The Legion Leaves

Steamboat piers in Montreal, Boston, New York and Newport News rumbled and banged and blared last week with the embarkation of the American Legion & Wife, about 19,000 strong. Some 8,000 legionaries were already in or near Europe, converging on Paris to commemorate the arrival of the A. E. F. ten years ago (see p. 14).

In Manhattan. This extensive movement of onetime troops, now heroes, took Manhattan for its chief point of departure. Following a banquet and speeches, the Legion's leaders boarded the S. S. Leviathan, flagship of an armada which sailed with informal peacetime' fanfare.

Banquet. The Leviathan's dining salon was jammed to bursting with officialdom and oratory the night before sailing.

Newton D. Baker, Wartime War Secretary, arose and said: "Almost ten years have gone by and we are beginning to see the real meaning and the precious fruit of the struggle. In the Old World, at least, men's minds are constructively working for peace. . . . Whether this or that nation joins or does not join them means more, no doubt, to some of us zealots than it really does in the long run to the cause."

Vice President Charles Gates Dawes, who not so long ago was Brigadier General Dawes in charge of the A. E. F. Supply Service, had a prepared speech clenched in his fist when he arose to speak. But before unfurling it, he ejaculated at audience and microphone: "The country is beginning at last to take the measure of the great War President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, and of the great Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker. They protected the American Army from political interference. They insisted that promotion should be on merit and let the best man win. And that's what made the American achievement possible."

General John Joseph Pershing looked at Mr. Baker and said: "No man was ever faced with a greater problem than our War Secretary in 1917. ... He met the situation with great courage, with great intelli gence. ... I think I may say that no Secretary of War in American history ever realized the relation ship which should exist between the Secretary of War and the Commanding General so completely and understandingly. Orders were given in plain language when I set out and I think Mr. Baker will bear me out that those orders were never changed and never modified. I was given his full confidence. . . I ever shall be grateful. . . ."

General Pershing defined the American Legion: "... A truly representative body in which there is no distinction based on rank in service or political belief. It is non-partisan and speaks with the voice of patriotism. ... It is therefore pre-eminently American."

Secretary of War Dwight Filley Davis bespoke the envy of "the luckless left-behinds" not going on the "pious pilgrimage" as "ambassadors of Good Will." French Am- bassador Paul Claudel assured everyone that the legionaries would be anything but unwelcome in Paris. To these and, many more speakers, National Commander Howard P. Savage, the evening's toastmaster, gave compliments and thanks.

Film. The diners viewed a 5,000-ft. cinema, America Goes to War, pieced together by the Eastman Kodak Co. out of 2,000,000 feet of film supplied by the War Department. Onetime Secretary of War Baker saw himself, blindfolded, draw from a bowl the name of the first drafted soldier. General Pershing saw himself issuing the orders for the St. Mihiel drive, first action of the A. E. F. Other scenes: President Wilson signing his War message to Congress; drafted men marching up Fifth Ave., Manhattan, in civilian clothes; the late Theodore Roosevelt cheering these drafted men; a German U-boat torpedoing ships; the Meuse-Argonne offensive, with muddy fields, tanks, smoke screens, dropping men; German prisoners; the flanking of a machine gun nest; a rain of big shells. ... A copy of the film was shipped on each of the 16 Legion transports.

Regalia. Off they went, some in business suits, many in beribboned khaki uniforms. A detachment of the Osage Indians took along wampum, feathers, warpaint, tomahawks. A crowd from California wore uniforms of white and gold, the pockets of which bulged with raisins. Asked "Why the raisins?" they said, "So's we can bombard the spectators the day of our big Paree parade!" Other Californians took orange's. Quieter delegates were content to wear overseas caps printed with their hometown names or the number of their Voiture in the

40 Hommes et 8 Chevaux. This sub-organization of the Legion ("40 Men and 8 Horses") has far-flung chapters, called voitures ("carriages") in memory of the dun-colored French box cars which carried troops to the front ten years ago. The capacity of these cars was stenciled on the outside: 40 Hommes, 8 Chevaux.

Escort. Sixteen guns boomed on Governor's Island as the 16 ships moved by. Harbor craft hooted, seaplanes roared, destroyers plowed, and far aloft, like a majestic silver finger pointing toward France, the Navy dirigible Los Angeles followed the heroes to sea.

Left Behind. Ten minutes before the Leviathan sailed, cries arose that General Pershing was not yet aboard. Three minute's before the gangplank was drawn, he marched briskly up it. Not so Vice President Dawes. He could not go. Standing on the bridge of an official cutter, he said: "It make's me homesick to see them go without me."

"Why don't you stow away?" he was asked.

"I am too well known," he said. "Too conspicuous. They would know my pipe. But I would like to go A. W. 0. L.* from the Vice Presidency and go with them."

*A. W. O. L. means "Absent without leave." It is not to be confused with S. O. L., which means "Sadly out of luck" or "Sure out of luck."