 180 of its inhabitants.
But in the state of Nebraska there is one such vehicle for each
38 of its inhabitants. We believe it within the bounds of truth to
say that Nebraska has more motor vehicles per thousand of popula
tion than any other states. All of which js another evidence oi xne
prosperity of this splendid commonwealth. Just as soon as every
family has an automobile and every young man has a motorcycle-;-'
which will be pretty soon according to statistics we 11 turn our
attention to something else.
THIS IS SOME TWINE.
It required 7,000,000 pounds of twine to bind the small grain
crop of Nebraska in 1912. This means upwards of 113,000 miles
of twine enough to wrap around this old globe of ours four times
at the equator, with pretty near 13,000 miles of twine left over to
make a fancy bowknot. - f
This would make a 37-strand cable that would reach from New
York to San Francisco, and a cable of thirty-seven strands of binding
twine would be some rope, believe us. ,