[Footnote 233: Locomotive Engineers' Journal, Vol. 28, p. 360.]
[Footnote 234: Proceedings of the Nineteenth Convention of the Order of Railway Conductors, New Orleans, 1887 (Cedar Rapids, n.d.), pp. 51-52, 63.]
[Footnote 235: Proceedings of the Nineteenth Convention of the Order of Railway Conductors, New Orleans, 1887 (Cedar Rapids, n.d.), pp. 155-156.]
The other railway brotherhoods have conformed to the insurance laws of the states in which they do business. The insurance department of the Switchmen's Union is incorporated under the laws of the state of New York. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen does business in the state of Illinois under a law enacted in 1893 whereby all beneficial fraternal associations are declared to be corporations, the insurance features of which are subject to state laws.[236] The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen operates its insurance department under a license issued by the insurance department of the state of Ohio under the Fraternal Beneficiary Society Act.
[Footnote 236: Hurd, Revised Statutes of Illinois, 1901 (Chicago, 1901), secs. 258-260, p. 1071.]
The National Association of Letter Carriers, at the time of organizing the Benefit Association, on August 7, 1891, incorporated the Association under the laws of the state of New Jersey. But less than one year later, on February 26, 1892, the Association was reincorporated under the laws of the state of Tennessee. This change was made, according to Collector Dunn,[237] in order that both the National Association and the Mutual Benefit Association might operate under a single charter.
[Footnote 237: Letter to the author, February 14, 1905.]
The unions that pay benefits as distinguished from insurance are less subject to legal regulation. They do not issue beneficiary certificates as do the railway unions, the Letter Carriers' Association, and the large class of fraternal beneficiary societies, and hence are not deemed to be maintaining insurance departments. With one exception, the Brotherhood of Painters,[238] the unions of this group have neither taken out charters of incorporation nor in any way obtained authority to operate benefit departments within their respective states. These unions cannot be said to operate their beneficiary systems irrespective of state laws. In all the states the laws define the scope and functions of such organizations.