Freemasons

  • 1877 - The Michigan Freemason - 582p
    • Now all this is called "robbery," "stealing," and by other bad names. Call it what you will, it is what a good many other men would do under the same circumstances. The fault begins with the system. The temptations are too great. These men handle millions on millions of other people's money every year. They do not receive their salaries, they simply take them. They fix it all up among themselves in private. They are under no bonds and have not been required to make any detailed reports, and, until now, it has not been known outside of their offices how much they were taking. Elizur Wright, the most distinguished writer on Life Insurance in this country, says: "Everywhere the facilities for swindling in Life Insurance are so great, the wonder is the business is conducted with any degree of honesty."
    • There is no business in the world so blind and impenetrable. Would you give your grocer $500 in advance, and tell him to supply your family with groceries for a year, and give you back whatever amount he might have left at the close of the year? And then would you allow him to give you back what he pleased, without rendering any bill of items to show what your family had been supplied with, or what prices he had charged ? That is the way you take your life insurance.
    • The whole system is wrong. First it is wrong to pile up such enormous amounts of money to be handled and manipulated by a few persons. And this alone is enough to condemn the whole system. Second, detailed reports, made clear and understandable, properly audited and sworn to under strict laws, should be furnished to policy-holders annually, or better quarterly. These should show where all moneys have come from, and where gone to. But even this would not overcome the first objection; it would only mitigate the evil 

    • And yet human science has never devised anything more beneficent and useful as a means of providing against the 11 rainy day" of life, than Life Insurance. But how to secure it safely and cheaply is the important question.