The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1921-08-13
Dwindling Membership.

is less JuStlflaDle IMAM the way ia
which it has assumed to speak, and
by a tolerant public been allowed to,
speak, as the representative of nearly
100000 men mobilized for the
various fighting services OF the United
States in the European War. Spon-
sored by the "right people" (that is,
the moneyed and socially prominently
the Legion has found the press eager
to boom it and spread the idea that
it embraced majority, if not virtual
ly all, of the former service men.
Probably it never included more than
one in six and now can claim hardly
one in eight of such persons. At the
outset the Legion did have a rapid
and promising growth. The American
Legion Weekly of October 10, 1919,
claimed 65O,OOO members for the or
ganization, while the issue of Feb
ruary 13, 1920, boasted million. The
latter statement may be dismissed as
over-enthusiastic publicity, but when
at it's peak last autumn, the Legion
had possibly three-fourths of a mil
lion members. 1t has never given exact
membership figures, and for some
time has refrained from even generous
estimates in this respect. The figures
that it gives nowadays are of posts,
which it says, probably correctly, have
been continuously increasing. But this
is no test of individual membership.
Once established, a post is likely to
continue for some years. AS long as
anybody can be found to finance it
(and the Legion is not poor mans
organization), post will hardly be
disbanded, while new groups getting
together in various places are bound
to add to the total of posts for some
time.
In contrast to the misleading ap-
pearances of growth as revealed in
statistics of new posts, reliable sour
ces of information within the Legion
put its present membership at about
100000, and place the enrolment last
February as low as 100000. The diff
ference between the two figures is not
to be taken as an indication of growth,
but as due to the method of book
keeping. All Legion memberships date
from January l and are renewable
annually. 1t is the duty of each post
to collect the dues and forward the
required proportion to the national
headquarters. There is apt to be some
delay in this, so that membership re-
turns early in the year are not indi-
cative of the organizations full
strength. The slump in renewed men,
berships has been so pronounced this
year, however, as to alarm the ma
tional officers, and only a rainbow
chaser can hope now that the end Of
the year will show anything but loss
over the 1920 figures. The charge that
the Legion is only "card index" or
ganization is hardly fair in view of
the circumstance, but it is true that
in the second year Of its existence its
membership is already on the wane,
while it has never attained the
strength to which it's initial prestige
and near-monopoly of the field should
have entitled it.
| Not only is the Legion weak, in
numbers, but complaint has been
voiced from the first, and is still
reiterated, that it contains an undue
proportion of former officers and that
these men hold most of the offices in,
and control the policy of, the organi-
zation. This trouble goes back to the
foundation of the Legion in France
where the men who started it and the
method employed led to early criticism
), that the organization was one of of,
Ulcers and aristocrats. Fifteen hundred
invitations were sent out in the sprine
OF 1919 to individuals in the A. E. F.
asking them to avail themselves ot
the three-day-leave privilege to at
tend a conference in Paris. "The mum
ber of enlisted men present was ia,
below expectations, due to cause,
ranging from inability to have tn,
Q delegates named in time for the meet
ing to difficulties encountered |,
transportation" said the Stars an,
I Stripes Of March 81 in describing tn,
conference. One Of the "difficultie,
encountered in transportation" wa!
] detailed as follows:
The road to the caucus was not
: path Of primroses for all the enlisted
! delegates. When Col. Carl E. Ristin,
Of the S5th Division and his orderly
also a delegate, arrived at certain
station on the way to Paris, an un
< feeling M. P. entered the train an,
r commanded that the soldier vacate
I evacuate, and otherwise get out, 1