It was the 1951 convention that finally approved the creation of the General Agents and Managers Conference (GAMC). Its organization was a natural outgrowth of the long tradition of having all-day sessions for those in agency management at the annual conventions, which itself was the product of general agents and managers organizing at the local level during the 1920s—even earlier in some places. The development was inevitable. Originally, general agents and managers dominated the life underwriters associations. During the earliest period, some associations did not even admit “soliciting agents” to active membership. As the associations became more mixed in membership, there was less room in programming for the special interests of agency management. Consequently, the general agents and managers started supplementing regular association activities with special programs to accommodate their particular needs.

The year before, at the convention in Washington, the National Council had voted on a change in the Association’s bylaws that opened the way for permanent organization on the national level. There was considerable discussion the convention floor with W. Thomas Craig of Los Angeles, chairman of the newly formed Committee on General Agents and Managers, proposed creating two sections within the NALU “to be known as the Agents’ Section and General Agents’ and Managers’ Section.” The final motion of the amendment was approved.

The amendment gave the general agents and managers considerable latitude. At the midyear meeting in Minneapolis the following spring Craig, in reporting on the progress of his committee, noted the amendment provided “that the General agents and managers Committee shall establish such rules and regulations for the conduct of their affairs as they may deem advisable, including the selection, election or appointing of officers, governing bodies, and sub-committees, providing, however, that rules and regulations shall be approved by the Board of Trustees of the National Association of Life Underwriters.”[xxxiii]

By the time of the Los Angeles convention, the stage was set for the formation of permanent group. Calling for a dissolution of the standing committee, Carlton W. Cox chairman of the Committee on Bylaws, introduced the measure. Life Association News reported:

Mr. Cox then introduced the next amendment to change the name of the General Agents and Managers “Committee” to “Section.” There was lengthy discussion form the floor in opposition to this, the fear being expressed that the word “section” might be construed to indicate a split or division in the Association’s ranks. An alternate suggestion was presented to the chair by Gerard S. Brown of Chicago, who believed the word “conference” should be substituted for “section”…The motion was approved by the council.[xxxiv]

The new organization conducted its first major program during the NALU midyear meeting with a luncheon in the North Terrace at Chicago’s Edgewater Beach Hotel on March 17, 1952. Already, the conference could claim 3,500 paid members. Charles W. Campbell, chairman, introduced the guest speaker, Holgar J. Johnson, president of the Institute of Life Insurance, who spoke on “Today’s Challenge to Field Management.” He emphasized that much of the success of an agency stems from the attitude of the general agent or manager. “He must be genuinely interested in his people, wanting to see them succeed,” Johnson said. The afternoon was devoted to hearing a number of speakers on the problems of agency management.

Equally significant for the future development of the NALU was Cleeton’s proposed building fund to buy a permanent headquarters for the Association. The Board of Trustees has apparently already instituted a “study” on the feasibility of relocating the Association’s offices, at Cleeton’s behest. Pointing out the annual rent for the New York offices amounted to $22,500 Cleeton told the delegates, “After 63 years of existence as a highly constructive forced in the life insurance business, I, as well as many others, have felt that like any good American family, we should own, rather that rent our home.” The delegates endorsed the idea, the NALU Memorial Building fund Campaign was authorized and in August the Association’s magazine began publishing lists of “Charter Builders”—those who had contributed $100 or more.

An all-time high of 8,849 agents qualified for the National Quality Award in 1952. The NALU held its 63red annual convention in Atlantic City that September. David B. Fluegelman of New York City became president, Grant Taggart (the Will Rogers of the insurance industry) received the Russell award, and NALU secretary John Marsh was named chairman of the newly formed General Agents and Managers Conference (GAMC), which now had over 4,000 members. In his annual report Cleeton disclosed that, so far, $111,071 had been raised for the building fund. The goal for the end of the year was $300,000.

Association leaders heard some depressing news about the NALU’s finances at their midyear meeting in Chicago’s Drake Hotel on April 14, 1953. Treasurer Osborne Bethea informed them that the Association was operating on a deficit of $9,550. (Even so, it was not without opposition that at the annual convention the following august, an amendment in the bylaws increased dues from $4.00 to $6.00 per local member.) More bad news came in the form of Woody Woodson’s surprise announcement of his resignation as managing director. He had been offered the position of president of American General Insurance Company in Houston. Assuring the delegates that he found the position rewarding and that he had undertaken the job with every expectation of staying many years, he explained that he had received, “unsolicited of course, a business opportunity which seems irresistibly attractive…that I cannot in logic or reason forego.” Emphasizing the point, he added, “From this you will realize…that my decision is entirely for affirmative reasons, and not at all for negative reasons.”

The board devoted all of April 17 to deciding the future site of NALU headquarters. Many places were suggested, Chicago and New York receiving special consideration. Reporting the results of the meeting, Life Association News informed its readers:

The ultimate decision to locate NALU’s headquarters in the nation’s capital at Washington, DC has since been applauded by a vast majority within and outside the Association as one of great wisdom and foresight. The exact site for the headquarters location has not been selected, but it is believed that the choice will be made in advance of the NALUs annual convention which will take place in Cleveland, August 24-28.[xxxv]

Events proved the view from headquarters wrong. The delegates at the NALU convention that fall failed to endorse the board’s decision and asked for further study of the question.

Meanwhile, the Association found itself without a chief administrator. To fill the gap after Woodson vacated his office June, max Hoffman was named “acting managing director.” Lawrence W. Jackson, who had been assisting Hoffman since January 1950 , became director of field services. Eleanor Dowling continued to assume more managerial responsibilities during this period and traveled extensively to address local groups. By this time, Partridge had complete charge of the magazine.

At the same time, Loran E. Powell was named managing director of LUTC. A former debit agent, Powell had considerable experience in recruiting and training agents at the Gulf Life’s agency in Augusta, Georgia. Having joined the LUTC staff as administrative assistant in 1950 he subsequently became director of promotion where his congenial spirit helped immeasurably in assuring the continued growth of the program during the post-Zalinski era.

It wasn’t until October, however, that the board succeeded in persuading former NALU president Lester Schriver to take over the management of the Association. Hoffman became comptroller, taking full responsibility for the NALU’s accounts. Schriver stayed on as executive vice president until 1961.

In one of the Association’s most dramatic moments, the delegates at the 1953 convention elected Robert C. Gilmore, Jr., agent for Mutual Benefit in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to serve as president. His nomination was a maneuver on the part of the nominating committee to avoid a constitutional crisis that could split the Association in two. Even so, a bitter and divisive fight on the convention floor seemed inevitable. In his article, “Convention Digest at Press-time,” Bill Jones explained the situation:

Ordinarily, the presidential nominee would have been John D. Marsh, CLU, of Washington, D.C. who served during the past administrative term as NALU’s vice-president, but because of opposition to Marsh’s selling of securities in connection with his agency’s estate planning work, he was not endorsed for the post. Gilmore, who had been serving as NALU secretary and otherwise would have been named vice-presidential nominee, was moved into the top position on the slate of nominees…

Up to this point, it had been a foregone conclusion of most delegates and members that Marsh’s backers would nominate him from the floor and that a bitter contest for the presidency would ensue. The situation was viewed with great trepidation in most quarters for fear that the controversy would create a dangerous rift within the Association.

It came as a complete surprise, therefore, when Mr. Marsh asking for the privilege of the floor, rose to second the nomination of Mr. Gilmore. His seconding statement was greeted with a thunderous ovation form the National Council who rose to salute his superb statesmanship.[xxxvi]

In his acceptance speech, Gilmore praised Marsh for his warmhearted generosity. “He has labored long and well for the NALU over the years,” Gilmore said. “He has won our respect, our friendship and our admiration.” Elaborating on Marsh’s behavior at the moment of decision, he observed, “As the crisis of disagreement deepened, he was in a position to carry his contention for what he believed to be right to the floor of this Convention. But instead, he sublimated his own interest, his own personal gain, his own ambition and desires. He did this because his respect for this organization and its objectives would not permit him to widen the areas of disagreement and permit bitterness and strife to enter in.”[xxxvii]

Recalling the incident years later, Marsh said, “it upset a lot of people, of course. The Million Dollar Round Table leaders were furious. They had planned a huge reception. My company was mad, and I was crushed.”

The conflict reflected a controversy developing within the industry at the time surrounding innovations in insurance products that carried some risk. With a decided preference for permanent life insurance, the more conservative agents wanted nothing to do with anything that as not fully guaranteed. People like Marsh, however, believed in offering their clients investment opportunities, as well as financial protection. Far ahead of most of their colleagues, as well as financial protection. Far ahead of most of their colleagues, they envisioned a new kind of insurance—interest-sensitive contracts—anticipating the time when investment-oriented products such as universal life and variable life would become industry common places. The move was actually already afoot. In 1952 the College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF) was established as the first variable annuity fund, and in 1954 the Participating Annuity Life Insurance Company offered the first variable annuity contracts to the general public. In a 1955 article published in Life Association News, Houghton Bell, general counsel for Mutual of New York, explained:

A variable annuity is an annuity supported by a fund which is invested in common stocks, in whole or in substantial part. The benefits may be payable along the general lines of the benefits under a conventional annuity—as a single life annuity, as a life annuity with a guaranteed period, or as a joint and survivor annuity. But they differ from the benefits payable under a conventional annuity in that they are not paid in guaranteed dollar amounts.

The trend toward interest-sensitive products was impelled by the nation’s inflationary economy. The continuing devaluation of the dollar was a common concern of investors and the insurance–buying public alike. Traditional life insurance was beginning to feel the pressure of competition. As Bell pointed out, “The questions before the life insurance industry today are whether this field will long remain unoccupied, and whether, if it is to be occupied by anyone, it should be the life insurance industry or some other competitive industry.” Bell reminded his readers that the question was no longer academic, since bills providing for the incorporation of companies empowered to sell variable annuities were being considered by several state legislatures, including New York.[xxxviii]

The move to block Marsh’s ascendancy originated in his own District of Columbia Association, where the association’s president, C. Carney Smith, and other local leaders thought it inappropriate that someone espousing these experimental innovations should represent the NAL in an official capacity. In addition, Marsh’s choice of a replacement for Woodson had earned the displeasure of Smith and his staunch Republication friends. Smith explained years later that Marsh’s choice, Donald Dawson, had achieved notoriety in the Truman years when he was a counsel at the White House. Implications that he performed political favors for which he and his wife (a former movie actress) had received valuable gifts had forced Dawson to resign. “John Marsh brought Donald Dawson to Cleveland as the new executive vice president,” Smith recalled. “Everybody was in an uproar and I was asked if I had any information on it. So, I had my secretary go to Capitol Hill and copy from the Congressional Record the testimony about Donald Dawson. As a result, the prevailing feeling was that this was a bad choice, considering that Eisenhower had just been elected to the presidency. You would have a Republican president and the operating head of an organization and would be a guy tainted with scandal on the Democratic side.”[xxxix]

To some extent, the opposition may have been personal. Marsh was aristocratic by temperament. A hard-nosed businessman, supremely confident of his own ideas, he shared little of the sentimentality that often surrounds that promotion of life insurance. It probably never occurred to him to cultivate friends in association circles by offering to compromise or make conciliatory gestures. Commenting years later, Marsh said he believed the agents’ conservatism cost them much prestige in the industry. “They could not recognize that the business was changing; that the people were not using their life insurance company as an investment end,” he recalled. “I was tying to regain the field for insurance. The vast majority of the field force didn’t foresee what inflation was going to do to the life insurance business. No wonder companies stopped listening to the field force. The agent should be the most important person in the industry, but he has been gradually shunted aside because most of them haven’t kept up and recognized what’s going on.”[xxxx]

Marsh continued to pursue his ideas. In 1955, he organized the Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company of America. It is one of the ironies of Association history that in 1967 the District of Columbia Association gave Marsh its coveted Bernard L. Wilner Award for his bold innovations in insurance marketing. In citing him for the award Leopard Freudberg noted, “He was among the first to foresee the merchandizing of equity-type investments by life insurance companies—a trend which is now gaining in momentum and acceptance within the industry.”

At the 1954 annual convention in Boston, Vincent B. Coffin, long recognized as a champion of agent education, received the Russell award and Robert L. Walker, district manager for Peninsular Life at Orlando, Florida, became president of the National Association. Walker was not a typical NALU president. After working as a debit agent in his native South Carolina, he enjoyed considerable success a trainer of agents for Peninsular Life in the southern coastal states and the British West Indies. In his fifties and becoming somewhat bald, shortly after taking office Walker married his secretary, Josephine Lettice, of Orlando. The wedding at Winter Park Methodist Church that December was an NALU first. No other president of the Association had ever married while in office.

Before the year was out there were two additions to the headquarters staff. In August the name of NALU’s associate counsel John Taylor Bigbie appeared on the masthead of Life Association News. His appointment undoubtedly freed Dunaway of a good percentage of the Association’s legal workload. Since the fall of 1953 when Lawrence Jackson had accepted the post of executive assistant fo the General Agents and Managers conference, the NALU had been without a director of field services. Consequently in October 1954, Schriver hired Ann Bickerton of Peoria, whose background was in public relations and promotional work, to fill that position. She proved both energetic and effective. Giving the local executives long-over-due recognition, she succeeded admirably in helping local associations improve their organizational structure and develop productive headquarters staffs.

NALU’s genial director of public relations, Wilfrid “Bill” Jones, died on December 30, 1954, at the age of fifty-four. Never a disciple of the temperance movement, he had, in fact, been ailing for some time, though no one suspected his illness was so serious. “While he was retained by the NALU until the time of his death,” Life Association News explained, “his disability precluded his active service during much of the past year.” Recalling his years of service to the Association, the article concluded, “bill Jones will long be remembered for his unusual capacity for making and holding friends, and for his ability to originate and promote projects in the interest of the entire industry.”[xxxxi]

By the end of 1954 serious opposition to moving the NALU headquarters to the District of Columbia had ceased. Julian Myrick, one of the last holdouts for remaining in New York City, had selected a suitable Park Avenue site with excellent investment potential. Perceiving the majority preferred a Washington local he lost interest and quietly resigned form the committee. Osborne Bethea took Myrick’s place and Cleeton and his committee were not free to go ahead with their plans for an imposing, monumental structure within sight of the Mall and the Lincoln Memorial. It had been three years since Cleeton had first proposed the move. A little over 11,00 local members had contributed to the building fund. (This represented less than 20 percent of the total membership.) By the end of 1954 a total of $286,000 had been raised. In February, 1955 Life Association News reported:

A week or two ago, following a presentation of the case by NALU President Robert L. Walker, CLU, and other Association representatives, the five-man Zoning Commission of the District of Columbia voted to rezone the site that was selected and which is located at the southwest corner of 22nd Street and C Street, N.W., restricting it to memorial type buildings.

Thus it had become a fait accompli that the purchase is officially completed at a price of $108,000. Former owner of the property is the Acacia Mutual Life Insurance Company of Washington, D.C. The deal is signed, sealed and delivered.[xxxxii]

Association leaders got a chance to view the architect’s sketch of the proposed structure at the midyear meeting in Columbus, Ohio, during the week of March 20, 1955. Rectangular in shape with minimal adornments, it was to be a concrete and marble structure of plain design and monumental proportions, resembling some of the more imposing buildings that have since been constructed in that part of Washington. As finally conceived, plans called for 24,000 square feet over four stories.

In August, when the NALU held its annual meeting in St. Louis, the Building committee was authorized to negotiate a building loan of $432,000 to meet increased projected costs. “The campaign to raise funds to cover the cost of the building,” Life Association News reported, “had taken on new momentum and concerted drive among the membership-at –large is getting underway. (More that $7,000 was obtained and pledged at the convention alone!)” In giving the John Newton Russell Memorial Award to Cleeton, the committee cited especially his “service above and beyond the call of duty in bringing into being NALU’s new home in Washington.”

Stanley C. Collins of Buffalo was elected president for the 1955-1956 association year. An agent for the Metropolitan, he was the first active “home service” agent ever elected to that office. “I view my election as a tribute to the combination agent who, he declared, “is almost alone in protecting the lower-income families where death can bring about privation…”

By September 1955, James partridge was no longer editor and business manager of Life Association News. In what was evidently a major shake-up in staffing, Marvin A. Kobel became editor and business manager, Royal N. Preston was hired as advertising manager for the magazine, and Pugh Moore was named director of information. A few months later Sam P. Gaglio, formerly editor of Insurance Field, joined the magazine staff as associate editor.

Besides their youth, these men had much to recommend them. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, Moore, as an Associated Press executive in New York, handled AP’s public relations from 1946 to 1953. Kobel had worked for Insurance Field as a staff reporter in Louisville where he got to know Gaglio. Since 1948 he had been with the publications division of Metropolitan Life. A native New Yorker with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin, Kobel had also attended graduate school at New York University’s New School for Social Research. A bachelor, Gaglio had graduated form the University of Michigan in 1941 and served in the Pacific during World War II. After the war, he worked as a reporter for the Port Huron Times Herald before joining the staff of Insurance Field.

The new talent on the staff effected an almost overnight change. Life Association News not only began arriving on time, but also took on a more professional appearance. It presented lucidly written, informative articles and more complete and selective coverage of Association and industry news. Instead of playing the mendicant to the companies, as Bill Jones had done for years, Preston set about marketing advertising space in a more businesslike manner, bringing the publication much-needed income. Kobel and Gaglio especially would prove invaluable, permanent assets in the management of the NALU’s affairs. With Moor’s departure in 1959, Gaglio took complete charge of the magazine, making dramatic improvements in format and content, until it became one of the most respected publications in the business. During his twenty-two year tenure Life Association News brought the NALU millions in advertising income. As the same time Kobel began developing the NALU’s public relations arm into an effective voice of the agents and undertook to produce the NALU’s annual conventions. During the next thirty years, the association would benefit in a variety of ways form his abilities as a promoter, a publicist and an organizer. The well coordinated succession of work sessions, entertainment’s and spectacle that characterize the Association’s annual meeting today is largely the product of Kobel’s experienced eye and imaginative foresight.

By the beginning of the new year work had still not begun on the proposed headquarters building. In March, Life Association News announced that the Association and LUTC would be moving to rented quarters in Washington that spring. The two organizations would occupy the 10th and 11th floors of 1800 H Street, N.W.

When association leaders gathered for their midyear meeting in Hartford in March, the board authorized the building committee to proceed with construction of the proposed structure. But its hands were still tied since neither the Fine Arts Commission nor the District of Columbia Building Commission had approved the plans.

The delegates had arrived amid Hartford’s heaviest snowstorm in a decade. Besides discussing plans for the new headquarters building, the agents focused on the legislative developments in group insurance and recommended “legislative safeguards and administrative controls set up immediately by each to be invoked in the event variable annuity contracts are legalized.” At one point their deliberations ere interrupted. “ The news that Charles J. Zimmerman, one of the most famous and highly regarded figures in life insurance, was going to resign as managing director of the Life Insurance Agency Management Association and be elected president of the Connecticut Mutual Life,” stated the Eastern Underwriter, “could not have become public under more dramatic circumstances.”

As soon as the meeting was over the NALU’s headquarters staff set about preparing to leave for their new home in Washington. As of April 27, 1956, the NALU’s address was no longer 11 West 42nd Street, New York City, as it had been for twenty-eight years.

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 Plumber

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 Agent 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 Organize

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

Book Marks

[xxxiii]33 LAN, May 1951, p. 884

[xxxiv] Op. Cit., October 1951, p. 125.

[xxxv] LAN, May 1953, p. 37.

[xxxvi] Ibid., September 1953, p. 16

[xxxvii] Ibid., p.17

[xxxviii] Op. Cit., May 1955, pp. 42-44

[xxxix] Smith: Interview, Washington, D.C., May 2, 1985.

[xxxx] Marsh: Interview, Gainesville, Virginia, May 1985.
[xxxxi] LAN, February 1955, p. 47.
[xxxxii] Op. Cit., p. 39

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