CHAPTER XX

THE SPECTACLE OF KANSAS CITY

THE third National Convention at Kansas City was a homecoming and reunion of one hundred thousand American fighting men from every clime on earth, a deliberative assembly at which the representatives of a million such men sought to furnish new proof that they are still in their country's service, a significant and magnificent patriotic spectacle such as this generation may never see again.

The convention caught and held the gaze of a world that saw the veteran at work, at play, and exalted to ecstasy by the presence of the great figures of the war who had crossed the waters to repledge to America the brotherhoodfealty of the men they had led, receiving in return America's pledges in kind.

The veteran at work was the veteran in national convention assembled on the 31st of October and the first and second days of November, 1921. More than a thousand delegates, from every State and from every quarter of the globe in which the Legion has its outposts, toiled on the floor of the great convention hall, in twenty committees and sub-committees, in spirited sessions of the committee of the whole, while thousands looked on from the galleries. The great ones of the world looked on, and the whole Nation, as well as many of the peoples of other nations, envisioned the spectacle through the eyes of the two hundred emissaries of the press who were on the spot. Thus did the American Legion transact its official business. It was largely the Nation's business-ways and means, as seen by the veteran, of promoting a more wholesome citizenship, of protecting, strengthening, safeguarding the institutions of government under which this country has grown strong.

The veteran at play was the veteran everywhere in Kansas City, which kept open house. He was the veteran

reunited with men of his old company, his old regiment, his old ship or station, his old division. He was the American gob and doughboy on leave, his troubles packed up in the old kit bag which had been left far behind. He was the man who transformed the Meuhlebach and Baltimore and all the other hotels into barracks and billets, their dining-halls into mess-rooms. To the music of a hundred bands, he frolicked. Taps never sounded. He paraded, shouted, danced the clock around. Twelfth street and Petticoat Lane were as mirthful and colorful at 4 a.m. as at noon. It was the old spirit of camaraderie that only those home from the wars can know.

The ladies were not lacking to complete the pictureex-service women of Army Nurse Corps, yeomen (f) of the Navy, Signal Corps and Quartermaster girls. The Legion Auxiliary convention brought mothers, wives and daughters. It was stimulating, "and as harmless," said Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart, who was there with her Legionnaire husband and Legionnaire sons, "as college boys on a lark after winning the season's big game."

The veteran exalted to ecstasy by the presence of the great of this circumstance Rixey Smith wrote in the Weekly:

The convention was touched to greatness by greatness. Like the lad in Hawthorne's story of "The Great Stone Face," it looked upon greatness until it was itself great. And such faces as it had to look upon! There was Foch, head of the military coalition that crushed the German war machine; Beatty, admiral of the British Grand Fleet; Diaz, generalissimo of the Italian Armies and savior of Italy; Jacques, hero of heroic Belgium; Pershing, commander-in-chief of the A. E. F.; Rodman, admiral of the American naval forces in British waters; Lejeune, head of the United States Marine Corps and sometime commander of the Second Division; and Calvin Coolidge, vice-president of the United States.

That these men had come, many of them from a far distance, to do us honor gave to the convention its predominating note; raised it to the rank of a spectacle of the first magnitude. It was more than a spectacle inviting to

the eye-though it was that, also; it was a spectacle that gripped the imagination and touched the soul. It was not tinsel. It was reality.

Came Calvin Coolidge, terse-spoken Yankee of Vermont, now Vice-President of the United States. His message was the message of the Chief Executive. The VicePresident spoke at the opening session of the Government's pride in the Legion and emphasized his Chief's concern for the welfare of the disabled veteran.

That afternoon came Diaz, Jacques and Lejeune and the convention was stirred to new depths. Diaz spoke in his own tongue. "Italy remembers and appreciates," he said. He called for a closer union, for a closer understanding between the veterans of the world. Their aims were one, their efforts should move together, he said.

The engaging Jacques bravely led off in English. A vet yelled "Attaboy!" and the Belgian answered with the old army high-sign, and went on to confirm the suspicion that he knew a thing or two of the manners of American soldiers. They had fought under his command in Belgium, and the Legion's late leader, whose flag-draped portrait stood on the stage, was one of their number. Jacques thanked us for what America had done for Belgium before we entered the war. He thanked us for the services of our troops, for the friendship of our veterans.

The blunt Lejeune said he had three claims to fame. He was a Marine. He had commanded the Second Division. He was a member of the American Legion.

The stars came out on "Navy night." Earl Beatty, captivating, picturesque, a flesh and blood embodiment of the romance and strength of the British senior service, came. He was a wonderful ambassador. His wife is American, "and that makes my children, you know, rather half American." He spoke of the unselfish purposes that had actuated America in the war. Rodman, U. S. N., prefaced