https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-accepting-the-republican-nomination-for-president

Special Message

April 17, 1906

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I herewith transmit the report and recommendations, with accompanying papers, of the Insurance Convention which met in February last at Chicago. The convention was called because of the extraordinary disclosures of wrongful insurance methods recently made by the Armstrong legislative committee of the State of New York; the suggestion that it should be called coming to me originally from Governor John A. Johnson, of Minnesota, through Commissioner of Insurance Thomas D. O'Brien, of that State. The convention consisted of about one hundred governors, attorneys-general and commissioners of insurance of the States and Territories of the Union. The convention was seeking to accomplish uniformity of insurance legislation throughout the States and Territories, and as a prime step toward this purpose decided to endeavor to secure the enactment by the Congress of the United States of a proper insurance code for the District of Columbia, which might serve as a model for the several States. Before adjourning, the convention appointed a committee of three attorneys-general and twelve commissioners of insurance of the various States to prepare and have presented to the Congress a bill which should embody the features suggested by the convention. The committee recently met in Chicago, and in thorough and painstaking fashion sought to prepare a bill which should be at once protective of policy holders and fair and just to insurance companies, and which should prevent the graver evils and abuses of the business, and at the same time forestall any wild or drastic legislation which would be more harmful than beneficial. The proposed bill is discussed at length in the accompanying letter by Superintendent Thomas E. Drake, of the Department of Insurance, in the District of Columbia.

I very earnestly hope that the Congress at the earliest opportunity will enact this bill into law, with such changes as its wisdom may dictate. I have no expert familiarity with the business, but I have entire faith in the right judgment and single-minded purpose of the insurance convention which met at Chicago, and of the committee of that convention, which formulated the measure herein advocated. We are not to be pardoned it we fail to take every step in our power to prevent the possibility of the repetition of such scandals as those that have occurred in connection with the insurance business as disclosed by the Armstrong committee.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Theodore Roosevelt, Special Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/206765

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