Document pB3pV7rYaNJrmVJDDVRpVRryj

THE THING I WANT YOU TO TAKE HOME AND THINK ABOUT" Business Session of the Managers' Annual Convention, January 29, 1925 Haley Fiske, President My dear friends, I have left for myself but a very few minutes to -av somethin? to you at the conclusion of this exhibit of the year's business. I don't like merely to read this record and dismiss you. I wont see y*u attain to he able to talk to you for another year, except as I hope to be able to meet many of you in the Field during the current year. (Appiause. i I don't count Saturday night. I t-tause in making way for other speeches. I cut my own down to the shortest possible limit, and what I shall have to say there will not be directed entirely to you. but also to the listeners-in. who, this vear. will be millions and millions of peopie. I understand that we have engaged all the systems, for a certain length of time, and that evervbodv who has any kind of a radio at ail. will be under the necessitv of hearing me speak and have the delight of hearing the other speakers. I like to confine my remarks sometimes to a text. I don't know but that before I get through today I may preach a sermon. I am very much stirred up. The Reverend Father Bull is one of the most dis tinguished men in England. He is a member of the Community of the Resurrection. That Community consists of learned men whose occupation is writing books and preaching sermons and also doing mission work. Father Bull is known ail over the world. One of the vows of the Communitv. as in other religious orders, is poverty. When a man enters a religious order, he has a vow not only of chastity, of obedience, but of poverty. All that he has is surrendered, and thereaiter he lives the Community life. Father Bull's Visit to Home Office Father Bull was in this country delivering a course of lectures at the General Theological Seminary. He became much beloved. I was privileged to meet him. He came to the Home Office. Later, he had a conversation with my daughter which was rather illuminating. With that notion of poverty and that idea that this material life of ours is temporary and that eternal life is the oniv thing worth con sidering. he said he never liked to meet or know rich men or the officers of rich corporations. You can see his idex He was good enough to add to my daughter that he made an exception in my case. And why? It was no merit of mine. He came here to the Home Office. He lunched. Then we showed him around. I thought he would never get through. He said he thought he had walked ten 439 440 Managers Annual Banquet. 1925 nuies Then he wrote me a note saying: "[ thoroughly enjoyed my visit to vnu and what I saw of your wonderiul work. The vast astronomical millions made me giddy. I really beiieve God is training some of you men of big business for use in His Kingdom, as a union "f the human race in a cooperative commonwealth of nations beneath the Fatherhood of Gon which is clearly His wiil. and He needs men who habitually think m millions." Cooperation Our Mission Cooperation, making ourselves instruments of good, carrying out the will of God for the betterment of humanity--is that or is it not our mission' That is the thing I want to say a word or two about, and that is the thing I want you to take home and think about. The thing is put upon us. not merely as a life insurance company, but as a life insurance company which has one-fifth of the population of the country insured, whose system involves weekly visits of agents, who make oOO.OOO.OOO or more calls a year in the homes of people who need help. That is the situation. It develops at once Oppor tunity. and I say that as men belonging to a great corporation and engaged in a great public work, it puts upon us Responsibility, and I say that human beings, such as you and your agents are, can't afford to get into this daily relationship with other human beings and neglect those opportunities. (Applause.) I am taking it for granted that I am addressing a body of men (and through them the agents of this Company whom I love) who are not mere agents of an insurance company, but human beings. They have God's life-blood in them. They have, as human beings, human relationships, and this Company creates for them an abounding human relationship. It puts them into weekly contact with millions and millions of people, and I say that no man who has the fear of God and the love of humanity in his veins can possibly meet those oppor tunities in the mere relationship of premium collections and death claims. It isn't possible, it seems to me. for a human being with a human heart to go around and make these visits and not do all the good he can. not contenting himself with simply keeping the contracts which the Company has made for him. The Howe Office Furnishes the Means Mow. if that be so. what can we do? What we have been doing at the Home Office is to furnish you the plan and the material by which vou can meet those GoD-given opportunities. First, of course, is nursing, and I have talked to you about that so often that I am not going to talk about it today, except to sav that I can not under stand at all the act of an agent in neglecting any sick Industrial policy holder who needs a nurse. Then. 1 am talking about literature year after year, and I don t want to say much about that. But. gentlemen, if you yourselves read the literature that we issue, you must be impressed with the fact that it is very, very instructive and helpful. I am persuaded that it has ; ; ' j AUDKIiSS B'. l;l<KE *41 ecu la-g"1;. :tc;iia:cd where it nuiil do die most go-><1 : io hone that \ot: ''`'i continue to sec that it ? distributee where it m 1 o tne most gon.i ati.i m the manner m ".inch it mil do the most goo.). \t'.d die maimer '.'.inch it viii dn -he most good is l.v consultation iict die viv'-s nm'-nure between tne agent and the family hor tni'f. - cars 1 have been nreacmng that this Company ours u- a tamih. \ am reioiced non :o think, at the end of a generation that evemnndv iceis it to tie a tamiiv Alter all. we arc memners of a great human lamiiv. and it is, that leeung ot a human relationship winch I want men to cultivate 1: is curious how the heart-much o: human -vmpathv will enter into men s breasts on the slightest occasion l was reading the other dav. a letter from one of our districts It was a storv to me extraordinary which illustrates the feeling ot iiow yearning peonle are. how aching people are to liave human friend ship ana sympathy (due ot our men called with an assistant or another age" at a house which he understood was uninsured. He knocked at tee door. The door was slightlv opened and then a bar thrust across, and the man said: "What do vou want?" "1 want to present to vou the subject of insurance." "I don t want to iiear vou. I have considered it. and I won't take any. and I don't believe in it. and vou can go awav " He said: "Well. 1 dunk I intent snv somethin? to vou that would be interesting at least to vour tamiiv ana coarsen it vou wouidn : mind lettme me in ior a few minutes " The man s face softened, and he said. "Well, come in " The agent opened the subject of insurine the father and the mother and the chil dren. and he made no headwav The man got up in a kind oi disgust, left the room and went out into the kitchen to shave Of course, the agent kept on talking to the wife The Christinas Mcssaac She hadn't anv power to sign an application, but on a chance the agent said' "1 wonder if you would like to listen to a uhristmas address made by the President oi my Company to the men and policy holders : because if vou would, i: happens that I iiave a disc in mv car outside and a little phonograph, and I can put it on and let vou hear it " W ell '! course curiositv go; me better of the woman, ana she said "Bring >: in " He put on the disc and repeated that Christmas message u a '-'ear 'r two ago winch went all o\er die country to agents an-, to ooncv"olders There was a listener-"' 'torn me kitchen. He nr.a.iv nurst into the room and said: "I missed par: of that. Do it er again It was done over again, and the agent left with the aooucaucn of father and mother and everv one m the children. .'Applause Of course, vou know that rerv enf told for the purr*>e oi anv ] exaltation of mvseit It is done ;nr the illustration o' w rat 1 am 1 insisting ;s true: that the hearts of working peooie are % earning tor | s^fnpatpy and human relationship, and as soon as that man mind 4 442 Managers Anneal Banquet. 1925 that the agent belonged to a corporation whose head thought it won while to deliver to him a Christmas messaee, he said: "I want to i a member of the corporation whose President thinks at Christmas < the welfare of all his policyholders of whom I am gome to he one Do you seer Can you get that argument, that feeling, that impulse th: was in the man's mind? That feeling is in the minds of all wotkio people, whether they admit it or not. The Meaning Reaches and Touches Men Who Work Now. Group Insurance, even more than Industrial Insurance. : reaching out to those men in this matter of human relationship; because it involves a cooperation between the employer and empiove The system of Group Insurance is one which, in effect, ties up u mutual contributions, ties up in a business sense, the emplover am the employe, and ties them up in a family sense. They are in partner ship in business, and they are in partnership in that sense of join: ownership, that mutuality which is the glory of the Metropolitan, tha: binding together of millions of people for mutual support, the most beautiful thing in the world. It is the consciousness on the part o: the employe that he and his boss are as one in this Metropolitan tarmiv --that is the great benefit that is produced bv Group Insurance. I: floes ameliorate and is sure to ameliorate the relationships between Capital and Labor, the employer and employe. Therefore. I am bring ing it to your attention because I fed that this Group Insurance busi ness which we are doing, doing to such a large extent, but to such a small extent as compared with the possibilities, is one of the most valuable things from a public point ot view which any corporation can be engaged in that is interested at all in life insurance. Influence of the Metropolitan in Linking Employers and Employes m Bonds of Mutual Interest I said to the Veterans last night, and I think I said to you last year, something about the great power of this corporation, its great mass of wealth, the great responsibilities that come and the great dangers that come. But, gentlemen, who can withstand the attitude of a Company which has not only the working men insured, but employer and employe tied together in Group Insurance? Fancy the industries of this coun try all members of the Metropolitan. Fancy the power that would come to any company, the defense against assault that would come to any company that has on its books great masses of the population ot this country, masses of people engaged in industry in cooperation with their employers. When you talk of Group Insurance in the Metro politan. you are not talking of Group Insurance at all, as it is com monly known. Group Insurance, as it is commonly known, is a svstem of what vou may call wholesale life insurance, the payment of premiums and the payment of death claims and the payment, perhaps, ot accident and dismemberment and sickness claims and all that. That isn t Metropolitan Group. Metropolitan Group Insurance is nursing. Metro politan Group Insurance is distribution of literature. Metropolitan Address it, :-t ' 'j.oup insurance i' ilic study ni -.vgienc n c worker Di.j vou iicar me read tin: list oi lortv oifterer.i :n:nits tun; Dr \Y \nr. Aright i- doing ! 1 : is division 1 l an vnu -ee thru !k - doe. n into ad the hazards ot empioiment: that h:s purpose i~ w> bring '"omr to die empiovor ms responsibility tor th.c health, the '.veilarc. the 'ives nt hi = employes - Lan vou fancy tltis Metropolitan entering into a:I the employments of this country and going down to the \wwKing nun through the etnnlover. or independent of the employer ..mi looking after his health, ins domestic conditions, ins methods ,,i carrying on his employment, the things provided for him in the place of employ ment. And this hygienic investigation and sv.rvev oi Dr. \V right is to go down into the homes of the working people ami see u hat thev are at home, wiiat can he done there :n the domestic way to advance their w el fare and health. Do you see now this human relationship extended to the nth degree, this Metropolitan center stretching out its tentacles in everv possible direction to reach the domestic and the working conditions <.f working people ; And then do you see that ;t is the sw eetest of ail dungs, the tender human relationships, the heart touch oi crowds who wii! saw, as vou go on m this work, that you are marked men in the communities in which you live' The working people wdi look up to vou as their friend and their advisor. Employers wdl be seeking wii to know wiiat more they can do. Capital and labor wiil lose tneir strife, anu. as Gop s people under the one roof, whether they be capitalists or iaboring men. thev mav be brothers, and vnu and your agents, as vou walk, will walk, in and out as brothers to humanity, as friends of evert man and as servants oi God. ( Long applause and cheers i i