Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/526

 512 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

workmen have been benefited by the system, each receiving $1000. The earliest one was paid in 1888. The premiums on the policies for the past year amounted to $2010.38, and at the annual reunion nineteen new policies were distributed. Several policies have lapsed, because workmen leaving the employ of the firm have failed to continue payment of premiums. To avoid this loss, all policies taken out since 1890 have been the twenty-payment endowment policies. Previous to that time the policies had been the old form of straight life insurance. This makes the plan more expensive for the firm but much more advantageous for the insured.

There has been placed to the credit of employes on deposit account, in lieu of life insurance policies, by reason of rejection of eight applications by insurance companies, a total of $486.26. There has been placed to the credit of twenty-one employes on deposit account, for those entering employ of the firm at thirty-six years of age and over, the sum of $2849.40.

The endowment benefits plan was introduced in 1890. For that year the sum of $1405 was distributed to thirty employes, an average of $47 each. For the year 1891 $2564 was dis- tributed to forty-eight employes. For 1892 $3025 was distrib- uted to fifty-one employes. There was at the end of that year an aggregate of $8169.65 due eighty-one employes. Of this amount $1209.89 was due twenty men who had left the employ of the firm.

On account of the recent industrial depression, there has been no distribution under the endowment plan for several years.

Such a system is capable of indefinite extension, and, with slight modifications, is applicable to most industries. The plan has been adopted by Daniel Green & Co. and the C. F. Zimmer- man Company, firms which have purchased some allied lines of manufacture developed by the Dolge firm. President O. D. Ashley, of the Wabash Railway, and the editor of the Raihvay Review, have advocated the application of this system to rail- ways. They believe that "in that line of industry the evidence