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Since 1987 the NALU leadership had been mobilizing its forces to plan for the Association's centennial year. In September 1988, Life Association News began publishing a series of twelve articles on the history of the organization. The Board of Trustees had already authorized the formation of a special centennial committee, headed by former NALU president David F. Woods and including Norman G. Levine, Bart Hodges, Michael C. Keenan, John H. Ward, Thomas J. Wolff, J. Kirke Lewis and Robert J. Wernecke. Naturally, Boston, sight of the NALU's founding, was chosen as the place to hold the 100th convention. In cooperation with the Public Relations Department a centennial logo was produced which appeared on special stationery, t-shirts and other items. In its second attempt to have America's life insurance agents recognized on a postage stamp, however, the NALU was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, NALU president-elect Robert J.; Wernecke, who was in charge of the convention, worked closely with consultant Marvin Kobel, Timothy L. Bigelow, assistant vice president for conventions and meetings at NALU headquarters, and Joanne T. Lawrence, director of meetings, to make the convention a spectacular entry into the Association's 100th year.

Reviewing the development of the NALU in the last fifty years, Holgar Johnson marveled at the NALU's rise to prominence and its remarkable growth through the local associations. He warned, however, that there was danger in becoming so oriented to the political environment that one could lose sight of the real function of the Association, namely to advise the life insurance business and to advance the capacity of the agency force to meet its responsibility to the American people to broaden the use of the institution of life insurance to provide something which nobody else can provide. "I became somewhat concerned," he said, "with this present situation and the fact that we've become so involved in the interest earnings of the reserve that we are defeating to a degree, a function of life insurance. The function of life insurance is to do something, which nothing else can do. That is to guarantee some element of substance if we're not given the opportunity to complete it ourselves."

Focusing on the fundamental nature of the National Association of Life Underwriters and explaining how it was able to achieve so much, Johnson noted that the indispensable element is the shared business interest and common commitment of individuals. "You'll never replace the camaraderie and the close relationships that evolve as a result of being active members of an organization with fellow workers who are trying to raise the level of understanding of the business," he observed.[xxxviii] The thought anticipated the views of others in the industry. Addressing the NALU's 99th convention in Dallas, NALU executive vice president Jack E. Bobo commented, "If I were to give this past year a label, It would be the Back-to-Basics Year. At virtually every meeting I attended this year, and in scores of small conferences, the mood was one of rediscovery of the life and health insurance business and the products that have always sustained it." Looking back fifty years before, he quoted Charles Zimmerman's keynote address to the 1938 NALU convention in Houston:

For many years the financial horizon had presented only a vast and trackless desert to the man of moderate means; try as he might, alone, to provide a comfortable sense of security for his family and himself, he could not meet adequately the uncertainties of life and death.

Then someone came upon the American scene who began to deal with these uncertainties, and to establish newer, more far-reaching frontiers of financial independence; who helped to crystallize America's sense of democracy; and taught men to overcome the loss of human values.

To the Life Underwriter--Pioneer in Financial Independence, the 49th Annual convention of the National Association of Life Underwriters is dedicated. So long as he continues to instill in Americans the spirit of financial independence, the last frontier will constitute a challenge, not a vanished goal.

"Today, fifty years later," Bobo reminded the agents, "life underwriters are still providers of financial independence. This is particularly true for those of moderate means who still could not achieve it without the basic products of our trade and these services of a professional life underwriter." Exhorting the delegates and industry leaders present to keep faith with these fundamental ideals he concluded, "As NALU prepares to celebrate its centennial and tool up for its second century, let no one say that we lacked vision for the task. When the 1989 statistics are recounted in some future year, let no one say that we were just swept along with the rising tide or that we ignored the needs of society, but rather let them point with pride and say, 'They were the men and women who saw the challenges and helped to make it Since 1987 the NALU leadership had been mobilizing its forces to plan for the Association's centennial year. In September 1988, Life Association News began publishing a series of twelve articles on the history of the organization. The Board of Trustees had already authorized the formation of a special centennial committee, headed by former NALU president David F. Woods and including Norman G. Levine, Bart Hodges, Michael C. Keenan, John H. Ward, Thomas J. Wolff, J. Kirke Lewis and Robert J. Wernecke. Naturally, Boston, sight of the NALU's founding, was chosen as the place to hold the 100th convention. In cooperation with the Public Relations Department a centennial logo was produced which appeared on special stationery, t-shirts and other items. In its second attempt to have America's life insurance agents recognized on a postage stamp, however, the NALU was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, NALU president-elect Robert J.; Wernecke, who was in charge of the convention, worked closely with consultant Marvin Kobel, Timothy L. Bigelow, assistant vice president for conventions and meetings at NALU headquarters, and Joanne T. Lawrence, director of meetings, to make the convention a spectacular entry into the Association's 100th year.

Focusing on the fundamental nature of the National Association of Life Underwriters and explaining how it was able to achieve so much, Johnson noted that the indispensable element is the shared business interest and common commitment of individuals. "You'll never replace the camaraderie and the close relationships that evolve as a result of being active members of an organization with fellow workers who are trying to raise the level of understanding of the business," he observed.38 The thought anticipated the views of others in the industry. Addressing the NALU's 99th convention in Dallas, NALU executive vice president Jack E. Bobo commented, "If I were to give this past year a label, It would be the Back-to-Basics Year. At virtually every meeting I attended this year, and in scores of small conferences, the mood was one of rediscovery of the life and health insurance business and the products that have always sustained it." Looking back fifty years before, he quoted Charles Zimmerman's keynote address to the 1938 NALU convention in Houston:

For many years the financial horizon had presented only a vast and trackless desert to the man of moderate means; try as he might, alone, to provide a comfortable sense of security for his family and himself, he could not meet adequately the uncertainties of life and death.

Then someone came upon the American scene who began to deal with these uncertainties, and to establish newer, more far-reaching frontiers of financial independence; who helped to crystallize America's sense of democracy; and taught men to overcome the loss of human values.

To the Life Underwriter--Pioneer in Financial Independence, the 49th Annual convention of the National Association of Life Underwriters is dedicated. So long as he continues to instill in Americans the spirit of financial independence, the last frontier will constitute a challenge, not a vanished goal.

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