by Mark Twain
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 distinguishedguest of this occasion to a city whose fame as an insurance center hasextended to all lands, and given us the name of being a quadruple bandof brothers working sweetly hand in hand--the Colt's Arms Company making thedestruction of our race easy and convenient, our life insurance citizenspaying for the victims when they pass away, Mr. Batterson perpetuatingtheir memory with his stately monuments, and our fire-insurance comradestaking care of their hereafter. I am glad to assist in welcoming ourguest--first, because he is an Englishman, and I owe a heavy debt ofhospitality to certain of his fellow-countrymen; and secondly, because heis in sympathy with insurance and has been the means of making many othermen cast their sympathies in the same direction.
Certainly there is no nobler field for human effort than the insuranceline of business--especially accident insurance. Ever since I have beena director in an accident-insurance company I have felt that I am abetter man. Life has seemed more precious. Accidents have assumed akindlier aspect. Distressing special providences have lost half theirhorror. I look upon a cripple now with affectionate interest--as anadvertisement. I do not seem to care for poetry any more. I do not carefor politics--even agriculture does not excite me. But to me now thereis a charm about a railway collision that is unspeakable.
There is nothing more beneficent than accident insurance. I have seen anentire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boonof a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears intheir eyes, to bless this beneficent institution. In all my experienceof life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into afreshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest pocket with hisremaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right. And I have seennothing so sad as the look that came into another splintered customer'sface when he found he couldn't collect on a wooden leg.
I will remark here, by way of advertisement, that that noble charitywhich we have named the HARTFORD ACCIDENT INSURANCE COMPANY--[Thespeaker is a director of the company named.]--is an institution which ispeculiarly to be depended upon. A man is bound to prosper who gives ithis custom.
No man can take out a policy in it and not get crippled before the yearis out. Now there was one indigent man who had been disappointed sooften with other companies that he had grown disheartened, his appetiteleft him, he ceased to smile--life was but a weariness. Three weeks agoI got him to insure with us, and now he is the brightest, happiest spiritin this land--has a good steady income and a stylish suit of new bandagesevery day, and travels around on a shutter.
I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest isnone the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that Ican say the same for the rest of the speakers.