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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 5, 1901)
f 4 * --T T ri rlrMrjm3BS3ffT ! % > 4aM f - - i [ Conservative * , T. Sterling Morton PRECISELY sends a shaft at RIGHT. the Buffalo and St. Louis o x p o - sitious by insisting that the government should go out of the show business. If these expositions were purely shows the demand would receive much more general - oral reinforcement. Great expositions , however , are. designed , first , for the purpose of developing unexhausted re sources and instructing the people on the progress and possibilities of the nation in various branches of pro duction , trade , arts and sciences , and only incidentally for recreation and amusement. Nobody is yet ready to call on the government to go out of the education business except a few ex tremists who want the government to do nothing that con be done by private individuals. Omaha Bee. The Bee hits squarely and fairly. The government ought not to do anything "that can be done by private individu als , " as well , or better. Expositions ap propriated for by decadent members of the senate and house , with the distinct purpose of getting salaries out of the appropriations their votes make ought to be discontinued. Exposures of these robberies would stop governmentally sustained expositions. WHAT ARE THE YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES ? In reply to the above question , a sym posium , containing the views of a number of gentlemen who have attained prominence in their different avocations , appeared in the August 15th issue of THE CONSERVATIVE , J. Sterling Mor ton's interesting publication , which , as announced on its editorial page , is "a journal devoted to the discussion of po litical , economic and sociological quest ions. " Replies were received from workers in the joiirnalistic , legal , edu cational and industrial fields. Among the contributions to the symposium was an article from the pen of William B. Carlile , manager at Chicago for the Mutual Life of New York , from which we quote , in part , as follows : "It is not my purpose to glorify the business of life insurance by extensive reference to the benign humanity under lying its conception ; this , have its founders done , and how well , the mighty results everywhere attained and open for inspection , indisputably attest. To dwell upon the accuracy , beauty and mathematical dimensions of its struc ture , would bo to seriously encroach upon the domain of the erudite actuary , who to this business has given substance and enduring strength. All honor to these men whose work is never done , and who , from the heights of knowl edge , peer into the widening ignorance , sighting from afar , the dangerous heresies that would menace the life in surance business. " After briefly stating his opinion "that the imperishability of our established government may not find bettor and more accurate measurement than in the rise and fall of this one department of our industrial activity , ' ' Mr. Carlile characterised life insurance OB follows : "A business demanding level-headed- ness and hard common sense ; commer cial instinct and practical wisdom ; honesty , not merely of purpose , but of acts , deeds and utterance ; honesty of heart , of thought and of countenance ; honesty in the things that are to give semblance to a well-rounded career , all impreguably backed by an invinci ble squareness , marking eveiy trans action concerned in its progress ; a busi ness that dares demand of every man his best , and dares insist that this best be made the better ; that would claim , as well , man's best of heart and soul ; whose multiplying exactions mean a sleepless watchfulness , an unfaltering step , an ever cheerful , responsive alert ness. And may the dawn of that day never be when this creation shall wit ness the limitation of its own improve ment , for 'why stay we on the earth unless to grow ? ' " Of the immensity of opportunity that the business of life insurance holds forth to the young man of today , the writer states that it was circumscribed only by the ability of man to conceive its mag nitude and appreciate its responsibilities. In this connection , he said : ' 'Emphatically , no sluggards are want ed in this calling where the current of business activity is swift and powerful ; no tinselled youth may expect to find in this business the kind of gold of which he is made ; only the unalloyed sort may triumph here , for this young giant of our industrial life , already entrusted with fully one-fiftieth part of our recog nized wealth as a people , has naught but contempt for the vacillating idler , and demands for the furtherance of self- imposed gigantic tasks , the courageous devotion of the unborn giants of energy and of intellect , who shall spring up out of the coming life , else , who shall guard this honorable business , shall make as adamant the memories , works and deeds of them who gave to it being , if not our worthy youths when to maii- liood grown ? " Having quoted short extracts from the sayings of men who became especially prominent in the life underwriting field , Mr. Carlile closed his paper with the following tribute to the business : "Surely , fortified by so lofty a senti ment , the business of life insurance should be as eagerly sought by our worthy sous as does this important de partment of world-wide industry im patiently await their approach , for here may bo found , not alone a means of ac quiring an honorable competency , but every opportunity leading up to a suc cessful career an eminent name ; and firm am I in the belief that there shall not be found in all the history of manly effort anything larger than the growth of life insurance as a business of uni versal significance , unless it shall be found in the very characters of them who to this business have given a life's devotion ; that if there shall ever be any trade , business or profession , any walk in the commercial life of a people , af fording greater opportunity for honora ble accomplishment , the same must be in relation to some department of ac tivity not yet by man conceived , some plan of manly action that shall have di rectly to do with the further uplifting of our race and our institutions. " The Argus of Chicago , for August , 1901. STILL BREAKING THE PENSION RECORD. The abstract of Commissioner of Pen sions H. O. Evans's forthcoming annual report shows that for the fiscal year \ ( ended June 80. 1901 , the pension roll broke all records , with over a million names on the roll during the year. The number at the end of the year was 997,785 , and the total number carried on the roll during the year was , 1,041,821. During the year 47,792 claims of which 44,225 were original pensions , were al lowed , and the losses to the roll for the same period , on account of death and other causes , were 48,586 , making a net addition to the roll of 4,206 names , of which 8,849 were on account of the re cent war with Spain. The pension pay ments for the year amounted to $188- 581,488 , and the total sum expended for pensions since the end of the Civil War , June 80 , 1865 , to June 80 , 1901 , was $2,666,904,589. A remarkable feature of the year's pension business is the fact that thirty- six years after the close of the war there seems to be actually an increase all along the line. The losses diiring the year by deaths alone amounted to over 88,000 , and yet there is an actual gain of pensioners , not including the Spanish war names. The explanation is to be found in the fact that practically all ap plicants are granted pensions under the very broad disability law of 1890 as amended in 1900. There were 45,860 claimants for original pensions in 1900 , and 44,225 claims , or all but 1,685 were allowed. The pensioners under the act of 1890 and 1900 , which let down the bars to the wildest prodigality and opened the doors to fraud , received last year $66,978,481 , or an increase of $1- 207,401 over last year. That the pension rolls are permeated with fraud , does not admit of doubt. It is a physical impossibility that there should be borne on the rolls thirty-six
