224 BUSINESS OF LIFE INSURANCE

all the profits been reserved to the insured, ac-cording to experience already well known to insurance men before this scheme was introduced, the gains would not have been more than one-fifth the estimate. Manifestly, too, the scheme could not have been sold without excessive estimates.

This concern was not molested for a long time and prospered exceedingly, the stockholders reaping large returns. Other companies were organised on similar lines, excepting that they made the insurance only 20 per cent. more than the premiums paid, thereby charging for one year's insurance at the rate of $100 for $120 protection.

Later the estimates were reduced to the "conservative" proportions of $200 on a $300 con-tract. The gains could not have exceeded $50 to $75 at the most, in point of fact.

For years these companies continued undisturbed. Prominent and influential men were connected with the first of them, men of even greater social and political distinction with the second, which had for its president no less a figure than the then Governor of Iowa, after-ward Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Scandal began to brew. Rumour had it that the purpose of the Attorney-General of Iowa to suppress these frauds was thwarted by the Governor-president. Later and before his