FIELD MEN HONOR RHODES

Vice President is awarded testimonial hook containing signatures of all full-time field men: President Hardin and General Agent DeGroat of Boston speak

There was scarcely a dry eye in the banquet hall as Vice President Rhodes stood before the speakers table to receive from General Agent DeGroat a leather-bound book   a

"certificate of merit"   signed by every full-time representative of the Mutual Benefit. In that tense, silent moment when a man loved and respected by them all stood speechless before them. three hundred hearts beat as one for him. "I guess you'll have to let inc sit down.-' were the only words he could muster.

Perhaps no one expected less than Mr. Rhodes that Toastmaster Par-sons was introducing a man chosen to honor him when General Agent DeGroat was presented to the assemblage as a man who had served the Company on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

"IIa'.e you ever pondered." Mr. DeGroat began. "the subject. what makes a life insurance company? \g hat is a life insurance company? Is it the policyholders who make a company? Is it the directors and officers who are the company? Is it the agents in the field that constitute the company? Oh. no. All these are just parts of the corporate being of a life insurance company. They, together with the policies, the wealth, and the home office, constitute the physical structure. There is some-thing else.

"What are the other attributes? What are the evidences of a life insurance company other than those physical? What picture comes to env mind when I hear our name, 'The

Mutual Benefit'? I will attempt to tell you.

`There is first the wonderful back-ground of history and tradition. Clear upon that background are the lines and words of certain precepts: to loge justice. to long for the right. to work for the right; to love mercy, to pity the unfortunate. to assist the weak; to loge truth, to be sincere, to speak words that are truthful- to wage eternal warfare against words that are not truthful.

"And thus the soul of the Mutual Benefit appears. for those were the ideals and the purposes that inspired the deeds of Justice Bradley, of Amzi Dodd. of Frederick Frelinghuysen, of Bloomfield Miller.

``Fadeless memorials are ours, nor has search discovered elsewhere murals that are like these.

`:.Let us now praise famous men' - -a fine injunction of a great teacher
   a great historian. Yet how diffi-
cult the task. for so often do we find words inadequate to the praise of the

living   the eulogy of their deeds. To
have been associated through long years with such men of renown as I have mentioned is a marvelous privilege. It has been the good fortune of one of those present in this room to have served in an executive capacity throughout most of fifty years. together with one or two or three of the men so famous and so dear to Mutual Benefit.

"The privilege that has been that of Mr. Rhodes has at the same time been the good fortune of all of us, the good fortune of all policyholders

as well as all agents. for it is one of his doctrines brought down from those predecessors that the interests of policyholders and the interests of agents are in the last analysis one and the same.

"About twenty years ago the general agents of this Company saw fit to present to Mr. Rhodes, from the heart. a token of appreciation. It was a token of considerable intrinsic value. It was a silver service. The general agents made that presentation. On the completion of the home office building—the occasion of the house warming in 19211   the agents
of this Company saw fit to pre-sent to Mr. Rhodes a token of ap-

preciation.   It was of still greater

intrinsic worth.   It was a beautiful

watch. On this occasion it has seemed fitting to advance the calendar a little bit. Mr. Rhodes does not complete his fifty years until the second day of August. Nevertheless. this seems to be a better opportunity than any that would likely occur in that interval.

"And so jointly the general agents of the Company and all agents of the Company wish to express appreciation to Mr. Rhodes, this time not with an article or articles of intrinsic worth. Quite the reverse. A certificate of merit is all that it is, but I will venture this, that it will be more highly prized by Mr. Rhodes and by Mrs. Rhodes than either of the other gifts. I will declare further that it will be cherished by their children and by their children's children, for the reason that it contains in book

16   THE PELICAN