Survivors & Successors

On the July day in 1883 when its convening members tramped through the flag decked streets of Denver the Grand Army of the Republic was 100,000 strong. Eighteen years out of the Civil War, Union veterans were in the prime of their early 40's marched with firm steps, heads up. Founded in 1866 as a patriotic, non-political fraternal body, the G. A. R. was in process of becoming the greatest Treasury-raiding machine the nation had yet seen. Solidly allied with the dominant Republican Party, it was well started on its course of welding power in a crusading hatred of the Rebels, "waving the bloody shirt" from every political stump as it packed Congress with its members, dictated pension legislation almost at will. It had already helped put fellow-members Grant, Hayes and Garfield into the White House, was still to put General Harrison and Major McKinley there.

The Grand Army which tottered down six blocks of Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue at its 70th Encampment last week was a sentimental relic which, by Death and the dimming of old passions, had been stripped of political power for a generation. Of the 355 parading oldsters, whose average age was 92, only 170 crickety survivors of the mighty march of 1883 were able to hobble along at a funeral pace under their own power. The rest rode in automobiles. Bulking far larger than veterans in the parade and in Washington Hotel lobbies were the proud, full-bosomed Ladies of the G. A. R., Daughters of Union Veterans and members of its Women's Relief Corps. As prime beneficiaries of Civil War pensions, veterans' wives and daughters early formed enthusiastic auxiliaries which in time outnumbered and overshadowed the G. A. R. itself.

Last week's parade was advertised in advance as the last the G. A. R. would ever hold. But the spunky oldsters enjoyed it so much that they proceeded to elect a new commander-in-chief, C. H. William Ruhe of Pittsburgh, optimistically plan a 71st Encampment in Madison, Wis. next year.

Meantime, through the flag-decked streets of Cleveland last week tramped a veterans' army far greater than the Denver procession of 1883. Of the American Legion's 900,000 members, some 200,000 had swarmed to its annual convention and an estimated 70,000 marched in the 11 1/2-hr. parade. Eighteen years out of the World War, the veterans were in the prime of their early 40's, marched with firm steps, heads up. Founded in Paris after the Armistice as a patriotic non-political body, it was in the process of becoming the greatest Treasury-raiding machine the nation had ever seen. Shrewdly putting the pressure of its 900,000 ballots on both parties, it was the nation's greatest single political force, vigilantly alert for "un-Americanism" as it packed Congress with its members. A fellow-member, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was already in the White House and another would take his place if Alf M. Landon should win. History owed the Legion four presidents more.

Prominent last week in the Legion's parade, and looming so large in Cleveland that the convention seemed like a huge family party, were the Legionaries' wives. Robust Mrs. Lorena Harm of Wayne, Neb. was elected to succeed Mrs. Melville Mucklestone as national president of the Legion Auxiliary and her job seemed so big that she prepared to put her 9-year-old son under her sister's care in order to devote all her time to Auxiliary affairs.

As usual, bibbing Legionaries were up to their traditional tricks--stopping automobiles and street cars for "inspection," tossing water from hotel windows, turning in false fire alarms, smashing plate glass windows, halting traffic with mid-street card and crap games, poking female pedestrians with electrically-charged canes. But, because of the Legionaries' advancing years, the presence of their wives and a curt preliminary warning from Commander Ray Murphy to "act your age," such highjinks were far less frequent than at past conventions. Serious members were sobered by knowledge that its 18th convention marked a critical milestone in the Legion's public career. The $1,900,000,000 bonus, its goal of years, had been won nine years before it was due. Would the Legion now follow in the footsteps of the G. A. R., which by 1893 was gulping one-third of the U. S. Treasury's gross revenues?

The Grand Army, too, had at first been satisfied with pensions for disabled veterans and dependents of men who had died in service. Step by step it had dipped deeper into the Treasury--in 1879 for any veteran whose disability presumptively could be traced to the war, in 1890 for disabled veterans whose ailments had nothing to do with the war. Final step was in 1907, when pensions were secured for every veteran regardless of his health or wealth, for widows who had married their veterans prior to June 27, 1905 and for their children. In 1935, 70 years after Appomattox, annual Civil War pensions cost the U. S. $63,500,000. Total cost to date: $7,887,575,216.89.

Many a patriotic citizen within & without the G. A. R. had tried in vain to stop the advancing tide. In 1882 Senator Hawley of Connecticut declared: "There are no men who will pass a severer judgment on excessive or unnecessary or fraudulent pensions than the soldiers themselves"

In 1893 the G. A. R.'s Noah Farnham Post in New York lost its charter for criticizing the organization's pension policies.

In 1932 the American Legion's Willard Straight Post in New York lost its charter for a similar reason. Two years before, the Legion had reached the G. A. R.'s pension point of 1890, with payments extended to disabled veterans whose ailments were not War-connected. Last week Veterans' Administrator Frank T. Hines gently cautioned the Legionaries at Cleveland:"It is my advice that in the consideration of future proposals for the enactment of additional legislation beneficial to veterans and their dependents, due recognition be given to existing benefits and care exercised to avoid the possibility of claims of injustice to that group of citizens not falling within the classification of war veterans and their dependents."

Bolder was the overlapping American Veterans Association, longtime foe of the Bonus. In a full-page Cleveland Plain Dealer advertisement addressed to the Legion, it roared: "Already the demand has been made in several quarters for pensions for all World War Veterans without regard to length of service, need or disability. We will oppose this demand with every resource at our command. We invite your support in this fight, and urge that your convention declare to the public in unmistakable language where the American Legion stands on this issue."

This challenge was drowned in loud Legion cheers for talks on Peace by Newton D. Baker, William Green and Commander Murphy, in loud Legion outcries against radicals. What the Rebels were to the G.A.R., Reds are to the Legion. Adopted with a roar last week were resolutions pledging the Legion to continue its longtime war on Communism, urging the tightening of immigration laws and deportation of radical aliens.

New York City won next year's convention with the slogan"March Up Fifth Avenue Again in 1937." Unanimously chosen, the Legion's new commander was a sturdy, dark-haired, 45-year-old Topeka, Kans. corporation lawyer named Harry Walter Colmery, who, like Topeka's Alf Landon, is a Pennsylvania-born Republican. A Wartime aviator who has made the Legion his prime avocation, Commander Colmery declared last week:"Our danger lies in our own apathy, coupled with the fact that we have a tendency now and then to stick our nose into other people's business instead of keeping within the confines of the Legion's program." Definitely part of the Legion's program, however, reiterated the new commander, was a "determination that those who would destroy American institutions should and shall be silenced."

Other goals which the Legion set for itself last week: 1) no U. S. entry into the League of Nations; 2) collection of War debts; 3) universal draft of men, money and industry to "deprofitize" war; 4) expanded national defense. Also tucked away in the list of resolutions to be presented to Congress next session was one demanding,"that in no event shall the widows and orphans of World War veterans be without Government protection." A "widow" was defined as one who had married a War veteran prior to July 3, 1931, or married him after that date and lived with him for three years preceding his death.

Cried the American Veterans Association's Commander Donald A. Hobart of this long Legion step along the G.A.R. pension path: "The Cleveland convention . . . has definitely started the American Legion down the road to pensions for everyone."

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