Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/75

 district manager. The latter then forwarded the policy to the company with a brief memorandum on a slip of paper, saying:—

"'Will write you to-morrow in regard to this. I don't want to keep it in this office.'

"The next day the company replied:—

"'You were wise in not retaining anything in your office.'

"And, later reprimands its manager for sending in a preliminary proof, suggesting that 'it may cause us trouble.'

"A month later, when written to by the attorney for the claimant, the company states that it is unable to find such a claim and imagines that the widow has made a mistake in the name of the company and repeatedly thereafter denies that there is any record of such a policy. As a result of this flagrant larceny of the claimant's evidence, the company forces a compromise of $150, though informed that the claimant is a woman in destitute circumstances, with two small children, one of them but four months old."

"Policy 89,248. ; liability $300.

"Insured died from fracture of the skull, March 29, 1907. The company, using first one excuse and then another, delayed in every possible way settlement of claim, though its agent writes, on April 18, 1907, that