efully
studying the question. I had talked with the Mutual Life and Equitable
people about it, but was not committed to any particular course, and had
grave doubts as to whether it was well to draw the line on size instead
of on conduct. I was therefore very glad to see Perkins and get a new
point of view. I went over the matter with a great deal of care and at
considerable length, and after we had thrashed the matter out pretty
fully and Perkins had laid before me in detail the methods employed by
Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and other European countries to handle
their large insurance companies, I took the position that there
undoubtedly were evils in the insurance business, but that they did not
consist in insuring people's lives, for that certainly was not an evil;
and I did not see how the real evils could be eradicated by limiting or
suppressing a company's ability to protect an additional number of lives
with insurance. I therefore announced that I would not favor a bill that
limited volume of business, and would not sign it if it were passed;
but that I favored legislation that would make it impossible to place,
through agents, policies that were ambiguous and misleading, or to pay
exorbitant prices to agents for business, or to invest policy-holders'
money in improper securities, or to give power to officers to use
the company's funds for their own personal profit. In reaching this
determination I was helped by Mr. Loeb, then merely a stenographer in
my office, but who had already attracted my attention both by his
efficiency and by his loyalty to his former employers, who were for
the most part my political opponents. Mr. Loeb gave me much information
about various improper practices in the insurance business. I began
to gather data on the subject, with the intention of bringing about
corrective legislation, for at that time I expected to continue
in office as Governor. But in a few weeks I was nominated as
Vice-President, and my successor did nothing about the matter.

So far as I remember, this was the first time the question of correcting
evils in a business by limiting the volume of business to be done was
ever presented to me, and my decision in the matter was on all fours
with the position I have always since taken when any similar principle
was involved. At the time when I made my decision about the Limitation
Bill, I was on friendly terms with the Mutual and Equitable people
who were back of it, wher