American Legion, Founded after World War I, Was True Help for Veterans, 1921

“Carrying On With the American Legion,” From the High Point Review, December 22, 1921. The American Legion, which was founded at the close of World War I, offered an amazing range of services.

An army kitchen and 1,000 cots have been placed in former barracks at Cleveland to care for jobless ex-service men.

A 5 per cent discount on all purchases has been according members of the American Legion by the majority of merchants in Arcadia, Fla.

Motion pictures are shown three nights a week at the American Legion theater, which has just been established by a post in Alta Vista, Kan.

Agents of the Chicago American Legion post which has undertaken the reconstruction of Mesnil-en-Arronaise, Picardy, have gotten the project under way.

Harold Wells, Petersburg, Va., blinded in the war, was loaned $1,000 by the American Legion post there. He established a tobacco shop and has paid back the debt.

The few remaining Confederate veterans of Tennessee were able to attend the annual meeting of their association because of the efforts of 20 American Legionnaires of Nashville.

Employees of the elevated railways of Chicago have formed a post of the American Legion and have dedicated a bronze plate to the memory of eight “L” men killed in the war.

Four leading concert companies are to appear in Christopher, Ill., this winter because of the American Legion post there, which has succeeded in inaugurating a lyceum course.

The state of Michigan has bought the community house at Camp Custer, improved the place and turned it over to the American Legion posts to be used as a hospital for veterans.

While Cincinnati was discussing the need of cleaning the William Henry Harrison statue there, the Bentley American Legion post, armed with brushes, buckets and soap, did it.

An American flag has been given the Hellenic post, Minneapolis, of the American Legion, by the Greek citizens there. The post is composed of Grecian born veterans of the A.E.F.

Five hundred ex-service men acted as “supers” in the filming of a motion picture at Mamaroneck, N.Y. They were sent to enact a “battle” by a New York American Legion employment bureau.

Twelve overseas veterans refused to face death again in fumigating immigrant ships. The American Legion employment bureau in New York had received the call from the immigration officers.

Due to the propaganda of the American Legion in Birmingham, Ala., the hundreds of former service men have been placed in positions ranging between that of short order cooks to construction foremen.

By means of entertainments given by the school children of Minnesota, the American Legion Auxiliary of that state will be enabled to erect a building to care for destitute veterans on their discharge from hospitals.

Jerked from his floor-bed by a rush of 50 proffered positions, a Kansas City former soldier has been able to support himself, his wife and five children. He had registered the previous day at the American Legion employment office.

Oscar E. Carlstrom, Aledo, Ill., new commander of the United Spanish War Veterans, was one of the committee of 50 A.E.F. men which started the American Legion in Paris in 1919. He is an adopted member of the G.A.R. of Illinois.

Adjusted compensation will not be squandered by former service men, according to a Toledo Ohio newspaper. According to figures from a campaign, 176 want home aid, 88 want cash, 40 chose the certificate plan and 5 per cent want vocational training.

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"News from the American Legion," the Mohave County Minor and Our Mineral Wealth, April 7, 1922

When John A. Isham of Boise, Idaho, discovered that Oscar Weymire, his old bunkmate in the army, had not paid his American Legion dues, he decided to visit Weymire. The latter was trapping 300 miles away, but Isham made the trip by foot, horse and skates and brought in the dues. [Dues were $3 per year.]

The strength that won the Argonne and St. Mihiel is being used to guard New York against payroll and bank messenger robberies. The American Legion is furnishing ex-soldiers who go heavily armed with the men and women who carry huge sums through the business sections.

Hundreds of ex-gobs who raked mines out of the North Sea during the world war want to re-enlist, but in Prohibition Commissioner Haynes’ “hooch Navy.” Four submarine chasers are being put in commission at Baltimore, Md., and when completed will form a Navy that will wage war on rum runners.

A discovery that Harvard, Neb., didn’t have a way of getting the latest news on the weather, crops and current events caused an old Navy radio operator to get busy. Now the American Legion is issuing “hot off the wire” news to the Harvard citizenry.

“If the Legion wants the flag taken down, they can hire a couple of steeple jacks and take it down,” was the answer the board of commissioners made to the Littleton, Colo., American Legion post when it protested the improper care being given the flag on the court house. A couple of old mast climbers turned the trick.

Their own hero’s death from old war wounds has caused a Des Moines, Iowa, family to send a request to an American Legion for an ex-service man for adoption.

War wounds and nervousness laid to shell shock is believed responsible for the act of Ralph W. Harrison of Maplewood, N.J., who committed suicide by shooting himself with the army revolver he had carried in France.

The American Legion rifle team of Golden, Colo., composed entirely of men whose rifles played a part in the World War battles, has issued a challenge to any rifle team in the United States, the scores to be telegraphed to each team at the end of each range.

Alexander Lochwitzky, a former Russian count and a major in the American army during the world war has sent an appeal to the New York American Legion asking that a job be found for him “doing anything.” He speaks eight languages fluently. Everything he had was lost in the San Antonio flood.

When a tornado struck Corinth, Miss., the Mayor called on the American Legion post to furnish an armed patrol to prevent pillaging. For hours after the catastrophe the ex-service men were on the job in the stricken areas.

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis flatly refused to become an honorary member of the American legion when the honor was offered him following his speech before the Mobile, Ala., post. “No man who has not the title of a World War veteran should be permitted a place on the roll of the Legion,” he said. “I would give almost anything I have for that title.”