In Paris

Some 20,000 American legionaries paraded in Paris. Some 2,000 then attended banquets, ceremonies, convention sessions. Two of the 2,000 did practically all of the speechmaking--General John Joseph Pershing and National Commander Howard Paul Savage. It was their privilege and duty to reiterate many a time the official aims and loftiest sentiments of the Legion's "pilgrimage." Over and over they rephrased, genuinely and impressively, the ideals that sent the A. E. F. abroad, the French valor that it saw there, the friendships that it formed there, the faith that the Legion returned to pledge there.

But if some 20,000 American legioraries paraded in Paris, only 2,000 attended official functions and only two spoke officially. Observers wondered if the 20,000 were more acutely bespoken by General Pershing and Commander Savage than they were by often-wounded Captain Jean Piot, a contributor to L'Oeuvre. Doubtless aware that a large percentage of the legionaries in Paris last week were men who had not so much as got overseas during the War, Captain Piot wrote:

"Welcome, boys, you are welcome!

"Someone said to me yesterday, as we watched you march past, 'It isn't a procession, it is a micareme* parade.'

"And it was. But why the devil should you make your trip to France into a pilgrimage? A pilgrimage? That is the idea of our old civilizations, which are always looking backward, thinking about our traditions and our dead.

"For you, the dead are dead and that's all there is to it. They did their bit, they ran their risk, and why should anyone be always worrying about them? . . .

"It was not for that you came to France. You came to enjoy life, real life, not the complicated busi: ness which our brains evolve, bui the simple business of eating, drinking, laughing and joking. . . .

"The war? You made war and you made it well, but it never touched you.

"That is why we welcome you back on this sorely wounded land. When you travel across it after these first days of rejoicing and effusion, you will perhaps notice that our rebuilt ruins are not entirely covered by estaminets inhabited by daughters of joy, but that our people work, that they struggle along in conditions which in your national opulence perhaps you scarcely imagined. . . .

"It is to those of you who have come to see us as we are, and not as Senator Borah pictures us, that we repeat 'Welcome!'"

Banquets. First to dine the 2,000 legionaries were 2,000 French veterans. Tables totaling a mile in length were placed in the open court in the Hotel des Invalides. It rained and blew but the diners wore overcoats. Detachments led by cheerleaders would rush to the head table, cheer Marshal Foch, General Pershing, one-armed General Henri Gouraud, Commander Savage.

Next day President Gaston Doumergue and Marshall Foch received two large Legion detachments. Then the Legion dined President Doumergue. They toasted the late President Wilson. President Doumergue arose and said: "I drink to a great citizen and a great statesman, President Coolidge." Following a speech, he turned abruptly to Commander Savage, dropped over his head a slender cord dangling bright insignia and said: "I create you, Commander Savage, Commander of the Legion of Honor." Pandemonium. . . .

World peace and French-American amity were the burdens of all speeches.

Convention. A message from President Coolidge opened the Legion's business sessions in the Trocadero Palace. Then came the year's resolutions, chief among them one urging the creation of a separate U. S. department of aeronautics, headed by a Cabinet member, "as soon as warranted." Up jumped Francis Edward McGovern, onetime (1911-15) Governor of Wisconsin, to denounce "as soon as warranted" for a mouthful of "weasel words." Up likewise jumped William Mitchell, stormy onetime assistant chief of the U. S. Army Air Service. Given the platform, he shouted; "The next war will be fought by getting at the vital centres of the enemy. This must be done by aviation. Today we are being strangled. I favor ending the situation. I favor the creation of a department under a separate Cabinet officer at once."

The resolution was passed with the words "as soon as warranted" still in it. Next day, Mr. Mitchell continued to storm and shout until they changed the phrase to "as soon as possible." So sharply did Mr. Mitchell attack those in charge of U. S. national defense that, after the resolution was passed in its unmitchellian form, his remarks had to be removed from the record.

Other resolutions: condemned destructive criticism of the U. S. Constitution and Supreme Court; added 25 cents to Legion dues to support the American Legion Monthly; advocated Nov. 11 as a national holiday, "Armistice Day;" sent a cable of cheer to legionary James Joseph Tunney in Chicago; endorsed the Boy Scouts; bestowed the Legion's Distinguished Service Medal on Count De Jean of the French Foreign Office for his reception arrangements; chose San Antonio, Tex., for the 1928 convention.

Elections. Cheering and chairing followed the election of Edward Elwell Spafford, Manhattan lawyer, as National Commander. He is the first Navy man so honored--a lieutenant-commander of a Mediterranean torpedo flotilla in the War. While being cheered he held in his arms small Jay Ward, aged 7, from Philadelphia, "typical American boy," new official Legion mascot. After his speech of acceptance, Commander Spafford was said to have slipped away alone to stand at salute beside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The Rev. Gill Robb Wilson (Presbyterian) of Trenton, N. J., literally a "sky pilot" with a formidable Lafayette Escadrille bombing record, was elected the Legion's chaplain over the Rev. J. Monroe Stick of Baltimore.

Auxiliaries. General Pershing addressed the American Legion Auxiliary (wives, mothers, sisters): "The enemy within our gates is at this very moment making serious efforts to find lodgement for his specious reasoning in the tender and emotional nature of our good women.

"The dauntless women of America who felt the cruel hand of war are not made of stuff which misguided Communists can mold or impracticable pacifists can band to their dangerous conceptions. I hate war as much as any man alive, but there are things even worse than war, and women know what some of them are even better than the rest of us. . . ."

The Auxiliary elected Mrs. Irene Mclntyre Walbridge of Peterboro, N. H., for president, resolved to be antipacifist, to keep tabs on speakers at U. S. high schools, to back the Bible.

Funmakers. Another Manhattan lawyer, smiling P. St. George Bissell, was unanimously elected Chef de Chemin de Fer of the Quarante Hommes--Huits Chevtnix, funmaking Legion club named after the capacity signs (40 men--8 horses) stencilled on French box cars which used to take troops to the front.

Wives, mothers, sisters, etc., of the funmakers, organized a feminine club called Quarante Femmes --Huit Chapeaux (40 women--8 hats), with a Mrs. Walter Davol of East Providence, R. I., for "National Chapeau."

Aged Tiger. General Pershing, Commanders Savage and Spafford and a delegation largely representative of the 48 States, trooped up the steps of a house in the Avenue de Messine, Paris. When the door opened, an 87-year-old figure in grey uniform, grey police cap and grey cotton gloves hurried down the hall. "How do you do? Old friend, what are you doing here?" said the grey figure.

"I came to see you," said General Pershing, "and I see you are younger than ever. You have a complexion like a girl, all rosy and fresh."

"Flatterer," retorted aged Georges Clemenceau, "You look just like the boy you are."

The two friends embraced.

"Let's do the Charleston!" cried General Pershing, and they hopped about together.

Commander Savage presented the Legion's compliments. M. Clemenceau replied: "I no longer represent France, because I am too old. Yet I can assure you that she will never forget. . . ."

As his callers left, M. Clemenceau again embraced General Pershing --"My friend, my good friend, my dear friend, goodbye--in this world or in another."

Farewell. Minister of Commerce Maurice Bokanowski, just back from the U. S., in a speech at the farewell lunch of the American Club, translated a French folksong:

There were two people looking for each other;

They were exactly made one for the other;

Their minds, their hearts and life were the same;

They had been born to love each other

And to be happy during a long life;

But they never met.

"I feel," said M. Bokanowski, "that somehow the story of this song is the story of the people of France and America. They met only after one century and a half."

Tours. Most of the Legion journeyed out and about Paris during the week to see old battlefields. Official tours followed the official farewell to Paris. Premier Poincare and Marshal ("They shall not pass") Petain received at Verdun. Lunch was served to hundreds in the market square, once razed but now reconstructed. The Douaumont Ossuary, a monument to 400,000 unidentified Frenchmen who fell defending the citadel, was dedicated. St. Mihiel, the Argonne, Belleau Wood drew steady streams of visitors. At least one news correspondent went to the bramble-hidden grave upon which a onetime U. S. President caused to be chiseled: "He has outsoared the shadows of our night--Quentin Roosevelt."

Grief. To legionaries in general and Morris Klein of Wyoming in particular, who grieved at being charged high for rooms engaged through Legion headquarters, officials simply explained that most advance leases had, unfortunately but unavoidably, been made at a moment when the franc was extremely low and prices correspondingly high. Rooms engaged later and independently were cheaper because prices had descended as the franc rose. The Legion charged U. S. lessees 10% more than it paid French lessors--5% for overhead, 5% for agency commissions.

Behavior. Major Arthur Kipling, chief of the Legion's military and police division, reported the legionaries' Paris conduct as "150% better than the U. S. Conventions." Not more than five cases of drunkenness were in court at any one moment. Cafe and taxicab arguments resulted in no serious assaults. The Red Cross treated only 1,400 cases during the week, mostly sore feet, fatigue, colds, temporary alcoholism.

Reds. French Communists were content during the Paris excitement to demonstrate passively at Clichy, Soviet-infested suburb of Paris. But one midnight, as a trainload of legionaries rumbled along between Cannes and Nice, a considerable section of railroad track suddenly leaped and twisted upwards in the dark, wrenched out of place and heaped with rocky debris by a powerful explosive. The legionaries had escaped disaster by five minutes, owing to their train's lateness. An all-steel special train carrying retired Commander Savage and 250 Legion officials on a "goodwill" tour to Italy, had been due at the bombed spot in a few hours.

*Mid-Lent, i. e., festival.