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Show PRESIDENT OF MUTUAL LIFE BLAMES KNOCKERS FOR SENSATIONAL THLE f NEW YORK. Nov. 27. President Frederick A. Burnham of the Mutual ' Reserve Life Insurance company issued a statement last night in reply to the testimony of James D. Wells, a former " vice-president of the company, before a Canadian Senate committee. Mr. Wells testified before the Canadian committee in 1904 that he had heard from Burnham that Louis T Paine, whe he was State Superintendent cf Insurance in 1898, ottered for $100,000 to allow th Mutual Reserve to write the j report of an Investigation which the State Insurance department had mpde. Mr. Wells also testified that Mr. Burnham Burn-ham told him that he paid J40.000 for a manuscript copy of the report. The statement, which bore a note saying say-ing that it was from George Burnham. counsel for the Mutual Reserve, is in part as follows: "No money was ever demanded by or paid, directly or Indirectly, to the Superintendent Su-perintendent or any persons connected with the New York Insurance department depart-ment for the purpose of influencing or accepting any report upon the Mutual Reserve. The story is the Invention of one J. D. Wells, formerly a vice-president, whose services were dispensed with nearly seven years ago. and who has since spared no pains to attack the company and the present management in every possible' place. "The Canadian investigation was moved by a Senator who" was a former agent of the company, which had cut off his advances. The Canadian committee, com-mittee, at its final session voted to rise and report the evidence. Afterwards, seven of the nineteen members got together to-gether and formulated what purported to be a report, which was expunged by the Senate. What is printed in a part of the Sunday journals as . 'the finding of the committee' is simply what one Senator, a member of the committee, gave notice he would move the adoption of as the proper conclusion to be dr'avn from the evidence. "Another member of the committee pave a similar notice, with one entirely different set of findings: but neither motion has ever been acted on. The statement that no action was taken by the Attorney-General of New York on the charges referred to as filed against the management of the Mutual Reserve is incorrect. They were investigated and dismissed by him." |