Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1905 — EXISTS FOR PUBLIC. [ARTICLE]

EXISTS FOR PUBLIC.

MUTUAL’S PRESIDENT CALLB TRUST A CHARITY. McCurdy Says Insurance la Not for Benefit of Assured—Helping; Mankind the Aim—Thinks He’s Worth Salary of $150,000. \ According to President Richard A. McCurdy, of the Mutual of New York, an insurance company is a great, beneficent missionary Institution —a philanthropical enterprise—not organized for the profit of the policyholders but for the good of mankind in general. Its duties, he declared, were to increase and spread its benefits over the entire earth. ~ “There has been a great mistake made,” he said to the legislative investigating committee, “about the real province of life insurance companies these later years. * ‘People have been led to believe that the main purpose was to make money for its policyholders. In my view that is not the purpose of such companies. They are eleemosynary. When a man insures in a company he should take into consideration the fact that he has entered a great philanthropic concern that is in duty bound to spread itself, even though this growth prevents him from realizing as much as he expected.”

Mr. McCurdy said he was connected at one time with the Widows’ and Orphans’ Life Insurance Company, of which Charles C. Raymond, the present head of C. H. Raymond & Co., the Mutual’s general agents, was president. Mr. McCurdy could not name any general agent of any other life Insurance company in New York City that received a compensation equal to that got by Raymond & Co. President McCurdy said it was his conviction with regard to all the agents that they were making more money than they should. Mr. McCurdy would not admit that the terms of compensation which allowed the Metropolitan agency to clear more than $200,000 in a year were excessive. He said that the Mutual had to pay high commissions in order to hold its agents. Mr. Hughes wanted to know whether Mr. McCurdy knew of any conditions in the New York agency that warranted the paying of such large commissions. “I don’t know of the conditions which exist with regard to the agency business in New York or anywhere else,” said Mr. McCurdy, impatiently. “I never,” he added, “have tried to find out, because it never came within the obligations devolving upon me that I should do it.”

Mr. Hughes wanted to know what steps had been taken to increase President McCurdy’s salary from SIOO,OOO to $150,000 in 1900, and whether he himself had suggested the increase. Mr. McCurdy replied that he never had requested an increase of his salary in all his life; that the matter was entirely in the hands of the committee on salary. “You would have continued to render your services at $100,000?” suggested Mr. Hughes. “I would have continued to render my services no matter what they paid me,” said Mr. McCurdy. “Did you interpose any remonstrance against the increase?” asked Mr. Hughes. “I certainly did not. I was not called upon to do so.” Mr. McCurdy said he accepted it as a recognition for what he believed the trustees valued his services. Mr. Hughes wanted to know whether there had been any unusual increase in his duties that warranted the advance in his salary. Mr. McCurdy replied that all such services are cumulative until physical or mental infirmity overtakes one. The result of past efforts, he said, was a fair thing to be considered as well as acquired familiarity, experience and thrift. Mr. Hughes asked whether the men who voted the raise in Mr. McCurdy’s salary weren’t actually controlled by him so far as their seats on the board of trustees were concerned through the power which he wielded in having the policyholders’ proxy. Mr. McCurdy said that the election of these men was not absolutely, in his power.