John Alford Stevenson is a refutation of George Bernard Shaw’s quip: “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” Getting a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 1928, he began a teaching career which eventually took him to the Carnegie Institute’s School of Life Insurance Salesmanship as director.
Jowly, serious Teacher Stevenson was soon bitten by the insurance bug. Said he: “Rarely do we have a conjunction of something so economically and socially sound and so mathematically perfect.” He became a salesman ten years ago when he was made manager of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. home office agency in Philadelphia, wrote as much as $3,000,000 worth of policies in one year. Last week when President William Kingsley moved up to the chairmanship, 52-year-old Vice President Stevenson succeeded him.
Insuranceman Stevenson will soon move to Bryn Mawr, has a son at Princeton. He amuses himself collecting first editions of Scott, Dickens, Twain, Poe and Whitman. His prize possession: the manuscript of Whitman’s autobiography, which he picked up for a pittance from a busted bootlegger.
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