VETERANS: The Legion and New Blood

Omahans who remembered 1925 realized that they must be getting old themselves. That year the American Legion had come to Omaha 50,000 strong. Fathers locked their daughters in at night; the telephone company had to hire special busses to get its operators safely to & from work, through the cordons of roistering, fanny-pinching Legionnaires. There were crap games on the streets, bonfires in hotel lobbies, impromptu band concerts all night. Sacks of water fell out of hotel windows on hapless pedestrians. No female was too formidably plain to be safe from leers or sudden noises behind her.

Last week the Legionnaires, edging past middle age, returned to Omaha for their 25th annual convention, only 6,500 strong under wartime restrictions. Most significant change: more than a third brought their wives.

In three days of sober, paradeless, “business only” convention, the Legionnaires:

> Cheered speeches by a glittering array of bigwigs, including General George C. Marshall, Admiral Ernest J. King, Lieut. General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Lieut. General Omar N. Bradley. They also heard A.F. of L. President William Green, who stoutly defended organized labor’s no-strike record.

>Accused New York’s loudmouthed Congressman Ham Fish of permitting “subversive” use of his Congressional frank by convicted Nazi Agent George Sylvester Viereck and others. When the Chicago Tribune-minded Illinois delegation sought to eliminate Ham’s name from the resolution, cries came from the floor: “No,” “Pin it on him,” “Call him by name.” Replied Legionnaire Ham Fish: “Manufactured lies.”

> Went on record as favoring American participation in “an association of free and sovereign nations, implemented with whatever force may be necessary to maintain world peace.”

> Elected, without opposition, as their National Commander Warren H. Atherton, 52, Stockton (Calif.) lawyer, long time Legion politico. Commander Atherton favors U.S. postwar international cooperation; and said of labor, “The Legion is making no attack upon labor as such.”

Expansion. But by far the biggest convention news was the Legion’s decision to go hot & heavy after the veterans of World War II. In recent conventions the Legion had sniffed rather haughtily at the youths in the new Army. But the Legion, whose members now have an estimated 600,000 sons in the armed services, has changed its mind. It appropriated $250,000 for “an intelligent, aggressive campaign to inform eligible veterans of the advantages offered by the American Legion,” put at the head of the drive James E. Isherwood of Waynesburg, Pa. who is being groomed as next year’s National Commander.

The Legion now realizes that an organization of World War II veterans would have a potential membership of 10,000,000, is acutely worried by the gains in membership which have been made by its hated rival, the Veterans of Foreign Wars. To date, the Legion has signed up only 42,000 recruits from World War II, the V.F.W. 150,000.