Coolidge v. Smith

From near Concordia, Kan., Walter Cyr, young farmer, vanished last week. After three days searchers found him atop a straw stack. Dreading capture, he gulped down poison. Purged by a physician, he explained that he had been so pestered by a life insurance agent that suicide had seemed attractive. . . . The pestiferousness of such agents-- porch-climbers, telephoners, buttonholers. classmates--may soon become a matter for the attention of Citizen Calvin Coolidge. Last week he accepted nomination to New York Life Insurance Co.'s board of directors and assignment to the agency committee where he will specialize in "human contacts." His formal election will occur in May. Twenty-eight years ago this same company considered Mr. Coolidge a doubtful risk and hesitated to issue him a $3,000 policy because he was 19 lbs. underweight.

Not as a business venture but as a "public service" did Mr. Coolidge accept his new work. Wrote he to Darwin Pearl Kingsley, president of New York Life: "Believing that life insurance is the most effective instrumentality for the promotion of industry, saving and character ever devised, that a well-managed mutual company is a cooperative society for the advancement of the public welfare. ... I accept the nomination. . . ." Mrs. Coolidge may benefit financially from her husband's new work. The company's directors are paid $50 in gold for each board meeting and $20 in gold for each committee meeting. By custom these payments are turned over to directors' wives some of whom last year profited to the extent of $4,100 in this way. Mr. Coolidge, retired public servant, is not alone in being elevated to high office in a big insurance company. Last month Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. elected Alfred Emanuel Smith to its board of directors.* There he will sit with one-time Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Alanson Bigelow Houghton (Republican),/- President of the Associated Press Frank Brett Noyes (Republican), Steelman Charles Michael Schwab (Republican), Lawyer John William Davis (Democrat), et al.

Mr. Smith's company is also a mutual company and therefore, by the Coolidge dictum, the Brown Derby is now performing a public service equal to Mr. Coolidge's --even a larger public service because Metropolitan Life is far larger than New York Life. A mutual company is owned by its policy holders, who share in its profits, whereas non-mutual companies are owned by stockholders who alone receive dividends. Sharp rivalry exists between Mr. Coolidge's company and Mr. Smith's company. A comparison: Mr. Smith's Company Assets--$2,695,475,965 1928 Income--$743,412,385 Policies in force--$42,329,281 Insurance in force--$16,371,956,002 Mr. Coolidge's Company Assets--$1,535,080,347 1928 Income--$356,405,867 Policies in force--$2,527,327 Insurance in force--$6,781,316,618

*Coolidge-Smith rivalry in private life will soon also extend to literature. Last week it was reported that Mr. Smith will write a series of personal and political reminiscences for the Saturday Evening Post. /- New York Life had the late Myron Timothy Herrick, Ambassador to France, on its board. It was to succeed Mr. Herrick that Citizen Coolidge was elected.