The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is not only the oldest of the railway unions, but was the first to institute national beneficiary features. Three years after its organization, in September, 1866, the grand division levied an assessment to raise a fund for "widows and orphans and totally disabled members." The law was unsatisfactory, and few subordinate divisions paid the assessments prior to the Cincinnati convention of October, 1867. This convention ordered all assessments paid at once, and on December 2, 1867, $1212.40 was paid over to the chairman of the board of trustees. This was the nucleus of a fund which reached $10,787.63 on March 1, 1871. On account of charges of mismanagement and the slow growth of the fund repeated efforts were made to repeal the "fund" law, but without success. At the Nashville convention of 1870 a committee appointed to consider the disposition of the fund at the expiration of the five years recommended that the entire sum be paid back to the subordinate divisions. The grand chief opposed this use of the fund, since he regarded it as the Brotherhood's "strongest pillar."[12] [Footnote 12: _Ibid.,_ Vol. 5, p. 294.] Before the expiration of the five-year period, however, on December 3, 1867, the Brotherhood founded an insurance association.[13] On March 13, 1869, the secretary-treasurer reported: number of members admitted during 1868, 2426; amount of claims paid, $31,920; average amount of each claim, $1520.09; cost per member, $19. At Baltimore, on October 21,1869, by-laws were adopted providing for assessments of $1 per member for each death, and 50 cents for each case of total disability,[14] and at the annual convention of 1871 President Sherman reported that for the three and one half years of the life of the association there had been 86 deaths and 88 assessments, aggregating $196,358.50, an average of $3278. [Footnote 13: _Ibid.,_ Vol. 3, p. 232.] [Footnote 14: Locomotive Engineers' Journal, Vol. 4, p. 31.] The industrial depression of the seventies decreased the membership, but with the revival of trade an increase set in. Since January 1, 1890, insurance has been compulsory upon all members of the Brotherhood under fifty years of age. In January, 1890, the association numbered about 8000, and on January 1, 1897, it had increased to 18,000. During the twenty-five years of voluntary insurance $3,122,-669.61 was paid in death and disability benefits, and at the close of 1896 this total had been increased to $5,771,214.61.[15] Ten years later, December 31, 1906, the membership had grown to 49,328, with $97,799,500 insurance in force, and the total aggregate paid in death and disability claims had reached $10,323,181.60. [Footnote 15: _Ibid.,_ Vol. 25, p. 951; Vol. 31, p. 504.]