Kingsley on Demagogs

President Darwin Pearl Kingsley of the New York Life Insurance Co. attacked the "foolish philosophy of the Declaration of Independence" before the 21st annual convention of life insurance presidents in Manhattan last week. As all men would be, life insurance men and social welfare leaders were startled. They listened eagerly to the rest of his speech:

"Men are not created equal and should no more have equal power in politics than they have in business; it's against nature. The rule of the demagog is a greater menace to national continuity than the rule of kings. Kings sometimes did great things, helped to create great civilizations, and then died out; but they did create. Demagogs never did and never will create a great civilization.

"Fundamentally, our government is not materially different from the republics which have preceded it. They were not scientifically organized. Neither are we. Our really great men are rarely in politics. Demagogs always are.

"Some day the real superman will come. He will have a fully developed brain; he will really be civilized; he will be led by reason, and he will think. Only a few men at any time have done any real thinking. Only a handful of men think now. Some day, because a majority of men think and have reconstructed society, governments will endure."

Social Welfare. Dr. Lee Kaufer Frankel, who has been with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., created that company's welfare department, which has distributed millions of pamphlets instructing people, not necessarily Metropolitan policy holders, how to keep well, how to avoid illness. By education and organization and by co-operation with public health officials he has helped the good health of the entire country. The life insurance presidents gave to Dr. Frankel a clock and desk-set last week.

Education. President William Herbert Perry Faunce of Brown University stood before the convention to flay the U. S. public school system. Said he:

"We have in America the largest public school system on earth, the most expensive college buildings, the most extensive curriculum, but nowhere else is education so pointless and aimless, so blind to its objectives, so indifferent to any specific outcome as in America.

"One trouble with our education in the past has been its negative character. It has aimed at the repression of faults rather than the creation of virtues. It has summed up all the virtues in 'Thou shalt not,' instead of opening vast opportunity in the cry, 'Thou mayest--thou canst.'

"Another defect is that our education has too often meant conformity to an accepted pattern rather than release of energy in construction."

Policies. The world's population now carries $101,000,000,000 in life insurance, policies. In the U. S. 62,000,000 people own 115,000,000, policies, worth altogether $87,000,000,000. By the end of this year the U. S. companies will have paid $1,500,000,000 to beneficiaries and policyholders.