In the May number I inserted the following letter:
Fort Worth, Texas, February 16, 1905.
Thomas W. Lawson, Esq.,
Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir: I have read and will continue to read your articles on "Frenzied Finance," published in Everybody's Magazine, with a great deal of interest. I have noted especially your statements in reference to the big life-insurance companies, as I am a policy-holder in both the New York Life and the Equitable.
Under the heading of "Lawson and His Critics," in Everybody's for January, you give your side as to the assertion on the part of the insurance companies that you have been refused life insurance, among other things publishing a fac-simile of a contract of life insurance between yourself and the Equitable Life Assurance Society for $1,000,000. On my first reading of your article, I was certainly impressed with the fact that you had $1,000,000 of insurance with this company. On a second reading, I note that you do not say in so many words that this is a policy in force, but you say: "Well, look at this reproduction of the document that is now in my possession and always has been since the date when it was delivered to me by one of the great representatives of the 'System,' The Equitable Life Assurance Society." This statement taken in connection with others, conveys the idea that you are insured in the company named.
In conversation with a gentleman a few days since, who claims to know whereof he speaks, having gotten his information direct from New York, he stated that you had no policy in the Equitable Life Assurance Society for $1,000,000, or any other amount, and that the reproduction referred to above, was of a sample copy of a policy, and not a real contract.
As your editor states that you will answer any pertinent question, I will ask the following, trusting that you may consider it pertinent: Have you a valid subsisting policy in the Equitable Life Assurance Society for $1,000,000, the fac-simile of which appears in Everybody's Magazine for January, 1905?
Trusting you will favor me with a reply, I am,
Very truly, ——
I answered: