- Person
- Louis Brandeis
- Lived
- 1856–1941
- Field
- Law
- From
- American
The story
In the mid-1900s scandal engulfed parts of the American life insurance industry, and policyholders feared their savings would vanish. Louis Brandeis, a Boston lawyer known for fighting powerful interests without pay, had already earned a reputation as 'the People's Lawyer'. In March 1905 he became counsel to a committee of New England policyholders worried that their scandal-hit insurer would collapse, again refusing a fee so that he could address the wider issues.
He spent the following year studying how the life insurance industry worked, writing articles and giving speeches about what he found, at one point calling its practices legalised robbery. He concluded that life insurance was a bad bargain for most policyholders. He discovered that a little-understood clause allowed policies sold to low-wage workers to be cancelled if they missed a single payment, and that most such policies lapsed. Only one in eight policyholders ever received benefits, which produced large profits for the companies.
Brandeis decided to offer working families a better deal through the state's savings banks. He ran a public education campaign across Massachusetts, joined by progressive businessmen, social reformers and trade unionists. By March 1907 the Savings Bank Insurance League had 70,000 members, and his face and name appeared regularly in the newspapers. He persuaded a former Republican governor to become the league's president, and the sitting governor called on the legislature to study cheaper insurance that might rob death of half its terrors for the poor.
Brandeis drafted the bill himself, and three months later the savings bank insurance measure was signed into law, letting savings banks sell low-cost life insurance directly to ordinary people. He counted the law among his greatest achievements and kept a watchful eye on it for years afterward.
The campaign showed Brandeis's characteristic method: careful study of the facts, public education and a practical alternative rather than just criticism. Savings bank life insurance gave working families a way to protect their dependants that did not depend on the goodwill of large insurers, and it became a model of how a reformer could build a better institution instead of only attacking a bad one.
Why it matters
Savings bank life insurance gave working families in Massachusetts affordable cover that did not vanish after one missed payment, protecting widows and children from destitution.
About Louis Brandeis
“The People’s Lawyer” who became the first Jewish Supreme Court justice in 1916, wrote classic defences of free speech and privacy, and led American Zionism.
More about Louis Brandeis
- Louis Brandeis, the "People's Lawyer" on the Supreme CourtLouis Brandeis, known as "the People's Lawyer", became the first Jewish US Supreme Court justice in 1916 and wrote some of the greatest defences of free speech and privacy.
- Louis Brandeis took on J. P. Morgan's railroad monopolyFrom 1907 Louis Brandeis fought unpaid for nine years to stop J. P. Morgan's New Haven Railroad monopolising New England's railways, and his warnings proved right.
- Louis Brandeis defended "the right to be let alone"Louis Brandeis's 1928 dissent against warrantless wiretapping in Olmstead v. United States was vindicated in 1967, when the Supreme Court overturned Olmstead in Katz v. United States.
- Louis Brandeis called sunlight the best disinfectantIn a 1913 Harper's Weekly article Louis Brandeis wrote that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants", a line that still defines the case for open government.
- Louis Brandeis wrote a classic defence of free speechLouis Brandeis's 1927 opinion in Whitney v. California has been praised as perhaps the greatest defence of free speech ever written by a Supreme Court justice.
- Louis Brandeis helped design the Federal Trade CommissionLouis Brandeis urged Woodrow Wilson to give the government real power to enforce antitrust law and became one of the architects of the Federal Trade Commission.
- Louis Brandeis held 57 hearings to reform Boston poorhousesIn 1894 Louis Brandeis spent nine months and held 57 public hearings on Boston's poorhouses, leading the city to completely reorganise how it cared for the poor.
Sources
- Louis Brandeis Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.