litarism and jingoism, but that yet is even more
dangerous to anybody at home or abroad who flaunts the spirit of
America and defies its power. And unless the signs fail, the
American Legion is going to express and embody and inculcate
that type of Americanism.

_Anaconda_ (Mont.) _Standard_, May 24, 1919.--... At St. Louis
the members voted down all proposals for obtaining from Congress
increases of pay for the soldiers and rejected all efforts to
obtain canvasses of the members to ascertain their preference as
to parties and as to presidential candidates. Everything was
excluded which would tend to committ the organization to any
particular party or any particular candidate. Young Colonel
Roosevelt, son of the former republican president, and Colonel
Bennett Clark, son of Champ Clark, former democratic speaker of
the house, joined hands in the endeavor to keep partisanship and
politics out of the organization.

_Collier's Weekly_, May 31, 1919.--A national convention of
American soldiers and sailors in which no grievances were aired,
no political axes ground, no special privileges or preferments
demanded; where oratorical "bunk" was hooted down; where social
discrimination was taboo and military rank counted not at all;
where the past glories of war were subordinated to the future
glories of peace and where the national interest was placed
above all partisanship--that is something new under the sun. It
was in such a convention held in St. Louis during the second
week in May, that the new spirit of the American army and navy
expressed itself articulately for the first time since the
armistice was signed. The birth of the American Legion was
attended by circumstances having a significance comparable with
those surrounding the signing of a certain document in
Philadelphia one hundred and forty-three years ago, come July
4th.

A brigadier general arises to "place in nomination the name of a
man who--" and is cried down by doughboys with calls of "Name
him! Who is he?" A proposal to give extra pay to enlisted men is
unanimously defeated because, as Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt
put it, "we are not here to sandbag something out of the
Government, but to put something into it." The invitation to
make Chicago the next meeting place of the Legion is refused
because