Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-06-20
MOTHERS BENEFIT
FROM 46PER CENT
OF WAR POLICIES
Many of A. E. F. Dead Took
Insurance Just Before Co.
ing Over Top.

war risk insurance covering the
deaths of 1O4,4S5 insured men and
women who died in the service be-
tween the outbreak of the war and
June 80, 1919, show that 46.6 per cent
of the policies were made out to
mothers as sole beneficiaries. that in
less than half as many cases father
was the only one named to receive
the money and that wives occupied
third place, being but 10 per cent OF
the total.
This is. of course, merely indica-
tive of the fact that the majority
of the insured were unmarried" says
a reorganization of the bureaus work
issued by Director r. G. Cholmeley-
Jones, "and yet certain instances of
the final thought of mother in the
soldier mind would seem to deserve
an emphasis quite outside the province
of a statistical report.
Many Signed in Trenches.
'In the insurance division of the
bureau of war risk, locked up in
steel cabinet, is now treasured the
original paper, grimy with the soil
of the trenches, but bearing the
names of boys who signed up on it
for insurance of varying amounts the
night before they went out at day.
break into no mans land, some never
10 return. Across the names of these
is written simply the word: dead
But these applications collected by in
surance officers who had gone into
the trench during a stiff German
offensive have been treated as the
last will and testament of these
soldiers, and the beneficiaries men
toned are receiving government in
surance upon as valid contract as
IT 1t had been formally made and
+. taken in triplicate as was the custom.
And seventy-five of the first hundred
who made their last will and tesla
ment on that grimy paper gave their
mothers name as the beneficiary of
this protection, which was all they had
to leave.
There was even the case where the |
soldier to whom the thought of max !
ing provision for those at home must |
have come as poignant vision when |
apparently his last opportunity to de-
clare his intention for insurance had |
passed, in desperation wrote on the |
clay side of his trench with sharp |
ened stick an application for govern |
ment insurance as last act before !
his heroic death, and a photograph of |
this scrawl, secured at personal haz- |
ard by an insurance officer, was pre-
scented in Washington and honored as |
claim. and on this. too. figures alone |
the mothers name"
Mothers az Benenciarfes.
OF those who died in the service |
1886 carried policies made out to |
total amount of such insurance being |
SAL, 421,7S7, on which payments |
amounting to s2,5S5,0s4 are being paid |
out each month. There are 1851 !
wives named as sole beneficiaries of |
soldiers who have died, protected by |
policies totaling $94.350,573, on which |
s511.930 is paid monthly.
The average policy on which a |
death claim has been approved is |
1880. andSthe average monthly pay
,<~w, ls<S<< -
average, policy on which a disability |
claim has been awarded amounts to
$S,461, with an average monthly pay
ment of s4S.65. The list of death bene- |
fits includes payments on premiums |
held by $50 women of the Army Nurse |
Corps and eleven women of the Navy |
Nurse Corps who died in the service. |
OF the 104.4S5 death cases, 1913 per |
cent are listed as killed in action
this being the largest single group. |
This group does not include. those
who died of gas poisoning or who |
were lost at sea-, but the latter two |
groups constitute only per cent of
the whole.
The records Of: those kii1ed,in action
is graphic STORY of the fighting of /,
ming in 1917 there was a gradual in |
crease in the battle deaths until June, |
1918, when the engagements sin |
Belleau Wood and around Chateau /
IHieTry LOOK piAce anu the casualties |
increased rapidly. July figures also |
are large, due to losses in the allied |
offensive against the German salient |
between the Aisne and the Marine |
On September II and the days i'm !
mediate1y following the engagement |
of st. Mihiu cost many lives. and |
beginning the last week of Septem- |
Der the great Meuse-Argonne took |
the heaviest toll of all. October was |
the month of maximum battle NOR
tality, and the death lists in France
were supplemented with the names Of I
the influenza epidemic then raging.
633 Cases Of Suicide.
There are 633 cases of suicide listed |
In the bureaus records, of which |
seventy-eight were officers. OF the [
total number of officers and men who |
died in the service, suicide was the |
cause of is per cent among the off, |
GERS and but e per cent among the |
enlisted men. !,
1t is a, high tribute to the American |
Army that there are but three cases Of |
alcoholism recorded in the bureaus !
files. Two are deaths from that cause |
and one is a case of total disability.
tuberculosis is the chief agent in |
causing total permanent disability |
among the soldiers 43.1 per cent Of |
the number permanently disabled be- |
ing so afflicted OF the others Tx per |
cent were wounded in action; 6 per |
cent were injured otherwise, So per |
are mentally afflicted and rs per cent |
have Bright's disease. Another re-
capitulation shows that of some $4,000 /
men drawing total or partial DISABLE |
ity compensation. 10000 were wound |
ed in action. 1000 were gassed. $500 |
were disabled through accident and |
1900 were disabled because of dis |
ease.