Show INSURANCE AND SAVINGS BANKS j insurance extravagances nepotisms and the like still occupy the center of the stage and each days revelations eclipse those that have gone before of defense there is now practically nono except of the fee biest description and there seems almost to be an agreement that it would ho better to lei judgment go by default rather than aggravate the verdict by tanco in the meantime a writer in tho sat arday evening post draws attention to another class of finance of which the operations are almost equally large but which has never adopted the arro ganco of tho great insurance companies and has therefore never stepped eo prominently into public view the three life insurance companies are re to the public for something like the banks I 1 of new york hold almost exactly the same sum but because they have worked unobtrusively and honestly their directors have never been able to strut about as financial princes and wall street has ignored their existence with the indifference that it usually extends to those who are leading the monotonous and uneventful lives not only of common honesty but of devo tion to other interests rather than their own the writer in the saturday evening post disclaims any desire to draw unfair parallels between two classes of business that are by no means cal there are however certain legitimate comparisons and they ought to have their due weight as showing how trust moneys ought to be handled we thus find that not only are the de posits nearly the same in the new york savings banks and in the three great insurance companies ant that tho number of depositors in the former nearly corresponds with the number of policy holders in the latter at this point all resemblance ceases tho working expenses of the banks including taxes last year were about one third of one per cent while the expenses of the equitable were ons and a halt per cent even with the exclusion of agency and medical charges the equitable expenses were still about one per cent other figures are given that show conclusively that the immense salaries that the insurance companies have actually paraded as a proof of efficient management prove quite the reverse it is evident from the returns that the savings banks are well managed for example the bowery savings bank has of deposits but its dalray list is about what would the great mccurdy family think of that the bowery savings bank could hardly hire a single member of the family with its whole payroll tho bank of savings has 75 deposits and its total salaries were mr mccurdy from his lofty financial heights is probably hardly aware of the existence of these plebeian concerns actually pay dividends instead of salaries and earn money instead of merely gambling with it the reason for tho difference Is not far to seek wall street can sell none of its shady securities to the saving banks cheso institutions will look at nothing that is not as reliable as mother earth they confine themselves to first mortgages on real united states government bonds and the bonds of states counties and cities the mortgage bonds ot tho great railroads and other securities of a ilka nature in which there is no element whatever of speculation then again the savings lank ia contains many salutary provisions no trustee ie allowed to have any interest whatever in the profits of the bante except as a regular salaried officer nor may any trustee directly or ln directly borrow the funda ot the banssi for any purpose whatever all these constitute a cicet reason why high finance should ignore the operations of the savings banks as possessing a vulgar and un remunerative honesty but it looka now as though the insurance compa nies would have to come down from their pedestals dispense with the ser vices ot the clan mccurdy and othera of that alk and become a little more honest and perhaps a little less pyro and spectacular |