Carl Durham, commander of the Chapel Hill post of the American Legion, was puzzled the other morning by the arrival of a big box from Washington. Opening it, he found several hundred sets of blanks to be filled out by the ex-service men who are entitled to a free insurance premium under the new bonus law.
The mystification of Commander Durham, instead of ending the discovery of the contents of the box, was increased by a perusal of the documents. The directions seem to be even more complicated than those that apply to the income tax.
For one thing, there is a space on the application for the veteran’s fingerprints. How is the fingerprinting to be done for scores of men on farms scattered over Orange county? And how about the veteran who is dead and whose widow or children are applying for the bonus? This one about fingerprints is only one of dozens of questions that confront Mr. Durham, Adjutant William B. Neal, and Treasurer Charles E. Gooch of the local post.
Even a well-educated man, familiar with filling out Government blanks, would be nonplussed by the bonus blanks; but a great many of the veterans in this section are not well-educated, and indeed some of them do not know how to read and write.
The only way out of the difficulty seems to be to call a big meeting—with a barbecue, perhaps, as an incident—and get as many ex-service men as possible to prepare the blanks all at one time. Officials of the Legion would station themselves at tables and assist every applicant.
Before this can be done, of course, Mr. Durham and his associates, and no doubt H.A. Whitfield and others who will be rung in as advisers, will themselves have to make an intensive study of the documents. Incidentally, they will have to equip themselves with powerful glasses in order to read the fine print “Instructions” that come from Washington.
In the first paragraph of the “Instructions”, veterans are urged not to write to the Government for duplicate discharge papers, but are told to fill out the application “from memory to the best of your ability.” And, “If you do not use the typewriter or can not write plainly, take your application to one of your friends, who will undoubtedly be glad to help you.” In this section Mr. Durham and his fellow Legion officer are to play the part of the helpful friends.
The Chapel Hill post of the Legion is the only one in Orange county, and so the commander here is responsible for all the county’s veterans. But he expects to get some body in Hillsboro—S.M. Gattis and his son have been mentioned as possibilities—to constitute a branch office for the north half of Orange.
From page 1 of the Chapel Hill Weekly, July 3, 1924
