THE SPAN OF LIFE
BY WALTER E. WEYL
You who begin this sentence may not live to read its close. There is a chance, one in three or four billions, that you will die in a second, by the tick of the watch. The chair upon which you sit may collapse, the car in which you ride may collide, your heart may suddenly cease. Or you may survive the sentence and the article, and live twenty, fifty, eighty years longer.
No one knows the span of your life, and yet the insurance man is willing to bet upon it. What is life insurance but the bet of an unknown number of yearly premiums against the payment of the policy? * * * * The length of your individual life is a guess, but the insurance company bets on a sure thing, on the average death rate.
(7)
(The Outlook)
"AMERICANS FIRST"
BY GREGORY MASON
Every third man you meet in Detroit was born in a foreign country. And three out of every four persons there were either born abroad or born here of foreign-born parents. In short, in Detroit, only every fourth person you meet was born in this country of American parents. Such is the make-up of the town which has been called "the most American city in the United States."
(8)