On February 24, 1919, the President signed a bill granting a cash bonus of sixty dollars to every soldier who had been in uniform before November 11, 1918. The payment of the bonus to soldiers still to be discharged after the bonus law was in effect offered no difficulty at all, since the camp disbursing officers needed only to add the bonus to the final pay of each man coming up for discharge. But on February 24 approximately 1,600,000 troops had already been discharged. The payment of the bonus to these men added measurably to the burden of work upon the Finance Service. The Director of Finance announced that he would begin paying the bonus on March 1. The Zone Finance Officer at Washington was designated as the official to pay the bonus to officers and enlisted men who had already been discharged. He hastily organized an office with about sixty new and inexperienced clerks. Meanwhile the newspapers, the Red Cross, the American Legion, and all other organizations concerned with the welfare of discharged soldiers spread the tidings of the bonus payment and urged all discharged men to present their claims for it at once. It is doubtful if ever before a national publicity campaign reached its mark with such thoroughness in such a brief period of time. Claims for the bonus snowed upon Washington at the rate of 100,000 a day, and within two weeks practically all of the discharged 1,600,000 had filed their claims. The pay office grew until it numbered more than a thousand clerks. With this force it cleaned up the whole job in two months’ time. Never before had government checks been issued at such a rapid rate. It was necessary to make use of the most modern labor-saving appliances in accomplishing this record of payment. The Bureau of Engraving, which prints the paper money for the Government, engraved a special check with the sixty-dollar amount printed in, so that it was necessary for the clerical force only to date the checks, fill in the names of payees, and then sign the instruments. The Zone Finance Officer himself was the only person in his department authorized to sign checks on the Treasury. However, upon his request the Treasury Department authorized five clerks whom he designated to sign his name for him. The Treasury further authorized the use of the pantograph or multiple signing device, which enabled each designated clerk to sign five checks with one writing of the signature. On the name line of each check was typed in the payee’s name, his address, and his army serial number. The Zone Finance Officer adopted a window envelope through which could be seen the recipient’s name and address as written on the check inside, and this measure saved the great labor of addressing the envelopes. All checks were typed in triplicate--one original and two carbon copies. Both copies were filed away to be the Government’s record of the transaction. The cases in which the duplicates were filed filled a large room.