The work of restoring the effects to heirs in the United States and elsewhere did not attain any great size until after the armistice, and then it was handled almost entirely by the Effects Bureau at Hoboken. In July and August, 1918, for instance, the shipments of deceased soldiers’ effects received in the United States were fewer than one hundred in number: in the month of May, 1919, alone, Hoboken received more than 15,000 packages of such effects. By that date the work of disposing of this property was engaging the attention of one of the largest individual offices connected with the Port of Embarkation of New York. All through the summer of 1919 the Effects Bureau handled a correspondence that averaged 1,000 letters a day. It was not enough for an officer in the Effects Bureau to be well meaning and kindly intentioned--to fit his place, he had to possess a rare tact, an instinctive knowledge of what to do in circumstances that constantly varied. Early in the episode the Bureau witnessed a striking example of how not to deal with a bereaved family. One of our aviators had been killed in France when his plane crashed to the ground. At the time he had in his pocket six 100-franc notes. These were badly charred in the flames that had nearly incinerated the airman. The misguided effects officer who took charge of the dead aviator’s baggage, thinking he was doing a kindness, replaced the mutilated notes with six new ones and forwarded these to the aviator’s family, telling in a letter what he had done. The family promptly returned the new notes with the request that the charred currency be sent instead, because they would prize the burned money as a keepsake more highly than they would any amount of new money. This incident apprised the Effects Bureau, at the outset, of the extraordinary value which the relatives of deceased soldiers were likely to attach to the most apparently trifling possessions. The men of the Bureau had to understand this fact. Moreover, they had to be men of scrupulous honesty. In the effects of men who had died abroad was a great deal of money in cash, and under the circumstances there could be no check upon the people handling this cash. The opportunities of pilfering from the dead were wide open. Consequently the Army picked only men of the highest quality to serve in the Effects Bureau.