Georgia BIOS:  The Capital City Insurance Company   
   American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers'
   Project, 1936-1940
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   Item 5 of 73 
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   [The Capital City Insurance Company]
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   {Begin handwritten} Rewritten in accordance with Mr. [Cutter's?]
   suggestions. {End handwritten} THE CAPITAL CITY INSURANCE COMPANY 
   
   Written by: Miss Grace McCune
   
   Area 6 - Athens
   
   Edited by: Mrs. Sarah H. Hall
   
   Area 6 - Athens and 
   
   John N. Booth
   
   Field Supervisor
   
   Federal Writers' Project
   
   Areas 6 and 7
   
   Augusta, Georgia
   
   July 10, 1939
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   April 14, 1939
   
   June 20, 1939
   
   July 7, 1939
   
   J.H. Robertson (Negro)
   
   Samaritan Building
   
   West Washington Street
   
   Athens, Georgia
   
   Manager, Atlanta Life
   
   Insurance Company
   
   G.M. THE CAPITAL CITY INSURANCE COMPANY 
   
   The young Negress, who sat at her desk in the reception room of the
   Capital City Life Insurance Company's local office, was industriously
   thumbing through a sheaf of papers when I entered. She stood up at
   once when she saw me, and when I expressed a desire to talk with the
   manager of the office, she said, "Just have a seat, and I'll see if he
   is busy." As she left me to open a door marked "PRIVATE" I noticed her
   straightened hair, combed back from her very black face and arranged
   in a smooth coil on the back or her head. Her neatly fitted frock was
   made on the tailored lines of appropriate office costuming for women.
   
   She returned promptly, saying, "Mr. Smith will see you now." She led
   the way, and on entering the small private office I saw a young Negro
   man dressed in an impeccably tailored and freshly pressed dark blue
   business suit. "I'm Sam Smith," he greeted me, standing beside his
   desk, "What can I do for you?"
   
   He laughed when I asked him to relate some of his experiences and
   problems in his occupation as an insurance man. "We
   do have a good many problems," he admitted, "and our experiences might
   fill a good many books. But first, won't you have a seat?" He saw that
   I was comfortably seated before a table, then began his story.
   
   "Maybe you'd better start asking me questions, for I don't know just
   what it is you want, and then, I'm not very good at telling things
   anyway," he suggested.
   
   "Then tell me about your early life," I replied.
   
   "Well," he said, "I was born in {Begin deleted text} [?] {End deleted
   text} a small town in South Georgia, in 1905. The folks down there may
   not consider it so small - they even have a daily paper there - but
   after spending so many years in Atlanta and Athens, and visiting other
   larger cities, I came to realize that I am from a small town. My
   father worked at sawmills and consequently was away from home much of
   the time, for when one lot of timber was cut the sawmill had to be
   moved to another tract.
   
   "One of my earliest recollections is my determination to earn money. I
   wanted to have my own money and to be independent. I hardly know just
   how old I was when I began work as a bootblack. It's really surprising
   how many nickels and dimes a small boy can earn blacking shoes. During
   my grammar school days I was on the lookout for any little chore by
   which I could earn money between school hours. After finishing grammar
   school in Moultrie, I began
   high school studies at Americus Institute in Americus, Georgia, but
   after one school year there I went to Morehouse College, in Atlanta,
   where I completed high school studies, and I remained there until I
   graduated from college. About twenty percent of the students at
   Morehouse did part-time work to earn some of their expenses. I was one
   of that group, and I also began the fall term every year with quite a
   tidy sum saved from wages and tips paid me at summer resorts during
   the vacation period. I waited on tables, did bellboy service, or 'most
   anything that came to hand at summer hotels.
   
   "When I finished college my plans were already definite. I wanted to
   go in the insurance business, for I could think of no other field that
   offered as promising opportunities to a young man of my race.
   
   "I didn't step out of college into a high salaried executive job. My
   first work was the humblest that this business has to offer. I was an
   agent's helper. That means I made the rounds with the agent to keep up
   with the literature that was distributed for advertising and selling
   insurance. I wasn't allowed to do any collecting and neither could I
   try to sell any insurance until I {Begin inserted text} /was {End
   inserted text} promoted to the job of assistant agent. Even then I was
   given long and careful training by the agent before I was permitted to
   discuss any matter of collection or selling with a policyholder or a
   sales prospect. It takes someone who is
   plenty interested in insurance to stick through the long training
   period that begins with the lowest chore of our work and takes in
   every detail of our routine just as rapidly as the learner can attain
   the degree of efficiency required of our agents.
   
   "I can tell you it was hard on me during my first experience in trying
   to keep up the quota required of all agents and their assistants.
   There were days when it seemed impossible to make even a small
   increase in the volume of sales and collections. I would have given up
   then but I very well knew it was only by means of bringing in more
   business than the other agents that I could hope for promotion, and I
   was firmly determined to get it. The agent with me knew I was doing my
   very best and that I wanted, more than anything else in the world, to
   make good at insurance work, so he did everything in his power to
   encourage and assist me. It was his kindness and understanding that
   enabled me to successfully pass through the trying period of training.
   
   "When dark came, the other agents would call it a day and they would
   go out for an evening of pleasure and frolicking around at dances and
   shows, but I worked right on. That was my time for contacting those of
   our people who couldn't be reached in the daytime because of their
   jobs. It was this night work that enabled me to pile up a higher total
   of insurance sold than the others in my district, and eight years ago
   it won me my place as manager.
   
   "Now we have a regular training school for young men of twenty-one and
   over who want to enter the insurance business. We take twenty or
   thirty of them and start training the group. They don't have to have
   college education for this work, for we teach them according to our
   own ideas. Do you know that some of the best executives in the
   insurance business are men that never finished high school, and some
   of the top-notchers never even finished grammar school? Education is a
   great thing, but that old school of experience beats 'em all, because
   that's where you have to work for yourself. That's one school that
   will make you put out all there is in you.
   
   "We start our agents off with small salaries, plus a commission on all
   business above a certain quota. That's an incentive to work, for they
   realize that the amount of their earnings depends on their own efforts
   and resourcefulness, and they usually dig in and get the business.
   After an agent is appointed and his territory assigned he becomes
   responsible for the business in that definite area; not for just one
   type of policy but for all the different kinds of insurance that we
   write. All the special problems that arise in that particular
   territory - and believe me there are plenty of problems coming up all
   the time in any territory - the agent is expected to settle by himself
   as far as possible. It seems as if a week never
   passes that some policyholder doesn't let a policy lapse for one
   reason or another. The agent who can keep in sufficiently close touch
   with his policyholders to be able to persuade them to let no insurance
   lapse is considered exceedingly good and is in sure line for
   promotion. Sometimes the lapses will total more than the new business,
   and that's when we get discouraged and feel like giving up.
   
   "Of course we investigate every risk as well as we can before we write
   the insurance, and then do more investigating before we pay any claim
   that appears to be in the least doubtful, but even at that we do get
   caught sometimes. Things aren't always as they appear on the surface
   and its not possible to accurately judge the physical condition by
   casual inspection of outward appearances. People who want to collect
   on sick benefit claims will swear to anything that they think they can
   get by with. When they want to get a policy written, they'll swear
   they have never had to see a doctor, at least not for the last 5 or 10
   years, when all the time they're just planning to cash in on some
   disease already present in their bodies and which they may be able to
   conceal from us long enough to get the insurance written and in
   effect. We've learned that there are almost as many speculators as
   there are honest people. This is especially so on the sick and
   accident policies. Some of our policies carry
   sick benefits that run as high as twenty-five dollars a week, and
   persons have tried to collect as soon as the policy was in force. Then
   again we have had some that have carried these policies for years, and
   have never put in for the first claim.
   
   "I'll never forget the time when a woman who held one of our sick and
   accident policies, paying $5 a week in the event she was confined to
   bed, tried to swindle us. We paid the first week's claim without
   hesitancy after I had personally visited the home and found her in bed
   apparently very ill. When the claim for a second week came in I made
   my formal visit of investigation at an hour when she did not expect
   me. Suspecting there there was some reason for the excessive delay in
   permitting me to enter the home, and noticing that the cover pulled up
   closely about her neck on that sweltering July day was probably to
   conceal the fact that she had gotten into bed fully dressed, I
   remained by the bedside administering simple remedies and sympathizing
   with the patient until the limit of her endurance was reached. That
   was after I had awkwardly mixed up quantities of freshly ironed
   clothes with piles of unironed garments and had apparently accidently,
   dropped them on the floor and trampled on them, as I directed a
   neighbor woman to apply hot water bottles to the feet of the patient
   and mustard plasters to her chest. She rose up out of bed, fully
   clothed, even to her shoes, and said she did not want that $5 a week
   if she had to go through all that to get it.
   
   "But you know I don't believe she ever did suspect anything other than
   that I was just extremely solicitous about her. That story spread
   through the district and it gave me a good reputation for looking
   after the sick people who hold insurance with me. If anyone else in
   that district ever tried to swindle me in a sick benefit claim I never
   did find it out.
   
   "Now don't get the idea that we're reluctant about paying just claims.
   We very readily pay all just and honest claims, but because of the
   great number of speculators who are always ready to take any and every
   advantage of us, we must {Begin inserted text} /at {End inserted text}
   all times be very careful in our investigations of claims.
   
   "The worst feature of it all is that these speculators sometimes find
   doctors low enough to help them in their efforts to swindle life
   insurance companies. However, I'm happy to say that this doesn't
   happen very often. We always learn when these cases do show up, that
   the policyholder has promised to divide the benefits with the doctor
   when, and if, the claim is paid. I don't think they ever gain by this
   practice in the long run, for if they win once they invariably keep on
   trying to work the same gag, and sooner or later it makes a lot of
   trouble for them, if not a jail term."
   
   "Are all your insrance payments weekly?" I asked.
   
   "In town, yes; or that is, most of it is paid by the week in town. It
   can be paid by the month by special arrangement. Out in communities
   where we don't keep an agent all the time, we send a representative
   once a month to make collections, and those clients are usually very
   prompt, for they know that if they don't have the money ready for him,
   they'll either have to buy a stamp and money order to mail it in or
   let the policy lapse before the agent calls again. It's counted a
   serious matter to risk loss of money by letting insurance lapse.
   
   "Perhaps our greatest collection problem in rural communities lies in
   the frequency with which our policyholders move from one farm to
   another, and we've never been able to make them understand the
   importance of notifying us whenever they plan to move. Some of them
   move about so much. They will stay probably a year on one farm and
   then get dissatisfied for some reason. Usually they think they haven't
   been treated right, didn't get enough pay, or the people they rented
   from didn't advance them enough during the year to get by with their
   bills until the crop was sold. Sometimes it's the illness or death of
   the main breadwinner in a family that's the reason for the move, but
   they scarcely ever stay in one place over a year or two at the most,
   for they're always thinking they can do better at some other place.
   
   "Sometimes they move into a county where they're not known, and it's a
   problem to locate them then. I've known it to take
   several months to locate one policyholder. They just don't cooperate
   with the agent. After all that work in locating them, when we ask,
   'Why didn't you let us know where you had moved?' we got this answer,
   'I just never thought about it.'" He laughed and continued, "But you
   know that's about the truth of the matter, they just don't think;
   that's one great fault of my people - they don't stop to think.
   
   "I don't know if you know this or not, but one of the greatest
   mistakes our people make is when they let a policy lapse, they'll
   sometimes just drop that one and take out a new policy with another
   agent. I've known this to happen many times, and I've occasionally
   known them to die before the new policy is in force. If they had only
   kept the old policy in effect by keeping it paid up they would have
   received its value. It's hard to make them understand this. Of course,
   if they just move from one town to another it's very easy to transfer
   them to the agent in that town if they notify us, but the point is,
   they seldom do this.
   
   "People with high incomes don't need insurance like those who work on
   small, uncertain salaries. I really don't know, just what my people
   would do in some emergencies without their insurance, for it's one
   thing on which they can depend. Take the washwomen, cooks, maids, and
   all the others that work for two and three dollars a week. What do
   they have to depend on? Their
   earnings are not even enough for the necessities of living, and if
   sickness should come they couldn't get a doctor to come unless he knew
   he would get his money, and it's the same in case of death. They'd
   have to lay out until enough money was raised to pay burial expenses.
   But if they have a good insurance policy they can get the doctor to
   come, and if they should pass out the doctor, as well as the
   undertaker, would get his money. Yes, a good policy is something they
   can depend on, and if they can possibly get the money to keep it in
   force, they won't knowingly let it lapse.
   
   "Another feature of insurance which has brought up many questions and
   caused some lawsuits is the minor child beneficiary. Of course we
   can't turn the money over to a child, and sure as the world when the
   uncles and aunts of the beneficiary learn that it has money coming
   from insurance, they all fall out about who is to be the guardian.
   Each one of them will want the child as long as they expect it to
   receive money. In most of these instances we have turned the money
   over to a court, whose duty it was to appoint a guardian for the child
   and its money. Now we refuse to write policies that name children as
   beneficiaries unless the policyholder specifies a guardian in the
   application for the policy.
   
   "As to the matter of production, we divide the business area into
   districts, and in each district we set up a local office in some
   central town. A manager is appointed to take charge of the business of
   the district and to handle the affairs of the local office. The
   personnel of the local office includes manager, assistant manager,
   cashier, clerk, inspectors, supervisors, and agents. Each supervisor
   has from four to six agents working under him. Each agent has a quota
   to make, and this quota must go over and above his lapses.
   
   "For instance, it's worked out this way: if you're collecting on 25
   policies and you lapse four, that would mean a lapse of $1 a week, and
   for every dollar lapsed you have to write $1.25 in new business to
   keep up your quota. That makes it very much to the interest of the
   agent not to permit policies to lapse, and how they do work to keep up
   their quotas and to exceed them! They know that'll count more on their
   records and will bring promotion quicker than anything else can.
   
   "Then too, the agents are supposed to make so many calls each day. The
   required number of calls is rated according to the size of territory
   and the amount of business done in that territory. While we understand
   that not every prospect called on will take out insurance, we do
   expect our agents to land at least three out of every ten they call
   on. Each agent has his prospect book, and in this is kept the names of
   all the people he calls on,
   the date of each call, and a notice of when he expects to see each
   prospect again. Sometimes it takes weeks for the agent to make just
   one trip to each of his prospects, but whether they want him or not,
   he hunts them up and calls regularly, just as a matter of persistence.
   Do you know that in the end these regular calls usually win out for
   the agent?
   
   "Our larger towns are divided into what we call zones, and each agent
   has his own zone to work. Their work is so carefully outlined and
   systematized that they run on schedule time, just like postmen. That
   schedule is important to the prospect as well as to the agent, for
   they know just what time the agent is due to arrive for his money.
   
   "From time to time the company puts on contests, and the prizes are,
   as a rule, nice trips. For instance, a winner of one of our latest
   contests got a trip to California, and another won a trip to the
   World's Fair in New York. There were many other smaller prizes in the
   contest that were well worth working for. These contests make agents
   feel like putting out their best efforts to win those fine prizes, and
   the efforts of the agent compose the lifeblood of the organization,
   not only of our own, but of any business organization.
   
   "Few people on the outside realize the valuable services we render to
   morticians. You know the collection end of their
   business is bound to be difficult, for they are compelled to bury the
   deceased even if they never get anything for their services and
   merchandise. As a usual thing people are inclined to request expensive
   funerals for their relatives, whether they can pay the bills or not.
   We encourage the proprietors of undertaking establishments to call us
   as soon as they are notified of a death, so that we can let them know
   whether or not the deceased has insurance with us. Most of the other
   insurance companies extend the same courtesies.
   
   "When they know in advance how much cash will be available, the
   morticians are enabled to make a more sensible deal with the family.
   They can show only what they know can be paid for.
   
   "It's an established fact that unless they get at least a substantial
   part of the cost before the interment, it will be difficult for them
   to collect at all. After they have rendered services to the best of
   their ability, furnished burial robes and casket, and used their
   hearse, automobiles and other equipment, there is little that they can
   do toward collection after the body is under the ground. They had
   better get a claim on what insurance exists before they even start to
   work on the corpse.
   
   "We don't have very much time for recreation, and there's very little
   in that way to do here, but our agents usually go in for whatever
   amusements are popular in their territories, for
   it's {Begin inserted text} /a {End inserted text} good policy to mix
   with the local people. That helps business. We don't have any ball
   teams among our workers as is customary in many other organizations,
   but that's because we don't know all the time where we will be
   located. We do try to cooperate with each other in anything that comes
   up, and in that way we do really help each other in many ways.
   
   "Personally, I have very little time for recreation. I do enjoy
   swimming and billiards, also a good game of tennis in the late
   afternoons, and I think we all like a good picture show. I visit all
   the churches very often and attend their different entertainments,
   for, as I told you, I consider it a good policy to mix with people.
   Though I'm a Baptist myself, our policyholders belong to different
   churches, and it makes them feel better to know that we want to be
   with them.
   
   "I married an Alabama girl soon after I came here to work as a
   manager. I have no children, and just a short time ago - it really
   seems ages - I lost my wife. Since she passed away I'm left without
   any family. I get lonesome, for we were so happy, but I know that I'll
   have to go on some way and I'm trying to take it as she would have me
   to. I'm glad I stay so busy that I don't have time to brood and worry
   so much.
   
   "There are so many problems of our people, and many have tried to find
   their solutions. The white folks are working
   on these things now, and I hope and believe that at some time in the
   near future there will be better understanding between the races. The
   South is the home of the Negro, and our people are beginning to
   realize it more and more in every way. Of course some of them, in fact
   a great many, have gone North and have made a success of their work at
   the better salaries paid there, but after all, that doesn't mean so
   much, for it takes all they can make to live up there.
   
   "Housing conditions can be blamed for many of the problems of my race.
   Our agents have found that these conditions are worse in small towns
   and rural areas than in the more thickly settled sections. Rain comes
   in through leaky roofs and they can't keep the cold out. Continued
   exposure in cold, wet, and unsanitary living quarters brings a notable
   increase in pulmonary disorders. Pneumonia flourishes in areas where
   these conditions prevail. In fact, the majority of our sick claims are
   based on this disease. As a general thing there is a trend toward
   improvement of housing conditions throughout the section of the
   country that I frequent. Our people are beginning to take advantage of
   the plans offered by various Government bureaux for financing
   improvement of houses. Marked improvement in rural areas in coming
   from the aid and encouragement now given tenant farmers toward
   purchase of farms and building of farm homes.
   
   "Our company sponsors lectures and assemblies for
   teaching improvement of health by means of diet. We began this several
   years ago when an amazing number of sick benefit claims, based on
   varying degrees of prostration accompanied by a peculiar roughening of
   the skin, came in from a section in South Georgia. We investigated and
   found this malady to be pellagra. Our workers in that territory
   concentrated their efforts on convincing the sufferers of the benefits
   to be gained by properly varied diet to such an extent that we think
   more cures were effected by the change of food habits than by
   medicines. By means of the county agents, nursing projects, and other
   facilities the government has done splendid service in teaching the
   essentials of proper diet to the people of your race and mine.
   
   "It would probably be hard for you to believe what we found to be the
   main obstacle in our efforts to help pellagra victims in the area I've
   just mentioned," he remarked.
   
   "Go ahead and tell about it," I urged. "It should be known."
   
   "Well," he continued, apparently unaware that he had lowered his voice
   until I had to lean forward to catch the words that followed, "in this
   section almost every landlord would forbid the tenant to plant a
   garden for his own use saying, 'I want you to put all of your time on
   your crop, so I'll plant a garden big enough to feed every family on
   this plantation. You plant your crop on every foot of land I've rented
   you.' So the tenant had no garden, no potato patch, no watermelon
   patch, no chickens, and
   no hogs or cows. Sure enough the landlord would plant a grand garden,
   but everything the tenant, used from it was charged to his account at
   a price that enabled the landlord to make an excellent profit and it
   usually left the tenant in debt to his landlord at the end of the year
   if he used anything from that garden. So the poor tenant learned to do
   without vegetables, milk, and fresh meats. He lived chiefly on
   cornbread, syrup, and fatback, and consequently became susceptible to
   pellagra. Some of our people in certain sections still find themselves
   hampered by restrictions like that, and so they keep moving from place
   to place. They're trying to get away from such things.
   
   "Most of us can remember the time when people of my race had few
   opportunities for higher education. Now we have excellent high schools
   and colleges, as well as much improved facilities for grade school
   education. If young people of my race want to be educated, there is
   nothing to prevent them from going ahead and getting whatever training
   they desire.
   
   "I'm proud or these educational institutions, for they have been the
   means of giving us better preparation for our work. Even the cooks
   need to know how to read and write, and the same knowledge enables the
   maid to answer your telephone more intelligently and take down the
   messages that come for you in your absence. Nursemaids give better
   service in the care of your children when they are trained for their
   work. In fact, there is no line of work - no matter now humble the
   service - that cannot be improved by even
   a little education.
   
   "The relationship between our people and the white folks in the South
   is on a sounder basis than in the North. I know that many thoughtless
   things have been done by our people, and some of them have been
   terrible in their effects on the harmony of the races. These things
   have made hardships for the rest of us. We are working in cooperation
   with the good white people to prevent such things from recurring, and
   it will all be straightened out eventually. It takes lots of time to
   solve problems concerning the human race, and much more time to work
   out those solutions sufficiently to see improvement.
   
   "Only the Negroes who have means can make money and progress in the
   North. The ones that have nothing can't get along. I know many who
   couldn't live in the North. Eventually they'll all want to come back
   to the South where the majority of them were born. The South is their
   home. Here they have their own friends, relatives, churches, and
   schools. If they can just learn to get ahead, then they'll be on the
   road to greater advantages.
   
   "I know many that sold their farms and moved to the North because they
   thought they couldn't make a go of it on the farm. They didn't know
   how to do much of anything except to raise cotton and corn. Now
   there's no excuse for the farmer not to make a good living if he's
   willing to work. The Government has all these farm projects and agents
   to teach them what to plant and how to
   cultivate the ground to the best advantage. They are learning that
   cotton is not the reliable {Begin inserted text} /money {End inserted
   text} crop they once thought it was. They know there are many other
   crops that will bring in more money, without the work and risk if
   one-crop farming.
   
   "They are getting along better, having more to eat and wear then ever
   before on the farms. The Government has really been a blessing to the
   farmers, yet many of them can't, or rather just won't, admit it. It
   isn't just teaching them to till the soil that counts. The agents are
   showing them how they can make money raising cattle for the market as
   well as for their own use. In this way they no longer have to depend
   on one crop for cash, and that keeps them from getting discouraged so
   easily.
   
   "What political party do I belong to?" An honestly puzzled expression
   came over his face that was quickly followed by another expansive
   smile, as he confessed, "I don't know. I was reared in a family of
   Republicans without knowing very much more about that party than the
   story that President Lincoln was a member of it and that he become a
   martyr soon after he signed the document that sealed our emancipation.
   It seemed natural to us that there was no better way for Negroes to
   pay tribute to the man who gave us our freedom than to vote his way,
   and there was no other party that seemed as much interested in our
   welfare as the Republicans did. Since the present Mr. Roosevelt was
   first elected his remarkable achievements have made me do some serious
   thinking. I'm
   reluctant to vote against the old party, but I cannot ignore the fact
   that my people have had more consideration from the present
   administration than from any in the past. Please don't ask how I'll
   vote in 1940. I really don't know. I admire our President," he said in
   conclusion.
   
   "You've probably heard of our Mr. Henley, the remarkable man who
   founded our company," he queried, looking up at a large framed
   photograph.
   
   "Everyone has heard of him, and I can very well remember seeing him
   for I passed his barber shop in Atlanta almost every day, about thirty
   years ago," I replied, "but I'd like to hear his story from you."
   
   "Well," Smith continued, "he was born a slave, in Monroe County,
   Georgia. After freedom came he went to Atlanta and started to work for
   a barber. That he made a success of his work in shown by the large
   business he built up. His best customers were among his white friends.
   Before 1900 his barber shop had more then 20 chairs in it, and that
   shop is still going today long after his death. A list of his patrons
   would sound like a roll call of Atlanta's most prominent and important
   business men. It may be that his daily contact with successful
   business men had something to do with his own success. His ambition to
   do something to enable the members of our race to prepare for the
   financial crises so often brought about by sickness, accidents, and by
   death, led him to organize his first little accident and sick benefit
   company. It's probable that the purity and unselfishness of his
   motives in starting his insurance business were factors that led
   Providence to permit it to prosper so that in 1905 he was able to buy
   out several other companies, organize a great business, and put up a
   $5,000 cash bond in accordance with a law enacted that year by the
   State Legislature for the protection of insurance beneficiaries. Prior
   to that time there had been several small companies doing business in
   accident and sick benefit insurance that carried death benefits of
   from twenty to thirty dollars, and not one of these little
   organizations was able to raise the cash bond. Mr. Henley's purchase
   of these small companies and merging them with his original insurance
   business was the beginning of the Capital City Insurance Company, and
   our home offices are still in Atlanta.
   
   "Our little mutual company, that before the merger in 1905 paid sick
   benefits of from two to three dollars a week, has grown and improved
   until we have more than 300,000 policyholders, and we're now one of
   the largest insurance organizations among our people, we write any
   kind of insurance now, from sick, accident, straight life, and
   paid-up, to endowment. In fact, this is an industrial as well as an
   ordinary life insurance company, and we're more than proud of our
   business.
   
   "Our records show that in 1939 we paid out more than $800,000 to our
   paid-up policyholders and to beneficiaries in
   general. This, of course, includes loans on policies, sick and
   accident benefits, dividends, and final payments after the death of
   the insured. After making these payments totalling considerably more
   than three-quarters of a million dollars, we still had a surplus of
   more than $980,000 on hand. At the beginning of this year we raised
   the amount of capital stock from $100,000 to $500,000. Our one hundred
   and four employees include our managers, clerks, inspectors, and field
   agents. That'll give you some idea of how our business has grown."
   
   There was a proud and satisfied look on his face when he asked, "Now
   do you like our new home?" As I looked about me, he continued, "We've
   just recently moved into these offices. We'd simply outgrown the old
   place and just had to have more room. I'll have to admit we're rather
   proud of our new home."
   
   The modern offices were well furnished and equipped. Venetian blinds
   shaded the windows facing the street, and the walls and woodwork were
   immaculate in their fresh coats of light tan paint. "You have every
   reason to be proud of these lovely offices," I assured him, "and they
   have the advantage of being centrally located and convenient for your
   workers and clients."
   
   "Thank you," he answered, "and now I think I've just about covered
   everything of interest about my insurance experience. I don't have to
   explain that practically my whole scheme of living is bounded by
   insurance now. There is no other business that I
   know of that brings the worker in such close contact with the great
   mass of our race as does insurance, and through it we are able to have
   insight into the most personal problems. While a child to still very
   young, some insurance man is going to be there to see about writing a
   policy on its life, an insurance man will investigate practically
   every condition that effects the health and welfare of his
   policyholder throughout his life, and when he has died the insurance
   man comes around again to make settlement. Everything that the
   insurance man does to improve health conditions and to take care of
   his policyholder is actually an economy in the narrowest means, for in
   that way he is lessening the payments of sickness end death claims,
   but I still maintain that our Mr. Henley founded this business for the
   purpose of helping the people of his race.
   
   "I'm hoping that you'll find at least a part of the information I've
   given you usable. If in the future there are questions that arise in
   regard to our race, I hope that you'll let us try to help you compile
   the information needed."
   
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