Every little boy and girl, and, of course, every man and woman, of the
colored race in America should carry a life insurance policy of some
kind in some reliable company. In this matter the old people, as in some
other things, ought to set the example for the young, but there are some
reasons, growing chiefly out of their previous condition of slavery, why
our mothers and fathers have not, as a rule, taken very largely to the
business of having their lives insured. But because our parents have
been negligent in this matter there is no reason why the younger
generation should be. Life insurance is a good thing, boys and
girls--one of the best things in the world. American life insurance
companies alone pay to policy-holders or estates of policy-holders over
one hundred million dollars annually. Only a very small and almost
insignificant portion of this vast sum goes into the hands of colored
people, and for the reason that very few colored people carry life
insurance policies.
[Illustration: TAKING OUT A POLICY.]
Now use a little common sense about this matter. Whatever is good in
life insurance for other races is good for our race; whatever in life
insurance benefits other races will benefit our race. In business as in
education, whatever is good for a white man is good for a black man. I
would, therefore, urge every boy and girl to join a life insurance
company, and where your mothers and fathers are not insured I would urge
you to do your utmost to persuade them to join at once.
For one reason, a life insurance policy is not expensive. You might as
well talk of the expense of buying bank stock, or the expense of putting
your money into a savings bank or any other safe place as to speak of
the expense of keeping up a life insurance policy. It is accumulation
and not expense. Every dollar put into life insurance is a dollar saved
to yourself or your estate.
For another reason life insurance is a good business investment.
Carefully collected statistics on file in Washington City prove that
investments in life insurance are much safer and yield much larger
returns than money placed in a savings bank. When you are older you will
perhaps be able to make these comparisons for yourself. For the present
you can take my word for it.
A third reason, life insurance is cheap. You can in an instant create a
capital of $1,000, though you may be ever so poor, by laying aside only
a few cents a week. Young people chew up and drink up and smoke up and
frolic up more money every week than would be sufficient to protect them
against the rainy days that must come to everybody.
And, then, life insurance has a character value. It makes a young man a
better man; it makes a young woman a better woman; that is to say, it
makes them more economical, more business-like, happier, and, I believe,
it will make them live longer.
It is high time that black boys and girls were learning these things and
acting upon them. When God commanded us not to serve money as a false
god He did not say that money could not serve us, and I beseech the boys
and girls, and the old people too, to exercise the same foresight and
the same good sense about life insurance that other races exercise.