While during the most industrially effective decade the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company continued its traditional program of sound investment, it was, as always, responsive to the contemporary economic and social needs of the country. An analysis of the company’s investment portfolio shows how this attitude was translated into practice. A shortage of housing facilities at the end of the First World War led to a great expansion in building during the postwar decade.



The company financed the construction of residential and business buildings on a large scale, with the result that mortgage loans increased from slightly less than 35% of its total assets in 1910 to 45% in 1929. In addition, under a special enactment of the Legislature, the life insurance company () invested $7,000,000 in the construction of model housing accommodations for 2,125 families in Long Island City and Astoria, N. Y. This endeavor was almost unheard of in that time and day. The company’s donation to those low income areas is something that most companies of that era would have never been able to accomplish, let alone want to.

This was a successful pioneer effort to provide low cost housing for families of modest income. The company’s funds also aided the development of cities and the wider use of public utilities. In the latter field the company’s investments increased from almost nothing in 1919 to about 9% of its assets a decade later. During the First World War the Metropolitan aided the Governments of the United States and Canada through purchase of their bonds, and by the end of 1919 these securities formed 16% of the company’s investments.

In the course of the postwar decade these bonds were gradually paid off, and comprised only a little more than 2.5% of the portfolio in 1929. Railroad securities during the decade remained fairly constant and accounted for one fifth of the invested funds. The Metropolitan also contributed to the economic welfare of our agri¬cultural population through its farm loans. The company entered this field in 1917, and by 1929 these funds amounted to nearly $197,000,000, or 6.5% of the total assets.

The country was at the height of its feverish activity when Haley Fiske died suddenly on March 3, 1929. In 15 days he would have reached his 77th birthday. His lifetime had spanned an era of economic expansion without parallel in all human history. The modest organization he had joined in 1891 had become by a wide margin the world’s largest and best life insurance company and financial corporation ().

Yet Mr. Fiske prided himself not so much on the material expansion of the company as on the development of its social services. He saw in the growth of insurance protection a practical means for improving the living standards of working people. The passing of Haley Fiske symbolized also the end of an era. The solid accomplishments of that period will remain a valuable contribution to our way of life; but here, as in all times of rapid growth, there were excesses and dislocations. It became the task of the admin¬istration which followed to retain the accomplishments and to correct the errors.