A BOIL ON THE ADMINISTRATION'S NOSE
A Boil on the Administration's Nose It Is Red Ripe; Keep Your Eye On It! TWO YEARS AGO a new force came into the Wisconsin political field. Mr. Ekern, the Commissioner of Insurance had reported...
...Ekern, who was leading the fight, was removed from office and Mr...
...OUT OF EVERY DOLLAR COLLECTED THE COMPANY KEPT 62 CENTS FOR EXPENSES AND PROFITS...
...keep your eye on it...
...You should refuse to oppose just laws for the regulation of the insurance business...
...Last year the insurance companies organized their agency forces in Wisconsin to go into politics...
...They were active in electing members of the legislature...
...Life insurance taxes were reduced over $100,000 per annum and the burden transferred to the people...
...Years ago the railroad companies made the same fight against railroad rate regulation...
...The insurance companies played "high-jinks" with legislation...
...Now comes Insurance Commissioner Cleary and in his official report for 1915 he shows that foreign stock fire insurance companies collected from Wisconsin people in thai year $7,419,843.44 and paid back in fire insurance losses only $2,850,733.45 and kept for profit and expenses $4,569,109.99...
...On April 20, 1914, the Supreme Court of the United States in a notable opinion in which Justice Hughes, Republican candidate for President, joined, for the first time held that fire insurance rates were subject to regulation by law...
...The Governor recommended in his message the repeal of the State Fire Fund, whereby the state has saved 40 per cent of fire company premiums each year since 1903...
...You cannot afford to extort unjust rates from your neighbors and business associates...
...They wanted to continue to rob our people of more than two and a half million dollars each year...
...Immediately fire insurance companies awoke to the necessity of CONTROLLING LEGISLATION to prevent reduction of rates...
...Your business will not be imperilled but will be made legitimate...
...While the fight was on in the legislature to secure a law regulating fire insurance rates, Mr...
...They overcharged Wisconsin people for the year 1915 more than $2,700,000, measured by the average rates in the United States...
...You have nothing to fear from a law that will compel just rates...
...In the legislature of 1915 they defeated proposed legislation to control their rates...
...Cleary was appointed in his place...
...Railroad agents were forced to become political agent* We want to say to you agents of the fire insurance companies that you owe the duty to your policy holders of helping them secure fair and just rates...
...It is understood that they helped to organize the tax dodgers' Leagues...
...Their spokesman on the floor of the assembly was made Deputy Insurance Commissioner at an increased salary over his predecessor of $1,500 per year...
...it is red ripe...
...it is understood that in convention assembled the agents endorsed the successful candidate for Governor...
...Ekern, the Commissioner of Insurance had reported that fire insurance companies had OVERCHARGED THE PEOPLE of Wisconsin on the average more than $1,500,-000 each year for the preceding ten years...
...The companies tried to pass such a bill, but failed...
...The Insurance department then dropped the fight to regulate rates...
...This insurance scandal is a boil on the end of the administration's nose...
...They secured the repeal of the valued policy law...
Vol. 8 • August 1916 • No. 8
