Boston, buildings are limited to 125 feet. There is no reason why cities that can expand, and which are not bound by physical barriers, should follow the example of New York and erect absurdly high buildings. They inflict an enormous expense upon the city for fire protection. There are other matters, however, to which we must give proper thought. Among them is the best use of the fire-fighting agencies which have been established and which are maintained at a great cost by our people. The mental habits of a people are a vital factor in affecting social progress. It is the mental habit of our people to assume that fire departments are maintained for the exclusive purpose of extinguishing fires. It is obvious, however, that fire departments have large possibilities for service in preventing fires; a service which is, I regret to say, yet largely potential. In every fire department uniformed firemen should be regularly detailed for inspection service. Three or four hours a week for each man, going into basements, attics, courts and alleys, keeping down accumulations of rubbish-which spring up over night-locating the storage of inflammable oils and explosives, would keep the city clean of its most persistent fire dangers. Every fireman should in turn cover every section in the course of six months. One would thus check up the inspections of the other, and local conditions would become a matter for educative conversation about headquarters. There is, however, a most important result to be achieved by such an inspection system over and beyond keeping the city clean; and that is the education of the fire-fighters in the exact physical character of the city. To know exactly which passageways are open and which are closed; to know which are fire walls and which are not; to have a mental picture of the exposures, the windows, the roof openings, the cornices, and all the other physical details important in fire-fighting, would so heighten the team work of a department that, like expert swordsmen, they could make their thrust without loss of time straight at the vulnerable part. There are a few cities in the United States where such practice, partially in effect, has already demonstrated its singular efficiency. The citizens of every town and city should demand this sort of service from its fire department. Then we must begin to place the responsibility upon the in dividual for fires. It is difficult to do that, I know, and yet it can be done. In France, if you have a fire and that fire damages your neighbor's property you have to pay your neighbor's loss. That is very educative! It would be a very good thing if we had such a law in America. We can fix responsibility, however, and we can change our attitude of mind toward the man who has fires. When we look upon the man who has a fire as one who has done an unneighborly thing, as one who is a public offender unless he can prove that he was in no way responsible for that fire, then we will have begun to make headway. We must have inquiry into the causes of all fires, not merely an inquiry into the fire which is suspected to be the work of some incendiary. Nearly every fire is the result of some carelessness; and the careless man must be held up to public criticism as a man who has picked the pockets of the rest of us; because that is what it is in its last analysis. When we get fire marshals in every state or province who shall inquire into the causes of fires, I believe we will begin to correct our personal habits in respect to the things that cause fires. In New York City and in Cleveland, Ohio, the man who ignores a fire prevention order must pay the city for the services of the fire department if fire occurs on his premises. This is also the law in the State of Pennsylvania for cities of the second class. In conclusion I have set down certain specific suggestions to property owners which, in view of the above, may help a personal consideration of this problem, and an understanding of what citizens may do to solve it, both for their own good and the good of the cities in which they live. Property owners can do good service both in their own interest and in the interest of their community in this matter by first caring for the fire hazard of their own property, and then helping in any general local movement to eliminate the fire hazards from their city. In a study of one's own property he should give specific attention to the following items: Exposure Hazard. If your premises are surrounded or exposed to property that is inflammable or otherwise hazardous, you are paying for this danger in your insurance rate. Study your location and your exposure hazard and the reasonable means of bettering your own property (such as fireproofing doors and windows and outside. walls, extending fire walls above roof, non-combustible roofs, etc.), so as to minimize this physical exposure hazard. Construction. A large part of your insurance rate is always based on deficiencies in physical construction of your property. Study this (such as unprotected and horizontal openings, too large areas undivided by fire walls, concealed spaces, etc.) and ascertain how they may be reasonably remedied, and how such improvement will reduce your insurance rate. Protection. The best located and constructed property in the world without adequate fire alarm and extinguishing facilities may suffer from fire either in building or contents, or both. Burning contents often ruin so-called fireproof buildings. Study the deficiencies of your property in this respect and better them (by installing metal waste and ash cans, fire buckets, chemical extinguishers, automatic sprinkler or standpipe systems, etc.), and you may find the investment highly profitable in the reduced hazard and rate. Occupancy. Every business has inherent in it certain dangerous fire hazard characteristics. Study the nature of your business and properly care for and isolate material or processes which may unduly occasion or accelerate fires. Equipment. Virtually all property must be heated, lighted and ventilated, and all this equipment, in addition to special apparatus required by almost every business, has fire hazard. Study the character of your equipment thoroughly before purchasing, and improve that which you now have. Management. Keep your property clean. Half of all American fire waste comes from careless accumulation of dirt and rubbish, and disorder. Teach your people cleanliness and order, and organize them to detect and extinguish fire, and how to call the public fire department quickly when necessity requires. Every owner can apply in his factory, apartment house, warehouse or home the foregoing correctives, which constitute the essentials of fire prevention. He can also join any other good movements in community action to carry out this program, and to study and get prepared and enforced reasonable legal regulations whereby such correctives may be demanded in the law, and finally can back up public officials in seeing that they are applied. The American people are not dull in comprehension, nor are they slow to act once the necessities of a situation are made clear to them. The awakening manifested by the annual observance of "Fire and Accident Prevention Day" in many of the cities of the United States, by the appointment of fire marshals and the amendment of fire marshal laws; and by the teaching of the fire hazards in many public schools, indicates that we as a people will not much longer tolerate our pitiful impoverishment by fire waste. It is true that so long as our wooden cities stand they must occasionally suffer disastrous fires, with, oftentimes, shocking loss of life; but with the growing disposition to hold our citizens personally responsible for their carelessness, many of our most prolific causes of fire will disappear. Our civilization grows daily more complex. Every man's life is becoming more inextricably linked with the lives of others. An injury to one is increasingly an injury to all. Out of a proper realization of these facts is coming a larger sense of civic responsibility. As citizens of a common country and brothers of a great international family, we may some day evolve a civilization in which there shall be no waste and in which the thought of the common good shall be the profoundest impulse in the hearts of our people. RATE-MAKING ORGANIZATIONS IN FIRE INSURANCE BY ROBERT RIEGEL, PH.D., Instructor in Insurance, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, THE ANTAGONISTIC PRINCIPLES OF COMPETITION AND During the recent development of fire insurance in the United States the problem of the medium or agency through which rates should be promulgated has given rise to two radically different solutions. These solutions are irreconcilable mainly by reason of the opposing premises upon which they rest. One presupposes that competition is the most effective method of securing justice in rates as between communities, classes of risks and persons, while the other assumes that the greatest measure of equity will be attained through coöperation. The trend of thought of the advocates of competition is based upon history and analogy. Having observed instances of large combinations exacting exorbitant profits through freedom from competition, their conclusion is that lack of competition is the cause of extortion and that restoration of rivalry is the logical remedy. What more natural than to apply such a general conclusion to the business of fire insurance with the resulting conviction that the public welfare in this field will be best protected by denying combined action with respect to rates of premium? In this predisposed state of mind every united effort of underwriters is viewed as inimical to public welfare, and every association as a "combination in restraint of trade." Thus an association of agents in Missouri, designed to secure concerted action in the quoting of fire insurance rates, was characterized by the court as "a plain, palpable, but bungling pool, trust, agreement, combination, confederation and understanding, organized to avoid said anti-trust statute." The inevitable result of such convictions is the enactment of anti-monopoly, anti-trust and anti-compact legislation. 1 1 State v. Firemens Fund Ins. Co., 150 Mo. 113 (1899). |