William Henry Moody

“ In any event, the legislature determined that, when an assessment company was allowed to engage in other kinds of life insurance, its outstanding policies should be appraised as liabilities as if they were 'one-year-term insurance at the ages attained.' This does not make them such in fact, or authorize the company, in its dealings with the policy holder, to treat them as such. The statutory appraisement of the policies for book-keeping purposes no more affects the rights of the members under their contracts than the account of stock of a merchant would affect the rights of his creditors. ”

“ It would introduce a new uncertainty into the law if the constitutionality of statutes were to be judged by the motives and purposes of those who persuaded the legislature to enact them. We are unable to conceive of any possible bearing that these allegations, if accepted as true, could have on the constitutional questions certified to us, or to regard them as creating any real and substantial distinction between the case before us and the Wright Case. ”

“ The whole argument of the complainants upon these constitutional questions, though enveloped in many words and presented in divers forms, rests upon a single proposition. That proposition is that they, having become members of an association insuring lives upon the co-operative and assessment plan, and being therefore, in a sense, both insurers and insured, have a vested right that the association shall not, without their consent, engage in other kinds of insurance, which may and probably will indirectly affect, for better or worse, their relations to it. ”