For about two months bi-weekly lectures were delivered at hotel parlors. An independent detachment which had been associated with a fraternal organization was induced to join our column as a body. We agreed to accept them without the Legion dues by merely paying for membership in the Red Cross. The evening that body of young men in uniform entered the lecture hall in military order new life was infused, especially among the male members. I was repeatedly besieged by them with the request to supply them with uniforms and to take them to some place where they could learn how to march, carry litters, transport patients, etc. I promised them all these things for the near future. As I am myself living in moderate circumstances, and as our Legion dues of $1 per annum (we had to make the dues low to enable the poorest working man and working woman to join) were not sufficient to pay for the most urgent needs, I presented myself to our Chairman of the Executive Committee, Dr. L. L. McArthur, and laid the matter before him. He finally consented to our appealing to certain private citizens when I was supported in my contentions by the Secretary and by Colonel Gordon C. Strong, I. N. G., a member of the Executive Committee, and a gentleman, by the way, to whom we are indebted for many services rendered the organization and your reporter. At a meeting of the Executive Committee Mr. J. Spoor, president of the Union Stock Yards, promised to fully equip a detachment of 22 men recruited in the yards. He not only paid for 22 uniforms, but equipped that detachment with hospital pouches, canteens, litters, and a national flag. [Illustration: FIRST COLUMN FIRST ILLINOIS LEGION READY FOR INSPECTION BY REVIEWING OFFICER.] Four detachments were completed by this time. The day a fifth one was completed I recommended to the committee that the entire command be officially declared as the “First Illinois Legion,” for there were then already indications that detachments would soon be organized in other cities in Illinois, and, in fact, detachments will be completed in the near future in Springfield, Joliet and Decatur, all depending on the writer’s ability to go to these towns and perfect the details. Our aim is not only to raise the full quota for this Legion, but to have in Chicago two legions and a third one distributed through the State. At about the same time Colonel Strong induced Captain Maurice Woolman, commanding Battery B, Illinois National Guard, to let us have his armory at the cost of expense ($15 monthly). We occupy that armory every Thursday evening. Captain Woolman was so pleased with our men, who began drilling in civilian suits, that he consented to act as military instructor to the First Legion, and since has attended every drill and instructed the officers in infantry tactics.