Legionnaire's Thesis

Two years ago dark, spectacled, deliberate William Gellermann, a professor at Northwestern University, submitted a thesis for his Ph.D. at Columbia's Teachers College. A War veteran and member of the American Legion, Professor Gellermann had written a copiously documented but partisan analysis of the Legion.* Its sponsor was Teachers College's leftist Professor George Sylvester Counts. Last year, typewritten copies of this document got scant attention from the press. But last week, as the National Education Association gathered in .Manhattan (see col. 3) and the first copies of Dr. Gellermann's work came from the printers, an enterprising New York Times reporter mixed the two ingredients, produced an explosion.

Dr. Gellermann's thesis, buttressed by 280 pages of citations from the record, was: 1) the Legion enrolls less than one-fourth of the 4,000,000-odd U. S. World War veterans, 2) it is undemocratically controlled by a small hierarchy of officials, 3) Legion leaders "have come from a class in American society which has profited from existing social and economic arrangements," 4) chief activity of the Legion is fighting "subversive elements" and it has sponsored teaching of chauvinistic patriotism in the schools, 5) Capitalistic and militaristic, the Legion confuses "the middle class concerning its real interests," is "a potential force in the direction of fascism in the U. S."

Because it annually sponsors American Education Week jointly with the Legion, and solicits the Legion's help to get more money for schools, the N. E. A. was highly embarrassed by this report. It hastened to disown Dr. Gellermann's thesis. Meanwhile, Legionnaires sprang to arms. Said Theodore Roosevelt, a Legion founder: "The study must have been made by a jackass." To Manhattan rushed National Commander Daniel J. Doherty to demand that the N. E. A. let him answer. Commander Doherty finally was given the floor at the convention's last business session. Said he:

"I did not come here to vilify or castigate Professor Gellermann. . . . The highest evaluation that can be placed on his literary effort is to say that it represents the puny product of a small mind." N. E. A.'s delegates cheered. Mr. Doherty dismissed Professor Counts by remarking that he was an adviser to the Moscow Summer School, to Professor Gellermann's charges, retorted that the Legion was democratically controlled by its 11,444 posts, today has the highest membership in its history--935,829. Added Lawyer Doherty: "I am just a humble Legionnaire. . . . I know that I have no connection with any intrenched interests, financial, business or military."

At week's end, N. E. A.'s delegates enthusiastically approved a resolution to seek the cooperation of the Legion "and other service organizations having constructive educational programs." But Dr. Gellermann's thesis had not been entirely squelched. Said the arch-conservative New York Herald Tribune: "Has the Legion ever distinguished itself by any intelligent or sustained stand for civil liberties, free speech or the rights of the individual? We doubt it. Not a pressure group? Why, it has been, on occasion, one of the most arrogant and powerful and vindictive of all the pressure groups. . . . If Doctor Professor Legionnaire Gellermann's tirade should lead to a realistic re-examination of the American Legion by its own member ship it will have done some good."

*THE AMERICAN LEGION AS EDUCATOR--William Gellermann--Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University-- ($3.15).

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