CHAPTER IV

THE CAUCUS AT ST. LOUIS

MAY of 1919 is to be remembered in the United States as a time big with hesitations. The war was over; but all was not well. America was awakening to a dazed realization of the fact that all her straining of mind and muscle for the last two years was not to be let down, that the time of hectic celebrations of victory was over and done with, that the Nation was still tramping forward into a very clouded future. There was a vague resentfulness of all this. A great restlessness and doubtfulness had taken the minds of the people. For a year the energies of the Nation had been bent on the bringing about of victory. Like the goal the runner sets himself to reach, this victory beckoned with appealing visions of resting in the shade, of a letting down of all effort and a throwing off of all care.

Then victory came. For months the Nation gave itself over to an uproarious content, for the war was over. But the continued contemplation of that fact soon palled. A thousand voices rose that had been stilled by the emergency of the great effort. Voices whispered of infinite perplexities, of nations at cross-purposes, of the inefficiency of governments. Russia stood in the East as a great menace of the overturning of everything; her shadow was stretching across the world, and in that shadow were springing up the fungus growths of lawlessness and class hatred everywhere. The citizenship of the country was very confused and doubtful, caught in the cross-currents of conflicting apprehensions and convictions and deafened by the clamor of all the agitators in the world shouting from the housetops.

Over in Paris the Peace Conference was continuing its endless sittings. Clamor of orators, silence of diplomats, a thousand Old World greeds and hatreds straining at the leash, a thousand New World creeds confused and weakening;

no good tidings from the East-not from Paris, at all events. The curtain was rising on the Great Disappointment.

Here in America the two million were practically all returned from France, the other three million were released from the training camps, all stepping out of the narrow world of military service into this confused and doubtful world of civil life, into a nation that had changed wonderfully since they had gone into the barracks. Their return added another element of uncertainty. What of these five million, their minds separated from the civilian mind by two years of hard and silent service, by strange experiences unguessed at, which the five million themselves would not open their lips to explain? Here was the prime of the youth of the Nation preserving an ominous silence. A thousand guesses and wild rumors ran about concerning them. American infantry going bolshevik in Russia, throwing their rifles in the mud in scorn of orders to parade in Paris; troops starving in Brest, opening fire on English soldiery-no report was too wild to find its circle of listeners.

And furthermore, the five million were organizing. Organization is the great faculty of the American mind. Now the fighting citizens of America, divided from the rest by a deep experience, were getting together to shape an instrument of incalculable power. Radicals took heart and politicians pricked up their ears. Between stranded Europe and drifting America was this new force a menace or a promise, a tempest or a trade-wind?

Then a meeting was held in St. Louis. The meeting was a voice, the voice was heard all over the country. It spoke thrice in three days, on May 8th, 9th and 10th, 1919.

The first day it proclaimed: The American Legion is true to its name. It is not an organization of officers or of any aspiring personalities. It is the voice of the veterans of America.

The second day it proclaimed: The Legion is of and for the Republic. It is the enemy of the enemies of the

Republic. It stands against radicalism and all disloyalty. It delivered this message sharply to the Pacific Northwest and the city of Chicago.

The third day it proclaimed: The Legion is to be built on a rock, on the Constitution of the United States-a strong fortress of patriotism and a great machine of service and constructive citizenship.

The five million had been heard. I do not mean to say that the five million were represented in the St. Louis caucus, not even a tenth of them, in actual numbers. There were other veterans organizations springing up all about, and a great element of the ex-soldiers was still standing skeptically aloof from all suggestion of organization. But the meeting in St. Louis was thoroughly representative for all that. The Legion idea had taken the minds of ex-service men all over the country, and the Legion organization was developing tenfold more swiftly than any other organization. The caucus had been attended to overflowing from all parts of the country, and from all classes and divisions of the military and naval service. It proved that the Legion had taken hold all over the country as the logical organization of the ex-service man, and it proved as well that the exservice man had a very definite and decided mind of his own.

The caucus at St. Louis was really the turning point of the career of the Legion. It was called in the midst of a most doubtful period in the psychology of the Nation, and its calling was simply a continuation of the Paris experiment. Nobody could foresee how it would turn out. Its opportunities for error were numberless. It had no precedent or tradition behind it. In the face of all these things the remarkable thing was the unanimity of sentiment displayed and the thorough grasp and fearless and practical working out of pressing and vital problems.

These things were carried through with all the élan and color of the mercurial American temperament, and with all the deep practical shrewdness and grasp of organization

that underlie that American temperament. As a matter of fact, the caucus was simply a succession of stresses and high-lights from beginning to end, a series of alarums and excursions and loud enthusiasms that stimulated and clarified while seeming to veil the deep intents and ideals of the assemblage.

The convention opened with clamor when Theodore Roosevelt called it to order, and a roar went up for young Teddy for permanent chairman. The Shubert-Jefferson Theater was packed and bristling with the banners of the various delegations. Every State in the Union, save North Carolina, was loudly represented. From the stage, pit and galleries went up a continuous roar.

Presently a slight, erect figure strolled out into the centre of confusion on the stage and began pounding a vicious gavel. This was Roosevelt. His call for order had an instant effect. The roar redoubled. He pounded some more. Hats and banners went into the air and the hall shook. Young Teddy smiled and went to pounding in a very business-like manner. When the noise went down he raised his hands and tried to speak; when it came up again he shrugged his shoulders and took to pounding again. Finally he made himself heard.

"Gentlemen," he said, in his small, pleasant voice, "let's proceed with the business of the meeting. The floor is open for nominations for permanent chairman."

Jack Sullivan, of Seattle, was a shade quicker on the draw than the rest. "Gentlemen," he whooped, and as he went on we heard something about a man who was first in the front line trenches and had proved himself a sterling patriot. When he came to "worthy son of a worthy sire" we knew whom he meant, and the name Theodore Roosevelt was drowned out in the wave of cheering. Nothing more could be heard. Roosevelt stamped and shook his head. Swiftly the cheering resolved itself into the familiar chant, "We want Teddy! We-want-Teddy!"

Here was the first crisis and turning point of the convention, developing within two minutes after the meeting was called to order. At that moment the Legion stood in grave peril of a course that would have led to its ultimate failure a course that would have put it in the light of a personally conducted organization under the glamour of the Roosevelt name. Most of the cheering delegates never thought of this, but in the whole assemblage there was one man who did think of it, and that one man happened to be the right man. It was Mr. Roosevelt himself. This was Roosevelt's moment. He rose to meet it superbly, and guided the Legion for the last time it needed one man's guidance; and he did one of the finest things of his life.

It was a hard thing to do. The convention's mood swiftly passed into a sort of mob stubbornness. They wanted Teddy and they were going to have him. They would hear of nothing else. How could that slight, youthful figure on the stage bear up against the concentrated will-power of a thousand men? Impossible. So the clamor rose and fell and rose again. Young Roosevelt finally got silence and his pleasant voice rose to the breaking point as he put away the nomination in short, determined words that should have carried conviction. But the delegates were beyond conviction. They were the mob in full cry. There was something fine about it, too, and it must have held a great appeal to the man who heard sounding for him that long call that he could not quiet. Young Roosevelt felt it. He walked about the stage in evident agitation. He looked very young and very troubled.

Well, he held out. During a lull in the uproar an ex-sergeant from Maine nominated an ex-colonel from Texas, Henry D. Lindsley, and told how Mr. Lindsley had resigned as Mayor of Dallas, and had gone to France and won the Distinguished Service Medal. The nomination was seconded by a delegate from Ohio. Confusion rose again.