viii   INTRODUCTION

such is due the readers, and that the beneficent institution of life insurance is good enough to have the truth told about it.

An earnest effort is made to do full justice to the merits of life insurance and of the liberal benefits of the modern life insurance policy; and, on the other hand, the evils and defects are dealt with unsparingly.

This is a book of opinions, of the deliberate judgments which have been framed as a result of a quarter century's close and assiduous study and observation. It does not purport to be a mere narrative of facts without conclusions; instead it records the author's best-considered, thoroughly-formed and firmly-held convictions, set down without a desire to injure anybody, but with the purpose of serving all who read this book.

New York, June 28, 1905.   M. M. D.