The whirlwind campaign in the United States that went forward inunediately on the passage of the act could not exceed the con certed, whole-hearted effort to reach the men so much nearer the risk of supreme sacrifice in France. At the time the act was passed there were a quarter million soldiers already in Eng land and France and hundreds of thousands on the point of embarking for duty overseas. Col. S. Herbert Wolfe, of die Quartermaster's Corps, who was in Paris on special detail, was ordered by cable to form an organization, and at the same timeia special section of the Adjutant General's Deqrtment was organized by Maj. Willard Stra ht in America for service over seas. After t ree weelcs of intensive training to familiarize themselves with the law and its interpretation a War Risk company of 35 officers and 65 men left Washington for New York whence they sailed overseas on Christmas Day, 1917. This contingent carried through the campaign for War Risk Insurance in France.
From 5 o'clocic in the morning until 9 o'clock at night field squads were at it. Speeches were made in the Y. M. C. A. huts and at mess and everywhere that the men could be gotten together. After the speechmalcing there was personal work Every man was approached directly. If the proposition was not quite clear to him it was explained in detail ; if his attitude remained indifferent all the ingenu ity of the insurance snuad was bent toward his conversion. They wrote insurance all the way from the farthest western training camp to the most easterly port of debarkation and the re ceiving ports in France. They wrote insurance as near the front-line trenches as any non-com batant was permitted to go, and when they could proceed no farther they sent blank insur ance applications into the front trenches on the very eve of battle.
In the Insurance Division of the Bureau of War Rislc, locked up in a steel cabinet, is now treasured the oriOnal paper, grhny 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 Man's Land, some never to re turn. Across the names of these is written simply the word 'Mead? But these applica tions collected by insurance officers who had gone into the trench during a stiff German offensive, have been treated as the last will and testament of those soldiers and the beneficiaries mentioned are receiving government insurance upon as valid a contract as if it had been for mally made and talcen in triplicate as was the custom.
These insurance officers wrote insurance in hospitals; went into 4fltP) wards and among the desperately wounded and wrote insurance for dying men; policiest the validity of which was established by a rating of the Secretary of the Treasury and on which payments are being made.
When the campaign ended by statutory lim itations on 12 February, more than $900,000,000 worth of insurance had been written for the quarter million men then in foreign service.
leCapt. G. H. Rennick who was also a member of this •unit, on his return to the United States was assigned as assistant director of War Risk in charge of personnel, and Capt. John W. Bar ton, who later was appointed assastant director in charge of Compensation and Claims, was a leader in the work of insuring the men in hos pitals and camps abroad. The writer of this article, the present director of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, was privileged to have a part in this insurance campaign among overseas troops.
All in all, the Bureau of War Risk Insur ance, in America and abroad, has written $40,000,000,000 of insurance on the lives of 4,539,045 men and women in the military service.
After the signing of the armistice Sretary Love resigned on account of ill health, and was succeeded as Assistant Secretary of the Treas ury in charge of War Rislc, by the Hon. Jouett Shouse, of Kansas, In the early spring of 1919 the bureau moved into its new home, a building started as a hotel but taken over by the government in the course of construction and finished so that the Bureau of War Risk Insurance might at last be housed under one roof. It is 11 stories above ground, has three sub-basements and a total floor space of 608,000 square feet. It has 12 high-specd elevators, its own telephone ex change and every comfort and convenience for its 16,000 employees, aver 90 per cent of whom are women. In this new home the bureau will continue its service to service men.
Allotments and the law every enlisted man with a wife or with a child under 18, or with a divorced wife in re ceipt of alimony was required to set aside a por tion of his pay as an allotment for these de pendents, who were known as class A. For par ents, brothers, sisters and grandchildren, lmown as class B dependents, the enlisted man might make voluntary allotments. In the original law the compulsory allotment for class A depend ents was at least $15 per month from a man's pay and as much more up to 50 per cent of his monthly pay to equal the allowance in the gov ernment schedule. Women in the service were placed on the same 'basis as men. Allotments in class B were subject to the same rule. Gov ernment allowances were given only on request anti after payment of the compulsory allotment. The schedule of yovernment allotments was at first as follows: Wife alone, $15; wife and one child, $25; wife and two children, $32.50 and $5 additional for each additional child up to $50, the maximum; for one child alone, $5; for two children, $12.50; for three, $20; for four, $30; and $5 for each additional child. Changes in pay of enlisted men involved a corresponding change in allowances and allotments, which in turn necessitated a vast amount of clerical work. To obviate this an asnendment was in troduced in the law providing for a flat com pulsory allotment to dependents of class A of $15 per month and a flat allotment to depend ents of class B of $5 per month.