The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1919-11-13

" VI 6S~N V~S
Rev. w. D. Koerner spoke to a good
sized audience in the school house last
Sunday. All appreciated his talk.
FOUNDATIONS OF A RUDE.
Recently there appeared in this pa
per an article on the American Legion
the war veterans would-be organiza-
ton, which has received public criti-
cism. First we wish to state that we
meant just exactly what we wrote and
have no apologies to offer mol will we
offer any, for that article. We stand
back of that article today as we stood
when we wrote it and we will continue
standing back of it in the same man.
ner. We intended no misinformation
in our article and we challenge any
one to prove that that article contain
ed misinformation. In our article we
stated that "the preponderance of Of
ficers, as delegates, at the Paris con-
vention was large" We reiterate
that statement altho> critics state lat
the Paris convention the number of
enlisted men equalled the number of
officers present" We will prove our
statement to the public and our crit
les. The Home Sector is a returned
soldiers magazine, conducted by the
former editorial staff of the Stars and
Stripes. The Stars and Stripes was
the official paper Of the A. E. F. and
We feel that the editorial staff Of that
paper are in a position to know where
of they speak.
On page / Of the September ~, 1919
issue of the Home Sector appears the
following in an article on the Ameri-
can Legion. I'm his dealing with this
point the author is less fortunate than
with the others, for at the Paris eau
Gus there was certainly no reasonable
numerical proportion between the two.
And when Mr.. Wheat says: $50 by
various means nearly two hundred en-
listed men were in Paris by late af-
ternoon Of March 18th, the statement
meets with flat disbelief from those
who was there. There might have
been two hundred enlisted delegates
somewhere in Paris on that date, but
certainly not more than forty Of them
ever reached the convention hall.
The Stars and Stripes had represen-
tatives covering the Paris convention
and it is certain that the editorial staff
of that paper (now the Home Secto1)
had a knowledge of actual conditions
at this meeting. We believe that this
is ample proof Of that our statement
concerning the Paris convention is true
We maintained that the Legion was
organized to further the political as
pirations of certain men behind whom
we're the interests. That is still our
opinion. We quote further from the
Home Sector: Regarding the first
point - that the organization was
founded or at least likely, to advance
the political aspirations of some of it's
members-an impartial survey Of the
present status of the Legion tends to
the belief that the organization is be-
ing used as a political stepping stone
by certain of it's members, even though
no patent indication Of selfish motives
cropped up either ct Paris or st. Lou
is.
A glance at the names Of the lead
ers Of the Legion affairs, however, dis
closes those Of a number Of men prom
inent in politics. Recently too, there
has appeared newspaper articles tend
ing to show that not all these men
regard the Legion solely from a dis
interested veteran organization stand
point" In our article we also claimed
that the Legion at its st. Louis con-
vention threw cold water on the extra
pay idea which has proven so popular
among the discharged enlisted men.
We quote further from the Home Sec
tor: 'In fact, the st. Louis caucus
overwhelmingly defeated a motion pro
viding for six months pay for service
men on the ground that it might tend
to q belief that it was trying to "sand
bag something out Of the government.
We claimed that the officers were
mainly instrumental in organizing the
Legion and we defy our critics to
prove otherwise. Our critics might
answer the following: Considering
that the World War Veterans "a vet
Grams organization with many thous-
and members at presently was success
fully organized seven days after the
armistice was signed why was it nee
essary for orders to be sent out weeks
later from General Headquarters for
the organization Of q veterans
American Legion? We did not state
that the Legion was IAN officers +
ganization' but that it was .more Of
IN officers organization" We further
stated that the common soldiers were
to be members. We I not nor did
We do 80, criticising the members but
We did criticize the 'higher-ups" and