In the year 1918 the Department inaugurated a system of motor-truck parcel post routes, especially to facilitate the distribution of food stuffs. The trucks are owned by the Government and many former Army trucks are now utilized in this service. A great variety of merchandize is hauled along these routes; all sorts of farm products are carried to the city markets and the merchandize purchased in the city is distributed through the rural districts on the return trip. The trucks pick up parcels anywhere along their routes--not merely at postoffices, but at farmhouses--and deliver in the same way. Produce from the country is delivered directly to the consignee in the city, house-to-house delivery being made wherever the houses are easily accessible to the regular routes of the trucks. While certain produce cannot be shipped through a postoffice, under the postal regulations, all kinds of produce, including live poultry, are accepted by the trucks where the delivery can be made directly without having to go through a postoffice. Besides these routes operated directly by the Government, many of the so-called “star routes” (routes operated by contractors) are now equipped with motor vehicles. PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 7, No. 11, SERIAL No. 183 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC. [Illustration: DISABLED SOLDIERS LEARNING TO WEAVE RUGS AT AN ARMY HOSPITAL] _THE STORY OF UNCLE SAM_ _War Pensions--and Something Better_ SIX Although the United States Government has been conspicuously backward, as compared with foreign Governments, in providing retirement allowances for its veteran civilian employees, it has generally made liberal provision for those who have served in the Army and the Navy, and especially for the veterans of the various wars in which the country has been engaged. In fact, in the payment of pensions to former soldiers and sailors, and their families, not only as compensation for wounds or other disabilities incurred in the service, but also as a reward for brief participation in a war, this country has carried liberality to an extreme not approached by any other nation. The Revolutionary War cost the United States about $70,000,000 in pensions, and every subsequent war, except the recent world struggle, has added to the pension roll, which reached its high-water mark in the year 1905, with a total of 998,441 pensioners, while the annual payments rose to a maximum of $174,171,661 in 1913. The Pension Office is still one of the largest and busiest establishments of the Government, although our latest war added practically nothing to its labors.