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$Unique_ID{bob01513}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sketches, Old And New
Speech On Accident Insurance}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{insurance
accident
}
$Date{1893}
$Log{}
Title: Sketches, Old And New
Book: Speech On Accident Insurance
Author: Twain, Mark
Date: 1893
Speech On Accident Insurance
Delivered In Hartford, At A Dinner To Cornelius Walford, Of London.
Gentlemen: I am glad indeed to assist in welcoming the distinguished
guest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an insurance center has
extended to all lands, and given us the name of being a quadruple band of
brothers working sweetly hand in hand, - the Colt's arms company making the
destruction of our race easy and convenient, our life insurance citizens
paying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuating their
memory with his stately monuments, and our fire insurance comrades taking care
of their hereafter. I am glad to assist in welcoming our guest - first,
because he is an Englishman, and I owe a heavy debt of hospitality to certain
of his fellow-countrymen; and secondly, because he is in sympathy with
insurance and has been the means of making many other men cast their
sympathies in the same direction.
Certainly there is no nobler field for human effort than the insurance
line of business - especially accident insurance. Ever since I have been a
director in an accident insurance company I have felt that I am a better man.
Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed a kindlier aspect.
Distressing special providences have lost half their horror. I look upon a
cripple, now, with affectionate interest - as an advertisement. I do not seem
to care for poetry any more. I do not care for politics - even agriculture
does not excite me. But to me, now, there is a charm about a railway
collision that is unspeakable.
There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen an
entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon of a
broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in their
eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experience of life, I
have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated
man's face when he feels in his vest pocket with his remaining hand and finds
his accident ticket all right. And I have seen nothing so sad as the look
that came into another splintered customer's face, when he found he couldn't
collect on a wooden leg.
I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charity
which we have named the Hartford Accident Insurance Company, ^* is an
institution which is peculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to
prosper who gives it his custom. No man can take out a policy in it and not
get crippled before the year is out. Now there was one indigent man who had
been disappointed so often with other companies that he had grown
disheartened, his appetite left him, he ceased to smile - said life was but a
weariness. Three weeks ago I got him to insure with us, and now he is the
brightest, happiest spirit in the land - has a good steady income and a
stylish suit of new bandages every day and travels around on a shutter.
[Footnote *: The speaker is a director of the company named.]
I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest is
none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that I can
say the same for the rest of the speakers.