form the signature of every general agent in the Company and of every full-time agent in the Company to-day.

"I shall read from the parchment introductory. beautifully gold print-ed. the expression. the sentiment that goes with this presentation. Mr. Rhodes. will you stand. please?

"'Certificate of honor and appreciation, presented to Edward Everett Rhodes. Nice president of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, in recognition of meritorious service rendered since the second day of

field representatives of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, we wish to acknowledge personally the honor which is ours in making this presentation and to express at the same time our personal regard. In witness thereto we have subscribed our signatures on succeeding pages.

"Mr. Rhodes. will you accept this token? And with it goes the added wish: may peace, prosperity and strength attend your future years "

When Mr. Rhodes had taken his seat. President Hardin continued:

part in building the Mutual Benefit, that along with some of the great predecessors that have figured in Mutual Benefit history. Mr. Rhodes is one of the most distinguished men in life insurance in these whole L nited States.

"He has helped to build our traditions and he has helped to carry on our traditions. He not only has sup-ported those ideals but he has strengthened them. and no story of the continuity of the Mutual Benefit in the endeavor to bring it down to tonight would be complete without such recognition as has been given to him this evening.

"We have age. We have ideals. We have accomplishments. I ant not going into the details of that. To-morrow you may hear something about that from officers of the Company who speak with authority. Some references were made this morning and I know I have heard a lot of them this past year, to some of the things the agents were not ready to approve that have since turned out to be best as indicated in subsequent history. I have heard about a great many things and I think I heard more emphatic grief about three or four years ago when under depression influences the assets of the Company were reduced by some seventeen millions of dollars and the liabilities of the Company were reduced in the same year by twenty-two millions of dollars. Aobody thought about the reduction of liabilities but there was great noise about the reduction of assets. Ladies and gentlemen, we have more assets tonight than the Mutual Benefit ever had before.

"We have this inheritance. What are we going to do with it? Seriously. why bring that up? I have sometimes said that the past was secure; the present is secure; we will have some part in the Company's future, but the Company's future will be largely in other hands than ours. What more can we do than, mindful of the continuity of our Company's history, appreciative of its ideals, proud of its accomplishments, do our part to carry on and continue a forward march?"

TO VICE PRESIDENT E. E. RHODES "In recognition of meritorious service"

August, 1886; presented this twenty- "I think Mr. DeGroat might have second day of May. 1936. by those added in what he said about Mr. whose privilege it is to represent this Rhodes this evening, in addition to Company in the field. As individual what he did say about Mr. Rhodes'

FOR JUNE, 1936   17