The new organization must of course be nonpartisan and non-political. Precedent enough exists in the career of the Grand Army to make that clear. It should include and enjoy the guidance of the most influential military men. Politicians it will have at its service so long as it is well run and organized from within. Despite its proper political limitations, it should serve as the most salutary means to influence returned soldiers to cling to plain old Americanism, shed their martial acquirements and return to plain, praiseworthy citizenship.
_Washington Star_, April 10, 1919.--... The American Legion is to be welcomed as an agency for the promotion of the best in our national life. It will represent, with other things, the majesty of numbers. A great many men will be eligible to membership; and they will be young, and full of hope and purpose. And when they act together in matters within the scope of their organization they will represent a force to be reckoned with in the formulating of public policies.
_Brooklyn Eagle_, April 11, 1919.--Organization of "The American Legion" is going on rapidily in every State in the Union. Vast as was the mass of eligibles on which the Grand Army of the Republic could draw after the Civil War, it did not compare with the Legion's bulk of raw material. There will be a formal caucus on May 8th, at St. Louis, of a real representative character, in which it is said the enlisted men of the army and navy will have a majority. Lieutenant Colonel Henry L. Stimson, once Secretary of War, outlines the plan. He believes that this country's future hereafter is in the hands of the men below thirty years of age who fought this war. He trusts that the lesson in practical democracy afforded by military experience and the ideals of democracy emphasized by military enthusiasm may be kept permanently alive.
That this is the main hope of the more active organizers we have no doubt. Men like Major General O'Ryan, General Charles I. Debevoise, and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and Colonel Robert Bacon would never think of making such a body a lever for pension legislation or an agency of politics. Yet the temptation to a divergence from the higher ideals is strong, and the rank and file may not be inclined to resist it.