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Along with the celebrations occurring at its fiftieth annual convention at the Jefferson Hotel in St. Louis, September 25-29, 1939, the NALU published an elegantly bound, lucid summary of the history of the Association. This slender, fifty-page volume was written by Donald F. Barnes, a young and talented member of the staff who later became associated with Institute of Life Insurance and who became a widely-read columnist in the insurance press. A graduate of Bowdoin College, Barnes has been hired s editorial assistant to Jones in 1936. The following year he was named associate editor of Life Association News. Until Dr. Proschansky’s study on the first forty years of the history of the NALU, Barnes’ book remained the only work on the origin and development of the organization.

The chairmanship of the Fiftieth Anniversary Committee was John Newton Russell’s last official position in the NALU. Working directly under Russell was Convention Committee chairman Ralph Engelsman, widely admired for his brilliant record as head of Penn Mutual’s New York City agency and always a popular speaker at agent gatherings. He enthusiastically undertook responsibility for seeing that the National Association of Life Underwriters celebrated its 50th convention with the desired mixture of festivity and ceremony.

Attendance was a record-breaker with 2,197 registered. “The entire tenor of the convention was signalized at the opening meeting on Wednesday morning, “Life Association News reported, “when the great ballroom of the Jefferson was jammed to the doors with every seat occupied, standees lining the corridors, and the talks ‘piped’ by microphone to several other meeting rooms crowded with the overflow.”

With its patriotic overtones, the NALU’s 50th convention reflected the mood of the times. This was the age of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. It should come as no surprise that business meetings in the late thirties often centered on themes of personal freedom and national pride. One distinguished guest speaker from outside the industry who focused on American ideals was Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde, daughter of William Jennings Bryan, former congresswoman for Florida and Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Denmark. “Through such institutions as yours,” she assured the agents, “the American people are not only showing that a pure form of democracy can move smoothly and efficiently, but they have gone a long way in the vitally important appreciation of the real qualities of a functioning democracy.”

Paul C. Sanborn of Boston who was chairman of the Million Dollar Round Table that year arranged for FDR’s son, Elliott Roosevelt, to be one of the guest speakers at the Round Table’s luncheon. Roosevelt focused on the agent’s responsibility to give sound advice. The agent, he said, must not let his enthusiasm to make a sale influence him to induce people to purchase insurance indiscriminately. He warned that it was just this sort of behavior on the par of unscrupulous agents that had done so much harm to the agent’s image.

The NALU’s 50th convention was the occasion of the thirteenth commencement exercise of the American College of Life Underwriters. One hundred thirty-two underwriters received the C.L.U. designation that year. John Marshall Holcombe, Jr., manager of the Life Insurance Sales Research Bureau, delivered the conferment address; Myrick, as chairman of the College’s Board, presided. Huebner, unfortunately, was ill and had to remain in Philadelphia. Dr. David McCahan, dean of the College, conferred the diplomas.

An interesting exercise for the occasion was the creation of a 1930’s version of a time capsule in the form of typewritten letters left in gold envelopes for future generations. Some of the industry’s most eminent figures were asked to write their vision of what the life insurance business would be like and where the Association would be fifty years later. Their predictions show imagination and an astute sense of where the business was headed. They miscalculated to some extent, however, in two areas: the ability of the government to dominate the industry and regulate society; and the development of a more international outlook on the part of the industry and regulate society; and the development of a more international outlook on the part of the industry and the associated agents.

Helen Summy, Equitable agent in S. Joseph, Missouri, and chairman of the Quarter Million Dollar Round Table, wrote:

The next fifty years should find fewer Life Insurance Companies but these will all be strong and possibly under Federal instead of State supervision. The underwriter will occupy a recognized place among the professional men and women of his community. He will be licensed to practice his profession only after obtaining a degree and meeting strict examination requirements. Wealth will have a greater distribution, so there should be s much wider field of purchasing power—probably not such large policies will be sold as there are today, but the average policy should be larger.

Myrick predicted that, owing to higher standards for hiring and training, agents everywhere would command the respect that is generally give to those in the learned professions. John Marshall Holcombe, Jr., referring to the scientific advances predicted in the displays at the New York World’s Fair that year, hoped that man had learned to live in peace and eliminate poverty by 1990. George Lackey wrote, “You, the life underwriters of 1989, will no doubt have attended the life insurance section of a college or university to qualify yourselves for this scientific work, as the doctor, lawyer engineer and others are doing in 1939. The public whom you serve will also have received a fundamental education in life insurance through compulsory courses in all the school systems of the nation.”

Zimmerman’s “Centennial greetings to the NALU” included the observation, “The 1989 Life Underwriter will still find the problem of self organization and self-discipline a vital one. Planning your work and working your plan will be a timely topic of discussion.” Zimmerman also thought that the greatest volume of business fifty years later would be written on the salary savings basis. “The group principal of underwriting involving a non rejection basis will be used,” He added. “Premiums will be on a sliding scale basis, increasing in ration to increased earnings.”

“It is difficult to look into the future, and no doubt, much of what we say here seriously, will seem almost ridiculous to you in 1989,” Englesman wrote. “Nevertheless we are courageously attempting to give you our individual prognostications of your insurance world.” Summing up his predictions, Engelsman stated, “I think the 100th Convention will be held in Boston, where the original Convention was held, because the sentiments of men will always be the same—and it will be a natural thing to hold the Convention there. I think that some time before this 100th Convention, however, (because of the reduction of distances through planes) some conventions will have been held in European Cities.

“It is possible that by 1989 life insurance may have either complete or partial State or Federal control, and that it will be compulsory for everyone to own some life insurance.

“By and large, I don’t think the world will have changed very much from our time. I think that nations will still misunderstand one another—that we may still, as in 1939, be on the brink of some war or unfortunate misunderstanding. But—I think that the American of 1989 will still guard his liberty as his one priceless possession, and conscientiously still be striving to make these United States a better place for the average man.”

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