The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1920-12-30
Especial Correspondence,

WASHINGTON, Dc, Dec. zd-IO
turn the bureau of war risk. now an
adjunct of the Treasury Department,
over to a new department of social
welfare, or abolish it altogether and
have he pension office assume it's ac-
tivities, is the expressed purpose of
Republican leaders.
The bureau today has OF its rolls
at the national capital $500 employees
as compared to $4,000 a year ago and
1900 seventeen months ago. During
the fiscal year it is costing the gov
eminent $125, 000. 900 for payment of
military and naval insurance. $10.-
324, 900 for salaries and expenses, and
SAG, 900, 900 for taking over service
hospitals.
Eighty per cent of soldiers and
sailors who took out war risk poll
cies did not keep up their payments
and were therefore dropped. Ten per
cent of these have been influenced
by the bureau to resume payments.
This has been brought about by large
expenditures of money and energy TO
get the service men to convert their
policies to life insurance handled by
the government which would other
wise be handled by private COM
panies.
Thus today the government holds
in risks of this kind policies amount
ing to $751; 21 500. OF this total ST.
926. 600 is in ordinary life policies
s168.276.000 in tw~enty-year endow-
ment policies. s1S2, $685. 0 in twenty
veal payment life policies. S35.353,-
500 in thirty-year endowment policies,
S27. $4,000 in endowment policies
paid up at the age OF sixty-two. and
s1S,S59.5o0 in thirty-year payment
life insurance policies. At the same
time the bureau is in the insurance
business, as it has a right to be under
the law, 1t is giving out that to date
it has received gross applications
numbering 4,655,oS9 and amounting in
risk to ,957 500.
AS seventy per cen of the enlisted
men have given up their payments,
these figures, which would otherwise
impress one with the great dignity
and usefulness of the bureau of war
risk, prove nothing. 1t is, therefore.
held by Republican Congressman that
if such a large proportion Of the en-
listed men gave up the benefits they
would have received had they kept
up their payments, the bureau Is a
failure. Certainly. they declare. the
government should not go into the
insurance business at 2 loss, any
more than in the railroad, the tele-
phone or the telegraph business at a
loss.
Yet they are of opinion that the
insurance given the soldiers during
the war should be kept up for those
who care for ii. Consequently, they
are of opinion that the bureau of war
risk should be abolished and all OF
its functions turned over to the PEN
sion office, which during the past year
has reduced its personnel of clerks
from 100 to 800. The $500 war risk
clerks would thus be eliminated.
In accord with Republican policy
throughout two generations, 1t is
likely that the disabled and their
dependents will be assisted by e
of pensions rather than pursue an
insurance policy adopted by the pres
ent administration during the war
and since found to be unpopular
among veterans of the war.
The pension Office is a time-hOn-
ored Republican institution. 1t is
considered to have performed a great
service in the last h~alf-century in
assisting veterans of the Civil war,
who have now almost disappeared.
The war risk, because of it's reputa-
ton for bungling, has had few friends
in Congress. Hence many congress
| sional leaders are looking to a re-
| establishment of the former pension
policy.