Meeting in Pittsburgh's William Penn Hotel in September 1931 for their forty-second annual convention, the associated agents issued a strong pronouncement of faith in the nation's capacity to deal with the current economic crisis. "Because of the present challenge involved in the world-wide financial situation and of the wide-spread concern of many people affected thereby," their resolution read, "the National Association of Life Underwriters…records its unshaken confidence and faith in the financial structure of the Country and in the resources and ability of our people to meet any emergency that may arise."

Equally assertive of optimism was the convention's theme, "Life Insurance: the structural Steel for Estate Building." The imagery, of course, derived from the fact that they were meeting in Pittsburgh—the heartland of the steel industry. More than 1,700 attended. Although the weather continued unseasonably hot and humid, everyone took a keen interest in the proceedings. Theodore M. Riehle, general agent for the Equitable in New York City, presided over the well-attended Million Dollar Round Table breakfast, and Huebner and Clark were on hand to give out CLU diplomas to the 42 graduates present. (There were 168 graduates in all that year.) The delegates elected Elbert Storer of Indianapolis to succeed Oklahoma City's George E. Lackey as president. Storer, who had served as membership chairman, could report that total membership in the 228 local associations had reached 19, 758.

In his report to the convention, Lackey spoke enthusiastically about the NALU's latest project, the Department of the American Family. Citing this program as another instance of the agents' interest in institutional advertising, Barnes observes:

From 1930 to 1934 the association promoted a Department of the American Family to bring about a closer cooperation with women's clubs and to continue the idea promulgated many years before of arousing the interest of American women in life insurance. An association representative traveled into all parts of the country, speaking before women's clubs and stimulating interest in life insurance. [vii]

Complimenting the program's director, Mrs. W.S. Pritchard of Garner, Iowa, on her extensive speaking tour, Lackey told the delegates, "I confidently believe that great food can come from this new Department. I am proud that it is a 'baby of my administration."

Another innovation introduced at the Pittsburgh convention was the General Agents and Managers Section, an extension of the convention program devoted to the problems of managerial members. Alexander E. Patterson acted as chairman: It became a regular committee of the NALU. In addition to study and research throughout the year, by the end of the decade a full day was devoted to problems in agency management at each annual convention.

Along with its new American Family program, the National Association's institutional advertising campaign gained added momentum when it won the support of the Association of Life Agency Officers in staging a nationwide celebration of Life Insurance Day on January 21, 1932, as part of National Thrift Week. It was hoped this would inaugurate a new era of collaboration since the NALU had never really received the wholehearted, consistent cooperation of the companies in promoting institutional advertising. Associations everywhere tied in with the nationwide advertising and publicity campaign. The radio proved an effective medium for this consciousness-raising endeavor. " Reaching to millions of homes throughout the United State," Life Association News reported, 'the radio told the story of Life Insurance as never before. In almost each of the leading cities and towns some use was made of this means to impress upon the unseen audience the great importance of Life Insurance in this time of economic disruption." Among the more impressive spokesmen enlisted for these broadcasts was Merle Thorpe, editor of Nation's Business, and Senators Robert F. Wagner of New York and Arthur Capper of Kansas. Robert B. Hull, Managing Director of the National Association, who was on his way west on his annual trip spoke over the air from Jackson, Mississippi. In many towns, displays were set up in storefront windows and , of course, local newspapers were utilized to get out the message as well. [viii]

The day's events were to have a significant impact on the development of industry-wide publicity for the rest of the decade, as Barnes explains:

For the first time the entire institution impressed its importance and significance on the public consciousness. Institutional advertising—in fact, institution-wide cooperation—was on its way.

The following year the activity was broadened from a single day into "Financial Independence Week," with fuller preparation and More complete knowledge of what was to be done. In 1935 it became officially know as "Life Insurance Week."

In 1936 the angle of approach was altered when the commercial aspects of the Week were eliminate. "one-week sales drives" which coincided with the celebration were deprecated, and it became more of an institutional, educational campaign, designed to acquaint the public with the larger aspects of life insurance and its services to America.

In that year the observance spread even more widely, with its basic newspaper advertising campaign backed by magazine articles, radio addresses, wide publicity, the cooperation of the United States Department of Commerce, which sponsored life insurance exhibits, and the increased use by local associations of every form of tie-in material.

In 1938 the celebration became still further removed from commercialism when its name was changed to "The Annual Message of Life Insurance to the Public.

The idea of the contest to bring about a greater awareness of life insurance, conducted into the early '30s by the Department of the American Family, which sponsored high school essay competitions in several states, was eventually assimilated into the "Annual Message" celebration. Over 250,00 high school students submitted essays for prizes offered by the National Association and its local units in 1937 and '38.

The public relations activities of the National Association, however, have not been confined to the one week of the "Annual Message." Since 1936, the association, through its Committees on Education and Life Insurance Information, has supplied material both directly to newspapers through the country and for distribution by local units. [ix]

Despite a gloomy economic outlook and a down ward trend on all sides, membership in life underwriters associations rose slightly in 1932, totaling nearly 20,000. NALU treasurer Robert L. Jones reported the organization showed a net profit of $1,760 above all expenses. Total assets were $73,728 with a surplus of $39,524. At the September convention, held at the Hotel Fairmont in San Francisco, Charles C. Thompson, manager for the Metropolitan Life in Seattle, became president of the National Association. The new vice presidents were men who would come to exercise considerable influence over the NALU during the decade: C. Vivian Anderson, Theodore M. Riehle, Lester O. Schriver, and Alexander E. Patterson.

The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as President of the United States in November 1932 ushered in a new era of national economic policy. As the nation sank deeper into the depression, Roosevelt's promise of a "new Deal"—a program of government initiatives to stimulate the economy—gave voters hope for a restoration of prosperity. His election represented an irrevocable turning point in domestic affairs. The policies initiated during his administration signaled a trend characterized by responsibility and power being centered in the federal government, rather than the various states. The federal government began exercising greater supervision private business, subjecting industry, commerce, and agriculture to tighter controls. With the advent of Social Security, the government assumed more and more responsibility for the financial welfare of the populace. Besides providing sustenance for the poor and indigent, in time, health care for all citizens and the education of the nation's youth also became special concerns of the government. The consequent expansion of the federal bureaucracy and the extension of its activities required enormous funds, to say nothing of later development necessitating a huge defense budget to wage costly was overseas and a program of financial aid to allies and their former colonies. The privilege of paying income taxes would no longer be confined to the upper echelons of society. During the next thirty years it would become a burden familiar to an ever-widening measure of the population. Inevitably, the movement toward centralization and paternalism in government, initiated in the early 1930's, had serous implications for the life insurance business. The agents watched these developments with growing interest. Many viewed the trends in public events with considerable alarm.

Meanwhile, with high unemployment and tight money, agents found it increasingly hard to find prospective buyers of life insurance. "During the thirties we had a heck of a time selling ordinary life insurance," Holgar Johnson remembers. "The only products you could sell then were things that were guaranteed. That's why we sold an awful lot of annuities. For a period of two or three years it seemed you couldn't sell anything but an annuity." (Johnson believes this is the origin of attitudes that were to prove perennial problems for agents later. "The created the idea that an endowment at 65 was virtually like an annuity," he explains. "You only paid a few cents more for it buy you got a life insurance policy along with it. It was sonly a matter of time before people started suggesting that the ideal plan was to buy term insurance and invest 'the difference.'") [x]

David Fluegelman, who served as a president of the NALU many years later, began his insurance career in1931. "It's only a slight exaggeration to say that during the early days of the depression, we sold only endowment policies," he recalls. "Since so many banks had failed, people felt that the safest place to put your money was in a life insurance company contract. Almost universally people preferred a twenty-year endowment over ordinary life." [xi]

Since the 1920's many agents had found the "guaranteed income" approach most successful for dealing with conservative-minded and more cautious prospects. Like a trust fund, the idea of a certain monthly or annual sum, rather that a "lump sum" settlement, appealed to those eager to provide security for their heirs or a regular income for their retirement years. In order to prop up the economy, one of Roosevelt's first acts was to take steps to debase the currency by fixing the weight of the gold dollar at 59.06 percent of the existing gold dollar. As a result, Buley relates, "Life insurance agents noted an increasing tendency on the part of prospects and policyholders to question the desirability of purchasing life insurance, the benefits of which would be paid in dollars of uncertain value. Company officers received many letters form worried policyholders and frequently were hard put to frame a satisfactory reply." [xii]

The Great Depression reached its depth in 1933. National income had dropped over one-half, and pressure on the life insurance companies' reserves intensified. In ever increasing numbers policyholders borrowed on their policies or surrendered them for cash in the emergency. More and more jobless heads of households had let their policies lapse. Amid a flurry of bank closings and business failures in other industries, America's life insurance companies, with their conservatively invested funds, generally remained strong, full capable of honoring their commitments to the policyholder. Even so, they drew sharp criticism in some quarters. In rural areas there was considerable resentment over the number of foreclosures on mortgages the life insurance companies held on farms—despite the fact that companies often allowed the dispossessed owners to remain as managers. As interest rates dropped, companies were also forced to reduce the dividends paid on policies, in order to protect their reserves. This gave rise to further murmurs of discontent.

Addressing the agents at their annual meeting in Chicago, in September 1933, Herman A. Behrens, president of the Continental assurance and Casualty Company, dwelt upon the part life insurance would play in the "New Deal" and called upon the agents to perform their roles well. "Never before have we as life insurance men had a greater duty than now to impress upon the public the need for the life insurance," he said, "and never has there been so great an opportunity to do so successfully."

Lester O. Schriver, chairman of the National Convention Program Committee, elaborating on the convention's theme ("Face the Future with Courage Through Life Insurance, the Stability and Security of the Nation"), exhorted the agents to take pride in representing "an institution whose gospel is a second chance for the widow and the orphan, and financial independence in the sunset of life." No group could regard the institution which they represent with greater satisfaction than the agents themselves, he thought, when they contemplated "the achievement of the institution of Life Insurance during the unprecedented cataclysm which has torn the economic world asunder during the past four years. It as indeed been a veritable 'Rock in a Weary Land,' " he added, "the philosophy and economics of which have sounded the only diapason in a world of economic discord." Emphasizing the remarkable durability the institution had displayed, Schriver reminded the agents:

American Life Insurance stands today as the veritable economic bulwark of the nation. It holds in sacred trust 21 billions of assets which belong to more than half of our people. Its financial program is sound. At no time has it borrowed more than two-tenths of one percent of its total assets to meet obligations. Its philosophy makes it not only a sound business enterprise but a great practical philanthropy. Its purpose and service not only make of life underwriting a wholesome and dignified profession, but also a holy crusade. [xiii]

While most of the meeting was devoted to discussion of the economy and methods of selling under adversity, the delegates also looked to ways of strengthening their professional ties. Charles Thompson had proven a capable leader. A very forceful personality, he had impressed the agents during his invitations to the various local associations, imbuing them with much needed optimism. The previous year, a special committee on the organizational structure of the NALU had recommended a modernization and broadening of the Association to include state associations as an integral part of the organization. The bylaws adopted at the 1933 convention marked the beginning of anew era in organization procedure for the NALU and opened new channels for further growth and development. The committee also produced a set of model bylaws for local and state associations. This set in motion a rapid succession of organized state associations. Although local associations within a state often cooperated to promote certain legislation and to conduct sales congresses, few state associations had a formal organization before the 1930s. The model constitutions for local associations also had positive effect. Adopted almost universally, this uniformity of aims and procedures aided in bringing about closer ties between the local units and the National Association.

In his report to the convention, Thompson reviewed the progress of the general agents' and managers' organization. Bringing the delegates up-to-date, he said:

One of the most important developments in many years is the inauguration of a General Agents' and Managers' Session which had its birth in Pittsburgh in 1931. Arrangements were made for a permanent organization at the San Francisco Convention last year, with Mr. Julian S. Myrick as Chairman. A splendid program for this year's session was prepared by a committee headed by Mr. Holgar J. Johnson.

The organization and functioning of General Agents' and Managers' Associations has been stimulated throughout the country. The usual plan, which I think is wise, is for a close affiliation of these organizations with the local underwriters associations. In several large centers, the General Agents' and Managers' body is a department within the underwriters' association. [xiv]

The delegates elected C. Vivian Anderson, agent for Provident Mutual I Cincinnati, president for the 1933-34 term. A huge man, Anderson had been in the first graduating class of the American College of Life Underwriters. His colorful and sometimes controversial personality became known as a power in association politics. They called him the "king-maker" because it was said, if you wanted to become president of the NALU, you would be wise to gain the backing of the influential Vivian Anderson. Greatly admired as a successful agent and loyal association man, some nevertheless found him insensitive and heavy handed. Anderson liked to display his physical prowess. Older Association men related that he took delight in terrorizing an unsuspecting young newcomer to NALU meetings by picking him up and holding him outside a hotel window, many stories above the street. When he died in 1959, Life Association News commented, "physically, he was a big man…wide of shoulders and of athletic bent—as befitting a former physical director and football coach." Calling him "a giant in our business," the editor noted that Anderson was the first president of the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters and a founder and life member of the Million Dollar Round Table. "He gave unstintingly of his time and unusual talents to help elevate underwriting to a professional status," he added.

Anderson was also the first NALU president to address the American Life Convention at what later became known as the traditional "Tom Grant Breakfasts." Sponsored by Business Men's Assurance and named after the company president, they became a regular feature of the life company presidents' annual meeting. Through visibility and good will, the breakfasts gave business Men's Assurance an opportunity to foster its reinsurance business among the heads of companies. At the same tine, since meetings were usually held soon after the NALU conventions, they provided an occasion for the new president of the national association to deliver a major policy speech before the industry.

Through the years—and particularly since the merger of the American Life Convention and the Association of Life Insurance Presidents into the American Council of Life Insurance—the Tom Grant Breakfasts have come to be regarded as an annual message from the field force. Conscious of the honor to the NALU and grateful for the Generous courtesy extended to the Association by the Business Men's Assurance Company, most NALU presidents have seized the opportunity to communicate the agents' paramount concerns to the company executives.

With his usual bluntness, Anderson emphasized the need for better recruiting and training of agents. "We are besieged in the field," he said, "with a demand for more men and more manpower, when there are a good many of us taking it on the chin."

There were 265 local associations affiliated with the NALU in 1934. For the first time, combined membership in these associations exceeded 20,000. Called the "Fifth International Convention," the annual meeting, held that September in Milwaukee, was conducted jointly with the Canadian agents. It happened that the honorary vice president of the NALU, the president of the Canadian association, was also named Anderson—A.D. Anderson of Toronto. He and Vivian Anderson obviously enjoyed the coincidence and played it up as they shared the platform at the opening session.

Concern over the state of the economy and the policies of the Roosevelt administration were clearly reflected in the remarks of Holgar J. Johnson, program chairman for the Milwaukee Meeting. IN discussing the convention's theme, "Life Insurance—the Cornerstone of Man's Financial Security," Johnson focused on the impact of the proposed social security legislation. "These changes will no doubt bring about national recognition for the need of individual old age security," Johnson observed. "Irrespective of the particular direction that such a trend may take, of one thing we can be certain, and that is that it will bring about a greater national consciousness of the need for personal economic security."

The reliability of life insurance, as opposed to the fickleness of speculative investments—so dramatically illustrated on Wall Street in recent years—was a thesis expounded by a number of speakers at the Milwaukee convention. One of the outstanding addresses on this subject, according to Wilfrid Jones, was that given by Paul Speicher of Indianapolis on "America's Best Financial Friend—Life Insurance." Another popular speaker was Grant Taggart, a million-dollar producer form Cowley, Wyoming. Commenting on his "stirring talk," Jones wrote:

As one who during the past eight years has continuous record of at least one application a week and of placing over nine million dollars of business on the books in his territory, a territory of sixty square miles, Mr. Taggart was well qualified to convey the meaning of success in his audience. "Do not be afraid of people," he said, "the most successful are the easiest to talk with about life insurance. Make a hobby of being through and natural; the harvest of side lines is barren regrets; settlement with application means that you are delivering his policy, to collect on deliver means that you are delivering your policy. There is all the difference in the world." [xv]

By this time the NALU had a standing Committee of Women Underwriters. During its first year (1933-34) the group was chaired by Sophia W. Bliven, manager of the Women's Agency of the Penn Mutual in Philadelphia. She was also the president of the newly-formed Women Underwriters' Round Table. In her address to the convention at Milwaukee Miss Bliven suggested targeting the American housewife for life insurance sale. "In our national advertising and in Independence Week we should take into consideration the women," she said, "And I am speaking now of the wife and the mother. We can take pattern from the General Motors Corporation and all the other large automobile concerns who spend thousands of dollars in studying how to make their product appeal to women." [xvi]

Anderson was succeeded by Theodore M. Riehle of New York City. In his address before the American Life Convention that fall, Riehle informed the company executives that the total membership of local life underwriters associations amounted to 22,583, representing 242 legal reserve life insurance companies, the highest in the forty-five hear history of the Association. "Life insurance companies have demonstrated., especially through these past five years, their essential functioning serving America," he said. "The agents, who I have the honor to represent, have been the servants of both—their representative companies, and the nation." He focused on three impairments that he felt inhibited the progress of the field forces: (1) the unprofessional image surrounding the number of part-time agents in urban centers; (2) the operations of obviously unfit agent; and (3) the undiscriminating selection of agents. The solutions, Riehle maintained, lay ultimately with company executives. He gave three reasons for the urgency of alleviating these problems. First, the interest of the public—especially policyholders—as well as the agents required better quality personnel in the field. Second, a highly competent field force would enhance public acceptance of the agent. Third, the companies would benefit materially, as lapsation and agent turnover were reduced.

During this period the Association was fortunate in having alert chairmen and reliably active members o its key committees. Largely unnoticed. The work of these committees often proved crucial in guarding the agent's interests. In January 1935, for instance, Life Association News announced:

The new year begins with a piece of real accomplishment by the Committee on Law and Legislation of the National Association for Life Underwriters.

It relates to the new Treasury Regulations ("Regulations 80") with respect to taxation of life insurance proceeds. On December 12th, the National Association sent out to all officers of local associations, a bulletin, telling the effect of a conference which its committee had had with Treasury officials, and enclosing a pamphlet construing the new Regulations. The position taken was challenged by certain "tax authorities" and our Law & Legislation Committee wen back to the Treasury Department and secured an express "clarification" of the government's position in line with your association's interpretation….A New pamphlet is being prepared, which will be ready by January 1st for general distribution. The situation is now in better shape even than that which resulted form the well known ruling of October 18, 1830. That should be good news to every life insurance man and woman. [xvii]

In the autumn of 1935, the NALU held its annual convention in Des Moines. Combined membership in all local associations had jumped to 24,307, and attendance at the convention was an encouraging 1,600 plus. Sessions were conducted in the main ballroom of the Hotel Fort Des Moines.

Des Moines mingled contrasting notes of nostalgia and futurism in transportation. Upon arrival, Riehle and his party were driven from the train depot to the hotel in an open Victoria coach. His exit from the convention city was regarded as even more novel. United Air Lines placed one of their latest tri-motor Boeing "air cruisers" at the disposal of the NALU officers who wished to fly home by way of Chicago. It was part of a promotional effort introducing businessmen to the timesaving advantages of flight while assuaging their fears about the dangers of air travel.

Lester O. Schriver succeeded Riehle. A former clergyman, an authority on Abraham Lincoln and an inspiring speaker, Schriver was one of the most respected men in the business. After graduation from Syracuse University in 1915, followed by a year's graduate work at Wesleyan, he became pastor of the Methodist Church in Middleton, Connecticut. There, in 1923, he began his career in life insurance as an agent for Aetna Life. During this period he also served as a member of the Common Council of the Connecticut General Assembly and state Senate. In 1925 he was called to the home office of Aetna Life as manager of sales training. He later became superintendent of agencies and, in 1929, was named general agent at Peoria, Illinois, wit jurisdiction over seventy-seven counties. Very influential in life insurance circles, Schriver had done much to build up the associations in Indiana, Illinois and the other mid-western states. He proved very effective in raising membership in local association throughout the country.

The Introduction of Social Security legislation naturally aroused the interest of life insurance executives and agents alike. The chief impetus for enactment of the Social Security Act came from the Roosevelt Administration. The initial law provided old-age benefits as a matter of right supported by a payroll tax, which later after expansion, came to be known as the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance System (OASDI). Another element was a State Federal Unemployment compensation system financed by a payroll tax. There was also aid to dependent children covered by grants-in-aid to the states.

Initially, many in the insurance business reacted negatively to the idea, regarding Social Security as a move on the pr to the government to compete the private insurance. To some it seemed merely the first step toward nationalizing life and health insurance. Predicting the eventual doom of privately-sponsored pension schemes, coverage for disability and illness, endowments and death benefits the heard in the Social Security Act of 1935 the death knell of the life insurance business in America.

Most life underwriters, however, soon discovered that Social Security, like War Risk insurance a decade and a half earlier, acted as a consciousness raising device, reminding people of the need for having sufficient coverage beyond the minimal benefits of Social Security. It became a starting point in sales presentations. In discussing estate planning with prospects agents found themselves explaining the benefits, along with the limits of Social Security. As Buley comments:

Although it was one of the most basically important laws enacted in the United States during the present century, it was—and remains—but poorly understood by the average citizen, both at to its provisions and long-term implications. The life insurance companies through their literature and agent training programs provided the public with much information of the benefits and their frequent liberalization, but naturally could not explain to the public the financial basis of the Social Security system. [xviii]

In addition to speculation about the advent of government sponsored insurance and the difficulties of marketing life insurance in a depressed economy, the associated agents continued pursuing the seemingly unattainable goal of a totally professional field force. During Schriver's administration the NALU initiated an all-out effort to gain company support in establishing qualifying and performance standards for career life underwriters. Barnes observes:

One of the most important steps taken by the Association during the '30's in fact during its entire history, of particular significance both to the agent and the public, which it conceived and sponsored, is the Plan for Improving Agency Practices. A Declaration of guiding Principles and Agreement was approved by the National Association and the Association of Life Agency Officers on February 26, 1935. This agreement has for its purpose the elimination of the part-timer from urban centers of over50,000, population, and the elimination of the unfit agency everywhere, While neither of the conferring bodies expected to correct all of the abuses of life insurance in a dingle stroke, the agreement gave new heart to those who felt that a few incompetent and part-time agents were preventing the underwriter form reaching his rightful place as a professional advisor in the American economy. [xix]

Speaking before the American Life Convention at their annual meeting in November 1936, NALU president Alexander Patterson urged the members' support of the Agency Practices Agreement. "One of the main features of this agreement," he said, "is the elimination of part-time agents in urban centers…. Likewise, it provides for the cancellation of contracts of all unfit agents.

"I believe I can speak for the field," Patterson added, "when I applaud the action of the 57 companies that have voluntarily signed the Agreement." For agents, he said, the Agreement meant that everybody in town could no longer sell life insurance, because of the stipulation that two reputable citizens had to endorse an applicant and he must take a rather searching examination. He predicted the Agreement would bring more respect to the underwriter's profession.

For the time that it was allowed to exist, the agreement was effective. By 1940 over two-thirds of the total business in force and new business being written was subject to the conditions of the Agency Practices Agreement. [xx]

Patterson, agent for Penn Mutual in Chicago, had been elected during the Association's annual meeting at Boston's Statler Hotel in September 1936. It was a well-attended and exciting meeting. Inevitably, holding national conventions in Boston, site of the Associations founding, evokes reminiscences. Pointing out that it was Graham C. Wells' thirty-seventh convention, Wilfrid Jones, in predictably breathless prose, exclaimed, "The National Association is celebrating Old Home Week and at the same time its forty-even years ago, is no longer standing and even if it were it would be wholly inadequate to house the hundreds of guests who are attending this year's great convention."

That year women life underwriters began having a program at the NALU annual conventions. It was at the Boston meeting that a women's Quarter Million Dollar Round Table was formed. Corinne V. Loomis, associate general agent with the Paul Clark agency of the John Hancock at Boston, was its first chairman. The luncheon for all who had qualified for $250,000 production was attended by thirty-six ladies representing thirteen companies. In his report to the delegates, Schriver reviewed the development of these programs during his administration:

Women underwriters, under the chairmanship of Sara Frances Jones of Chicago, are becoming recognized as an increasingly important factor, not only in our business but also in our Association. The women are realizing more and more what the association movement can do for them. Specifically, the full day's session for women underwriters, which will be inaugurated at this convention and the formation of the younger sister of the Million Dollar Round Table, the Quarter Million Dollar Round Table for Women, is indicative of what is developing along these lines. [xxi]

Concern about the delicate matter of ethical business practices led the leaders of the NALU to undertake a revision of the life underwriters' Code of Ethics. Barnes explains:

Feeling that the Code of Ethics, as brought forth in 1918, needed revision in the light of modern methods of selling life insurance, a special committee placed before the 1936 convention two documents of national significance; a short form Code of Ethics, and a linger Declaration of Business Principles, both outlining the underwriter's responsibilities and duties. [xxii]

Two months after being elected, Patterson resigned as president of the NALU when the trustees of Penn Mutual elected him vice president of the company. Riehle agreed to serve as president until the next convention. "The Board unanimously offered the unexpired term of office to vice President O. Sam Cummings, who stated that for personal reasons he was not in a position at this time to accept the presidency and requested that someone else be elected to the position," Life Association News Reported. "The By-laws do not provide for the succession of the Vice President to the Presidency in the event of a vacancy between conventions, but for filling the vacancy through election by the board from its own membership." Explaining further, the editors stated:

The Board felt it was important that someone should fill the gap thus created who was actively associated with the present administration and sufficiently familiar with the Association's affairs to assume the responsibility and carry on the policy and program which have definitely been established for this year. In this emergency, the board drafted past President Theodore M. Riehle. This left a vacancy on the Board of Trustees, which was filled by the unanimous election of Harry T. Wright of Chicago. Mr. Wright is a personal producer for the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, a Past President of the Chicago Association of Life Underwriters and immediate Past Chairman of the Million Dollar Round Table conference at Boston. [xxiii]

"They did a very sensible thing," comments Benjamin N. Woodson, who at the time was employed at the home office of Mutual Trust Life at Chicago. "Ted Riehle had no political ambitions at all. He was a warm and gracious man who never stepped on anyone's toes." Patter's resignation created such a noticeable vacuum, Woodson explains, because he was one of the great personalities of the industry. "Alexander Patterson was so magnetic," he recalls. "He was a man of great ability who never failed to make a tremendous impression. He had an extraordinary gift for saying exactly the right thing. One of the industry's truly great leaders, Patterson was dynamic and spirited." Patterson's subsequent career only served to confirm the impressions he left with his colleagues at the NALU that here was a person of enormous leadership potential and considerable business acumen. As Woodson points out, "He helped build two great companies. Having played a big part in the success of the Penn Mutual, he went on to do the same for the Mutual Life of New York, which was near the very center of influence end prestige in the life insurance business at the time." [xxiv]

That the agents persevered in advancing programs for improving the field force and the business in general with such enthusiasm and optimism is a tribute to their faith and stamina. At mid-decade the economy was still not improving as had been expected. New business for many companies fell in 1936 and again in 1938, though not as low as in 1933. "Despite all the efforts of the New Deal the depression persisted," Buley observes. "At the end of 1936 the United States, from the stand point of recovery, ranked at or near the bottom among the leading nations of the world; billions of dollars of idle capital were still awaiting profitable employment and about 10,000,000 persons were still unemployed." [xxv]

Social Security continued to be a subject of great interest during the year. The program of the 1937 convention in Denver focused on the subject; the consensus appeared to be that, since the national consciousness for security had been aroused, life insurance should utilize the trend and make it clear that the government's program at best could be but a partial fulfillment of the goal.

The delegates elected O. Sam Cummings, general agent for Kansas City Life at Dallas, Texas, president of the national organization. A meticulous parliamentarian, Cummings was the chief author of the NALU's revised and hotly-debated bylaws. He had been a protégé of Orville Thorp and enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as an industrious association worker. At a surprisingly young age, Cummings had been the national executive of Kiwanis International before he entered the insurance business. It was his executive ability at Kiwanis headquarters that brought him to the attention of Joseph Reynolds, an executive and chief stockholder of Kansas City Life. Reynolds recruited Cummings to manage a cluster of agencies in Texas, where his energy and talent had gratifying results. Barnes remembers him as one of the NALU's martinet presidents, insisting that everything be planned to the last detail. He as particularly conscientious about fulfilling all speaking engagements, and perhaps overextended himself in that regard, traveling over fifty thousand miles to hold conferences and addresses meeting in thirty-nine states and three Canadian provinces. "He was about five foot five in height, Napoleonic in temperament and outstanding in ability," says Woodson. "Cummings was a very dominating personality, but because of a certain gentility, he was less abrasive than Vivian Anderson. A real take-charge executive, he ran meetings with the pound of a gavel," he recalls.

In October 1937, a mass meeting of the unionized debit agents occasioned considerable comment in the industry press. Though not indifferent to the plight of these agents, the NALU generally remained aloof from labor union tactics among the field force. An editorial in the Association's magazine the following month reported the incident and registered the associated agents' disapproval:

Last month, five thousand members of the industrial agents union held a mass meeting in the Manhattan Opera House in New York. According to reports of the meeting in the press, William B. Herlands, Chief Assistant to Special Racket Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, who was the principal speaker, said: "In the course of picketing and strikes, there may be violence—that is not a racket. This violence we recognize as rather inevitable." And previously, the report quotes L.W. Berney, general organizer for the agents as stating: "We are ready to go through whatever is necessary to bring the companies to grant us a contract on the basis of our demands."

The editor explained that the NALU, of course, was not opposed to collective bargaining, but emphasized "We are opposed to anything that may tend to lower the standards of life underwriting." As he pointed out, Cummings had given expression to the associated agents' view of agent company relations a month before in Chicago during his address to the American Life Convention:

There is an intimacy of relation between life insurance agents and the companies which does not exist between independent contractors and the concerns with which they do business in any other field. That intimacy of relation should be strengthened rather than diminished. No forward movement among the field forces of American life insurance can ever reach a successful conclusion without the wholesome cooperation and the support of the companies. [xxvi]

On that occasion, Cummings had touched on other and related matters of concern to the associated agents as well. He noted the cooperation of companies through the years in efforts to train agents better and their more recent adoption of the Agency Practice Agreement. Among its implications for the agent, Cummings mentioned the question of compensation. "It seems to me," he said, "one of the most serious problems confronting us is assuring the average agent a decent living income, not only after he has gained some proficiency as a life underwriter, but from the time he enters our business." He concluded his address by advocating more recruiting among college students and interesting colleges in internships form prospective agents.

During the 1930's the NALU withdrew form the field of insurance publication, through it continued to function as a clearinghouse and distributor of insurance texts. By the end of the decade, however, even this activity had been dropped. As Barnes explains, "In 1938 the national officers felt that this function as well was being handled so completely by the insurance publishing houses that the Association's participation in this field was no longer necessary, and it withdrew completely in order to devote more time and effort to the many other activities that had been established with the passage of the years." [xxvii]

The 1938 convention as held in Houston. The NALU's vice president, Holgar J. Johnson of Pittsburgh, became president. A vigorous man both mentally and physically whose interest in golf helped maintain his trim, athletic good looks, Johnson had been involved in the Association movement since the summer of 1922. It was then, immediately after graduating form the University of Pittsburgh, that he joined the Connecticut Mutual's Hemingway agency in Pittsburgh. Within six months Johnson was put in charge of agent recruiting and training. He performed somewhat of a miracle for the times by recruiting and training an agency composed almost entirely of college graduates. In four years, the agency went from 27th in production to Connecticut Mutual's third most productive agency. Impressed, company officials asked Johnson to come to Hartford to develop a program for teaching general agents better recruiting and training techniques. He devoted two years to traveling around the country, instructing and encouraging general agents in agency development. Since 1928, Johnson had headed the general agency in Pittsburgh for Penn Mutual.

The Association's vice president, Charles J. Zimmerman of Chicago, was in charge of all the arrangements for the convention. Opening ceremonies took place in the huge music hall of the Houston Coliseum on August 28. By this time, mass meetings such as the NALU's annual conventions, both in this country and abroad, had taken on many of the ceremonial trappings familiar at such gatherings today. This was partly due to technological developments and partly due to the influence of the element of spectacle featured in movies, operatic productions and other theatrical exhibitions and nightclub extravaganzas. Encouraged by recent advances in sound technology and lighting, producers of conventions dazzled audiences with an impressive use of loud-speakers and floodlights. It was at the Houston meeting that the NALU first exploited these new capabilities to any large degree. Describing the opening ceremonies, Life Association News rhapsodized, "Trumpets signalized the start of the festivities, the Stars and Stripes, the Canadian ensign, and the National Association emblem, were in turn spotlighted on the great stage, as the audience sang the National Anthem…Then the curtains parted and a huge map of the United States was revealed. As President Cummings called the name of each trustee he appeared through the map at the spot of his home city."

Though it might appear that the NALU conventions at this point were becoming somewhat unwieldy, as they tried to incorporate so many evens and accommodate the several agent organizations, they evidently suited the needs of the time. Clearly everyone enjoyed themselves immensely. Over 700 general agents and managers attended the meeting of the Managers' Section. "The Million Dollar Round Table," the reporter noted, "back from a relaxing weekend on the Gulf, convened at its annual breakfast and all day session, with dignitaries from throughout the state welcoming them to Texas, and the Women Underwriters' meeting was in full swing with an extended program of speakers, a clinic and a luncheon. The boards of directors of the National Chapter, C.L.U., and The American College also held conferences."

Events were brought to a conclusion with a mammoth Fellowship Luncheon o Friday, September 23, presided over by Neil Sills, NALU's president of 1912. The featured speaker was Assistant Secretary of War Louis A. Johnson who delivered a stirring address on "First Lines of Defense," drawing a parallel between the insuring of life by agents and the insuring of the nation's future democratic happiness by the defense forces.

That fall the release of an interesting study conducted by researcher Dr. Albert Gailord Hart of the University of Chicago confirmed the oft-repeated assertions of the life underwriters that the life insurance industry had survived the depression in good health. "Life insurance companies were disturbed less by the depression than any other major type of private credit institution," reported The New York Times on October 3, 1938. Quoting the three-year study, the article stated:

Of all the major classes of private credit institutions, life insurance companies, the second largest group, were least disturbed by the depression, in spite of an increase in policy loans in the worst period, their growth was checked somewhat at that time, but never was there a serious shrinkage. Even though unemployment and bad business reduced the flow of savings, the reputation of the insurance companies for solidity attracted investors.

Earlier that summer, Senator Robert A. Taft, in an address before the Ohio Association of Life Underwriters, had observe:

In my opinion there has never been a time in our history when life insurance is playing a more important in the economic welfare of the nation and the economic welfare of the individual. In a time when most people are leaning on the government, it is based more than any other institution on the virtues of individual thrift and industry and interprets those virtues in a happy old age, into education for one's children, and into a provision for one's family after death. [xxviii]

Though justly proud of having survived the depression thus far, the prudent and more far-sighted leaders in the business were not resting on their laurels. When he addressed the members of the American Life Convention a few weeks after his election, Johnson reiterated the NALU's commitment to improve the sales technique and the educational background of agents. Advocating more stringent requirements for those entering the business, he also asked that company advertising be directed more toward building the prestige of the agent. "It is my belief," he said, "that the agent in the field is the most important instrument of goodwill in our business"

Johnson's commitment to developing better public relations for the life insurance business was by now an industry commonplace. "I made 110 speeches the year I was president," he commented years later, "emphasizing that the only way the public knew about a life insurance company was through the agent. The agent is the real public relations officer of a life insurance company."

Enlightened home office executives, as well as a progressive-minded agents, shared Johnson's belief that the time had come for a specific, ongoing program of institutional advertising for the life insurance industry. Early in 1938 the NALU had passed the "Richmond Resolution" which represented a culmination of the study and thinking of Association leaders along public relations lines. Spearheaded by Cummings, Johnson, and Riehle, the idea readily won the endorsement of the other officers. In proposing the plan, Cummings said:

What I have reference to is some central agency—established either in some existing organization maintained with company membership and financial support, or, if necessary, a new agency financed by the companies. Such an agency would not only prepare and release information to newspapers and periodicals, but might well provide speakers representing the institution of legal reserve life insurance to appear before various organizations throughout the country. [xxix]

The proposal was endorsed by the NALU's National Council (i.e., the officers and representatives of local associations) at their midyear meeting on March 12 in Richmond, Virginia. The resolution stated:

BE IT RESOLVED, that the members of the Board of Trustees of the National Association of Life Underwriters express to the Presidents of all Legal Reserve Life Insurance Companies in the United States, their considered belief that, in line with the obligation to policy owners, there is a vital need for some Public Relations agency, operating throughout the year, made effective by the Companies, for the purpose of bringing to the public generally a more complete understanding of the fundamental social and economic, human and moral services rendered by the institution of legal reserve life insurance and its agency forces, to the nation.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this Board pledges its fullest cooperation in any such undertaking, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution be sent to the Presidents of all such companies.

This seemed to provide the final stimulus needed for the industry to take definite action. Thereafter, and continuously up to the beginning of 1939, there was widespread discussion activity in all branches of the life insurance business. The Association of Life Insurance Presidents and the American Life Convention set up a joint committee headed by Frazer B. Wilde, president of Connecticut General Life, to come up with an organizational plan for a nonpartisan, industry-wide public relations arm. As a result in January 1939, the Institute of Life Insurance was established, with office to be located in New York City. Originally seventy-six companies committed themselves, putting up $298,00 for the initial operating budget. Twenty years later there were 167 member companies contributing $1,645,000 per year. Appropriately, Johnson became the Institute's first president. He took the job as a two-year assignment and stayed for twenty-two years. As he explained later, when Frazer's committee was formulating its organizational plans, Johnson was called in several times for consultation, in his capacity as the president of the NALU. "I had no idea, nor I think had they, that I would be the man tapped to take on the job heading the Institute," he commented later. [xxx]

The NALU during this period was often looked upon as a mediator—or at leas as an organization that might have influence with the companies. Since the mid-1920, when life insurance agents who sold to wealthier clients began working extensively with trust officers at banks, a close understanding had developed between many bankers and agents eager to help patrons plan their estates. Occasionally prominent, progressive-minded bankers and trust officers ad addressed local life underwriters associations—and conventions of the NALU as well—on the role of life insurance in developing trust funds. "When I was NALU president," Johnson recalls, "I remember having a very important meeting with the officers of the trust companies because many of the life insurance companies were beginning to issue what were really trust agreements. Some of the lawyers and the trust officers were concerned that these companies were taking business away from them. The asked us to approach the companies to insist that trust agreements be drawn up by banks or lawyers—not by companies. This is illustrative of the kind of role the NALU was playing in the decade before Wold War II," he concluded." [xxxi]

Foreword by Alan Press, 1988-1989 NALU President

Preface by Jack E. Bobo, 1989 NALU Executive Vice President

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Laying the Foundation—A Meeting at the Parker House

Leading Figures—Ransom, Carpenter, Blodgett and Plummer

Conditions Leading to the Foundation of the NALU

Rise of Modern Life Insurance and the General Agency System

Issues and Accomplishments of the First 15 Years

Chapter 2

In the Wake of the Armstrong Investigation

A Royal Commission Investigates Life Insurance Operations in Canada

A Period of Growth and Visibility for the NALU Under Strong Leadership

The NALU Plays a Leading Role in Insurance Education

The NALU During World War I

Chapter 3

The Post-War Decade

The NALU's Extension of Activity

The Agents Move for Recognition

Chapter 4

The Depression and Aftermath

Annual Conventions and Midyear Meetings

The NALU Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary

Chapter 5

The Agents Earn Their Wings

World War II

The NALU Joins the Industry in Legislative Battles

The NALU Establishes the National Quality Award

Chapter 6

Controversies and Schisms (1946-1956)

The Foundation of LUTC

The Nola Patterson Affair

GAMC Formally Organized

Chapter 7

The NALU Goes to Washington

Dispute Over Minimum Deposit Insurance Plans

GAMC Stages First LAMP Meeting

The NALU Celebrates Its Diamond Jubilee Year

The NALU Increases Political Activity

U.S. Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee Investigate Life Insurance

The NALU Responds to Consumerist Activism

Chapter 8

The NALU Reaches the Century Mark

FTC Releases a Study Critical of the Insurance Industry

Formation of the Women Life Underwriters Conference

Drop in Local Membership

The NALU Issues Statements on AIDS

The NALU Combats a New Wave of Attacks

The NALU Celebrates a Century of Service

Open Book

Short Takes

Book Marks

[vii] Barnes, Op., cit., p.42.

[viii] Cf. Op.cit., February 1932, pp 504-505.

[ix] Barnes: Op. Cit. Pp42-43.

[x] Johnson: Interview, May 1985.

[xi] Fluegelman: Interview, Anaheim, California, September 11, 1985.

[xii] Op. Cit., pp. 999.

[xiii] LAN, October 1933, p. 103.

[xiv] Ibid., p. 98.

[xv] LAN, October 1934, p.84.

[xvi] Ibid., p. 192.

[xvii] Op. Cit. P. 400.

[xviii] Buley: Op. Cit p. 1095.

[xix] Barnes: Op. Cit. P. 45.

[xx] Ibid., p. 45.

[xxi] Cf. Proceedings, 1936, p. 236.

[xxii] Op. Cit., p. 48.

[xxiii] Op. Cit., December, 1936, p. 347.

[xxiv] Woodson: Interview, Houston, Texas, July 26, 1985.

[xxv] Buley: Op. Cit., Vol. II p. 1087.

[xxvi] Op. Cit., p. 259.

[xxvii] Op. Cit., p. 48.

[xxviii] LAN, January 1939, p. 428.

[xxix] LAN, April 1938, p. 710.

[xxx] Holgar J. Johnson and Croswell Bowen, Speaking With One Voice, Appleton-Centruy-Crofts New York, 1967, p.2.

[xxxi] Johnson: Interview, May 1985.

Chapter 5: Agents Earn Their Wings

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