These vast sums of money are paid in by policy-holders without any knowledge of, or means of knowing, the uses to which they will be applied. They know, in a general way, that a part of the premium will be used for reserve, a part for expenses, and a part for losses, but how much will go for each purpose they have no means of ascertaining. The company places it all in a common pot, and can put in the hand of extravagance, of avarice, or of dishonesty, and take out any amount for personal aggrandizement, or for expense of management, so long as it can be made to appear that the legal standard of reserve is maintained. There is absolutely no limit put upon the extravagant conduct of the business. There is no separation of trust funds from expense account. No man who insures in a level-premium life company knows whether such company will use for expenses $5 or $25 for each $1,000 of insurance which he carries. He has the vague promise of a dividend,--falsely so called, for it is really nothing but a return of a part only of his own money which he has paid in excess of what he should have paid,--and this vague shadowing of some possible relief of the excessive pecuniary burden he is compelled to assume if he insures, is all that is given him. There is exhibited here the most astonishing credulity, and, too often, as thousands can testify from sad experience, a misplaced confidence on the part of the insuring public, that seems childlike and puerile in the extreme. The official reports of Level-Premium Life Companies to the Insurance Departments of the several states show that these companies actually use, for expense of conducting the business, from $6 to $25 for each $1,000 of insurance outstanding. A man carrying $10,000 insurance for his family in these companies must pay on the average, for the _expense_ of the business, about $80 per annum, and if it should be twice or three times that amount he has no redress. Should not these companies stipulate, in every policy, a sum for expenses which could not be exceeded? Should they not separate the mortuary and expense account, and contract with every policy-holder to use, not exceeding a specified per cent of the premium paid, for expenses, and to hold the balance a sacred trust for the payment of claims, the surplus above such requirement to be returned to the insured? To what other branch of business would men apply such unbusinesslike methods as to pay two or three times the value of the article purchased, upon the implied or real obligation of the seller to return, at some time in the future, some part of the overpayment, but with no definite agreement as to how much, or at what time it should be returned? What merchant could maintain his credit for any considerable time if he made his other purchases as he does his life insurance? Life insurance is a commodity to be bought and paid for at a fair market price.