Bisbee daily review., 1918-09-21
INTERPRETERS ARE
 KEPT BUSY WITH
 LETTERS OF THANKS
GOVERNMENT HAS CORPS OF TRANsLAToRs ATTENDING TO VAST VOLUME OF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE MOSTLY RE GARDING RELIEF WORK

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2O.-In a corn
 CT of the National Museum here. all
 most in the shadow of Colonel Roose-
 elt's stuffed hartebeest and of the restored dinosaur is a government bu-
 reau devoted to translating letters
 written in more than a score of Ian guages by the mothers, fathers and wives of American soldiers. It is the
 foreign language section of the war risk insurance bureau which dis penses soldiers and sailors pay allot- ments and family allowances to the dependents of fighting men. In Chinese, Hebrew, German. Ital- ian, Greek, Scandinavian, French, Spanish. Polish, Russian, Slovenian. | Esthonian and a dozen other tongues come the letters from foreign lands. pouring out thanks to the American government for remittances which have kept the wolf from the doors. Hopes and hardships of the war. and prayers for Americas success are ex- pressed in fervent phrases by these foreign correspondents.
 America is welcome to my son for the God-given task ahead" wrote an Armenian woman recently. Hive in neutral country, but my heart and my neighbors' hearts are with you" wrote a widowed mother from North European country. Hundreds of oth- CT letters contained similar expres- sionss
 My wife and l pray three times a day for the United States and her blessed armies" wrote a Rumanian father.
 Interspersed are hints of great pow erty which the checks from Washing ton help to ameliorate. A few letters contain inquiries or complaints that the payments are not greater. Each letter must be turned into English by a corps of trained translatOrs, hastily gathered in recent weeks. Then the inquiries pass through the hands of clerks who may spend most of day wading through yards of files of sol diers' names, addresses or army or ganizations which inquiries failed to give, or careless soldiers neglected to record properly.
 Finally the answers are written in English, turned back into the original language, and sent on their way to a foreign land. Many carry paragraph of good wishes or encouragement which make them not merely business notes, but messages of good cheer from America. The greater proportion of the letters go to Italy and Greece.
 Two score translators and stenog- raphers do this work, directed by Mrs. M. Crenshaw, around whom the organ ization grew up. The principal trans lator is Dr. Aurelio Palmieri, Italian scholar, master of a score of lang uages and dialects, who has taught in leading European universities, lived among the eastern peoples of Europe and studied their social problems. He reclassified the theological library at Harvard a few years ago, and more re gently classified the Congressional Library's Yudin collection of Siberian literature.
 Important as this foreign language section is to the war risk insurance bureau, it is one of the smallest di- visions The entire bureau has ap- pToXimately II 1000 employees, 10000 of whom are women. No other govern ment bureau has so many civil em- ployes, and no other man in ' 'shing- ton does so much hining as w A. Nc Kenzie, the chief clerk and immediate boss of these 11,OOO. Yet Chief Clerk Mckenzie can not hire all the wOmes. typists and stenOgraphers he needs The exodus of several hundred school teachers, employed during the sum- mer as clerks, leaves vacancies which even the civil service commission has difficulty in filling. though salaries range usually from 5000 to S1200 year.
 As American armies grow, so must the bureau grow. Already it handles 15O,000 letters a week Every Mon day morning between 60,O0O and TO- 600 letters, the accumulation of two days, pour in. to be slit open. read, sorted, and referred to the proper sec tion, where information is gathered for an answer.
 The bureau has on file 3.50O,OO0 ap- plications for allotments and allow ances, and nearly 5,5O0, ,00O checks have been sent out since last Decem- Der Now they are going at the rate of million a month. In addition, the bureau has taken care of 3,300,O0O ap- plications for government life insur- ance. Various sections of this big government department are housed in twelve buildings fin Washington hay ing 310,000 square feet of floor space.