The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 20, 1927, Page 2

| Page Two THE DATLY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1927 “MUTUAL” INSURANCE POLICYHOLDER NEVER GETS ANY OF THE PROFITS: PREVIOUS EVENTS OF IN ANCE EXPOSE. | The DAILY WORKER herewith continues its expose of the fraudulent methods employed by the “Big Four,” who are the| Metropolitan, Prudential, John Hancock and the Colonial Life| Insurance Companies. In this series it is charged that these companies who monop- olize the weekly payment life insurance business are guilty of fraud, misuse of “mutual” funds, manipdation of policyholders’ money and subornation, to perjury. On April 27th Governor Smith ordered Superintendent of | Insurance James A. Beha to make inquiries into the charges con- tained in the Harrison articles. | So far the official apologist for the insurance companies has not submitted his report. The expose has caused something re- sembling panic in insurance circles. It affects wpwards of 40,000,000 American policyholders. | By CHARLES YALE HARRISON. | During the past year the “Big Four” have increased their assets nearly 500 million dollars. We have contended through-| out this series of articles that industrial life insurance assets are| never returnable to the “mutual” policyholder, in spite of the fact that Haley Fiske, president of the Metropolitan Life says, “Our policyholders own the company.” Despite the fact that comparisons each policyholder pays in, in advance, | are odious, let us compare weekly pay- | several times enough to meet his pro | ment life insurance as practiced by] rata share of all losses. the ::Big Four” with savings banks. Run On Insurance Savings banks conduct their busi-} A ran on an insurance company } ness at an expense, on the average of | would require the policyholders to be | A remarkable air view of flooded Arkansas City, Ark., and its environs, covered by a wall of water ranging from 15 to 20 feet deep in most parts of the city, when the Mississippi opened a huge crevasse in a leyee. Notice the encampments of refugees on the remaining i A aso nm NN ROMANE “(FAKE LABOR BILL IEXPOSED BY DALY, AGENT OF BOSSES Crime Losses Told at | Industrial Meeting | ‘Weaknesses of the forty-eight hour Taw for women, passed during the \last session of the New York legis- lature, were pointed out by Mark A. | Daly, secretary of the Associated In- | dustries, in an address before the National Industrial Council in session |in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Unwittingly, Mr. Daly agreed with | labor erities of this measure, that this fis not a forty-eight hour law but a |fiftysone hour law. According’ to | Daly: . j Grave Abuse. “No one knows whether the law applies to the manufacturing plant | as a whole, to departments in a plant | or. to the individual workers. If it ap- plies to individual workers, it opens | the doors to grave abuse, for a scala- wag emvloyer can beat it under any | system of checking that may be de- | vised.” The convention was warned by Mr. : Daly that New York State is falling behind in industry “in the face of the | more liberal laws in other states, } } | less than $2 per account per year. It is much more laborious to keep books for an account than for a policy. Charge For Investing As required by the State Banking Department the deposits are invested in mortgages or securities designated by law, just as life insurance reserves are, with this difference, that while savings banks do not charge their de- positors with an “investment ex- pense,” last year the “Big Four” charged their so-called cooperative policyholders $11,510,064 for invest- ing the reserve in the best legally pre- seribed gilt-edge securities. The “Big Four” would have quite a little difficulty in digging up bona fide vouchers for this eleven million dollars. There is a good time in store for an enterprising investigating com- mittee. Company Swindle Sheets The present Superintendent of In- surance is most lenient in allowing all sorts of fictitious expenses items to pass unnoticed in the annual reports of these companies. The Banking Department some time ago threw out an expense item of $5 for a box of cigars used at a bank directors meeting, on the grounds that avings banks were not organized to furnish cigars for directors who were well able to furnish their own cigars. Savings banks recently applied to the legislature for authority to retain a small percentage of their surplus to protect them against runs. This was denied, and in panics, it is the savings banks that weather the storm. Banks Distribute Interest Savings banks distribute their net every six months in interest. Their investments, equivalent to the Ss legal reserve of an insurance com-/| pany, are the amounts due their de- positors; they have assets but no re- serves. Insurance companies have no runs and have no bad debts, and can antici- pate to within 1% of their death losses each year and yet the law re- quires the “Big Four” to keep a stu- pendous surplus when they have no actual liabilities, because each year oY ' On Sunday evening, May 16th a ball will be given in honor of the volunteer workers of the bazaar, and the recently released cloakmaker prisoner, Charles Wolfish, who was in jail for over four months. * Next Sunday a Mass Meeting Next Sunday, May 22nd at 1 p. m., a big mass meeting for the arrested Cloakmakers and Furriers will take place at 864 Sutter Avenue, Brook- lyn, N. Y. The mass meeting is arranged by the East New York Workers Culture Club. Well-known speakers of the Cloakmakers and Furriers Unions will address the meeting. All work- ers of East New York are invited. * “ * mean enough to die all at once. A depositor in ‘a savings bank can | demand a statement of his account at j any time. The New York Court of | Appeals has decided that a court of | equity cannot require a “mutual” life | policyholder, or to his legal represen- tatives after death, for his share of the surplus, although it is admitted that the surplus (reserve) belongs to the policyholder—but the policyholder never gets it. Our democratic laws, oligarchical- ly interpreted, has placed this sacred reserve and surplus even beyond the teach and control of the law itself. Like Gold On the Moon. the reserve, but he never gets it, and the law won’t let him find out how much it is, He can’t get near enough to throw a stone at it. The courts are very kind to Legal Reserve. The fraternal insur¢nce societies do business at a cost of from 70 cents to them in common with the “Big Four” claims their expenses average about $124. The “Big Four” spend $1775 for ex- penses for évery $1000 paid as death claims. ceived? A saving bank with such management would be put out of busi ness before it got fairly started. The officers of a fraternal or cooperative be mobbed. The four weekly payment life in- surance companies with their monu- mental expenses and soaring surplus- es, actually boast and point with pride to the pile of swag and say, “Firm as the Rock of Gibraltar.” Imagine a business organization boasting of its surplus obtained, not from the profits of a successful busi- ness but from assessments on its members. Everybody loses in industrial life insurance except those who select the superintendent of insurance. is ba Needle Trade Defense | | 50,000 Workers On Strike. Over 50,000 workers of the Ameri- can stock-yards are out on strike. For years the workers in the stock- yards have been suffering under the | most terrible conditions. They pre- pared meat for the entire world, but |for themselves they had not even | bread. They had to live on stale | bread and poisoned meats that could not be utilized any more by the meat barons and was thrown out into the gutters, where it was picked up by the workers’ children, The stock-yard magnates have to their aid millions of dollars. They |buy gangsters and scabs. They | bring daily thousands and thousands levee and houses floating around in the current swirl. “SUGAR BOWL” BATTLES FLOOD | Current Events | Radio Stations Defy -Commission’s Order exemption from taxation and like in- ducements to manufacturers.” There has been a falling off of 30 per cent | in the last ten years, so Daly declares. Staggering Figures. insurance company to account to a} Each policyholder owns a share of | $2 per policy per year and most of| collect premiums in dribs and drabs. | For every $1000 paid in net death) Can more criminal waste be con- society with such management would | e mouth of the Atchafalaya river. ___ PREVENTS COOLIDGE (Continued from Page One) surveys and measurements carried out for over half a century do not | show that the levees have appreciably raised the bed of this river.” It is not true he shouts, and yet he is preforce compelled to admit although he endeavors to deprecate |the fact by declaiming about. “ap- preciably.”. What Mr. Hoover might designate as not being “appreciably” appears very ominous to engineer: and authority no less able than he {and apparently far more honest. Can Contro] Floods. Opposing this “levees only” is the “bypass spillway” or “safety- valve” plan. It calls for the use of levees, supported by spillways and passes. Nowhere else in the world is the “levees only” system used for flood control. In the Nile valley, in India, in France, and elsewhere, flood control is effected by use of spillways and passes aided by the levees. A spillway is the same jas a crevasse, lor a break, only the latter is un- controlled or uncontrollable and the | former is a manageable opening that allows the excess water out into pre- | pared passes so that it can run off system FEAR OF MISSISSIPPI LEVEE GRAFT EXPOSE CALLING AN EXTRA SESSION |that the river bed has been raised,| |of tramps to take the places of the| to the sea relieving the main channel | Ww Rf | aa | ‘ * rein wee = - 1 Map of parishes composing the “sugar bowl” region of Louisiana, | which has been battling not only the Mississippi's flood but the swollen Atchafalaya river to save its vast areas of sugar cane, | Ringed region has been affected by levee breaks where arrows point, a wall of water sweeping over plantations and communities. | vast torrent of water in the Mississippi is “using” other streams as “relief” outlets to the Gulf of Mexico. Predictions were for nearly 20 feet of water over the bottoms of St. Martin parish, near the ‘The e jump, while the White House and the Cabinet will look on gravely and unc- tuously nod approval. More millions will be forthcoming. In the past it was $10,000,000 annu- ally, no doubt next year the ante | will be raised to $25,000,000. The opportunity will be there to make | special pleas, and who are the con- | gressmen to withstand such pleas. Involved in this issue of flood eon- , trol is not only the problem of stem- |ing inundations, but water-power |rights and privileges. Under the |guise of providing relief no doubt | lucious vérter-power steals will be | put through. Who ean tell, it is pos- | sible that even Muscle Shoals will be | grabbed off. | Certainly, | Hoover won't Democrats. » And as for the Progressives—well, look them over and take what con- solation you can from that “uber- bliek.”. Mr. Coolidge and Mr, say no. Nor the Medical Quacks Mulct Suckers for Millions WASHINGTON, May 19. — The {Continued from Page One) | Palestine to make a “non-partisan” survey of that. sacred spot. Those | of you who have followed the articles of insurance’ graft running in The DAILY WORKER, and particularly | those of youwho know something of the insurance business from the in- side, will understand that the travell- jing expenses of Mr. Frankel repre- | sent a good investment for the Metro- politan and will result in a few mil- lions worth of new insurance written | on the lives of Jewish people in the | United States. It pays to advertise. e * * i eae is another good advertising stunt: Milton Hershey, the big sugar and chocolate man donated | 40,000 pounds of sugar to the vic- tims of the Mississippi flood. This |act of generosity cost the magnate something like one thousand dollars. | But it is worth several thousand dol- | lars in advertising. Of course this jangle of the case never occurred to |the broad-beamed mind of Hershey. Just like casting bread upon the waters. * vel = | YOUNG, ambitious men not afraid of hard work and prepared to wait }a few years for the dough should | lend their eyes to the following news |item: Two brothers who defrauded | banks and business firms out of $150,- | 000 were given terins of from five to ten years in Sing Sing. Should the boys get out at the end of five years it means a wage scale of $15,000 a jyear each, Should they stay in for ten, the pay check would be only $7,500 a year. Even at that forgery pays better than journalism. * . . police COMMISSIONER WAR- |* REN, the new Tammany chief, is making things hot for the gambling fraternity, as we can see by the papers. What we don’t see in the | papers, would be more interesting no doubt. The leopard does not change | his spots and the tiger does not shed | his claws. Tammany’s conversion to | public purity is a good advertisement for the presidential aspirations of Alfred E. Smith, out where the wild alfalfa grows. It is strange but true that millions of American voters fear that a catholic president would not enforee laws enacted by protestants. Tammany is now showing the world that it is ready to enforce all the laws that are fit to print. . * * ‘BY the time these lines appear in \™ print we will know whether Jim |Maloney of Boston defeated Jack Sharkey of Lithuania in the fistic encounter that took place last night under the direction of Tex Rickard. Each of the warriors expects to be | $100,000 to the good after the melee. |Thousands of foolish Lithuanians |and equally foolish descendants of Following a conference between Commissioners Calowell, Bellows and sion and Operator Chester R, Bohn- sock of station WNYC, owned by the City of New York, it was agreed to- day that the station Will be allowed to continue broadcasting on its pre- sent waye length of 570 kilocycles. No other sation will be permitted to use the same wave length. Warning has been served on twelve New York sations that they must ob- serve the commission’s rule that sta- tions must not vary more than one half kilocycle from ‘their assifned wave lengths. Twelve stations were found to be violating the commission’s order by varying from 6 to 28.6 kilocycles from their assigned fraquencies, They were: WPCH, WHN, WWRL, WKBO, WFRL, WGL, WFBJ, WARS, WNJ, WMBQ and WGPC. Stykes of the federal radio commis-| WSON, } | The industrialists were given a set _ of staggering figures of the direct loss thru crime each year. The total, as estimated by William B. Joyce, president of the National Surety | Company, is $3,000,000,000. Of this amount, $1,000,000,000 is stolen thru |the post office; $1,000,000,000 in | stock frauds; $400,000,000 in credit | frauds; $250,000,000 in burglary, lar- ‘eeny and petty theft; $100,000,000 is |embezzled; $100,000,000 in forgery; $100,000,000 piracies and custom |frauds; freight thefts, $35,000,000 |and home building frauds, $25,000,- | As a cure, Joyce advocated a deep- | er interest in private and public ‘mor- als.” | Back to Sing Sing. Izzy Presser lost his latest fight yesterday, to .Shorten his , twelve- year sentence for manslaughter. workers who are out on strike. | of its overflowing bugden of water. American public is being “bunked” to|Fionn Ma Cool will quarrel over the The Bishop Responds Bishop William Montgomery Brown is the latest one to respond to the call for the defense of The DAILY WORKER. Denounc- ing vigorously the efforts of the Professional Patriots to suppress our militant daily, the Bishop has consented to personally enlist in the campaign to raise funds'for the fight. He has left his many duties to go on tour at his own expense to raise the wherewithal for our fight against the forces of militarism and reaction, ‘ . Every worker who believes in The DAILY WORKER should follow the Bishop’s exam- , ple. Every comrade is in a position to reach a number of other workers to whom he can point out the danger which our fighting organ is facing. In every community prole- # tarian minute men should get on the job to meet the emergency we are facing. the tune of millions of dollars a year| respective merits of the combatants by the so-called “Patent Medicine| while they toil for 30 cents an hour. | craze, it was declared today by Dr.| “Suffer the little children :o come The workers, on the other hand,| Used Elsewhere in U. 8. are determined to fight to a finish} In every other flood area in the for the betterment Workers School Sends $25. At a party held in the house of Comrade Wahl, where members of the Non-Partisan School were pres- of their con- ditions. This fight is one of the most bitter! | United States the “bypass spillway system is in use. In California, the Ohio River Valley and other Bureau of Investigation of the Amer- ican Medical Association. ‘el A. J. Cramp, of Chicago, head of the| unto me’ said the meek and lowly | Nazarene “for of such is the kingdom | | of heaven.” “On May 29th we go to trial in the Court of Be 4 Innocence is just as | peci i Session: Our STA. ROR else ent, a collection for the arrested|that has ever taken place between per ee bonis Roni a The ailing middle-aged, who buys| useful among the customers in the Ss al i af DAILY WORKER cloakmakers and furriers was taken| Workers and houses in the United Mississippi Valley, said ees vn ‘laeks quack remedies, and women, who | boxing ring as in heaven. Rickard] lawyers are busy pre- 48 First Street up. It netted $25. States. The strike is already felt|* : fs purchase useless and sometimes|and Jehovah are in the same boat. ; 2 4 PR, ak | outside of the stock-yards. adequate flood control is ‘most needed, | harmful cosmetics, ate proving that! Ne paring our case against New York, N. Y. The Youth Does Its Bit. The Young People’s Culture Club of Brooklyn collected at* one of its meetings the sum of $21.00, which they sent in to the office of the Joint Defense and Relief Committee. They promise to raise some more money. +o * Camp Nitgedaiget. . | Who will win this fight? The | bosses with the gangsters and scabs —or the workers? Come to see the “Jungle” by Upton Sinclair that will soon be shown in New York, where you will learn the results. Admits Skill in Craft. crooked polities, dishonest officials, | demogogic authorities have continued the antiquated method at the cost of | billions of dollars in losses tp the | workers and the poor farmer. Every | flood drags down deeper the workers jin the lower valley, while enriching | contractors and the petty bosses, Return For More Graft. In spite of every failure of their “You Can Fool Some of the People All the Time,” Cramp said. | Medical Association, wit) its 4,000 physicians in convention here, he added, has launched an educational drive to warn the public against all “punk” remedies, The Cosmetic “situation was being considered by the House of Delegates, the convention's legislative body, The | “YOU'D be surprised to know how many people have a pieve of this \ fellow” said a well informed sport- ing insider to me a few weeks ago. He was referring to an anaemic prac: tioner of the Manly art who is being groomed by Tex Rickard to entice Jack Dempsey back into the squared circle, The “comeon” is barely able to crawl under the ropes but by the the furious assault of the forces of capitalism. You must do your share to support the defense by a steady stream of contributions. Without Inclosed is my contribution of . dollars ....cents to the Ruthenberg Sustaining Fund bay Workin be | Pew @ ‘ense ef our paper. I will pay © same amount regular! OVOLY cere eeae errr Comrade Yetta Schaeffer of the| After admitting that he obtained| system, these “levees orgy” advo-| where a resolution pended calling on | time Tex gets his one-per-cent sport- this supnort we cannot Name Furriers Women’s Council was out to | $100,000 in 100 robberies in the New| cates have returned for more funds|Congress to enact a law regulating |ing writers tuned up for and against} fight, Roll up your ‘ Camp Nitgedaiget. On her vacation] Gardens, Richmond Hill and Jamaica/and never once been denied their| the manufacture and sale of beauti-| the contestants the sporting frater- ent, 3 ” p sai Aat: vee she did not forget the arrested Cloak-| sections of Queens, during the past| loot. Next session will see their| fiers. The resolution was sponsored | nity of the United States will be sleeves at once, Follow WY. < i500 makers and Furriers, She made a| year, Joseph Fry was awaiting sen-| powerful, well’ “heeled” lobby once|by the New York State Medical collection which netted $36.50. This isthe second collection that Comrade | Shortly after he went on trial, | They will pull the ropes and| metic poisonings were discovered. | ticular boxer gets thru his perform-| at once, Schaeffer made. The first time she a | manipulate the wires and the senators — ance he will be a disfigured ear to Bie collected $87.50. Sacco and Vanzetti Shall Not Die!| and representatives will twitch and jRead The Daily Worker Every Day’ the good, tence today. He pleaded guilty more about the halls of Congress. Association, after many cases of cos- ready to bet their B. V. D.'s on the outcome, And by the time this par- the lead. Get on the job