This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ...the capital of the company is invested in undoubted securities, and that a sufficiency of surplus is held to provide an ample re-insurance fund for outstanding liabilities. The value of membership is such that there have been many instances where companies sought to establish their reputation in the business community by becoming members of the Board. Too stringent regulations cannot be adopted to save the good name of the Board from being used as a cover for frauds upon the insuring community. During the past year one company, an early member, decided to discontinue business, which it did, after honorably providing for all of its outstanding liabilities for pending risks, and paying all claims against it in full. It had never fully recovered from the hurt caused by the Boston fire. Two companies having ceased to transact an agency business have withdrawn, and one company has been expelled for persistent and wilful violation of National Board rules and rates. Experience has proved that all the officers of the Board who are directly engaged in its management, should be members of the Executive Committee exofficio, as many of the duties imposed upon them by their offices render it important that they should have a voice in its deliberations. 1 therefore propose a change in the By-Laws, so that the Secretary and Treasurer of the Board can be made ex-officio members of the Executive Committee, with all the privileges attached to such membership. LEGISLATION AND TAXATION. That the agitation of these important subjects by us so far as they related to our own interests has been productive of good is evidenced by the interest taken by the daily press of the country whenever a bill has been introduced into the legislatures which seriously affected...

Throughout the twentieth century, cities such as Houston, Galveston, New Orleans, and Mobile grappled with the safety hazards created by oil and gas industries as well as the role municipal governments should play in protecting the public from these threats. James B. McSwain’s Petroleum and Public Safety reveals how officials in these cities created standards based on technical, scientific, and engineering knowledge to devise politically workable ordinances related to the storage and handling of fuel. Each of the cities studied in this volume struggled through protracted debates regarding the regulation of crude petroleum and fuel oil, sparked by the famous Spindletop strike of 1901 and the regional oil boom in the decades that followed. Municipal governments sought to ensure the safety of their citizens while still reaping lucrative economic benefits from local petroleum industry activities. Drawing on historical antecedents such as fire-protection engineering, the cities of the Gulf South came to adopt voluntary, consensual fire codes issued by insurance associations and standards organizations such as the National Board of Fire Underwriters, the National Fire Protection Association, and the Southern Standard Building Code Conference. The culmination of such efforts was the creation of the International Fire Code, an overarching fire-protection guide that is widely used in the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. In devising ordinances, Gulf South officials pursued the politics of risk management, as they hammered out strategies to eliminate or mitigate the dangers associated with petroleum industries and to reduce the possible consequences of catastrophic oil explosions and fires. Using an array of original sources, including newspapers, municipal records, fire-insurance documents, and risk-management literature, McSwain demonstrates that Gulf South cities played a vital role in twentieth-century modernization.