NIGHT SESSION.
The PRESIDENT pro tem [Mr. Chapman in the Chair] directed the Clerk to read the bill [S. 325] concerning Offices and Officers; and a short time thereafter declared the bill read the third time.
The Senate adjourned until to-morrow.
DEFERRED DEBATE--PAGE 92, 2ND COLUMN.
Mr. HEFRON said it was not my purpose or desire when this discussion began to take any part in it, nor would I do so now were it not for some reflections made by the opponents of this insurance law upon the motives of those who support it. And since Senators have seen fit to characterize that law in rather harsh terms and impugn the motive of its authors and supporters, I deem it due to myself to say a word in reply.
I will not retort upon Senators in kind, for I trust what I have to say will be said without indulging in personalities and within the bounds of parliamentary usage and decorum.
I will not say that those Senators who so violently oppose this insurance law do so because of some personal grievance or spite against the Sentinel and Journal, because that would be impugning their motives. Neither will I say that their opposition to this law is due to and the result of urgent appeals made by jealous and selfish newspapers, because that would be unparliamentary.
This debate has take a wide range, and in the course of the discussion the insurance law of 1877, requiring foreign Insurance Companies doing business in the State to cause to be published semi-annual statements of their condition, in two newspapers having the largest circulation in this city, has come in for a large share of denunciation. I am free to say that I had the honor to be a Member of the General Assembly of 1877, and that I voted for that law.
I was again a member of the General Assembly of 1879, and voted against its repeal; and I am here to-day to take back nothing that I said or did in its support. I believed when I voted for that law that is was right, and neither time, experience or the argument of Senators has furnished me sufficient reason to change my first judgment.
This law requires all foreign Insurance Companies, before they can do business in this State, to file with the Auditor of State a statement under the oath of the President or Secretary showing the amount of capital stock, which shall not be less than $200,000, its resources and liabilities in detail, which statement shall be renewed semi-annually in January and July, and the Auditor shall cause to be published a copy of such statement in the two leading daily newspapers of the State having the largest circulation, and that such publication shall be paid for by the Company--not to exceed $1 per square.
Will some Senator tell me what is wrong with this law? Is it not the purpose of the law to have none but safe and solvent Insurance Companies in this State for our people to do business with? so that when they pay their money to a Company for carrying a risk they may have some assurance that when misfortune overtakes them, they, or those they leave behind them will reap the benefit of the investment and be honestly paid. Isn't it a fact that this law has driven every shaky and insolvent Company from the State? Do you object to that? Do you object to letting the people know the character and standing of the Companies with which they are dealing? If not, then why are you opposed to publishing these statements? If it is right to publish these statements at all, isn't it right to publish them in the newspapers having the largest circulation? It so, then the law is right.
These Insurance Companies take from the people of Indiana, every year, about $1,200,000, take it out of the State to be expended elsewhere, and in my judgment it is not asking of these Companies too much to make and publish twice a year these statements of their condition at an expense to each Company of about $60 per year. It is required in the interest of and for the protection of the people, and does no injustice to the Insurance Companies.
But this law is now characterized as a "steal," and I desire to remind Senators who use the term so flippantly, that the term "steal" was in this connection coined and put in circulation by a newspaper of this city after it failed to get a part of the advertising. That newspaper invoked the power of the Courts to compel the Auditor of State to publish these statements, under this law, in its columns, as the records in this Court House will show, and having failed in its attempt to get a part of the advertising, it turns around and stigmatizes the law as a "steal." According to its own logic, it ought to be made a receiver of the stolen goods, and having failed to get the plunder it denounces the robber.
But Senators say that these statements are padded and leaded and display too much. I would like to know when these foreign Insurance Companies became the especial wards of those Senators that they must look after the business advertising for them. When did these grasping corporations become so weak, powerless and incompetent to attend to their own private affairs, that the Evening News and a few country newspapers have felt called upon to inform them that they are paying too much for their advertising? I do not know whether they are paying too much for these advertisements or not, and I wouldn't swear that those newspapers that are making so much fuss about it do not measure the legal advertisements in their own columns with an elastic rule. For aught that I know, or that this Senate knows, these advertisements may be a good investment for the Companies; they may bring back the money put in them four fold. Certain it is, that the only parties affected by these publications and the only parties that know or have a right to know whether this advertising business is just or unjust, are not here asking for page: 100[View Page 100] any change. No memorial or petition has been presented to this body by the parties affected, asking for a repeal of this law. They are not asking for it. In fact we have it from the lips of the leader of this movement, the Senator with the fine Italian hand, that they are not asking for it, that no officer, agent or Attorney of any Company ever spoke to him upon the subject, but his bowels of compassion are moved solely and absolutely in the name of sweet charity, in behalf of these down-trodden and oppressed corporations.
I have before me copies of this morning's Sentiel and Journal, in which are published two of these statements, and I invite Senators to inspect their columns and they will fine that the adversisments of the business men of this city published therein are more heavily leaded and largely displayed than the statements of the Insurance Companies. And bear in mind that these business notices are voluntarily published, and from day to day, perhaps year round, whilst the insurance notices are published but twice a year. Why not advise these merchants that they are displaying their advertisements too much? that they are paying too much money to the newspapers? Senators certainly ought to take more interest in their welfare that in that of those foreign corporations that have no interest in common with us, unless it is secured by a mortgage. Whenever these Insurance Companies, by their officers, agents or attorneys, make known to this Senate their belief that this law is unjust, and that they desire its modification or repeal, I stand ready to award them a full and a fair hearing; but until that is done, I want these statements published. and that in a way too that the people can read them without glasses.
SENATOR BELL.
Mr. Bell--It is not right to advocate or opppose this measure on the ground that it is being done in the interest of or in opposition to any newspaper. The only thing that gives us the right to require publication of the statements of the condition of foreign Insurance Companies doing businesse in this State at all, is that the people may know their condition--the people they have to deal with. If we have the right to require them to publish at all, it must rest upon that ground. If it is right to require these statements to be made, it is right that they be made in the papers having the largest general circulation in the State. The minority report of the Committee in which I joined would leave the law standing as it now is and has been since 1877, namely--that they should make these statements semi-annually; that they should be published in the two leading newspapers published in Indiana having the largest general circulation, and the substitute would also allow them to continue to be published as display advertisements. I believe this to be right, especially as they are published only once--a single insertion, not like other advertisements, continuing for three or four weeks in a paper. It ought to be published in such a shape to display and attract attention of the reader. I have examined this matter, and I find whenever Insurance Companies, in their own interest, have advertisements inserted, they universally display them at least twice, usually four timesthe extent that the Auditor requires these official statements to be displayed. I have not heard of a single Insurance Company that objected to the publication as now being done; but, on the other hand, I have conversed with some of the agents of the leading Companies; not only were they satisfied with the law, but so well satisfied with the publication, I learned they were in the habit of going to the newspapers and having them inserted of their own accord and paying for them themselves. I have in my hand (exhibiting them for the inspection of the Senators) four publications in the Indianapolis Journal of a recent date, where the Insurance Company have and paid for a large quantity of space to make additional display to that required by the Auditor. At least $25 is added to the four statements for the very purpose of giving display head lines, and paid for additional by the Company. To allow them to crowd such advertisements into small type in some obscure corner in the paper would be to allow weak Companies to avoid scrutiny, for such advertisements are intended to appear for the benefit of the people. Strong Companies, those Companies that the people would be sure in doing business with, are willing now and in the future to continue to pay for these as advertisements of their Companies I find that in Indiana there is less paid for the publication of these official statements, and they occupy less space than any other State in the Union, with the single exception of Ohio. In Illlinois the publication of such reports cost at least twice as much as they cost in Indiana. This is really a small matter to these Insurance Companies, but is of great importance to the public and the people. This, in no other respect, compares with the ordinary legal advertisement, Sheriff sale, or anything of that kind, in that such advertisements, as I said before, run through several insertions, while these pub1ications made at Indianapolis are of interest all over the State, and are for but a single insertion; therefore, it is of more importance that they should be displayed so as to answer the purpose for which they were brought into existence. It is not fair to discuss this as being in the interest or in opposition to newspapers. We should consider what is right to be done in the interest of the people, and until those who are called upon to pay for these display advertisements--namely, the Insurance Companies--at least until some one of the responsible ones can be heard objecting, we might well continue to publish as they are now, and it will be time enough when those parties object.
SENATOR FOSTER
said: Mr. President, I have no other object in view but fair play in this matter. I want my good-looking newspaper men on this floor to understand that it is through my interposition that they have seats here. The gentleman from Posey can not object, for the newspaper men have published nearly every word the Senator has spoken while some of us have said nearly as much and have been noticed less frequently, so that the Senator from Posey can not complain on this score. I am not a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, or any other office that so places me under obligations to the Journal or Sentinel, so I have nothing to expect from either except fair treatment. The question is, is it right that these pubiications should be made. For one I contend that it is proper and right that foreign Insurance Companies should be compelled to make semi-annual statements of their condition and standing in order that the people who insure may know what are reliable Companies and what are unreliable. Since the law went into effect compelling such publications, we find that about fifty-two spurious Companies have been compelled to withdraw from the State, and the Companies now doing business in the State are reliable and safe to deal with. The arguments of some of the Senators that the advertisements set in solid type is sufficient I think is not correct, and unwise. If the publications are to be made at all, let the Companies--the officers of which spend $15,000 to $20,000 for suppers and wine and revel in luxury--pay for a respectable display that will not require spectacles to discover and read it. The Senator from Rush says that he is in favor of helping the poor printer and publisher; they are a poor class, page: 101[View Page 101] and hardly able to take care of themselves, which statement is entirely incorrect; newspaper men are generally well fixed financially, but I must say that lawyers are the most forsaken, poverty-stricken class on the face of the earth, I never knew a lawyer to have $5 in his pocket-book at a time in my life. [Here the Senator from Rush shook his pocket-book at the Senator from Allen, saying he had more than that.]
Probably you have, for I just saw you draw your salary as a Senator. Taking all things into consideration, I am in favor of the minority report.
