the New York Legislature, which is now conducting inquiries into the methods of the great insurance companies, led me finally to issue the following open letter to John A. McCall, in which I review the controversy between us and contrast his disclosures of corruption and mismanagement with his brazen professions of virtue and probity made last year. In order to wrest the two great mutual companies from the control of men who are obviously unworthy to direct them and with whom the policy-holders' funds are plainly unsafe, I asked for proxies which would make it possible for me to bring about a change in the control of these two great corporations.
This letter and call appeared in the November, 1905, issue of Everybody's Magazine.
AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN A. McCALL, PRESIDENT NEW YORK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY
Sir: It is time your attention was called to the moral sense of the American people. It is time some one dragged you out of the Wall Street conservatory and set you in the plain white light of daily life. It is time you were shown yourself as you are to-day seen by the millions of your countrymen who, a month ago, believed you to be a great and honorable man.
In spite of the terrible exposures of the past few weeks, in spite of the pitiless revealment of yourself and your directors as tricksters, in spite of the unveiling of the jugglery, grafting, and corruption of your administration of the most sacred trust that can be confided to man, you remain unconvinced of your fall and unpenetrated by your shame. Fortified by the sympathy of your fellow-sinners, you imagine your audacious bluster and your sly evasions before the Investigating Committee of the State of New York represented