Arizona republican., 1918-03-11
PAY CHECK FUR DEPENDENTS
 NOW ON |TS WAY.
Republican A. p. Leased Wire1

WASHINGTON. March 1o-The last of the February pay checks, carrying 1 money allotments by soldiers and sailors and government allowances to their dependents at home, went into the mails today. More than 800 900 checks have been written and an eX- traordinary effort has been made to have the dependents get their allow ances early in the month.
 The average amount of each check is about s25, and the total monthly dis bursement runs above $12,0000 Us- ually the allotment from the soldiers pay is about s15, and the government family allowance about S10, the exact amount being fixed by the number of dependents.
 Three shifts of clerks have been at work. Acres of typists-2300 of them "A hours of every day have clattered away on batteries of typewriters in several of the largest floor spaces in Westinghouse communicated dance hall above the municipal market. an abandoned hospital, and a factory building recently remodeled.
 1 Regardless of the wholesale quan- tity of documents, each letter and each check is regarded as a distinct human | document, on instructions of the di- rector of the bureau, William c. De- l laney. Every woman typist and man sorting clerk has been impressed with the idea that the welfare of soldiers family may depend on the speed, ac- l curacy and personal interest shown by | the bureaus workers.
 So this is the task and the spirit of | nf ha ot,t' foc llr1- reaus, the treasury departments bu- reau of war risk insurance Congress sional criticism of delays in the dis tribution of allotment, and allowance | have been met with assurance that su- perlative promptness, impossible in the past because of the disorder following the sudden creation of a new system to supplant the old pension plan, will be displayed in the future.
 The bureau expects to have checks for March remittances ready for mail ing on the morning of April 1 and by l that time much of the vast human ma chine which has been built for pre- pairing the pay checks will be scrapped
 Machines will do the work better, il is expected, than men and women.
 In the meanwhile, this is the way the human machine works:
 Experts in office management have devised special schedules of office
 routine. More than two thousand
 young men and girls can not be man. aged efficiently by haphazard methods Regular recreation periods in the mid
 dle of the morning and afternoon are
 provided. There is a piano and 2
 graphophone, and the girls may dance
 during the short recess. The mana
 gers say that they do 30 per cent bet
 ter work as result. There is luncf
 room, operated at cost The bureau
 has supervising matron, who advises the girl employees, most of whom have
 come to Washington recently for wal
 time employment on patriotic grounds She helps them obtain lodging rooms and in other ways
 Speedy typists are carefully choser
 from the throng, and arranged at tht
 long work desks in the center of z
 group of slower workers This ar
 rangement prompts speed, and better
 office morale, the efficiency men 1T
 charge declare. Blonde girls are as-
 signed places between brunettes, fol the bureau management believes
 blondes are of more nervous tempera- } ment, and the brunettes provide { , steadying influence.
 Each check is typed individually, ano
 a government law provides that cheeks also must,be signed individually, rathe , than stamped mechanically. The sign ! ing is a big task. Signature duplicat ing machines are used, ten checks be ing signed by each original signatur of a pay check
 Even the choice of pay checks is {; lesson in efficiency. Not personality l not training hut 1enoth Of rotropx-r,,s
 names is the determining factor Mer
 with short names work at the signin,
 machines, for more short names cal i be signed daily than long names. Thi
 is the reason the jobs are held by E
 Hibbs, D. Mills, J. L. Betz G. A. Bal v and M. Cox,
 Yet with all the efficiency method ] of this big office. it must shortly g e into the discard before the automati e check writing machines, now bein e perfected by M. F. Bailey, the chic n disbursing clerk. These machines, b n a single operation, will stamp the chec d with the name of the payee, tn
 amount the address, the name of tn n soldier, his organization sign and tn V serial number of the check. i- In addition to this disbursemen a work, the bureaus life insurance busi r ness includes the receipt and classifi
 cation of 10000 applications daily fror e men in camps, for an aggregate ( S $300,000,000 of insurance. The tots S number of applications received up t I the present is about 100000 and tn V total valne of policies sought is mor i. than s10,O00, 100000.
 h PROPOSES TO CARE