G. A. R. v. Legion

G. A. R. v. Legion

At Springfield, Ill., home of Lincoln, the Grand Army of the Republic last week held its 66th encampment. One Civil War oldster got out of bed at 2:45 a. m. to blow reveille. At 4:30 a. m. a life & drum corps again roused the sleepy. To "Marching Through Georgia" and ''Yankee Doodle" 637 octogenarians hobbled nine long blocks past the reviewing stand and Commander-in-Chief Samuel Patterson Town.

Behind them came automobiles bearing 350 more veterans too infirm to parade. Elected G. A. R. Commander-in-Chief for the coming year was 83-year-old William P. Wright, Chicago realtor. In 1865 Commander Wright captained Co. D of the 156th Illinois Volunteer Infantry.

The G. A. R., notorious years ago for its greed in the matter of pensions, was thoroughly provoked with the behavior of World War Bonuseers. Its legislative committee flayed last summer's Bonus march to Washington, blamed "the insistent and excessive demands of World War veterans" for the G. A. R.'s failure to pass legislation upping Civil War widows' pensions. The committee then curiously added: "We assured him [President Hoover] the Grand Army, of all organizations, would not embarrass the President of the United States." A resolution endorsing full payment of the Bonus to members of the American Legion was unsympathetically tabled on the ground that it was none of the G. A. R.'s business.

Hostility to the Legion's Bonus demand continued to flare elsewhere throughout the land. At Chattanooga ex-soldiery banded together under the name of American Veterans, took a strong anti-Bonus stand. Robert K. Cassatt, Philadelphia banker, resigned from his local Legion post. Another Legion resignee was Major General George B. Duncan, retired, of Lexington, Ky., commander of the 82nd Division. When Rear Admiral William Sowden Sims, retired, an adviser to the National Economy League, announced that he had relinquished an honorary Legion membership, Louis Arthur Johnson, the Legion's new national commander, denied the Legion had any honorary members, called the Admiral's resignation "a publicity stunt." Admiral Sims retorted that he was made an honorary member at the Boston convention in 1931, had a medal to prove it.

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