7th. All policy-holders can be assured that in the future they will receive the actual worth of their policy at surrender.
All this being so, it is most eminently desirable for policy-holders to act, and at once.
The time will never again be so opportune, for if nothing definite is done now, policy-holders will be discouraged for all time.
I have given the subject the closest and most earnest study, assisted by the best insurance experts and lawyers procurable, and guided by the suggestions of over 100,000 policy-holders, for in addition to the 16,000 mentioned, I have received over 90,000 letters. I have come to the conclusion that the one thing for policy-holders to do now is:
To authorize some one in whom they have confidence to select a committee to take their proxies and at once seize possession of the two great mutual companies, the New York Life and the Mutual.
I omit the Equitable at this stage, because litigation may be necessary before the Equitable, being a stock company, can come into the policy-holders' hands. But in the other two, no obstacles can be placed in the way of the policy-holders' taking control.
To empower this committee to bring action at once to compel full restitution and enforce full punishment, and then to change the present method of conducting the insurance business.
The vital question is: Whom can the policy-holders trust to do this?
The "Big Three" are at present spending vast sums of the policy-holders' money to prevent some such action as this, in the following ways:
First, by moulding public opinion through paid news and editorial items; next, by the collection of proxies; and third, by the inauguration of different moves and dummy suits and investigations.