The government will arrange to collect premiums monthly, if men wish to pay that way, or for longer periods in advance. This may be done through post-offices. The minimum amount of insurance to be issued probably will be $1,000, and the maximum $10,000, with any amount between those sums in multiple of $500. There will be provision for payments in case of disability as well as death, according to the tentative plan.
Thus will be created out of the government's emergency war insurance bureau the greatest life insurance institution in the world for peace times, with more policyholders and greater aggregate risks than a half dozen of the world's biggest private companies combined. Out of the experience gained may eventually develop expansion of government insurance to old age, industrial and other forms of insurance, in the opinion of officials who have studied the subject.
Regulations for reinsuring returning soldiers and sailors are being framed by an advisory board to the military and naval section of the war risk bureau, consisting of Arthur Hunter, actuary of the New York Life Insurance Company; W. A. Fraser, Omaha, of the Woodmen of the World, and F. Robertson Jones, of the Workmen's Compensation Publicity Bureau, New York.
Plans also are under consideration for allowing beneficiaries of men who have died or been killed in the service to choose between taking monthly payments over a period of twenty years or to commute these payments in a lump sum.
CHAPTER LV
AMERICA'S POSITION IN WAR AND PEACE
By common consent of the Entente Allies, President Wilson was made the spokesman for the democracy of the world. As Lloyd George, Premier Clemenceau of France, Premier Orlando of Italy, and other Europeans recognized, his utterances most clearly and cogently expressed the principles for which civilization was battling against the Hun. More than that, these statesmen and the peoples they represented recognized that back of President Wilson were the high ideals of an America pledged to the redemption of a war-weary world.
The war produced a sterility in literature. Out of the great mass that was written, however, two productions stood out in their nobility of thought and in their classic directness of expression. These were the address before Congress by President Wilson on the night of April 2, 1917, when, recognizing fully the dread responsibility of his action, he pronounced the words which led America into the World War, and the speech made by him on Monday, November 11, 1918, when addressing Congress he announced the end of the war. Other declarations of the President that will be treasured as long as democracy survives, are those enunciating the fourteen points upon which America would make peace, and two later declarations as to America's purposes.
His address of April 2d was delivered before the most distinguished assemblage ever gathered within the hall of the House of Representatives. The Supreme Court of the United States, headed by the Chief Justice, every member of the embassies then resident in Washington, the entire membership of the House and Senate, and a host of the most distinguished men and women that could crowd themselves into the great hall, listened to what was virtually America's Declaration of War.
The air was still and tragic suspense was upon every face as the President began his address. At first he was pale as the marble rostrum against which he leaned. As he read from small sheets typewritten with his own hand, his voice grew firmer and the flush of indignation and of resolution overspread his countenance. He said: