From AA&B April 1935
Recent riots provide plenty of reasons for buying Riot and Civil Commotion insurance because they prove that losses do occur and that such protection is required. Several times in recent months property owners have suffered severe losses as infuriated mobs got out of control. Sometimes the damage was incidental to fights between opposing factions; at others the enraged crowds were bent upon deliberate destruction of property.
Just a few days ago, New York City experienced its worst race riot in 25 years. Racial hatreds flared up from a seemingly trivial incident and more than 4,000 angry men and women surged through the streets of the Harlem section, staging pitched battles all night. Scores of persons were injured, some fatally; property damage mounted up into the hundreds of thousands; drastic investigations followed, as red agitators were suspected.
Going back further, riot damages occurred in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and a terrible strike accompanied by loss of life and heavy property damage happened at the Kohler plant in Wisconsin. The water-front strike in San Francisco was another deplorable instance. That this mob spirit is likely to gain the upper hand temporarily at almost any time is demonstrated by the burning of a courthouse and other property in Sherman, Texas, in 1930, and other lawless outbreaks every year.
Police forces are often inadequate for the emergency of sustained rioting. Sometimes they are caught off guard. Property owners are seldom able to cope with such a situation and there seems to be little or nothing they can do about it-except to forearm themselves with insurance.
The National Board of Fire Underwriters has sent out a release to newspapers calling attention to the coverage afforded by the stock fire insurance companies which, in keeping alert to the needs of the public, provide this type of protection, described as follows in the article:
"A policy known as `Riot and Civil Commotion' can be obtained to cover all direct loss or damage caused by riot, riot attending a strike, insurrection, civil commotion and explosion caused by any of the foregoing."
The history of all business cycles is that when business is coming out of a depression, prices of commodities rise more rapidly than do wages for wages lag behind general business. They do that as business goes into a depression. Costs do down, and then wages follow. But of course that doesn't cause strikes and rioting.
But when the upturn is reached and workers find the cost of the things they buy advancing in price with no commensurate wage increases they are inclined to strike and commit violence.
The recent depression had added to it several peculiar and distinctive features never before coped with in a former business depression. In this past one the activities of the N. R. A. gave labor new confidence and a new leg to stand on. The government was behind the movement to increase wages. And it was successful in most cases. But then, reduced working hours brought on new difficulties and made it harder for employers to meet demands of labor. Thus, labor was backed up in its convictions by the government while employers were squeezed to get additional funds from profits with which to pay higher wages.
