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Show 4 . A Tangle in Allotments. : By Frederic J. Haskin. : . f WASHINGTON, D. C, March 2. Every day a large number of returned soldiers, hearing scars of war and insignia of overseas over-seas regiments, visit the headquarters of the finance division of the war department depart-ment here, in search of missing allotments. Most of these men have been allotting a certain portion of their monthly pay lo relatives or to business concerns ever since they were sent across, and it is rather disappointing upon reaching home 10 find that tho monej lias been held up somewhere by a mass of government red tape. i "My mother tells me .that she hasn't i received a cent from the government since early last summer," said a youpg, one-armed soldier the other morning, "and yet the company commander has been de- , ducting ten dollars Irom my pay every month to be sent to my mother." He was very courteous and cheerful about it much mere so, commented the lady who looked up his case, than she would be under un-der similar circumstances. After diligent searching, no record could be found of this particular soldier's allotment, al-lotment, so he was taken before a notary public and asked to make an affidavit concerning his allotment. A check for the amount which he had. paid and which his - mother had not received was then presented him by the director of finance. This is what the government is doing in every case where a man's service record cannot be found.-; accepting a man's affidavit af-fidavit and refunding him his money, trusting that fl will be able to trace the 1 unpaid allotment and chango its bookkeep ing later. This is the only, fair way to settle an unfortunate misunderstanding, and it is safer than it looks. By psychological psycho-logical test the criminal element was eliminated elimi-nated from the army in the early part of tho American mobilization, and the aver- t sge man does not make a false affidavit, s It is only too true that, while hundreds of thousands of allotments have smoothly smooth-ly reached their destination without misunderstanding mis-understanding or mishap, several hundred have not. In numerous cases it is because in filling out the applications for allotments allot-ments the men have made mistakes. They give the wrong address, or they give such unsatisfactory addresses as "King George's county" or "New York City." Sometimes, moreover, the person to whom the allotment is to be paid moves to a new address without letting the war de-' I partment know. But in 90 per cent of the p cases the blame can be placed upon the ' tangle of red tape which stretches from the war risk insurance bureau of the treasury department to the finance divi sion of the war department. It is an extremely complicated affair, so we will begin at ti e beginning. Since the year 1899 the finance division has been handling the fdlotmcnts made to1 their families and for other purposes by officers and enlisted men outside the continental con-tinental limits of the United States. When the United States entered the .Kuropean war, however, the war risk bureau was established, which took over all family allotments, compulsory or voluntary. This left the finance division with little to do but to take care of the man's business interests the numerous miscellaneous allotments al-lotments made to cover si ch things as the interest on loans and mortgages, real estate investments, bills, lodge dues, bonds, and club and church subscriptions. subscrip-tions. Last summer, when an amendment to the war risk insurance act was passed by congress, providing a specific government govern-ment allowance to meet a specific allotment allot-ment from every soldier, attention was called to the fact that the war risk bureau was handling a large number of voluntary volun-tary allotments of the old army type for which it did not necessarily liave any au-i au-i thority under the low. 1 ! At a conference held between the secre-j secre-j tary of war, the secretary of the ! navy and the secretary of the treasury j it was decided that since the war risk I bureau was so overworked anyway, it 1 would be wise to -transfer the voluntary family allotments it had been paying back to the finn nee division of the war department. depart-ment. (By voluntary allotment, be It understood, is meant that port of a man's pay which is contributed by him without with-out request for allowance Irom the i;ov-ernment.) i;ov-ernment.) Accordingly, instructions were framed to be sent to the commanding officers of-ficers of every regiment, explaining the nature of the transfer and requesting that the men bo informed. Unfortunately, these Instructions were sent out lorg after the transfer was made. The men did not know that they were expected to senu in their voluntary allotments on what is known as quartermaster's quarter-master's form No. .sS of the war department depart-ment instead of the Mank formerly used by the war risk bureau. In other cases t the blanks were lost before they reached the finance division. The deductions for allotments from the men's pny were entered en-tered on the books of the depot quartermasters, quarter-masters, but there the record ended. Without the applications for allotments, tho finance division had no authority to liny out any monev. The authority had been taken away fi cm the war risk bureau, bu-reau, which did have the applications, and as a result the allotments were not paid. At the time it was suggested that the records of tho war rhk bureau be turned over to the fmancc division, but tho i war risk bureau refused to do this be- , t carse their records were all they had to 1 show as authority for making past pay- j ments. Thus, in attempting to correct i an error made in The early p.'irt of th f American engagement, a greater problem j was created than if it had been let alone, i Meantime the finar.ee division be Tan e frantically to enlarge its headquarters and r working force to take rare of the l:;rge ( quantities of new business. It hnd to : - spread out into three different buildings, and it had to open a school to teach pros- ! pective clerks the compHca ted fact s ; about allotments. Pupils have to attend ' this school for nine d'-.ys before hey j master all of them. Txlny the division, handles the voluntary allotments of 3 i . 4 5 j enlisted men and disburses nearly two j million dollars a month. This does not seen: a very large sum j until you consider that it renre-nnts in i the majority of cases money contribuu-'i J out of the men's wages after the cost of i their insurance ar.d compulsory ahol- i ment bns been deducted. Of course, most ! of the A men '-a n army was Slippered to have been taken from class 1, of unrnnr- ; rieii men. who would th.m-tnre escape, the i compuWnry fifteen dollar abm nu-ut . j Then the nonccuimissiont-d class, drawina; J pay of '!.' to a month. w:ts com i ju ra - lively btrire. K.;t or.e cannot b"lp worrying" worry-ing" about the ordinary private who nut I onlv p:-ovicl-d for his wife and paid hi? life' insi'rance. Imt. mmle an allotment to lv liK.tnr. What fliri he i?Gt out of it? asked this question one soldier rc-)li.--d t!.nt there were only two ways to spur d munev in camp at the canteen and at tiie poker tahle. Ho by not having any n onev to soend. he paid, hoth his dises-tiun dises-tiun and character remained unimpaired. f r:f cJ" tii' most interp.-'tin forms of al-lntn-t.-nty hundl-d by the finance division of the wrir depart merit are those for Lib-..rtv Lib-..rtv bonds. "When the second Liberty io:in v.v.s launrhf-d somebody conceived the id-.'ri ot rermirtlnEr po'.diers to t'uy bunds on tiie monthly allotment ba?i8, but th. : jV'-rninent I;irked antiiori'v to put Dv r .;:f;'i a prnr-osl t ion.' The federal re-H'.'i'vi- l;mk of Sfv York Oty then ."a me iu ti -- rr-.-v:n It aqrt.-i.-d to i-.::d the rno:i--y to t.i;- s .;di.--rp. w'.io '.(t; to pay it back in mojitniy inLallmenta through, tha fin ance division. Accordingly, bondseilme: squads toured the training- camps and sold bonds to jftMfCiQ men. Unfortunately, this loan was etat-d before the, war rik in-turance in-turance laws were enacted, so that men bought bonds who were later forced to cive them up because they could .not keep up the payments on them'and have insurance, insur-ance, too. For this reason the third Liberty loan was restricted to men who had come into the arn-.v after the second loan. As a result re-sult the number of subscribers feli to C7,-ur0. C7,-ur0. This time the money was put up by the poverument, the necofl.si ry authority having been d i see vert d by the Mtrretary of the treaiurv. OUktwLso It could not have T.ir-en ojienod to the airny on the allotment al-lotment plan, beeause the fulcra! reserve lank was heartily tirfd of its end of the transaction and bitterly regretted i-wr haviny loaned the- money fur tho second bonds to the army. It did rot -. loaning the monev, but it n.il r'-thousands r'-thousands of letn-rs it iifieiwara r from bondholders ah over the co ; (juiriiiLr about tiie terms of !'' ether n-.;itters letters that weie be--n attet:ded to bv the army- t Tiie fourth L;bertv loan b. abo sold to the army by the Um,, I-artnient. This time there v:ts larger puhsci iption tiiau tor tne loan, 1(V,.00i) Neldi.-rs buying hon-. the value of ?.ix.noo.u00. The nuj-"-; these are still unpaid .'or and allotment books of tho finance . Others are already In the vy-s v nwniTS, .Still otharn are hoinC d.-"ivered to the return, d sold c! r tantlv pour into the Liberty 0" , oU-of oU-of the finanee Hi vith n and b fidavils that they have paid IU' and have not received thein. |