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4 

AMERICAN LEGION v. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSN. 

Opinion of the Court 

So  an  image  that  began  as  an  expression  of  faith  was 
transformed. 
  The  image  used  in  the  Bladensburg  memorial—a  plain 
Latin cross6—also took on new meaning after World War I.  
“During and immediately after the war, the army marked 
soldiers’ graves with temporary wooden crosses or Stars of 
David”—a  departure  from  the  prior  practice  of  marking 
graves  in  American  military  cemeteries  with  uniform 
rectangular  slabs.    G.  Piehler,  Remembering  War  the 
American  Way  101  (1995);  App.  1146.    The  vast  majority 
of  these  grave  markers  consisted  of  crosses,7  and  thus 
when  Americans  saw  photographs  of  these  cemeteries, 
what  struck  them  were  rows  and  rows  of  plain  white 
crosses.    As  a  result,  the  image  of  a  simple  white  cross 
“developed  into  a  ‘central  symbol’ ”  of  the  conflict.    Ibid.  
Contemporary  literature,  poetry,  and  art  reflected  this 
powerful imagery.  See Brief for Veterans of Foreign Wars 
of  the  United  States  et al.  as  Amici  Curiae  10–16.    Per-
haps  most  famously,  John  McCrae’s  poem,  In  Flanders 
Fields, began with these memorable lines: 

—————— 

6 The Latin form of the cross “has a longer upright than crossbar.  The 
intersection  of  the  two  is  usually  such  that  the  upper  and  the  two 
horizontal  arms  are  all  of  about  equal  length,  but  the  lower  arm  is 
conspicuously longer.”  G. Ferguson, Signs & Symbols in Christian Art 
294  (1954).    See  also  Webster’s  Third  New  International  Dictionary 
1276 (1981) (“latin cross, n.”: “a figure of a cross having a long upright 
shaft and a shorter crossbar traversing it above the middle”). 

7 Of  the  roughly  116,000  casualties  the  United  States  suffered  in 
World War I, some 3,500 were Jewish soldiers.  J. Fredman & L. Falk, 
Jews  in  American  Wars  100  (5th  ed.  1954).    In  the  congressional 
hearings  involving  the  appropriate  grave  markers  for  those  buried 
abroad,  one  Representative  stated  that  approximately  1,600  of  these 
Jewish  soldiers  were  buried  in  overseas  graves  marked  by  Stars  of 
David.  See  Hearings  before  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs,  68th 
Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  3  (1924).    That  would  constitute  about  5.2%  of  the 
30,973 graves in American World War I cemeteries abroad.  See Ameri-
can Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), World War I Burials and 
Memorializations, https://www.abmc.gov/node/1273.