The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-09-09
PARENTS WRITE
MANY LANGUAGES
Relatives of American Sol
diers in All Foreign
Lands
PAY ALLOTMENTS
TRAVEL MANY MILES
And Keep the Wolf from the Door of
Many Humble Dwelling Thousands
of Miles from this Country-War
Risk Insurance Bureau.

WASHINGTON, Sept SIN a corner
of the national museum here, almost in
the shadow of Colonel Roosevelt's stuffed
hartebeest and of the restored dinosaur
is a government bureau devoted to trans
lating letters written in more than score
of languages by the mothers, fathers and
wives of American soldiers 1t is the
foreign language section of the war risk
insurance bureau which dispenses sol
diers' and sailors pay allotments and
family allowances to the dependents of
lighting men. =.
In Chinese, Hebrew, German, Italian,
Greek, Scandinavian, Preach, Spanish,
Polish Russian, Slovenian, lssthorian and
q dozen, other tongues come the letters
from foreign lands, pouring out thanks
TO the American government for re-
niittanees which have Kept the wolf from
the doors Hopes and hardships OF the
war and prayers for Americas success
are expressed in feryent phases by these
foreign correspondents.
America is welcome TO my son for the
God given task ahead wrote an Arme-
, MAN woman recently. Il live in neutral
country, but my heart and my neigh5ors'
hearts are with you,' wrote a widowed
mother from a North European country
Hundreds of other letters contained SINH
lar expressions.
My wife and l pray three timas a
day for the United States and her blessed
armies" wrote "a Rumanian father
lnterspersed are hints of great poverty
which the checks from Washington help
TO amcliorate. A few letters contain in
quiries or complaints that the payments
are not greater Each letter must be
! turned into English by corps of trained
| translators. hastily gathered in recent
weeks. Then the inquiries pass through
the hands of clerks who may spend most
of a day wading through yards of files
of soldiers names, addresses or army or
CARNATIONS which inquirers failed 10 give
or careless soldiers neglected to record
properly.
Finally the answers are written in Eng
| lish. turned back into the original
| language. and sent ON their wav to Il
! foreign land. Many carry paragraph of
good wishes or encouragement which
make them not merely business notes.
| but messages of good cheer from Ameri-
ca. The greater proportion of the letters
go to Italy and Greece.
Two score translators and stenogra-
piers do this work, direc}ed by Mrs. NJ.
| Crenshaw. around whom the orcanizati ion
grew up. The principal translator is DIR.
Aurelio Palmieri. Italian scholar. master
of score of languages and dialects. who
has taught in leading European un.ver-
sites, lived among the near Eastern peo-
| Piles of Europe and studied their social
problems. He reclassifed the theological
| library at Harvard few years ago, and
more recently classified the Congressional
Library's Yudin collection of Siberian
literature.
Important as this foreign language sec
ton is to the war risk insurance bureau.
it is one of the smallest divisions. The
entire bureau has approximately 1000
| employees, 10000 of whom are women.
No other government bureau has so many
civil employees. and no other man in
! Washington does so much hiring as W.
| 4. Mckenzie, the chief clerk and imme.
date boss of these | / 900. Yet Chief
I Clerk Mckenzie cannot hire all the
| women typists and stenographers he
needs. The exodus of several hundred
school teachers, employed during the
summer as clerks, leaves vacancies which
even the civil service commission has
difficulty in filling, though salaries range
usually from 81 900, to 81 200 a wear.
As American armies grow, so must the
1 bureau grow. Already it handles Il0.000
letters week. Every Monday morning
between 10000 and 10000 letters. the ac.
eumuation of two days, pour in. to be
slit Open read. sorted and referred to
the proper section, where information
is gathered for an answer
The Bureau has on file 3.50O000 appli.
cations for allotments and allowances
| and nearly 100000 checks have been
sent out since last December. Now the,
are going at the rate of a million q
month. In addition, the bureau has taker
care Of 100000 applications for govern
ment life insurance. Various sections oil
this big government departments are
housed in twelve buildings in Washing
ton having 10000 square feet of floor
| space.