furnishing of life indemnity or pecuniary benefits to widows, orphans, heirs, relatives, and devisees of deceased members, or accident or permanent disability indemnity to members."[234] In other words, the Order could have been incorporated under the Act of 1872 to do all business except insurance, while under the Act of 1883 it could have been incorporated to maintain a system of insurance, but nothing else.  The only alternative was separate organization for the protective and the benevolent departments.  The Order was unwilling to separate the two departments and consequently transferred its central office to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  The Board of Directors, on July 12, 1887, ordered the grand secretary to proceed with incorporation under the laws of the state of Iowa.[235] The certificate of incorporation, however, was not issued until the laws of the union were made to conform to the insurance laws of the state.  These changes were only unimportant ones, such as the change of the name of the Insurance Department to “Mutual Benefit Department,” and in no way affected the intent of any laws of the Order.

[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.]