The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-02-10
Allotments and Allowances.

The breakdown oil the allotments and
allowances section of the bureau OF war
risk insurance. which was ito take the
fear out of the hearts of the conscripted
men" and put enthusiasm into the
hearts of their families, from whom they
were taken away has been carefully
studied by Edward r. Devlne for the
survey with rather reassuring results
The failure has indeed been a melan
choly one. but it at least proves nothing
in support of contention that such a
colossal enterprise could not succeed in
the nature of things, Indeed Mr., Devme
accepts as mot at ell impossible the
estimate Of bureau officials that - per
cent Of the transactions have gone
smoothly and without complaint,
The Is per cent of transactions that IN
some way went wrong were in the aggre'
gate a large number; they were 10 per
cent of literally hundreds Of millions OF
transactions And they went wrong in
"a bewilderug variety OF ways, many OF
Of them distressing. Checks were not
sent to persons entitled to them; checks
of too large amount were sent and when
thew were returned were still charged up
against the recipient; checks OF too small
amount and erTatiCally varying from
month to month were sent in many
cases months elapsed before any pay
ment was made or any attention given
to repeated complaints; millions OF dol
lars apparently have been given to per
sons not entitled TO it; other millions
more or less have been withheld from
those not only entitled to it but In many
cases in dire need Of IL, 1t Is estimated
that 90 per cent of the applications for
aid from the Red Cross home service
designed to supplement, not to replace,
allotments and allowances-hav been be-
cause of the bureaus failure.
Evidently there has been no lack OF
good intention or Of hard work in the
organization and conduct Of the bureau
No doubt many errors were unavoidable
under any system or with any staff OF
organizers and employees, especially un-
der the circumstances that the system
had to be organized and put into opera
ton with great haste, without sufficient
help and with the main chance" of win
ming the war inevitably put ahead of the
related need of caring for the dependents
of the fighting men, But after such al
owance is made there remains much with
which to point moral.
Most of the information required Of
the men in service as data for the lnsur-
ance bureau was in possession of the To-
cal draft boards. Its use might have
avoided much repetition and inaccuracy.
The serial number system, eventually
adopted, if adopted at first might have
prevented great number of errors in
Identification and failures to identify at
all. The draft boards might have shared
the work of the bureau by dealing them
selves directly with the benefciares with
whom they were in relatively close touch.
The pension bureau, rather than an i'm
provised bureau of the treasury depart
ment, might have organized the work,
which was Of sort with which it was
familiar Finally, or perhaps primarily,
the war and navy departments should
have co-operated better with the treas
ury department.
These are some of the suggestions
which Mr., Devine tentatively offers. They
deserve to be considered by those imme-
diately concerned. The war risk bureau
at the end of the year was sending out a
million checks month, the sums
amounting to over a million dollars a
dav. The business will continue for some
time on an enormous scale IL ia even