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Show PROBLEMS In nomenclature which WAR RISK BUREAU HAS TO TACKLE I Difficulties the Bureau Experiences in Answering Letters and Maintaining the Correct Addresses of Demobilized Men Many Become Transients and Others-Give Only Fragmentary Frag-mentary Information. Washington. Eece homo! Behold the man I "Gf;t me this man's name so tlmt I tan report definitely on the status of his Insurance." That, together with a slip hearing the memo, "James Hall, (3,721,505) McCall, South Carolina. Beneficiaries : Mrs. Ella Stalks (wife), Mrs. Fannie Stalks (mother)," was handed to a file searcher In the bureau of war risk insurance. in-surance. The man's name wus given as Hall, while those of his wife and his mother were given us Stalks. Patently, something was wrong somewhere. Just what was wrong, however, was not so evident. To find out what and where the error was, was the job. Finding the error somebody else made Is always the Job of the war risk Index file searchers, and It's a tough job if they fail to get at the bottom of it. Going into the index files section where are listed the names of nearly five million men who were inducted Into military service, the young woman wom-an made a complete Inventory of all j the bureau from an army camp, and i ended as follows : "Respectfully, "Private Divis Spruce, Hastings. Pa." Miss Blue Sweater was assigned to the fetter with instructions to secure the man's policy number that certain information requested as to the standing stand-ing of his insurance might be furnished furnish-ed him. The name of Divis Spruce could not be found in the files. Then came the time for imagination and deduction. No matter how the name was split to make some other plausible name, the files could not produce results. Finally the young woman decided to address a letter to the man at Hastings. Hast-ings. Pa., requesting him to furnish information in-formation about himself.. In due time the letter was returned to the bureau as unclaimed. This did not pit an end to the search by any means. Imagination and deduction again were brought into the case, and a further study of the original letter was made. Divis Spruce, Spruce Division. Of course! The Spruce Division! The Spruce division was a part of the American army. Miss Blue Sweater secured a roster of the Spruce division from the war department and searched through the nearly 40,000 names for a man who lived at Hastings, Pa. In this she was rewarded. The list showed only one man from that town. He was Herman Miller. With this Information In-formation the young woman had no difficulty in finding the card of Herman Her-man Miller, (policy number 1,877,155; serial number S00.255) of Hastings, Pa. This man was furnished the in-fotmation in-fotmation he desired, and in thanking j the bureau he admitted he had forgotten forgot-ten to sign his name to the letter. Searchers From AI5 Sections. Girls from every part of the country coun-try are employed as searchers. If a complex case arises involving a mini's identification, and his home is in Maine, a girl from that state is assigned to run down the mystery and she nearly near-ly always does. Should the state be California, a girl hailing from the 'Coast" soon has the correct data carefully care-fully listed in the files. There are innumerable "wonderful" cases under investigation every day, but these girls are not unlike the heroes he-roes from France who never exploit the "wonderful" things they themselves them-selves did in line of duty. Handwriting experts are employed ! to determine the identity of many sig- j natures, since every conceivable form j of handwriting reaches the bureau, j Often the body of a letter will he per- I in the files and was turned over to ore of the cleverest mm rollers. Since the man's address was given as North Dakota, Da-kota, she assumed, in view of the fart that there were many Indians listed from thai slate, that his must be an Indian name. She immediately added Thunder to his name and found the record rard as Andrew Good Thunder. Thun-der. In less than three minutes after she had been asked to lend her aid. Carelessness or unavoidable haste in writing up insurance applications' on the Form 1-B, by which a man entering enter-ing the service requests or disclaims government allowance to dependents, and failure to include complete idenil-f'ying idenil-f'ying information in a letter of 'inquiry, 'in-quiry, constitute the largest single cause in the bureau's delay in answering answer-ing mail. Any letter addressed to the bureait on any matter pertaining to a service man should contain his name in fu'l first, last, and middle; it should stale his rank and organization at the time "Form 1-B" was filed, or at the time insurance application was made; his present home address and former address ad-dress If the address has been changed; the first, middle and last name of his beneficiary, and present and former address, if the address has been changed. The names of the nearly five million mil-lion men who were inducted under the selective draft, and those who have joined up since the armistice, are on cards in filjng cabinets, which, placed one after the other, would make a line more than live miles long. .lust what complications may ari.su wh.cn there is failure to include this identifying data, may be imagined from the fact that a comparison shows that the repetition of names in the tiles of the bureau is far greater than the repetition of names carried In card indexes of commercial companies. Many Bear Same Name. Fifty-three thousand two hundred Johnsons were called into active military mili-tary service. The Smiths were not far behind numerically, coming up to the considerable figure of 51,050. The "Brown" family with 48,000 is next. More than half the letters inquiring about insurance come from men who either fail to give their identifying number, or their address. In thousands thou-sands of cases they give their address, but due to the fact that there are others oth-ers with similar names who live In the same city, and have moved this information infor-mation is of little value to the girl searchers. Actual figures show that more than half the soldiers, "sailors and marines have moved since leaving the service. Few forwarded a notice of a change of address. This left the bureau with only the name of the man for record, but through its system of tracing men, large numbers have been located by the girl sleuths and their correct addresses, ad-dresses, have been listed. Many amazing discoveries have beet) made In names, and the number of ways they can be spelled. One young woman has tabulated 49 ways, so far discovered to spell Aloysius. Another has specialized In the spelh ing of Ignalz. She has found IS ways to spell this name. Still another has found that John can be spelled 24 ways. To Bartholdt Otto Aabel, (policy number 3,203,83s) of Minden, Neb., he-longs he-longs the distinction of having his name the first in all the card index files. The last card In the file bears the name of Wladyslans Charles Zyzes, policy number 1.S02.0S0) of 421 Maury street, Home, N. Y. Constant combing is necessary to keep the files up to date. irf f " , ' $ I If V ' t , i t4 I 5 Jt -' 'w H I 4 f - $; ' i Gin Sieutns Searcmng Cara inaex Files. the thousands of men sumamed Hail. Among them all there was not one who came from McCali, South Carolina, nor yet one who had a wife or mother whose name. even remotely resembled the "Stalks" given as the name of the two beneficiaries. Calls for Nimble Wit. This, clearly, was a case for the use of that specially nimble wit and fine deductive faculty which has characterized character-ized much of the work of the searchers search-ers of the index files, and given them a process of procedure which might be used to add a leaf to the book of the Burnses, the Pinkertons and the Flynns. "Well," remarked the girl charged with producing the needed informs!1 tion, "this man may be 'Stalk.' since that is the name given for his wife and mother." But search through the "Stalks'' brought nothing to identify the ease. "Still," she persisted, and they always al-ways do persist, these girls. "His name must be some kind of a 'Stalk.' but what kind? Corn stalks, bean slalks, and cabbage stalks are the only kind of stalks I know anything about so I'll just look them up." And sure enough, it turne'd out that his name was "some kind of a Stalk Cabbage stalks, in fact, and his index card was duly changed to read': "James Cabbagestalks, (3,721,50.1) McCall, South Carolina; beneficiaries, Mrs. Ella Cabbagestalks (wife), Mrs. Fannie Cabbagestalks (mother)." "You see that girl wearing the blue sweater over there," said one young woman. The girl of the blue sweater appeared appear-ed so young she might have just left school. She was searching some index in-dex cards, her fingers rapidly running from one to another. With each flap of the card she had taken a menial note of the inscription thereon, but to the observer she was making a speed record in touching every card in the file drawer. i Suddenly Bang! The drawer was: closed. She moved a foot to the right, : began another Marathon in card move-I move-I nicnts, selected one. made a notation on a slip of paper she carried, placed the card among the others, closed Hie j drawer, and walked toward t lie man who is in charge of the file section. This pantomime was quickly enacted, ! and as it turned out, It brought to i a close a remarkable case which had ' been nsJer Investigation for some j days. j The "Divis Mystery." j The title of this strange case might j be ilie "Divis mystery" with Miss Blue ! Sweater as the detective heroine. a m ten letter was received by Checking Names of Soldier Survivors. fectly legible, hut the signature will prove to be one of those nonforgeable jumbles of pen strokes which are the delight and pet hobby of the writer and the despair of every hopeful reader. Silent letters In names must always be taken Into consideration. The name of lllynack is a good example where the silent letter is the key letter for searching, but at the same time It Is particularly dead in pronunciation. This name is pronounced I.ynack, and in the hurry of writing, o.'ten names are misspelled, when on the surface I hey appear very simple and correct. Foreign names are often typed incorrectly in-correctly because the soldier at the time of making application for Insurance Insur-ance may have been unfamiliar with English and made a mistake In repeating re-peating the spelling to the army or navy clerk. This Is a great source of worry to searchers. Names Spelled Many Ways. Frequently one man's name may be spelled in four or five ways. If rela- fives, parents or someone Interested j in his welfare Inquires about his insur- ; ance. each will spell it in their way. ' Girl searchers must determine which is the correct spelling ami then verify ver-ify it from the man's original signature. signa-ture. A clever piece of deduction was that in the case of Andrew Good of North Dakota. Mis name could riot be found |