INSURANCE ADVOCATE--75 YEARS AGO.

THE INSURANCE ADVOCATE HAS BEEN IN PUBLICATION SINCE 1889. EACH ISSUE, WE LOOK BACK TO A DIFFERENT TIME TO SEE WHAT INSURERS WERE READING ABOUT BACK THEN. HERE'S AN EXCERPT FROM

PLASMA SAVES LIVES OF SERVICE MEN

Help by donating your blood through your local Red Cross Chapter. See story on page six.

"... and the Truth Shall Make You Free."

Our thoughts at the opening of the New Year are tortured by the losses we--are suffering because of the Nazis' recent breakthrough on the Western front. We forget that the German hordes struck with even greater fury in the spring of 1918. That was before the American forces under General Pershing engaged the enemy in full strength. The German offensive at that time threatened the annihilation of the French and English armies. But (barely six months later the Germans surrendered and World War I came to an end.

This is not recalled in order to point an analogy or to voice a prophecy. We don't know whether history will repeat itself. For that matter, one certain lesson which a study of history teaches is that we are prone to be misled by the lessons of history. Our purpose is to enter a plea for a sane appraisal of the setback which our forces are undergoing at the borders of Germany--a plea for an end of the recurring cycles of hysteria, of palatable propaganda and of (the struttings of prima donnas in high military, diplomatic and official places which have characterized the conduct of the war and the efforts to establish a postwar world.

Why should our ears be assailed by the babel of voices of radio commentators and newscasters purporting to (tell what they think is happening on that embattled front? Why must we be (blinded by the guesses and surmises which fill the columns of our daily press about the extent of the calamity? And why do those occupying responsible public office add to the bedlam by uttering statements, orders, edicts and directives on selective service, manpower, rationing, reconversion and the many other phases of daily life which are forever contradicting and countermanding each other and which keep the nation in a state of uncalled-for bewilderment? Why are we alternately buoyed up with high hope and cast down in deep despair?

The American people should not be treated like a mob of Nazi and Fascist dupes. No one likes censorship. Nobody wants it. But what we are getting is worse than censorship. Barring actual military secrets, all news whether good or bad should be made public promptly by accredited officials. Let the people be fed the truth. They can stand it (better than the alarms, the predictions and the fears which are being dinned into them by a lot of over-paid soothsayers.

It may be that the war--can be won only if a national service law is enacted. But should we take that drastic step and disrupt more lives before knowing the facts? We drafted great numbers of men between ages thirty-eight and -forty-five, only to return them to civil life after untold wastes. Talk of a...

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