. In
the latter year the State Superintendent of Insurance notified the
Brotherhood that incorporation of the insurance department was necessary
for the continuance of the business. In consequence thereof the central
office of the Brotherhood was transferred to Cleveland, Ohio, and on the
twenty-second of February, 1894, the insurance department was
incorporated under the laws of the state of Ohio as a separate
organization.[233] Similarly, the Conductors were forced to incorporate
by the pressure of the state laws. In December, 1885, the Order moved
its central office from Cedar Rapids to Chicago. In order to strengthen
its power and to broaden its influence, the Order, in 1886, applied for
a certificate of incorporation under the laws of the state of Illinois.
The Secretary of State refused the certificate on the ground that the
insurance regulations of the Order were not in accordance with the state
laws, and requested that these be changed and that the insurance
department be incorporated as a separate organization. The Secretary of
State was willing to incorporate the Order under the Act of 1872,
provided the Order eliminated from the object of organization the
clauses referring to the payment of benefits or indemnity; or he was
willing to issue a charter based on the Act of 1883 which provided that
only such powers could be taken as are specifically granted therein,
namely, "the furnishing of life indemnity or pecuniary benefits to
widows, orphans, heirs, relatives, and devisees of deceased members, or
accident or permanent disability indemnity to members."[234] In other
words, the Order could have been incorporated under the Act of 1872 to
do all business except insurance, while under the Act of 1883 it could
have been incorporated to maintain a system of insurance, but nothing
else. The only alternative was separate organization for the protective
and the benevolent departments. The Order was unwilling to separate the
two departments and consequently transferred its central office to Cedar
Rapids, Iowa. The Board of Directors, on July 12, 1887, ordered the
grand secretary to proceed with incorporation under the laws of the
state of Iowa.[235] The certificate of incorporation, however, was not
issued until the laws of the union were made to conform to the insurance
laws of the state. These changes were only unimportant ones, such as the
change of the name of the Insurance Department to "Mutual Benefit
Department,"
|