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Show HOW THE PENSION BUSINESS OF IHE COUNTRY IS DONE A GREAT, angular red brick building, set in a green park, is the home of the pension building at Washington. It was built at a time when American architecture was in a formative, period. A feature of the exterior ot the building is a broad frieze, showing repeated groups of infantry, cavalry, artillery and seamen in bas-relief. Inside In-side a great, beautiful court, somewhat marred by being made to contain battalions bat-talions of file cases, is another attractive attrac-tive feature. In times past, when there were such things as Inaugural balls in Washington, these balls were held within the court. It seems to be the fixed belief of the average citizen having business with the pension office that the commis- - ' Main Entrance to Pension Office. sioner personally sees and answers all correspondence. Since almost 4,000,-000 4,000,-000 pieces of mail a year go out of the bureau, this Is hardly possible. In fact, it takes a force of about 1,300 employees properly to handle the business, these including doctors, lawyers, law-yers, expert accountants and other specialists. Every pension check now issues from this central office, and is received when due, instead of many days thereafter, there-after, as formerly when pension agencies agen-cies were distributed over the country. coun-try. This and other economies which have been introduced, has greatly reduced re-duced the clerical help required, and the force of the office is gradually being be-ing cut down. Still, to handle some 785,000 individual indi-vidual pension accounts and to provide for regular payments thereon is no small task, even though the total now is being decreased from year to year by death.' The appropriation for the ensuing fiscal year is $164,000,000, and Commissioner Saltzgaber is of the opinion that it will be $4,000,000 less during the following year. |