Denver labor bulletin., 1918-02-02
MILLION CHECKS A MONTH REQUIRED
TO PAY SOLDIER-SAILOR ALLOTMENTS
WarRsk Bureau Vastly Expanded Having
Employees Mostly Girls and Women Housed in Four Build
ings, Including the National Museum, from Which
Curos Have Been Elected Make Room

system of allotments and allowances,
the act provides two other measures
of protection. They are the stated
compensation for death and partial
and total disability incurred in the
line of duty, and the program of re-
education and rehabilitation for men
disabled in the war. The compensa-
tion, paid without regard to rank and
without any cost to the insured,
ranges from $50 to 500 a month.
More Than 1900 Employees.
To handle this huge task the bureau
of war-risk insurance has had to ex-
pand enormously. More than 1900
persons, rs per cent of them girls
and women, are now on its pay roll.
About half of these girls came to
war workers. Every state in the
union is represented in the organiza-
tion.
The bureau is housed in the erst-
while dance hall above the Center
Market, in the marble structure known
the world over as the New National
Museum, in the former Washington
home of the Order of the Elks, and
in the capitals old emergency hospi-
tai The staff works night and day
with the spirited but well-oriered en-
thusiasm of a regiment in the thick of
battle.
Patriotism Animates Workers.
In its four scattered homes the
bureau already occupies approximately
10000 square feet of floor space. 1t
is animated only by desire to keep
pace with its swiftly expanding work,
and to speed up that work in every
way possible. Each claim that is ad-
justed each award that is made, each
check that is written, represents a
vital human problem for some family.
To expedite each award and to rush
each check. that is the paramount
task to which all else must Of neces-
sity be subordinated.
The stone-age relics and the serene
statuary housed in the main halls of
the National Museum were politely
elected to make room for Gathering
batteries of stenographers and typists
the division of mammals was forth
with Communicated by a crew of COM
pensation experts; and the solemn
collections of geological exhibits capit-
ulated to the onrushing allotment and
allowance claims: to the bureau of
war-risk insurance the staid audlto-
rum of the museum, accustomed TO
the tread of scholars feet, meant only
1000 more square feet; and soon the
bureau battalions swarmed in with
their heavy artillery Of typewriters,
multigraphs and adding machines.
Surrounded by Prized Relics.
Art, science, commerce and inven-
ton mingle with the multiplex &C
tivities of the bureau Beneath the
priceless model of Iangley's first fly
! ing machines scores Of girls are busily
! indexing and cross-indeXing all the en-
listed men in the army and navy; be
meath a brilliant painting of "Joffre,
the Glory of France a staff of legal
/ experts is turning out rules and reg
Iulations: and from the former dance
hall above the Center Market the dis
bursting department, 500. strong, is
sending out hundreds of thousands of
checks, each one Of which is sinew
of war and a tangible proof of Amer
ica's fairness. farsightedness and
generosity in protecting its defenders.