The Story of the American Legion: The Birth of the LegionWheat, George Seay
History
The Story of the American Legion: The Birth of the Legion
Wheat, George Seay
American Legion; World War, 1914-1918 -- Societies, etc.
_New York Times_, April 10, 1919.--... It is a pleasure to know
that Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, the worthy inheritor
of a beloved American name, has called a meeting of soldiers and
sailors at St. Louis. Lieutenant Colonel Bennett Clark, son of
Mr. Champ Clark, is an associate of Lieutenant Colonel
Roosevelt, in the plan for an organization of all our soldiers
and sailors as the American Legion. These two gentlemen,
associated in a patriotic movement, indicate by their names its
common national purpose, apart from politics and partisanship.
"A nonpartisan and non-political association is to be formed,"
says Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt, "an association which will
keep alive the principles of justice, freedom, and democracy for
which these veterans fought." Justice, freedom, and democracy,
without partisanship! The idea is noble. It should prevail.
_Leavenworth_ (Kansas) _Post_, April 30, 1919.--... The
character of the men of the American Army who are promoting it
[the Legion] and the high ideals which it professes and proposes
to maintain are a guaranty that it will be a power for helpful
service in the common family of the nation.
The plan of organization sprang from the desire of serious and
able men in the American Army to maintain the high ideals for
which all of them have fought, to preserve the soldier
comradeship and carry it over into civilian life as an element
of broad helpfulness while keeping the record of the army free
from the taint of selfish aims. It was also wisely intended to
forestall by the creation of one big genuinely representative,
nonpartisan and democratic body, the formation of numerous
smaller organizations in various places by men intent on
exploiting the soldier sentiment and the soldier vote for other
than patriotic purposes.
_New York Sun_, April 11, 1919.--... The American Legion will
do an indispensable service. We, who have lived up to the past
few years in an agitation of protest against the pension grab
must now make our minds over sufficiently to realize that in the
new situation we run immediately into danger not of
over-pensioning the veterans of to-day but of neglecting them.
The new organization must of course be nonpartisan and
non-political. Precedent enough exists in the career of the
Grand Army to make that clear. It should include and enjoy the
guidance of the most influential military men. Politicians it
will have at its service so long as it is well run and organized
from within. Despite its proper political limitations, it should
serve as the most salutary means to influence returned soldiers
to cling to plain old Americanism, shed their martial
acquirements and return to plain, praiseworthy citizenship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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