Weekly journal-miner., 1921-01-12
FL PASO REPLIES TO
 INQUIRY ON POLICE
(From Saturdays daily)

(frOm Saturday, s dally) 1 Tn response to a wire sent by the i Ernest A. Love post of the Amer iican Legion of this city to the Fl Paso. Texas, legion concerning all Associated Press dispatch published in an afternoon paper, telegram sent by J. w. Johnson, IT,, of the lEl Paso organization gave the in formation that the report was but 1 d half-truth and that last year pre- lvisional regiment" had been organ izcd to take steps to help the police, If necessary, to stop "crime wave" this provisional regiment" being made Up of men engaged in various pursuits and holding membership in many of the fraternal and other or eanizations common to communities the size of Fl PaSo.
 ] Members of the Masonic lodges, the Elks, K. of P, K. C., Odd Eel lows. Brotherhood of Locomotive Bremen and Enginemen, Brother ihood oi Railroad Trainmen, etc, were among those who were mum ibered on list available for quick call if border trouble" or an or eanized footing or crime wave should occur.
 l The telegram from Fl Paso made it plain that mo fraternal organiza- tions took action on the question as ! far as we know
 | In making similar preparations in New York city when daylight hold ups and robberies and consequent ! killings were of daily occurrence, Vice Commander Deegan of the New York Legion said;
 This offer made recognizes the responsibility of the individual mem bers of the legion as citizens and does not contemplate the assistance of the legion in any matters involv- ling industrial disputes
 i In that connection q recent letter
 from F. w. Galbraith, IT,, to Sam uel Gompers of the American Fed
 eration of Labor, said that the legion subscribed to every word of the
 American Federation of Labor's dec laration of principles as affirmed by
 the federation of 1910.
 Both Gompers and Galbraith
 agreed that in new organizations it
 was difficult to restrain some of the membership from doing things which
 were a menace not only to the or
 ganization but to all the people.
 Both recognized that it was impos-
 sible for each in their respective or
 ganization to hold some of the local
 Organizations to a consistent adher-
 encc to the policies and principles of
 the great body Of the membership. As head of the legion's national or
 ganization, Galbraith asked that it
 be not judged by the irresponsible
 conduct or misstatements of the acts
 of individual members or groups oi
 members, and called attention that
 sometimes newspaper reports of
 such incidents are not strictly ac-
 curate reports of the facts and cir
 cumstances as they occurred.
 Post Commander Roberts of the
 legion of this city observes that in
 his opinion the publishing of but a . small part of the facts materially in , .volved in the statement that two
 hundred and fifty legion men had been accepted as a reserve police , force, bore out the national com ; mander's declaration
 According to the telegram" he : stated, there was a list of men ready ' for border or crime emergency far greater than two hundred and fifty,
 and men belonging to many fraternal
 and labor organizations were repre-
 sented in the lists of those ready to , make quick response as citizens in-
 stead of only legion men, and nor,
 as the dispatch would imply, legion 7 men only"
 | Roberts insists that this is but an . additional reason for every eX-soldier } of the late war to get into some one - organization where the united power - of four million men and their friends r would enable them to secure recog- . milton for the care of their wounded . and disabled, get passed quickly !, measures which would secure work . for their unemployed, and would be I able to withstand those who would - by keeping the ex-soldier influence