Citizens Second

A few tired old funsters wandered around the streets with water pistols and electric shockers, startling unwary women. There was a four-hour parade--it had originally been scheduled to last 14 hours. But that was about all. San Francisco, which had stiffened its sinews to meet.the annual American Legion convention, relaxed. Some 150,000 Legionnaires had been expected. Only about 25,000 Legionnaires showed up, and pretty sedate at that.

The expected rebellion of World War II vets turned out to be a dud. Very much in the minority (with only 20% of the voting strength), the youngsters talked like their elders and produced nothing more than a distant threat to the middle-aged hierarchy. World War II vets were content to bide their time. By next October they hope to comprise 80% of the Legion's membership.

But in some respects the Legionnaires ran true to form. They listened in silence as able General Omar Bradley, Veterans Administrator, defended himself from the assaults made on him by their outgoing national commander, bellowing John Stelle. The most recent focus of Stelle's attacks: Bradley's approval of a $200-a-month ceiling and a two-year limitation to "on-the-job" training for veterans, already costing the Government some $36 million a month.

Said Bradley, angry and tense: "There is no agency of our American Government that dares place its special interests before the interests of the nation. . . . The American veteran is first a citizen of these United States. He is, thereafter, a veteran." Legionnaires gave him a feeble hand. But when Stelle roared into the microphone: "The main difference between General Bradley and myself, apparently, is that the General thinks that the citizen should be considered first and then the veteran," they burst into the wildest applause of the session.

Stelle's successor turned out to be, as everyone knew it would, 49-year-old Colonel Paul H. Griffith. He had fought in

World War I as a noncom, served as a colonel in desk jobs during World War II, and in between ran a butter-&-egg business in Uniontown, Pa., his home town, and a public relations business in Washington. Says Griffith, who has fought organized labor on the issue of superseniority for veterans: "Veterans are not getting jobs as fast as nonveterans and something has to be done about it."

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