Good-Willers

While gendarmes and French soldiery scoured the Riviera for spawn of Communism cast out by Italy (who must, said Frenchmen, have been the dastards that bombed Legion trains last fortnight), Retiring Commander Howard Paul Savage and some 200 American Legionaries specially picked for their ability to commerce in goodwill, entered the cavernous railroad station at Genoa.

Commander Savage made a speech: "We are very happy to be here. We bring the salutations of the American Legion to the Italian Army and nation, past and present. We are greatly pleased with our reception, but not surprised, since we are in the native country of the man who discovered America."

Signor Sanselli, national director of the Italian Veterans' Association, spoke in kind, but did not go so far back in history as to recall the original Legionaries from Rome, who used to march through what is now Genoa on their way to subdue the barbaric Gauls, Angles, Saxons, Celts and Teutons from whom U. S. Legionaries are largely descended.

Commander Savage and some of his men and their wives wanted to see Genoa harbor. Admiral Cayni commandeered five tugs and showed his lively guests about.

P: Legionaries who stayed ashore in Genoa commented up the reserve, the dignity, the almost disdain of Fascist Italy. How it contrasted with demonstrative France! But soon "buddies" were saluting camerati; soon they were imitating the Fascist salute (right arm forward, raised at 45DEG, palm open downward) and solemnly saluting one another with it.

P: So many bands played so many national anthems that many a "buddy" said his back was tired from standing at attention.

P: All within a few hours, the good-will men were lunched by King Vittorio Emanuele and blessed by Pope Pius XI. Commander Savage later described how "King Emmanuel of Italy welcomed us in his summer palace at Pisa." "He is," said the Commander, "the most affable, democratic monarch it would be possible to meet. His speaking such perfect English made things especially easy for us." During the Pisa visit as the King finished talking with a knot of Legionaries and turned to leave them, a U. S. voice boomed: "Gangway for the King!"

P: The Papal reception followed the laying of a wreath of dahlias on the grave of Italy's Unknown Soldier, and parading to "The Star Spangled Banner," "Piave" and "Giovinezza." Ascending the snowy marble steps of the Apostolic Palace, the Legionaries, all dressed in their evening clothes, were met by smiling Swiss Guards whom Vatican etiquette forbade to salute. The Pope came forth in white. The Legionaries knelt. Commander Savage and a few others were presented. The Pope examined the Legion flag, made a speech:

". . . Our heart is particularly gladdened because you have come so far to kneel at the feet of the head of the great Christian Church."

The Pope passed among the Legionaries, letting each kiss his ring. Upon the head of blind Frank Schobel of Philadelphia he laid his hands and said: "May the Lord bless you, dear boy, for what you have done and for what you have suffered. We are sure He will give you strength to undergo deprivation, also rewarding you."

He told one and all he was pleased to make their personal acquaintance and concluded by blessing the entire U. S.

P: Commander Savage related afterwards: "He said something I thought extremely touching because it is tremendously true. He said he welcomed us not only as Americans and as those who had rushed to Europe in the hour of greatest need, but because we came as messengers of peace and international good-will."

P: Benito Mussolini was not in the Eternal City to see the Legionaries and be seen. Reason: his wife was bearing their fourth child, a son, who happily arrived even as the Legion reached Rome--an omen, said some. The Mussolinis named their son Romano (see p. 18.) Il Duce sent word: "I salute all valiant soldiers who brought from overseas the generous flame of their youthful vigor to the battlefields of Europe."

P: The Italian press mingled with its fulsome welcome a few votes of thanksgiving that Italy's War debts to the U. S. were already settled, thus relieving the warmth of Italy's hospitality from suspicion of an ulterior motive.

P: The Legionaries pressed on from Rome to Lucerne, Switzerland, thence to Strasbourg and Metz in Alsace-Lorraine.

In London, some 150 Legionaries fell in at Scotland Yard and marched--with girl standard bearers, saxaphones, and bright tunics--through Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, whence they proceeded to Westminster Abbey with an evergreen wreath for the Unknown Tommy. General Pershing was not with this detachment as planned.

The London paraders, one and all from the Thomas B. Wanamaker Post, were well flayed in the British press for their blatancy. Wrote Editor J. W. Drawbell of the London Sunday Chronicle: "We are having too much American nonsense that floods the world--that stolid, humorless nonsense that sees nothing funny in a procession of flag-wagging musical comedy men arid women Legionaires tramping through the streets and boosting an American department store in the name of glory."

In Belgium, keeping up the good, work done by their colleagues in France, Italy and England, U. S. news correspondents wrote how the visits of a few Legionaries had inspired Belgians not to stop at raking and "neating up" in their care of German graves on Belgian soil, but to start planting flowers and hedges, as around Belgian heroes' graves.

In Paris. Bennett J. Doty of Biloxi, Miss., was pardoned, at the American Legion's request, for deserting from the French Foreign Legion while on duty against Druse tribesmen in the Syrian desert last year (TIME, Feb. 15, 1526). He had served 15 months of an eight-year sentence in Albertville Prison (Savoie), making military clothes in the prison tailor shop. His pardon required him to rejoin the Foreign Legion, in Algeria, for four years and a month, to complete his five-year enlistment. Said he: "I don't care much what I do, whether I plow fields or play chaperone to sheep and cattle so long as I don't continue making pants for soldiers."