Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-03-10
BIG HUMAN MACHINE
SENDS OUT CHECKS
Soldiers and Sailors Depend
ents, More Than 100000 of
Them, to Get Money.
FEBRUARY WORK DONE

The last of the February pay checks
carrying money allotments by soldiers
and sailors and government allow
ances to their dependents at home.
went into the mails yesterday. More
than 100000 checks have been written,
and an extraordinary effort has been
made TO have the dependents get their
: allowances early in the month.
The average amount of each check is
about SIS. and the total monthly dis
bursement runs above s12.00o.oo0.
Usually the allotment from the SOL
dier's pay is about s15, and the govern
ment family allowance about $40, the
exact amount being fixed by the num-
Der of dependents.
Three shifts of clerks have been at
work. Acres of typists-2,3n0 of them
twenty-four hours of every day have
clattered away on batteries of type
writers in several of the largest floor
spaces in Washington commander
ed dance hall above the municipal
market. an abandoned hospital and
factory building recently remodeled-
Distinct Human Documents.
Regardless of the wholesale quantity
of documents, each letter and each
check is regarded as a distinct human
document. on instruction of the direc-
tor of the bureau. William c. Delaney,
every woman typiSt and man sorting
clerk has been impressed with the idea
that the welfare of a soldiers family
may depend on the speed, accuracy and
personal interest shown by the bu
reau's workers.
So this is the task and the spirit of
one of the governments greatest bu
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
speculative promptness. impossible in
the past because of the disorder fol-
lowing the sudden creation of a new
system to supplant the old pension
plan, will be displayed in the future.
Machines to Do Work
The bureau expects to have checks
for March remittances ready for mall
ing on the morning of April l. and by
that time much of the vast human
machine which been built for pre-
pairing the pay checks will be scrapped.
Machines viii do the work better, ii is
expected. than men and women.
In the meanwhile, this is the way the
human machine works:
Experts in office management have
devised special schemes of office rou-
tine More than two thousand young
men and girls cannot be managed eff
hciently by haphaZard methods Regu-
lar recreation periods in the middle of
the morning and afternoon are provid-
ed. There is a piano and a graphophone,
and the girls may dance during the
short TecesS. The managers say that
they do 80 per cent better work as re-
suit There is a lunch room, operated
at cost The bureau has a supervising
matron, who advises the girl employees,
most of whom have come to Washing
ton recently for war time employment
on patriotic grounds She helps them
obtain lodging rooms and in other ways.
Blondes Between Brunettes.
Speedy typists are carefully chosen
from the throng and arranged the
long work desks in the center of
group of slower workers This arrange
ment promotes group speed and better
office morale. the, efficiency men in
charge declare. Blonde girls are as
signed to places between brunettes. for
the bureau manag cement believes
blondes are of a more nervous tempera-
Daent, and the brunettes provide
steadying influence.
Each check is typed individually. and
a government law provides that checks
also must be signed individually, rather
than stamped mechanically. The sign
ing is a big task. Signature duplicating
machines are used. ten checks being
signed by each original signature of a
pay clerk
Even the choice of pay clerks is a
lesson in efficiency. Not personality, not
training, but length of patronymic
names is the determining factor. Men
VITA short names work at the signing
machines. for more short names can be
signed daily than long names. This is
the reason the jobs are held by Z.
Hibbs, D. Mills. j. L. Betz. G. a. Ball
and NJ Cox.
All to Go in Discard.
Yet with all the efficiency methods of