Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/667

 FRA TERN A L BENEFICIARY SOCIETIES 653

is nothing short of criminal. There is something radically wrong somewhere when a small organization can slide along in a happy- go-lucky fashion with its liabilities half a million in excess of its assets ; yet such is the case today. To wipe out so large an unfavorable balance requires special assessments. These are unpopular and threaten to reduce membership. The infusion-of- new-blood hobby is held up as an encouragement to the faithful members, until the inevitable must be faced. Relatively few fraternalists seem to realize that the only safe way is to charge whatever is necessary to cover the risk at whichever age a person may enter ; in other words, that the only way to do an insurance business is to conduct the same in accordance with well-estab- lished principles and business methods. If the standard mortality tables used by old-line companies are too high for the experi- ence of fraternal societies, let their own experience serve as a guide ; but until experience tables of individual societies have been actually established the use of some other reliable tables should be made compulsory. If fraternal societies can bring about a more favorable health experience, they should have an opportunity to do so. If they can reduce the cost of insurance, they will benefit society by extending the blessings of protection to ever-widening circles. If the expense element is at present too high, let them have free rein, consistent with safety, to demonstrate that it can be reduced. Their present weaknesses should not lead us into intolerance.

These remarks in regard to the safety of benefit systems apply only to those societies which promise a fixed sum to bene- ficiaries in certain contingencies. Although the exact number could not be ascertained, a careful estimate places the number of societies which will be excluded by this last limitation at from one-third to one-half of the whole number, so that approxi- mately only 50 per cent, of the fraternal societies will be directly affected by radical changes in protective features. The original fraternal idea was to have members contribute equal sums in specified contingencies, and the proceeds of such contributions, not exceeding a certain maximum nor the amount of a single assessment, to be paid to the beneficiary. This is not insurance,