In the 1920s an unhappy man named A. M. Johnson, head of National Life Insurance Co. of the U. S. A., bought for his company 11,050 shares of Continental Illinois Bank & Trust Co. In 1929 Continental sold as high as $1,020 a share. In 1933 a share of Continental could be bought for precisely $1,000 less; Mr. Johnson's National Life Insurance Co. was, not surprisingly, in receivership. General Robert E. Wood of Sears, Roebuck & Co., which sells about everything else, decided that this was the time to go into the life insurance...
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