A NATION OF VETERANS: THE AMERICAN LEGION AND THE POLITICS OF

VETERANS’ CITIZENSHIP

Olivier Burtin

A DISSERTATION

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY

OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE

OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE

BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

Adviser: Julian E. Zelizer

November 2017
© Copyright by Olivier Burtin, 2017. All rights reserved.
 ABSTRACT

In the middle decades of the twentieth century, the United States built the world’s most generous

system of welfare benefits for war veterans. The array of services available to this group—from

hospitals to life insurance to cash bonuses—grew so disproportionately vast that contemporary

observers considered the American welfare state to be essentially a “veterans’ state.” At its core

was the idea that military service turned former soldiers into a distinct class of citizens entitled to

privileged treatment. Between roughly 1940 and 1960, this notion of “martial citizenship” was

firmly embedded in public policy, resulting in the division between civilians’ and veterans’ welfare

states that persists today. And yet despite the continuing importance of this dual framework, its

origins are still misunderstood. While academic historians have overlooked the massive growth

of veterans’ benefits during this period beyond just the “G.I. Bill of Rights” of 1944, the popular

myth persists that these advantages were bestowed merely out of widespread gratitude for the

victory of World War II veterans (the “Greatest Generation”) in the “Good War” against the Axis

powers.

This dissertation shows instead that veterans had to wage a fierce political fight to obtain and then

defend their benefits against the determined opposition of both liberals and conservatives. Like

any other group making claims on the state, former soldiers had to organize around their interest

groups—the largest and most influential of which being the American Legion, the focus of this

project. In so doing, veterans formed the most powerful social movement in wartime and postwar

America. Their success stemmed from the ability of “parastate” organizations such as the Legion

not simply to bring together seasoned political executives in the nation’s capital and passionate

grassroots activists across the country, but to claim to be speaking on behalf of all veterans even

though their movement was in fact deeply divided along racial, gender, and generational lines. In

reminding us of the highly contested nature of the growth of veterans’ welfare state, this
i
dissertation ultimately dispels the traditional notion that the postwar period was defined by a

politically stifling “Cold War consensus.”

ii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... i
Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1

Part I

CHAPTER ONE
“A Rebirth in the Blood of World War II”: The American Legion and the Two-War Experiment
....................................................................................................................................................... 27

CHAPTER TWO
“The Welding of the Partnership”: The American Legion, World War II Veterans, and the
Postwar Housing Crisis ..................................................................................................................81

CHAPTER THREE
“The Honeymoon for Veterans is over”: The American Legion, the First Hoover Commission,
and Veterans’ Welfare State ......................................................................................................... 137

Part II

CHAPTER FOUR
A House Divided: The American Legion and the Second Red Scare ........................................... 187

CHAPTER FIVE
“A Nation of Veterans”: The American Legion and the Debate over Korean War Veterans’
Benefits ....................................................................................................................................... 242

CHAPTER SIX
“Forgotten Men”: The American Legion and the Problem of Security for Aging Veterans after the
Korean War ................................................................................................................................. 293

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 349

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 356

iii
 INTRODUCTION

“…all of us know, consciously or unconsciously, how quickly laurel

wreaths become wilted and dried.”
- Legionnaire Wayne A. Wyman, 19561

At the core of the history of American military veterans from 1940 to 1960 is an apparent paradox.

On the one hand, during these two decades the United States built what can safely be described

as the world’s most generous system of veterans’ benefits. Partly because it was the only major

belligerent to emerge from World War II in a position of economic strength, the U.S. was able to

spend a total of at least $94 billion on veterans’ programs in these years (by way of comparison,

the Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe cost only about $13 billion).2 For the first time in

American history, the federal government not only provided disabled veterans with medical

treatment and a pension but it helped able-bodied former soldiers readjust to civilian society with

the landmark 1944 G.I. Bill. This development reflected more than simply a favorable economic

outlook; it was the product of a peculiar political choice. The U.S. could have decided, after all—

as did the leaders of other countries like Great Britain of the Soviet Union of their own accord,

and of Germany and Japan under Allied occupation—to ignore the special needs of its veterans

and treat them largely as ordinary citizens.3 Instead, it recognized them as a separate constituency

1 Wayne A. Wyman to J. Addington Wagner, April 6, 1956, Veteran Welfare, Pensions, A-Z, American
Legion Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana. (ALA hereafter)
2 See Series Ed297-310 in Susan B. Carter et al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest

Times to the Present, Millennial ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). These numbers
referred to the expenditures of the Veterans Administration, and did not include state- and local-level
spending.
3 For an overview of veterans’ politics in Japan, Germany, the USSR, and the United Kingdom after World

War II, see Lee Pennington, Casualties of History: Wounded Japanese Servicemen and the Second World
War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015); James M. Diehl, The Thanks of the Fatherland: German
Veterans after the Second World War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993); Mark
Edele, Soviet Veterans of the Second World War: A Popular Movement in an Authoritarian Society, 1941-
1991 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Natalia Danilova, “The Development of an Exclusive
Veterans’ Policy: The Case of Russia,” Armed Forces & Society 36, no. 5 (2010): 890–916; Christopher
Dandeker et al., “What’s in a Name? Defining and Caring for ‘Veterans’: The United Kingdom in
International Perspective,” Armed Forces & Society 32, no. 2 (January 2006): 161–77; Julie Anderson,
1
entitled to more generous social welfare benefits than the rest of the population. While smaller

English-speaking countries like Australia and Canada adopted the same approach and

implemented a very similar range of programs, none of them even remotely approached the

gigantic scale of the U.S. veterans’ welfare state.4

With conditions so uniquely favorable, one could reasonably have expected veterans’

advocates to be satisfied and spend the postwar years in a contented state. Yet exactly the opposite

was true. Precisely because of the unmatched generosity of veterans’ benefits, this period

witnessed some of the most determined attempts to curtail veterans’ welfare state. Perhaps more

than ever before in American history, these benefits came under detailed and hostile scrutiny as

a consensus rapidly crystallized in public opinion around the idea that there ought to be a limit to

the debt that the country owed to those who had served under its banners in wartime. Advocates

of veterans’ interests in the nation’s capital were under constant pressure to defend themselves.

In 1953, for instance, the head of the American Legion—perhaps the most influential of those

voices—complained that in the country at large, “anti-veteran sentiment” had been “quite

vociferous and extensively publicized during the past year.”5 Not long after, his successor

admitted that far from advocating for new benefits, “[o]ver the last few years it has become largely

a question of ‘holding the line’” against all the “economy minded groups” that sought to cut

veterans’ programs.6 One of his surrogates even accused the White House of waging “a cold war

on veterans.”7 But the turn against veterans’ benefits was noticeable everywhere. Increasingly so

War, Disability and Rehabilitation in Britain: “Soul of a Nation,” Cultural History of Modern War
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011).
4 On Australia and Canada’s post-World War II veterans’ programs, see Stephen Garton, The Cost of War:

Australians Return (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996); Peter Neary, On to Civvy Street: Canada’s
Rehabilitation Program for Veterans of the Second World War (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press, 2011).
5 Proceedings of the 35th National Convention of the American Legion (St. Louis, Miss., 1953), 9.
6 Seaborn P. Collins to Frank P. Southard, January 25, 1955, Veteran Welfare, Pensions, A-Z, American

Legion Archives.
7 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 1958 Legislative Programs of the Veterans of

Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion, and AMVETS, Hearing, February 4-5,
25, 1958 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1958), 2433.
2
after 1945, veterans’ groups were castigated in the press as “treasury raiders,” “professional

patriots,” or “the veterans’ lobby.”8 Many of the era’s most popular magazines adopted an openly

hostile tone. The Saturday Evening Post featured an article bluntly titled “Let’s Say No to the

Veterans,” for instance, while the Reader’s Digest called veterans’ benefits “a drain on the

budget.”9 Capturing the mood of the times, a Legion official remarked in 1960 that “[t]hese are

trying days for the Veterans of America.”10

We do not often think of the postwar period as the heyday of “anti-veteran sentiment.” To

the contrary, these years are typically seen as a lost golden age of patriotism and consensus, the

last “years of confidence” before “the unraveling” that began in the 1960s. 11 Though the view of

the late 1940s and 1950s as dominated by cultural homogeneity and political conformity has been

challenged by historians, it remains dominant in the collective American psyche to this day.12 At

the core of this narrative are World War II veterans, who for the past two decades have been

celebrated as the “Greatest Generation.” Coined by news anchor Tom Brokaw in a best-selling

book in 1998—at the tail end of the decade that witnessed the peak of Second World War nostalgia,

with Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers

(1992)—this myth quickly became (and remains) enormously popular.13 In his collection of

8 See for instance “Allies Against Grab,” The Christian Science Monitor, August 22, 1949; “The Moon on a
Muffin,” Newsday, Nassau Ed., September 4, 1954; “Do We Spend Too Much on Veterans? A Hard Look at
Benefits, Costs and Loopholes,” Changing Times 14, no. 9 (September 1960): 25.
9 Edwin P. Neilan, “Let’s Say No to the Veterans,” Saturday Evening Post, November 30, 1963; Stanley

Frank, “The Rising Cost of Veteran Aid...And Where Do We Go from Here?,” Reader’s Digest, February
1956.
10 Nicholas Lyngh, Jr., to Charles P. Newby, March 15, 1960, Veteran Welfare, Pensions, A-Z, American

Legion Library.
11 William L. O’Neill, American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945-1960 (New York: Free Press, 1986);

Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Harper &
Row, 1984).
12 For historians who have tried to advance alternative views of the 1950s, see Thomas Sugrue, “Reassessing

the History of Postwar America,” Prospects, no. 20 (Fall 1995): 493–509; Joanne Meyerowitz, “The Liberal
1950s? Reinterpreting American Sexual Culture,” in Gender and the Long Postwar: The United States and
the Two Germanys, 1945-1989, ed. Karen Hagemann and Sonya Michel (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow
Wilson Center Press, 2014), 297–320.
13 Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan (DreamWorks Picture, 1998); Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of

Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). In addition to his original book, Brokaw later published two sequels. See
3
interviews of several surviving World War II veterans, Brokaw presented a collective portrait of

their cohort as made up of heroes who “answered the call to help save the world from the two most

powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled” and then came back home to help

“convert a wartime economy into the most powerful peacetime economy in history.” In his telling,

World War II helped unite Americans beyond partisan or ideological lines and around shared

values of citizenship and the public good, which were then carried over into the postwar period.

Veterans of this conflict, in his view, were universally celebrated by a “grateful nation” which

rewarded them with generous benefits like the 1944 G.I. Bill.14 This hagiographic view has long

been discredited by historians, but it continues to dominate the national memory of the wartime

and postwar eras.15

By contrast, this dissertation argues that if a consensus did in fact exist in the years

between 1945 and the early 1960s, it was against the growth of veterans’ welfare state. Though

the Second World War did witness the creation of major new benefits, chief among them the G.I.

Bill, it took only a few years after its end for patriotic enthusiasm in favor of the figure of the “G.I.”

citizen-soldier to turn into a concern that their benefits were too costly and needed to be cut back.

To a large extent, the story of veterans’ affairs in the late 1940s and 1950s is that of a near-constant

stream of efforts by two successive Presidents, multiple congressional commissions, and several

private groups to achieve these cuts. In 1956, for instance, the American Legion Magazine

featured a discussion of “the eight-year attack on veterans benefits,” implying that they had come

Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation (New York: Random House, 1998); Tom Brokaw, The Greatest
Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections (New York: Random House, 1999); Tom Brokaw, An Album of
Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generation (New York: Random House Trade
Paperbacks, 2002).
14 Brokaw, The Greatest Generation, xviii–xx.
15 For critiques of the “Greatest Generation,” see Kenneth D. Rose, Myth and the Greatest Generation: A

Social History of Americans in World War II (New York: Routledge, 2008); Tom Childers, Soldier from
the War Returning: The Greatest Generation’s Troubled Homecoming from World War II (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009); John E. Bodnar, The “Good War” in American Memory (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), chap. 7.
4
under nonstop criticism for almost a decade.16 Even the Korean War, which also saw the passage

of a new G.I. Bill in 1952, was defined less by an effort to expand veterans’ welfare state than to

make their benefits more sustainable in the long run. When replaced in the longer trajectory of

veterans’ affairs in U.S. history, then, the postwar years were clearly not the exceptional period of

concord that they are often held out to be. Rather, they witnessed a debate on this topic that was

just as intense and acrimonious as that over Civil War pensions during the Progressive era, the

Bonus during the interwar period, or even Agent Orange after Vietnam.

While politicians on both sides of the aisle were fully aware during these years that

attacking veterans publicly was a “capital crime” akin to “voting against God and mother,” both

liberals and conservatives nevertheless joined in criticizing the expansion of their programs, each

for their own reasons.17 Liberals opposed the idea of granting privileged treatment to a certain

segment of the population based only on their military service. Except for service-connected

disabilities or deaths, they argued that veterans should be covered under the same public welfare

programs as everyone else. In this respect, President Truman largely subscribed to the same

philosophy as his predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had declared in 1933 that “no

person, because he wore a uniform, must thereafter be placed in a special class of beneficiaries

over and above all other citizens…The fact of wearing a uniform does not mean that he can

demand and receive from his Government a benefit which no other citizen receives.”18 The same

viewpoint was embraced by liberal politicians, think tanks, some of the most influential national

newspapers including the New York Times, and progressive veterans’ groups such as the

American Veterans Committee. As for conservatives, they not only rejected the very idea of a

welfare state but worried—as Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek forcefully argued in his best-

16 “Veterans Newsletter: Why All Veterans Had Better Join the American Legion,” American Legion
Magazine (ALM hereafter), July 1956, 29. Emphasis original.
17 “Some Assorted Eggheads,” New Republic 134, no. 20 (May 14, 1956): 5.
18 “Chicago, IL, Address to the American Legion Convention, October 2, 1933,” Box 15, Folder 651, Papers

as President, Master Speech File, Speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde
Park, New York.
5
selling pamphlet The Road to Serfdom (1944)—that mounting government spending would pave

the way for a totalitarian regime.19 Throughout the period studied here, right-wing groups and

individuals such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Medical Association, and ex-

President Herbert Hoover were some of the most relentless critics of veterans’ welfare state.

Neither were these voices entirely isolated: while the support of public opinion for veterans’

benefits in general tended to be strong, it was not unlimited. As we will see throughout this

dissertation, Americans were ambivalent about their expansion, especially when it came to

benefits for disabilities or deaths not directly connected to military service.

These distinct rationales—liberals’ view that veterans should mostly be treated like all

other groups of citizens, and conservatives’ antipathy for big government—were not specific to the

postwar years. What made this period stand out in comparison to earlier ones in American

history, however, was the growing realization that in terms of sheer numbers, the U.S. was fast

becoming “a nation of veterans.” The return of over 16 million former soldiers from World War II

and 5 million more from the Korean War meant that the proportion of veterans reached a historic

peak in the postwar period at around 13 percent of the total population, compared to only about

8 percent after the Civil War.20 The re-implementation of the peacetime draft in 1948 also meant

that their ranks could only be expected to increase in the future. The total was even higher when

their relatives, who were also eligible for a variety of benefits, were included. In 1949, for instance,

Truman claimed that together these two groups would “soon constitute 40 percent of the

population.21 As a result, many observers not only worried that the cost of their benefits would

spiral out of control, but questioned the very reason for their separate treatment. As the final

19 Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago, 1944).

20 In the interwar period, veterans accounted for a maximum of 5 percent of the total population. See Figure
Ed-E in Hugh Rockoff, “Veterans,” in Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the
Present, ed. Susan B. Carter et al., Millenial Ed., vol. 5 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 343.
21 Harry S. Truman: “Annual Budget Message to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1950,” January 10, 1949.

Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13434
6
report of a presidential commission concluded in 1956, “In a nation where veterans and their

dependents make up half of the population their common needs can no longer be considered

‘special.’”22 The idea that the U.S. was fast turning into a “nation of veterans” became a common

refrain among critics of their benefits in the postwar years.23 In an ironic twist, veterans’ large

numbers therefore served not to buttress but to undermine their case for special benefits.

And yet despite such intense criticism, veterans’ benefits thrived in the postwar years. Due

both to the creation of generous new benefits in the form of the 1944 G.I. Bill and to the massive

increase in the number of their recipients, veterans’ spending skyrocketed after World War II in

both absolute and relative terms. After hovering throughout the interwar period between $500

million and $700 million (with the exception of the early 1930s and the payment of the Bonus in

1936, when it briefly shot up), the budget of the Veterans Administration (VA), the agency

responsible for all veterans’ programs, never fell below $5 billion between 1945 and 1960, with a

peak at $9.2 billion in 1950.24 During this period, veterans’ programs always accounted for an

average of two-fifths of all federal spending on social welfare (and reaching over 60 percent in the

late 1940s).25 In 1949, the VA operated the largest hospital system in the nation, was responsible

for life insurance policies worth a total of $155 billion, and employed more personnel than any

other government agency except the military and the Post Office.26 The picture was even more

impressive when including the programs available to former soldiers at the state or local level,

which could prove more generous (while the federal government never paid a bonus to World War

22 Veterans’ Benefits in the U.S.: A Report to the President by the President’s Commission on Veterans’
Pensions: Part I & II, Findings and Recommendations, 84 H. Prt. 236 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1956), 371.
23 See for instance “A Nation of Veterans,” New York Times, June 9, 1953.
24 See Series Ed297-310 in Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States.
25 See Series Bf196-211 in Ibid.
26 Annual Report: Administrator of Veterans Affairs, 1949 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government

Printing Office, 1950), 1–4. The VA employed 200,000 persons in 1949, compared to 455,000 in the Post
Office and 1.6 million in the military, see Department of Post Office, Annual Report of the Postmaster
General for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30 1949 (Washington, D.C.: U.S Government Printing Office, 1950),
18; Series Ed26-47 in Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States.
7
II and Korean War veterans, for instance, many states did; states spent $3.1 billion on veterans’

programs from 1946 to 1955).27 Put simply, veterans’ benefits were at the core of the welfare state

in the postwar era. As Fortune magazine noted in 1952, though a quick glance at a chart of federal

welfare costs “might lead any citizen to conclude that he was indeed living in a ‘welfare state’…[a]

closer look…would reveal that he is actually living in a veterans’ state.”28 Taking note of the same

fact, Harper’s later called veterans “our biggest privileged class.”29

Despite their importance, scholars have largely failed to grasp the full extent of the growth

of veterans’ benefits during this period. On the one hand, historians of the postwar welfare state

have virtually ignored them.30 Those who have studied veterans’ benefits in World War II and the

postwar years, on the other hand, have typically focused only on the 1944 G.I. Bill.31 While there

27 By 1957, 21 states had granted bonuses to World War II veterans and 15 to Korean War veterans. See Tax
Foundation, “State Bonuses for World War II and Korean War Veterans,” Government Finance Brief (New
York, 1957), 3, 7.
28 “The Spreading State of Welfare,” Fortune, February 1952.
29 John E. Booth, “Veterans: Our Biggest Privileged Class,” Harper’s Magazine, July 1958.
30 The literature on the U.S. welfare state is vast, but on this time period specifically, see for instance Karen

M. Tani, States of Dependency: Welfare, Rights, and American Governance, 1935-1972 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2016); Jennifer Mittelstadt, From Welfare to Workfare: The Unintended
Consequences of Liberal Reform, 1945-1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005); Edwin
Amenta, Bold Relief: Institutional Politics and the Origins of Modern American Social Policy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1998); Jennifer Klein, For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping
of America’s Public-Private Welfare State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Eva Bertram, The
Workfare State: Public Assistance Politics from the New Deal to the New Democrats (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). By contrast, the importance of veterans’ benefits to the welfare
state has been acknowledged by historians of earlier eras, see for instance Theda Skocpol, Protecting
Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992); Beth Linker, War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War
I America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); Stephen R. Ortiz, Beyond the Bonus March and GI
Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (New York: New York University Press, 2010).
31 Sarah F. Rose, “The Right to a College Education? The G.I. Bill, Public Law 16, and Disabled Veterans,”

Journal of Policy History 24, no. 01 (2012): 26–52; Steven Rosales, “Fighting the Peace at Home: Mexican
American Veterans and the 1944 GI Bill of Rights,” Pacific Historical Review 80, no. 4 (November 2011):
597–627; Laura McEnaney, “Veterans’ Welfare, the GI Bill and American Demobilization,” Journal of Law,
Medicine & Ethics 39, no. 1 (2011): 41–47; Kathleen Frydl, The GI Bill (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009); Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009); Edward Humes, Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American
Dream (Orlando: Harcourt, 2006); Margot Canaday, “Building a Straight State: Sexuality and Social
Citizenship under the 1944 G.I. Bill,” The Journal of American History 90, no. 3 (December 2003): 935–
57; Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005); David H. Onkst, “‘First a Negro... Incidentally a Veteran’: Black World War
Two Veterans and the G. I. Bill of Rights in the Deep South, 1944-1948,” Journal of Social History 31, no.
3 (April 1998): 517–43; Daniel A. Clark, “‘The Two Joes Meet. Joe College, Joe Veteran’: The G. I. Bill,
8
is no denying the momentous impact of this piece of legislation, it is also fair to say that the

disproportionate amount of scholarly attention that it has attracted has resulted in obscuring the

role of other kinds of benefits in the larger framework of veterans’ welfare state. 32 Part of what

this dissertation tries to do, then, is not only to replace veterans’ benefits in the center of welfare

history, but to recover the full complexity of the debate around veterans’ programs during this

period by reminding us that the 1944 G.I. Bill was always only one (admittedly sizeable) part of

an even larger whole. For this purpose, it is worth providing a brief summary of the vast array of

benefits that veterans living in the late 1940s and 1950s had access to. To start with, former

soldiers suffering from a service-connected disability were entitled to a government pension and

free medical treatment. Those with a non-service-connected ailment had access to the same

advantages, though with certain age and income qualifications. Often, the widows of both

categories could also receive a pension. In addition, federal legislation provided former soldiers

with wheelchair-equipped housing; seeing-eye dogs for the blind; artificial limbs, glasses, and

hearing aids; automobiles for leg- or feet-amputees; education programs for their orphans;

mustering-out pay; re-employment rights; vocational rehabilitation; public housing preference;

life insurance; civil service preference; land grants; burial expenses; and naturalization

preference. At the state- or local-level, veterans also enjoyed tax breaks, public assistance,

bonuses, and soldiers’ homes for the elderly and indigent. To this list, the 1944 G.I. Bill added

educational and on-the-job (or on-farm) training benefits, loan guaranties to buy a home,

business, or farm, unemployment insurance, and job search services. There were so many

College Education, and Postwar American Culture,” History of Education Quarterly 38, no. 2 (Dummer
1998): 165–89; Theda Skocpol, “The G.I. Bill and U.S. Social Policy, Past and Future,” Social Philosophy
and Policy 14, no. 2 (1997): 95–115; Michael J. Bennett, When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the
Making of Modern America (Washington, DC.: Brassey’s, 1996); Keith W. Olson, The G.I. Bill, the
Veterans, and the Colleges (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974).
32 A similar point is made in Mark Boulton, Failing Our Veterans: The G.I. Bill and the Vietnam Generation

(New York: New York University Press, 2014), 5–6.

9
different programs available to veterans in the postwar era, in fact, that contemporaries felt the

need to publish informative guides in order to help former soldiers grasp their full extent.33

Why was it the case? How do we explain the emergence of the world’s most generous

veterans’ welfare state and then its survival, in the face of a uniquely strong and bipartisan effort

to downsize it? The main reason, I argue, was that former soldiers organized to defend their

shared interests by rallying behind their advocacy groups, thereby forming one of the most

powerful social movements in wartime and postwar America. As Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow

have argued, social movements can be defined as a “sustained campaign of claim-making, using

repeated performances that advertise the claim, based on organizations, networks, traditions, and

solidarities that sustain these activities.” In the case studied here, the repertoire of these

performances was extensive: among other things, veterans used letter-writing, petitions,

newspaper ads and op-eds, congressional testimonies, radio broadcasts, public rallies, lobbying,

and speeches to make their claims on the state. Like any other social movement, they also engaged

in “repeated public displays of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment,” by marching in

parades, wearing a distinctive uniform (both the Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)

had their own), performing a set of rituals for the initiation of new members and all official

meetings, and maintaining entry barriers (Legionnaires had to have an honorable discharge, for

instance).34 To be sure, theirs was clearly (though not entirely) a top-down movement, centered

on a relatively small number of groups, taking place within the existing institutional framework

as opposed to challenging it, and completely eschewing physical violence—an indirect reminder

of the privileged political and cultural status that most of its white male base already enjoyed.

Nevertheless, the fact that most members of this movement could hardly be categorized as

33 See for instance Frank Mallen, You’ve Got It Coming to You: The Guide for Families, Servicemen [and]
Veterans (New York: D. McKay Co., 1952).
34 Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015),

11.
10
marginalized or disenfranchised should not lead us to dismiss its significance, for it certainly did

not diminish the contentious or momentous character of the claims being made.

In viewing the political activity of veterans through the prism of social movement theory,

this dissertation revises our broader understanding of postwar U.S. history in two ways. First, it

demonstrates that former soldiers continued to play a major role in the political process well

beyond 1949 or 1950, the years when most studies of their readjustment typically end.35 Accounts

of the postwar period tend to share the assumption that World War II veterans went through a

few difficult years of readjustment after 1945, but that by the late 1940s they had largely become

indistinguishable from other civilians. Michael Gambone, for instance, has argued that “veterans

did very little to change American politics and policymaking in the forties,” and that “as a group”

they did not “affect domestic policymaking to any significant degree.”36 Yet as we will see, while

veterans may not have attracted such widespread national attention in the 1950s as they had in

the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, many nevertheless maintained their

distinctive identity as former soldiers and, as such, left a profound mark on public policy. Second

and more broadly, this work shows that the civil rights movement was not the first major social

movement to emerge in the U.S. after 1945. It has become commonplace for scholars to argue that

there was “no significant social movement activity” in this country between roughly 1940 and

1960, due to the spirit of wartime unity and then to “the ‘chilling effect’ of the Cold War and

McCarthyism.”37 However, this dissertation shows that long before the Montgomery bus boycott

of 1955-1956 or the Greensboro sit-ins of 1960, military veterans conducted their own campaign

35 Robert Francis Saxe, Settling Down: World War II Veterans’ Challenge to the Postwar Consensus (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Michael D. Gambone, The Greatest Generation Comes Home: The
Veteran in American Society (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2005); Jennifer E. Brooks,
Defining the Peace: World War II Veterans, Race, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Mark D. Van Ells, To Hear Only Thunder Again:
America’s World War II Veterans Come Home (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001).
36 Gambone, The Greatest Generation Comes Home, 84–85.
37 Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos, Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar

America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 10, 20.

11
of collective claim-making. Rather than viewing these years as defined by a stifling “Cold War

consensus” or by the political apathy of the so-called “silent generation,” I argue that the period

is more aptly described (as historian Thomas Sugrue suggested long ago) as one of “intense

cultural contestation”—and, crucially, that veterans were among the chief drivers of this

contestation.38

Veterans mobilized behind their interest groups for a variety of reasons, but their primary

motivation was the defense of what I and other historians call martial citizenship.39 This concept

referred to the idea that the experience of military service turned veterans into a separate category

of citizens more deserving of the state’s gratitude than others. During the postwar period, virtually

all veterans’ groups adhered to this principle under one form or another.40 In their view, veterans’

benefits were earned rights and not “welfare” (a term they understood to designate charity for the

poor, with stigmatized connotations of feminine dependency). As a top Legion official wrote in

the early 1950s, “it is particularly alarming to have the veterans’ benefit programs classified as

welfare programs. We resist that idea whenever it is possible to do so…veterans benefits are a

direct cost of war. They have no relation to the Oscar Ewing type of welfare state cost,” he wrote

in reference to the Administrator of the Federal Security Agency (FSA), which was responsible for

some of the most emblematic welfare programs of the New Deal.41 It was precisely to reflect this

distinction that veterans’ groups pushed to have all veterans’ benefits administered by a separate

38 Sugrue, “Reassessing the History of Postwar America,” 494. For a classic statement of the “Cold War
consensus” thesis, see James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: Postwar America, 1945-1974 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996), 261–62. The idea of a “silent generation,” born after the Greatest
Generation and before the Baby boomers, dated back to the early 1950s, see “The Younger Generation,”
Time, November 5, 1951.
39 See for instance Patrick J. Kelly, Creating a National Home: Building the Veterans’ Welfare State, 1860-

1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997). Other scholars have used different terms to refer
to the same phenomenon, such as “veterans’ exceptionalism” and “martial, or militaristic, patriotism,”, see
Frydl, The GI Bill, 8; Lucy E. Salyer, “Baptism by Fire: Race, Military Service, and U.S. Citizenship Policy,
1918-1935,” The Journal of American History 91, no. 3 (December 2004): 848.
40 A notable exception was the liberal American Veterans’ Committee, whose slogan was “Citizens First,

Veterans Second.” On the AVC, see Robert L. Tyler, “The American Veterans Committee: Out of a Hot War
and Into the Cold,” American Quarterly 18, no. 3 (October 1966): 419–36; Saxe, Settling Down, chap. 4.
41 T. O. Kraabel to Frank J. Falcone, April 10, 1952, United States, Reorganization (inc. Hoover Plan), A-Z,

ALA.
12
agency, the VA. As a Legion executive explained, “war veterans are deserving of special

consideration through a separate system,” which should be “so designed and administered as to

avoid the stigma of charity.”42 Martial citizenship also provided the justification for placing

veterans’ programs under the responsibility of the federal government: not only because former

soldiers had served the nation as a whole, but because as the Legion well knew, leaving these

programs in the hands of individual states would result in “an inconsistent, 48-headed vets

program, with individual vet’s rights hanging on pot luck of which state he lives in [sic].”43

Though veterans’ groups eagerly defended the idea of martial citizenship in the postwar

period, this concept had been a feature of U.S. history for centuries. In recognition of their special

moral claim on the nation’s favor, for instance, pensions had been granted to military veterans of

every war since the Revolution.44 Perhaps in part because of its longstanding presence, scholars

have sometimes tended to take martial citizenship for granted, as a static and immovable cultural

tradition that Americans have always abided by. In this respect, comparative studies of veterans’

movements in other countries help us de-center our perspective and question this conventional

assumption. They demonstrate, for one thing, that martial citizenship was not in any way unique

to the United States: across time and space, veterans have almost always made claims of moral

superiority based on their military service. What is less constant is whether such claims have been

accepted by a majority of the population and by the state itself. Veterans of the People’s Liberation

Army in post-1949 China, for instance, often felt that the general public did not give them the

recognition they deserved; British veterans of the Great War, on the other hand, felt satisfied with

the way civilians treated them but received very few benefits from their government.45 Such

42 “Legion Rehabilitation Director Reviews Vets’ Affairs Outlook,” American Legion Magazine, November
1960.
43 “Legion News: New Hoover Commission,” ALM, September 1953, 33.
44 On Revolutionary War pensions, see John Phillips Resch, Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War

Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1999).
45 Neil Jeffrey Diamant, Embattled Glory: Veterans, Military Families, and the Politics of Patriotism in

China, 1949-2007 (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009); Deborah Cohen, The War Come
13
studies highlight the unstable and contested nature of martial citizenship, inviting us to see it—

like all aspects of political culture—as constantly re-negotiated and in flux. As this dissertation

will show, the postwar period in the U.S. was no exception. The intense and candid debate around

this idea (much livelier then than it is nowadays) highlighted the degree to which fundamental

conceptions of veterans’ citizenship were being redefined. The outcome of this discussion was not

pre-ordained: martial citizenship could have been radically undermined, and it survived not

because of some immovable cultural predisposition but because veterans formed a social

movement to defend it. The broader meaning of this episode, then, is that veterans’ privileged

position as one of the many special groups at the top of America’s “two-track” welfare state is not

a given but the historically contingent result of a long and bitter political battle. 46

In fact, what makes the fight over martial citizenship during the postwar period so crucial

to American history as a whole is precisely that it resulted in permanently embedding the division

between civilians and veterans into the very structure of the U.S. state. To be sure, this process

dated back to the interwar period, with the creation of a single agency to centralize the

administration of all veterans’ programs (the VA) in 1930. Yet only during World War II and its

postwar was the separation of veterans from the rest of the population firmly cemented into public

policy. The VA’s authority over veterans’ programs was still in debate in the first half of the 1940s,

as we will later see with the legislative negotiations around the 1944 G.I. Bill. While progressives

wanted to use veterans’ readjustment measures as a wedge to further expand the general welfare

state by placing them under the authority of all-inclusive welfare agencies like the FSA,

conservatives feared that giving the federal government authority over matters traditionally left

Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2001).
46 While there is disagreement about the exact origins or scope of this phenomenon, scholars generally agree

that the public programs of the U.S. welfare state can be divided into two tracks, one desirable (which is
where schemes seen as earned rights, such as Social Security, fall) and the other stigmatized (as in the case
of public assistance, often seen as a “handout”). For a discussion of the literature on this topic, see Tani,
States of Dependency, n. 25, pp. 287-288.
14
to individual states—such as education or unemployment—would constitute a dangerous

precedent. Only the intense lobbying of the Legion caused these benefits to fall under the purview

of the VA. Yet once this momentous precedent was set, it would no longer be challenged: when

the G.I. Bill for Korean War veterans was drafted eight years later, no one seriously questioned

that the responsibility for its administration would go to the VA. The same logic that applied in

the executive branch was true in the legislative as well. It was only in 1946 that all veterans’

legislation was brought under the jurisdiction of a single committee in the U.S. House of

Representatives; prior to this date, such bills had fallen under the responsibility of four different

committees, not all of them veteran-focused.47 Far from having been reversed, these decisions

continue to shape the world we live in. Today, the civilian-veteran division has become such an

accepted fact of policy-making that it is hardly ever noticed any more. What this dissertation does,

then, is to remind us that the divergence of veterans’ and civilians’ welfare states is a relatively

recent phenomenon, and one that witnessed more than its share of conflict.

Crucially, access to martial citizenship was never uniform. Though this concept sometimes

worked to the benefit of individual members of marginalized groups (for instance by granting

naturalization rights to immigrants who served in the military), historians have shown how its

application during the postwar period remained largely limited to white veterans. 48 Though some

47 These were the Committees on Pensions, on Invalid Pensions, and the Ways and Means Committee
(which was in charge of all financial matters). In addition, the Committee on World War Veterans’
Legislation was created in 1924 to handle all bills related to World War I veterans (and to World War II
veterans after January 1944). See Donnald K. Anderson (dir.), Guide to the Records of the United States
House of Representatives at the National Archives, 1789-1989 (Washington, D.C.: U.S Government
Printing Office, 1989), 269. The U.S. Senate did not have its own committee on Veterans’ Affairs until 1970.
48 On the struggle by Asian-American veterans of World War I to be granted citizenship, see Salyer,

“Baptism by Fire.” On the racial discrimination faced by World War II veterans in the distribution of their
benefits, see Edward Humes, “How the GI Bill Shunted Blacks into Vocational Training,” The Journal of
Blacks in Higher Education, no. 53 (October 1, 2006): 92–104; Christopher S. Parker, Fighting for
Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle against White Supremacy in the Postwar South (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2009); Sarah Turner and John Bound, “Closing the Gap or Widening the
Divide: The Effects of the G.I. Bill and World War II on the Educational Outcomes of Black Americans,”
The Journal of Economic History 63, no. 1 (March 2003): 145–77; Onkst, “First a Negro... Incidentally a
Veteran”; Hilary Herbold, “Never a Level Playing Field: Blacks and the GI Bill,” The Journal of Blacks in
Higher Education, no. 6 (Winter -1995 1994): 104–8; Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was
15
liberal veterans’ groups such as the American Veterans Committee or the short-lived United

Negro and Allied Veterans of America pushed for a more inclusive approach, they were largely

isolated and uninfluential. Looking at veterans’ benefits in the postwar era through the lens of

race, in fact, is to see these years as marked less by change than continuity. Much as they had in

the interwar period, all major veterans’ organizations failed to take up the cause of the more than

1 million black veterans who returned from World War II and then Korea, treating their specific

problems (such as lynching, disenfranchisement, or poverty) as falling outside the purview of

what they themselves considered to be proper “veterans’ issues.” Organizations like the American

Legion, for instance, were happy to accommodate the racist Southern Democrats who held key

positions of power in veterans’ affairs during this era, such as John E. Rankin of Mississippi or

Olin Teague of Texas. Indeed, they worked in tandem to ensure that granting veterans’ benefits

to former black soldiers would not result in undermining Jim Crow. Indicating how little it cared

about such issues, the Legion leadership did not raise a finger against the racially exclusive

membership requirement of its own affiliate, the Forty and Eight (which only “white male

members” of the Legion could join) until it was forced to do so under pressure. By acknowledging

the centrality of racial discrimination to veterans’ welfare state, this dissertation joins a growing

body of scholarship that has shown how racism was central rather than incidental to the American

past—how it defined not only the South, but (albeit in different ways) the entire country as well

as federal law.49

The same was true for gender discrimination, which afflicted the 350,000 women who had

served in an official capacity in the armed forces during World War II. Just like most veterans’

White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W.W. Norton,
2005), chap. 5; Frydl, The GI Bill, chap. 5; Altschuler and Blumin, The GI Bill, chap. 5.
49 Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

(New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2017); David M. P. Freund, Colored Property: State Policy
and White Racial Politics in Suburban America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); Katznelson,
When Affirmative Action Was White; Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle
for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008).
16
groups failed to recognize the special needs of black veterans during and after the Second World

War, they essentially treated women veterans as second-class members (when they were accepted,

which was not always the case: the VFW, for instance, refused women members until 1978).50

Even when they were admitted, as in the case of the Legion since its foundation, they were

generally excluded from leadership positions and encouraged to form their own separate posts. It

was no wonder, then, that many either decided to drop out of the group after a few years or simply

became inactive.51 The fact that the Legion and other veterans’ groups never explicitly reached out

to women also had broader consequences for their access to veterans’ programs. It contributed to

making them feel that their contributions to the war effort were not equal to men’s, and helps

explain why surveys conducted in the 1980s showed that a majority of former female soldiers of

World War II did not know that they were eligible for VA benefits, since they never even

considered themselves to be “veterans” in the first place.52 More directly, male-dominated groups

like the Legion also actively resisted giving official veteran status (and therefore access to benefits)

to certain groups of women who had fulfilled an important wartime role, such as the over 1,000

who had served in the Women’ Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II. 53 In these

ways, the Legion and other veterans’ groups helped deny full and equal access to veterans’ welfare

state to all categories of former soldiers.

In closing, let us consider the broader meaning of this research for scholars interested in

the relationship between the state and civil society. Veterans’ groups were what Eldon Eisenach

50 Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr., VFW: Our First Century, 1899-1999 (Lenexa, KS: Addax, 1999), 149.
51 This was the finding of an investigation carried out by the Florida Legion in 1954, see Hazel A. Allen,
Bulletin #7, July 15, 1955, Administration & Organization, Membership, Women, ALA.
52 Mary V. Stremlow, “Women as Veterans: Historical Perspective and Expectations,” in A Woman’s War

Too: U.S. Women in the Military in World War II, ed. Paula Nassen Poulos (Washington, D.C.: National
Archives and Records Administration, 1996), 355–66. On the discrimination faced by women veterans after
World War II, see also Dorothy Weatherford, “Veterans,” American Women during World War II: An
Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2010); June A. Willenz, “Invisible Veterans,” The Educational Record
75, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 40; Altschuler and Blumin, The GI Bill, 118–29; Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s
Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003), 137–43.
53 Molly Merryman, Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of

World War II (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 108.
17
has called “parastate” organizations: private and voluntary institutions that served as

intermediaries between the state and individual citizens.54 Historians, sociologists, and political

scientists have long recognized how such groups, by acting on behalf of the state yet under the

cover of private initiative, have helped expand government authority while keeping it “out of

sight”—an approach that has characterized so much of the U.S. style of state-building that some

have called it “associational” or “symbiotic.”55 Though we often think of these two concepts as

inherently opposed, in the U.S. “civil society” and “the state” have historically been so intimately

intertwined that it is often impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. 56 It was

precisely this liminal status that gave veterans’ groups like the Legion so much influence: state

actors and Legion leaders needed each other to reach their own (possibly yet not necessarily

aligned) ends. Starting in World War II, for instance, Legionnaires cooperated with the Federal

Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in what they saw as an effort to fight espionage and sabotage. For

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, however, the appeal of this partnership lay less in collecting

counter-intelligence than in securing the Legion’s support in his own campaign to shore up the

Bureau’s public image.57 In this specific case, one might be tempted to see Hoover as the

mastermind and Legionnaires as his puppets; yet the broader point made by this dissertation is

that this and countless other bargains made between veterans’ groups and the state gave the

former the access they needed to obtain and then defend what to them mattered the most: their

54 Eldon J. Eisenach, The Lost Promise of Progressivism (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas,
1994), 18.
55 Brian Balogh, A Government Out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century

America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Brian Balogh, The Associational State:
American Governance in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015);
Elisabeth S. Clemens, “Reconciling Equal Treatment with Respect for Individuality: Associations in the
Symbiotic State,” in The Many Hands of the State: Theorizing Political Authority and Social Control, ed.
Kimberly J. Morgan and Ann Shola Orloff (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 35–57.
56 James T. Sparrow, William J. Novak, and Stephen W. Sawyer, eds., Boundaries of the State in US History

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 1–16.

57 On the Legion Contact program, see Matthew Cecil, Branding Hoover’s FBI: How the Boss’s PR Men

Sold the Bureau to America (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2016), 73–94; Athan Theoharis,
“The FBI and the American Legion Contact Program, 1940-1966,” Political Science Quarterly 100, no. 2
(July 1985): 271–86; Joanne M. Hepp, “Administrative Insubordination and Bureaucratic Principles: The
Federal Bureau of Investigation’s American Legion Contact Program” (M.A., Marquette University, 1985).
18
benefits. Over the course of the two decades studied here, it is fair to say that overall it was civil

society that prompted the state to expand: the impulse for the growth of veterans’ welfare state

was external, not internal.

In exploring the role of parastates in the growth of veterans’ benefits during the wartime

and postwar period, this dissertation heeds the recent call for political historians to move beyond

the “red-blue divide” that has defined so much of the previous historiography.58 Instead of

focusing on either liberals or conservatives and adopting the traditional periodization of political

elections, it highlights fundamental similarities between these two camps and follows the more

complex and long-term dynamics of public policy. In brief, it shows how, during this period at

least, veterans’ welfare state grew not because of either one of these two ideologies but very much

despite them both.59 Indeed, the fundamental fault line at the heart of this study is not between

the left and the right or Democrats and Republicans, but rather between a powerful constituency

determined to defend its material interests through nonpartisan advocacy groups against

reformers on both sides of the aisle. At the same time, it is important to understand that the

institutional framework that made veterans’ groups so successful in making claims on the state

was short-lived. As this dissertation will show, veterans’ groups had barely reached the peak of

their influence in the late 1940s that they went into decline. In the following decade, the center of

gravity in veterans’ affairs swung slowly but steadily back to Congress, and more precisely the

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. The Legionnaire who wrote to the Legion headquarters in

1956 was right: laurel wreaths did, indeed, “become wilted and dried” very quickly.

58 Matthew D. Lassiter, “Political History beyond the Red-Blue Divide,” Journal of American History 98,
no. 3 (December 2011): 760–64.
59 In so doing, I complicate Stephen Ortiz’ argument that the rise of a “permanent veterans’ welfare state”

can be seen as part of a broader “conservative welfare state.” While it is true that conservatives were typically
comfortable with expanding veterans’ benefits due to the deserving status of this constituency, they also
expressed concerns about the financial sustainability of this enterprise, especially after World War II. See
Chris Capozzola et al., “Interchange: World War I,” Journal of American History 102, no. 2 (September
2015): 497.
19
The American Legion: Background and Methodology

This dissertation offers a political history of the growth of veterans’ welfare state as told

through the lens of the American Legion. Created in 1919 by former soldiers of the American

Expeditionary Force, the Legion quickly became one of the most powerful interest groups in U.S.

politics, known chiefly for two activities. First and foremost was the defense of veterans’ benefits.

In the economic boom of the 1920s, for instance, the Legion responded to the pressure of its rank-

and-file by championing an “adjusted compensation” bill (more simply known as the “Bonus”) to

repay the difference in wartime wages that World War I veterans had lost while in service. Despite

the opposition of Republican and Democratic administrations, the Legion eventually managed

not only to pass the Bonus in 1924 but to obtain its immediate payment in 1936. The group was

also successful in passing ever-more liberal pension legislation as well as in erasing most of the

massive cuts to veterans’ benefits that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had effected with the Economy

Act of 1933. The second activity for which the group became known was its uncompromising fight

against communist subversion, motivated by its belief in “one-hundred-percent Americanism.”

During the First Red Scare in 1919-1920, Legionnaires often served as shock troops in street fights

against left-wing activists. In the “Centralia massacre” in Washington state, for instance, six

persons died after a clash between Legionnaires and members of the Industrial Workers of the

World. The Legion also championed the passage of immigration restrictions on the ground that

immigrants were potential subversives. In the late 1930s, the group launched a renewed campaign

against the left. Its censorship of free speech and opposition to the growing industrial trade union

movement earned it unflattering comparisons with pro-fascist veterans’ movements in Europe.

Finally, it helped sponsor the creation of the House Un-American Committee in 1938.60

60On veterans’ issues in the interwar period, see Jennifer D. Keene, Doughboys, the Great War, and the
Remaking of America (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 132–214; William Pencak,
For God & Country: The American Legion, 1919-1941 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989);
Jennifer Keene, “A ‘Brutalizing’ War? The USA after the First World War,” Journal of Contemporary
20
 To carry out these policies, the Legion relied on a federalist structure modeled after the

framework of the U.S. state itself. Its basic community-level unit was the Post, of which there were

11,000 in 1941.61 Above it came the districts and/or county divisions, themselves organized by

Departments—one for each state and territory. Ideally, this structure was meant to ensure that

every decision was taken in the most democratic and accountable manner: if the resolutions

passed by local Posts were approved by their Department, they could then be voted on during the

annual National Convention and thus become official policy. Yet as was the case for many mass-

membership organizations, effective control of the group actually lay in the hands of a small

number of national officials (the Legion was regularly accused by its detractors of being run by a

small clique of elite “kingmakers”). The most important of them was the National Commander,

who was elected for a one-year term and had his offices in the group’s national headquarters in

Indianapolis. When the Convention was not in session, the National Executive Committee took

care of the group’s business with a small bureaucracy of roughly a dozen Commissions (covering

topics such as Finance, Rehabilitation, or Americanism), each having its own affiliated

Committees and sub-committees. Throughout the interwar period, Legion membership oscillated

between a low of nearly 600,000 in 1925 and a high of almost 1 million in 1940 (the latter

representing a fifth of the total eligible population of Great War veterans).62

Most Legionnaires, however, never got involved in Legion activities beyond their own local

Post. In many ways, it was the plethora of educational programs that the group conducted at the

community level rather than its lobbying activity in the nation’s capital that constituted its

History 50, no. 1 (January 2015): 78–99; Stephen Ortiz, “Well-Armed Internationalism: American Veteran
Organizations and the Crafting of an ‘Associated’ Veterans’ Internationalism 1919-1939,” in The Great War
and Veterans’ Internationalism, ed. Julia Eichenberg and John Paul Newman (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013), 53–74; K. Walter Hickel, “War, Region, and Social Welfare: Federal Aid to Servicemen’s
Dependents in the South, 1917-1921,” The Journal of American History 87, no. 4 (March 2001): 1362–91;
John M. Kinder, Paying with Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran
(Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2015).
61 Erik Madisen, “To Inculcate a Sense of Individual Obligation…,” ALM, January 1941, 3.
62 The American Legion, National Membership Record, 2012, ALA. For the size of the veteran population,

see Series Ed245-261 in Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States.
21
greatest strength. With the help of their women’s Auxiliary (whose membership was 400,000 in

1935), Legionnaires sponsored a wide variety of activities. The most prominent of them was

perhaps Junior Baseball, a program aimed at building sportsmanship, patriotism, and athleticism

among the nation’s youth. But the Legion also run Boys’ State camps to familiarize youngsters

with the structure of state government, sponsored Boy Scout teams, helped build parks and

playgrounds, and provided assistance to communities struck by disaster. Its members were

likewise involved in efforts to raise funds for veterans’ orphans, conduct traffic safety campaigns,

and assist with emergency flood relief. Embodying its credo of Americanism, the group conducted

citizenship classes and sponsored naturalization ceremonies for immigrants, helped erect war

memorials, provided guards of honor for veterans’ funerals, educated civilians on how to salute

the flag, and celebrated patriotic events—Lincoln’s birthday, Memorial Day, and Armistice Day,

for instance—with parades, ceremonies, and radio broadcasts.63 In addition, Legionnaires had

their own rituals, uniform, and language. In a nutshell, the Legion was as much a fraternal society

with deep roots in local community life as it was an interest group involved in national politics.

In keeping with the multifaceted nature of the Legion’s activities as well as the recent

renewal of political history, this dissertation brings together the voices of elite actors in the halls

of power as well of ordinary Legionnaires across the country.64 A brief note on sources may also

help explain the reasons for focusing not only on one group but on the American Legion more

specifically. First, veterans’ groups offer a unique window on both national politics and the

internal dynamics of the veteran community, in a way that would have been impossible to

replicate by looking only at state actors. Second, in the period studied here the Legion and the

63Pencak, For God & Country, chap. 10.

64On the renewal of U.S. political history, see Meg Jacobs, William J. Novak, and Julian E. Zelizer, eds.,
The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History (Princeton, N.J: Princeton
University Press, 2003).
22
VFW were the only two veterans’ associations to play a really central role in politics.65 Yet the only

archival records that the VFW has kept at its national headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, are

the past issues of its national magazine Foreign Service, thereby making any nuanced

investigation into its history difficult. By contrast, the Legion’s national archives have been

carefully preserved in its national headquarters in Indianapolis. In addition, the absence of any

reliable or comprehensive secondary source on the history of the Legion after 1945 (and on

veterans’ affairs in the postwar period more broadly) has made it necessary for me to hone in on

this single group in order to recover the basic narrative of these years in all its complexity.66 Aware

that my strong reliance on Legion-produced documents may inadvertently cause a pro-Legion

bias in my account, I have also incorporated the oft-contradictory voices of a host of different

actors such as the media, other veterans’ groups, politicians, bureaucrats, experts, and activists.

My goal has thus been to craft not a narrow institutional history told merely through the

perspective of Legionnaires themselves, but rather to use the Legion as a window into the inter-

generational divisions at the core of the veteran community during this time period, and more

broadly into the larger debate over veterans’ affairs.67 Which is not to say that this treatment is in

any way exhaustive—indeed, I am well-positioned to know that this dissertation only scratches

65 On the VFW, see George T. Trial, “The American Veterans of Foreign Service and the Veterans of Foreign
Wars,” Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly 57, no. 1 (1948): 79–93; Mason, Jr., VFW: Our First
Century, 1899-1999.
66 Several unpublished dissertations and theses have recently been written on the Legion during this time

period, see Christopher W. Griffin, “Veterans at War: The American Legion and Civilian Mobilization in
World War II” (Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 2012); Peter D. Hoefer, “A David against
Goliath: The American Veteran Committee’s Challenge to the American Legion in the 1950s” (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2010); Morten Bach, “None so Consistently Right: The
American Legion’s Cold War, 1945-1960” (Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio University, 2007); Matthew J.
Seelinger, “Breaking Ranks: Veterans’ Opposition to Universal Military Training, 1943-1948” (M.A., Ball
State University, 1996). A number of official histories also exist, see Thomas A. Rumer, The American
Legion: An Official History, 1919-1989 (New York: M. Evans, 1990); Raymond Moley, The American
Legion Story (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1966); Richard Seelye Jones, A History of the American
Legion (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill company, 1946); Mildred Adams, The American Legion Auxiliary, A
History: 1934-1944 (Indianapolis, IN: Bookwalter Company, 1945).
67 In highlighting the role of generations as a fault line, I follow the recent call by Stephen Ortiz for scholars

not to see “veterans as a monolithic power bloc” but instead to recover the internal divisions within this
group. See Stephen R. Ortiz, ed., Veterans’ Policies, Veterans’ Politics: New Perspectives on Veterans in
the Modern United States (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012), 3.
23
the surface of the much vaster and still largely unexplored world of veterans’ history after 1945.

My only hope is to encourage more historians to pay attention.

Chapter Outline

This dissertation is divided into two parts. Part I chronicles the rise in status of the

American Legion from a marginalized and unpopular pressure group prior to Pearl Harbor to one

of the civic associations most central to postwar American life. This upward trajectory, I argue,

was the result of the fateful decision taken in 1942 to open the group to a new generation of former

soldiers. Chapter 1 shows how this move allowed the Legion to benefit from the wave of wartime

patriotic enthusiasm for the figure of the citizen-soldier, by using it not only to restore its own

reputation but to pass a series of laws, chief among them the 1944 G.I. Bill, that dramatically

expanded the scope of veterans’ welfare state. Yet at the same time as the group asserted its

newfound national leadership, it had to perform a careful internal balancing act between World

War I and World War II Legionnaires. Chapter 2 examines how these inter-generational dynamics

unfolded in the postwar years against the backdrop of a national housing shortage. Seduced by

the Legion’s promise of immediate power and affluence, young veterans flocked to the group after

1945 and soon accounted for a large majority of its membership. Hard hit by the crisis, they called

on the federal government to intervene and pushed back against the laissez-faire politics of their

conservative World War I leaders, eventually forcing them out and causing the group to reverse

its longstanding opposition to public housing. Chapter 3 illustrates what happened when instead

of fighting each other, these two generations came together in the defense of shared interests. The

case of the administrative reform movement spearheaded by the First Hoover Commission

illustrated how the Legion’s lobbying expertise, when combined with the passion of its millions of

new members, could produce a political juggernaut. Though generally successful on other topics,

24
the Commission utterly failed in its effort to curtail veterans’ benefits, largely as a result of the

Legion’s vehement opposition. Arguably, this episode constituted the peak of the Legion’s power

in the postwar period.

Yet even as the group was experiencing its greatest victory, the threads of its power were

already beginning to come undone. Part II explores the slow decline of the Legion over the course

of the 1950s, as the combined result of its increasingly partisan politics, a national backlash

against the excesses of martial citizenship, and the friction between older and younger

Legionnaires. The Second Red Scare, covered in Chapter 4, was the first crisis to really expose the

limits of the Legion’s power. While some of its leaders believed that the crusade against

communism could replace the defense of veterans’ benefits as their group’s central mission, they

soon discovered that most of the rank-and-file cared little about the former. At the same time, the

emphasis on fighting left-wing subversion provided an opening for a small minority of right-wing

activists to impose their own wild conspiracy theories on the group, thereby severely damaging

its reputation. Chapter 5 examines how, in this unfavorable political climate, Legionnaires

welcomed a new generation of veterans from the Korean War and began to lobby on their behalf.

Shaped as much by the lack of popular enthusiasm for this “police action” in the Far East as by a

consensus that the benefits granted veterans of the previous war had been excessively generous,

the debate produced a distinctly stingier outcome. In addition, the Legion’s increasingly marked

turn to the right hurt its image as a mainstream, nonpartisan group. Finally, Chapter 6 explores

the last stage in this decline, which centered on the debate over non-service-connected benefits

from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. Not only did these benefits provoke a violent public

controversy, but they drove a wedge through the Legion’s own ranks by pitting World War I

veterans in a bitter fight against their younger counterparts and causing many of the former to

drop out. Whereas the fight over the First Hoover Commission had showed the positive effects of

25
the decision to accept multiple generations of veterans into the Legion, this last episode

demonstrated its limits by highlighting the unresolved divisions between separate age cohorts.

26
 CHAPTER ONE
“A Rebirth in the Blood of World War II”: The American Legion
and the Two-War Experiment

“Gentlemen, this Legion of ours stands at the crossroads because

of history. We shall either live again, take on a new life and find a
period of Legion renaissance through our children, our sons and
our neighbors’ sons, or we shall gradually fade out as the Grand
Army of the Republic did, as the Southern Confederacy did,
because they had no children to take their places.”
- Alvin M. Owsley, November 19441

On a Friday morning in late November 1941, the American Legion and other major veterans’

groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the Disabled American Veterans (DAV)

were on Capitol Hill to testify before the U.S. Senate. They were there to defend two bills, one

granting veterans of World War I higher pension payments and the other providing their widows

and orphans with easier access to these same pensions.2 Their trip to Congress represented the

latest attempt to expand the system of disability and death payments enjoyed by nearly four

million former soldiers of the Great War, which they had been slowly building up since the

signature of the armistice over two decades earlier. Just as these pensions represented a sizeable

share of the federal budget—estimates of the total cost of both bills ranged from five to twenty

billion dollars—they were also very unpopular.3 A majority of the population disapproved of

paying government pensions for non-service-connected deaths, and the national press agreed.4

The New York Times, for instance, denounced these two bills as “utterly reckless” for the country

1 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,

November 14, 15, 16, 1944, p. 13, American Legion Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana (hereafter ALA).
2 See U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance, Subcommittee on Veterans Legislation, Increased

Benefits for World War Veterans and Their Dependents; Miscellaneous Legislation Relating to
Administration of the Veterans’ Administration, Hearing, November 27, 1941 (Washington, D.C.: United
States Government Printing Office, 1941).
3 “Pensions Again,” Time, December 8, 1941.
4 Dr. George Gallup, “56% Oppose Paying Widows of Veterans: Many Who Favor Pensions Are Unwilling

to Have Taxes Increased in Order to Pay Them.,” The Washington Post, February 27, 1938.
27
and the product of the “strong and wily…veterans’ lobby.”5 An article later reprinted in the

Reader’s Digest, the most circulated magazine of this era, condemned veterans’ “war against the

Treasury,” and called the bill for widows and orphans “a new tentacle from an old octopus,”

namely the “professional patriots” in “the ex-soldiers’ lobby.”6 In the New Republic, Roger W. Riis

denounced the “new pension grab” by the “ruthless lobbyists” of the VFW and the Legion. This

was nothing less than a “Townsend Plan in uniform!,” he claimed, referring to the famous

proposal outlined by an Illinois doctor in the 1930s to guarantee a minimum income to all persons

over 60.7 This onslaught of “mud slinging” was sufficiently serious that the national leadership of

the Legion devoted an entire session of their national executive meeting that November to

discussing a proper response.8

While Legionnaires were understandably concerned about the amount of negative press

generated by their defense of pensions, they could hardly have been surprised by the nature of the

attacks, for their critics had been recycling the same lines of criticism for decades. Charges that

veterans’ groups were led by “professional veterans” who were trying to carry out a “raid on the

Treasury” or a “pension grab” against the wishes of their more selfless rank-and-file echoed,

almost word for word, the ones made since at least the post-Civil War era.9 Already unpopular,

the calls of veterans’ groups for special benefits proved even more so after the Great Depression

caused widespread economic hardship. In 1936, for instance, the short-lived movement of the

“Veterans of Future Wars” had spread like wildfire on college campuses across the country by

demanding advance payment of “adjusted compensation” for students’ sacrifice in wars yet to

5 “Veterans’ Pension Grab,” New York Times, November 26, 1941.

6 The original article was Stanley High, “The Bonus Lobby Rides Again,” The American Mercury, May 1940.
For the reprint, see “The Veterans’ War against the Treasury,” Reader’s Digest, May 1940.
7 Roger William Riis, “The New Pension Grab,” New Republic, October 6, 1941.
8 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 6-7, 1941, 52-55, ALA.
9 For an example of this discourse, see Donald L. McMurry, “The Political Significance of the Pension

Question, 1885-1897,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 9, no. 1 (June 1, 1922): 19–36.
28
come—a cynical yet clearly popular mockery of World War I veterans’ repeated calls for a Bonus.10

By the late 1930s, polls revealed that “veterans” were often seen as one of the groups that most

abused their power—next to “bankers” or “the press.”11 Groups like the Legion were often

criticized for their selfishness and derided for the notoriously rowdy character of their annual

National Conventions, during which tens of thousands of middle-aged men ran havoc in the host

city. Reporting on Milwaukee’s convention in September 1941, for instance, Life magazine

published a series of embarrassing pictures of adult Legionnaires dressed up as babies,

performing pranks on onlookers, or eyeing scantily-clad majorettes. Though Legionnaires were

growing older, Life commented, they were certainly not “growing up.”12 The persistence of such

images illustrated how the Legion continued to suffer from a poor public image well into the

1940s. On the eve of Pearl Harbor, it was still seen by many as nothing more than a self-interested

pressure group for one small and often immature segment of the population.

Less than four years later, when news of the final defeat of Japan was announced in August

1945, the situation was very different. The Legion emerged from the conflict with its prestige and

authority replenished. To be sure, the transformation was never complete: praise for the group

was hardly universal, and its pre-war reputation still lingered. Nevertheless, as one of its officials

had predicted a few years earlier, the group did indeed have “a rebirth in the blood of World War

II.”13 This metamorphosis was the product of the decision taken in 1942 to open the group’s ranks

to a new generation of veterans beyond those from the Great War, and more importantly, to fight

10 Donald W. Whisenhunt, Veterans of Future Wars: A Study in Student Activism (Lanham, Md.: Lexington
Books, 2011); Chris Rasmussen, “‘This Thing Has Ceased to Be a Joke’: The Veterans of Future Wars and
the Meanings of Political Satire in the 1930s,” Journal of American History 103, no. 1 (June 2016): 84–
106.
11 In May 1938, the Roper/Fortune Survey found that 11 percent of respondents thought that veterans

abused their power (25 percent responded “bankers,” and 27 percent “the press”). See Fortune.
Roper/Fortune Survey, May 1938, “Do you believe that any of the following abuse their power: ...
Bankers...Press...Radio...Pulpit...Veterans?” USROPER.38-01.Q09. Roper Organization. Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL, accessed June 1, 2017.
12 “The Legion Is Older but Still Full of Fun,” Life, September 29, 1941.
13 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,

November 15, 16, 17, 1943, 48, ALA.

29
aggressively for the passage of new legislation granting them generous benefits. The most

important piece of this agenda, of course, was the 1944 G.I. Bill of Rights, which the Legion

shepherded through Congress from start to finish. In doing so, the organization relied as much on

its own and admittedly impressive propaganda machine as it did on the enormous wave of

patriotic support for the image of the citizen-soldier, the “G.I.,” which saturated so much of

wartime public discourse.14 Precisely because the G.I. Bill was framed as a way both to pay the

nation’s moral debt toward those who had performed the highest sacrifice and to avoid a

repetition of the chaos that had followed the end of the Great War, it proved extremely popular

and was never the target of the same criticism wielded against older forms of veterans’ benefits,

such as pensions. And yet it was premised on the same basic rationale that observers had found

so troubling before the war: that military veterans deserved to be treated separately from, and

more generously than, the civilian population. The passage of such legislation, in turn, reinforced

the case made by the Legion to G.I.’s, that they should join its ranks not only because of the shared

comradeship between different generations of ex-soldiers but because it was the most powerful

and established of all veterans’ groups, and would therefore be best able to defend their interests

in the postwar period. Here was, in a nutshell, the central irony of this chapter: that the Legion

managed to shed its reputation as a pressure group for one segment of the population despite

appealing more strongly and successfully than ever to the special interests of this same group.

Wartime patriotic rhetoric was the catalyst that allowed this paradox to happen, by identifying

the interests of G.I.’s with those of the country as a whole.

In at least one crucial respect, the history of the American Legion during World War II

was less one of dramatic change than of stubborn continuity. For while the group decided to open

its doors to sixteen million new veterans, the welcome that awaited them depended to a

considerable degree on the color of their skin and the nature of their sex. Despite the heightened

James T. Sparrow, Warfare State: World War II Americans and the Age of Big Government (New York:
14

Oxford University Press, 2011).

30
pressure on the group to treat African-Americans as equals, the leadership of the Legion clang to

its hands-off policy in matters of race, allowing not only Southern Departments but many Posts

in the North as well to continue to either segregate black members or simply refuse to accept them.

Only toward the very end of the war, when the prospect of one million African-American veterans

returning home became imminent, did they accept the necessity of change—albeit ever so timidly,

and for largely self-interested reasons. By contrast, the fact that 350,000 women had served in

the armed forces during the war never caused the same amount of concern. Just as they had been

before Pearl Harbor, female Legionnaires would continue to be treated, effectively if not officially,

as second-class members throughout the war. Such discriminatory practices had profound

consequences not only within the group but for millions of former soldiers who never stepped into

a Post. Indeed, the outsize role played by the Legion in the passage of veterans’ legislation allowed

the group’s prejudices to leave a permanent imprint on the structure of the law, ensuring the

unequal access of non-white, non-male groups to veterans’ separate welfare state. Legionnaires

were certainly not the only ones to blame for such a development: as we will see, the Veterans

Administration (VA) and Democratic Congressman from Mississippi John E. Rankin also played

their part. It could hardly have been otherwise, since the Legion was merely embracing the

broader cultural and political trends of its time, which were anything but all-inclusive. Still, the

fact that others acted similarly does not diminish the direct responsibility of the group in

transforming these trends into tangible legislation.

The chapter proceeds chronologically, focusing first on how the Legion entered World War

II and took the decision to welcome a new generation of veterans. It then explores the many levels

of its recruitment campaign, which took place not only in local communities but at the state level

and in the halls of the U.S. Congress. The last section of the paper shifts the focus beyond the

Legion and to those who were doing the actual fighting, examining the debate among G.I.’s about

31
what kind of veterans’ groups they wanted to form in the postwar period, and how the earliest

World War II veterans were received by the group.

But before we start, it is necessary to go back years before the first Japanese warplane was

sighted on Pearl Harbor.

From Military Preparedness to the War Effort

Just like the nation as a whole, the American Legion became gradually involved in World

War II in a process long pre-dating December 1941.15 The group’s official position in the 1930s

had been staunchly isolationist: led by Midwesterners such as Missouri Senator Bennett “Champ”

Clark, Legionnaires had voted in favor of a policy of “absolute neutrality” in 1935. Yet the

sympathies of the rank-and-file were clear. A poll taken at the National Convention in September

1940 revealed that more than 90 percent of delegates felt “favorably” or “somewhat favorably”

toward Britain, while only around 7 percent had the same attitude toward Germany, Japan, and

Italy. The unfolding of events in Europe tipped the balance. After Hitler declared war on Poland

in September 1939, and especially after the fall of France in the spring of 1940 shattered all

illusions that the Atlantic Ocean could be used as a kind of insurmountable moat, the group began

to adopt a more interventionist position. The isolationist faction suffered two successive and

devastating blows, first in 1940 when, under strong pressure from the Roosevelt Administration,

the National Convention came out in support of Great Britain in unambiguous terms, and then a

year later when a resolution against aid to Russia was tabled.16

15 On the incremental U.S entry into World War II, see Mary L. Dudziak, War Time: An Idea, its History,
its Consequences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 40-52; Waldo H. Heinrichs, Threshold of War:
Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
16 Richard Seelye Jones, A History of the American Legion (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill company, 1946),

60–105.
32
 Though these resolutions were interpreted by contemporary observers as stunning turning

points—a “complete reversal of the Legion’s stand for strict neutrality,” according to the New York

Times—in many ways they only built upon the group’s longstanding tradition of support for

military preparedness.17 Legionnaires had long believed that peace could only be maintained

through a strong defense. Throughout the interwar period, they had been the passionate and often

the only supporters of unpopular measures such as increasing military spending, implementing

universal military training, and enacting a “universal draft” of labor and capital to “take the profit

out of war.” The Legion had taken the lead in organizing civilian defense efforts as early as the

mid-1930s, cooperating with the Army to coordinate the operation of aircraft warning posts from

Virginia to Vermont and Oklahoma.18 When the debate over intervention began, Legion leaders

sought to capitalize on these credentials and be recognized as the leading authority on the topic.

In December 1940, they began a partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some

60,000 Legionnaires would ultimately work with J. Edgar Hoover’s agents over the course of the

war as informants, sharing information on political dissidents, potential spies, threats of

industrial sabotage, and draft dodgers.19 Just a few months later, a handful of Legion officials

visited Great Britain with FDR’s blessing, officially to investigate the morale of the local

population and learn about its defense system, but also to give the Legion an opportunity to

capture the nation’s attention back home. Finally, the Legion played a key role in the Office of

Civilian Defense, the federal agency created in May 1941 to increase the country’s readiness for

17 Craig Thompson, “Legion Supports all aid to Britain,” New York Times, September 26, 1940.
18 Christopher W. Griffin, “Veterans at War: The American Legion and Civilian Mobilization in World War
II” (Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 2012), 24–27.
19 On this program, see Matthew Cecil, Branding Hoover’s FBI: How the Boss’s PR Men Sold the Bureau

to America (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 2016), 73–94; Athan Theoharis, “The FBI and the
American Legion Contact Program, 1940-1966,” Political Science Quarterly 100, no. 2 (July 1985): 271–
86; Joanne M. Hepp, “Administrative Insubordination and Bureaucratic Principles: The Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s American Legion Contact Program” (M.A., Marquette University, 1985).; J. Edgar Hoover,
“Backing Up the FBI,” American Legion Magazine, June 1944. (ALM hereafter)
33
war.20 Clearly, as one Legion official put it in 1942, “the dastardly Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

found The American Legion prepared.”21

Atop the Empire

State Building,
Legionnaires
take part in a
large-scale air
defense test.
Source: New
York Times,
January 22,
1941, p. 12.

And yet these early efforts would pale in comparison with the renewed energy with which

the Legion would throw itself into the conflict. It is hardly an overstatement, in fact, to say that

the Legion literally became an extension of the state during these years. A few days after the attack

on Pearl Harbor, Legion National Commander Lynn Stambaugh publicly committed his

organization to the war effort, declaring in a speech that “our 1,130,000 Legion members know

that war calls for united service. They will give that to America.”22 The full meaning of this pledge

was soon to be felt. One memorandum to Roosevelt noted satisfyingly two years later that Legion

leaders had repeatedly made clear to the White House that “they want to be known as your good

right arm…The American Legion wants you to know that it, as an organization, offers itself for

20 Director of the OCD and Mayor of New York Fiorello LaGuardia gave the Legion responsibility for
organizing air raid defense and Legionnaires played a key role in many state-level chapters, see Griffin,
“Veterans at War,” 21-62.
21 Proceedings of the 24th National Convention of the American Legion (Kansas City, 1942), 204.
22 “Varied Groups in D.C. Pledge Loyalty to U.S., President,” The Washington Post, December 8, 1941.

34
you to command in the same manner as you command the Army and Navy of our country.”23 The

group enthusiastically embraced its new responsibilities. Building on the momentum of its pre-

war efforts and working in tandem with the OCD, the Legion continued to take a leading role in

civilian defense. By September 1943, 98,000 Legionnaires worked as aircraft warden observers,

272,000 as air-raid wardens, 330,000 as first-aid workers, and tens of thousands more as

volunteer police or firemen and members of ration boards.24

But the Legion also acted as a middleman to help bridge the gap between the armed forces

and the public. As a suggested address prepared by the group’s National Publicity Division stated,

“In the last war the men of The American Legion were the men behind the guns. In this war

Legionnaires are mostly the men behind the men behind the guns.”25 Indeed, they were literally

present at every stage of a soldier’s life. To begin with, Legionnaires were essential to the operation

of the Selective Service system, which drafted men into the armed forces. 10,000 of them served

on local draft boards in 1943; in states like Illinois, they represented more than 75 percent of total

draft board members.26 But Legionnaires also sometimes did the recruitment work themselves;

they claimed to have been responsible for the enlistment of over half a million men and women

for the armed services. Once enlisted, soldiers received the short Legion booklet entitled Fall-In,

meant to familiarize them with military jargon and discipline—by 1945, over 2 million copies had

been distributed.27 On the day of their departure to boot camp, draftees in small towns typically

walked to the train station surrounded by crowds of relatives and led by an American Legion color

23 Eugene Casey, “Memorandum to the President,” October 7, 1943, Box 4, Folder: American Legion, 1943-
1945, Official File 64, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York (FDR hereafter).
24 Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the American Legion (Omaha, Nebr., 1943), 229.
25 National Publicity Division, “Suggested general address for American Legion speakers on the Legion’s

war contribution,” n.d., Box 4, Folder: American Legion, 1943-1945, Official File 64, FDR.
26 Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the American Legion (Omaha, Nebr., 1943), 229; Paul G.

Armstrong, “Numbers by the Fishbowl,” ALM, October 1941. On the Legion and Selective Service, see
George Q. Flynn, The Draft, 1940-1973 (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 24, 29.
27 Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago, 1944), 185.

35
guard and drummer.28 Once inside the military, they were also very likely to encounter material

which the Legion had helped provide for through the countless scrap drives it sponsored, not to

mention the hundreds of thousands of personal items they sent to overseas units, such as

cigarettes, decks of playing cards, new phonograph records salvaged from the millions of old ones

they had collected, and the local town paper. On furlough, active-duty service men and women

were welcome in Legion facilities and clubhouses.29 Legion posts often maintained the local

“Honor Roll” bearing the names of a city’s soldiers, usually in cooperation with local churches,

clubs, schools, or business groups.30 Beyond the military, high schoolers across the country were

also likely to meet Legionnaires, as the group helped the Federal Security Agency (FSA) and the

Department of Education implement the Victory Corps program, designed to improve future

draftees’ physical fitness.31

The Two-War Experiment

It was in this larger context of near-complete involvement in the war effort that the Legion

began to consider the issue of whether to admit in its ranks the future veterans of this conflict.

The seeds of this debate had been planted very early. As the number of military personnel

skyrocketed after the passage of the Selective Service Act in September 1940, rank-and-file

Legionnaires started to make their voices heard. The department of California, for instance, sent

a resolution to the 1941 National Convention asking for the appointment of a committee “to study

and recommend to the National organization the attitude of The American Legion towards

28 Robert J. Havighurst and al., The American Veteran Back Home: A Study of Veteran Readjustment (New
York: Longmans, Green, 1951), 19.
29 Griffin, “Veterans at War,” 149-154.
30 Havighurst et al., The American Veteran Back Home, 61-62.
31 For details on the group’s participation in this program in Wisconsin, see Edgar I. (Ed) Jersild,

“Memorandum to: County Commanders, Post Commanders, Pre-Military Training Section,” December 20,
1942, Box 4, Folder: General Files – November-December-Undated, 1942, Records of the Wisconsin
American Legion, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. (WHS hereafter)
36
organization of the men and women now called into service from civil life to the end that we may

serve them in maintaining the opportunity for service to the Nation in the later years of their

life.”32 In the absence of a declared state of war, however, such demands failed to pass—the

“consensus of opinion” within the group, as the editor of the American Legion Magazine noted,

“is that [it] is and should remain an organization of veterans of the [First] World War.”33

The stakes of the debate changed dramatically once the U.S. joined the fray. Only four days

after Pearl Harbor, the national headquarters received a letter from a North Carolina Legionnaire

who suggested that the group should open its ranks to the future veterans of this new global war.34

While it is impossible to determine exactly how many of the group’s rank-and-file shared his

enthusiasm, it seems clear that a majority supported the move from early on. 35 They were

sufficiently eager, in fact, that the national leadership started worrying about “the possibility that

a considerable number of posts might decide on their own initiative to jump the gun on this

situation and start taking in” the new veterans without waiting for an official decision—an

unacceptable breach of organizational discipline.36 Realizing that this was simply “the most

important issue which has confronted The American Legion, from an internal organization

standpoint, in its history,” National Commander Lynn Stambaugh enjoined his members to start

debating it in March 1942, in anticipation of the upcoming National Convention in the early fall

where a final decision could be hatched out.37

32 Resolution No. 242, “Organization of Men Now Called into Service,” September 15-18, 1941, Reel: 95-
1060, Administration & Organization, Membership, World War II Veterans, A-Z, ALA. (Reel 95-1060, ALA
hereafter)
33 Elmer W. Sherwood to Walter M. Erickson, October 17, 1941, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
34 Edward J. Hanson to Lynn U. Stambaugh, December 11, 1941, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
35 In March 1942, the Legion’s National Publicity Division conducted a survey of Departments on the

question. Twenty-seven of them replied, “most of whom did not have time to make a determination of the
sentiment of the membership. Of those who did, practically all favored the change.” See National Publicity
Division, “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” May 2, 1942, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
36 DGG to [Ralph B.] Gregg and [Frank] Samuel, n.d. (ca. January 28, 1942), Reel 95-1060, ALA.
37 Lynn U. Stambaugh, “Memorandum to Members of National Executive Committee of the American

Legion and Members of National Constitution and By-Laws Committees, on the Question of Expanding
American Legion Eligibility restriction to include those serving in Second World War,” March 13, 1942, Reel
95-1060, ALA.
37
 Over the course of the following few months, compelling arguments were deployed on

either side of the debate. Those who made the case against opening the group to the new crop of

veterans focused first and foremost on the difference in age between the two cohorts (the average

Legionnaire was forty-seven years old in 1941).38 As one Legionnaire claimed during the

convention of the Michigan Department in Kalamazoo, “we belong to a different generation. They

are young men, and we are getting old…We cannot live the lives of our children and when one of

our youngsters comes to an age where he should walk, we place him upon his own feet and teach

him to walk, and we do not walk for him.”39 Age was more than just a number, of course, for it

entailed a unique set of shared experiences, friendships, memories, and hardships. As the

Alexandria Post No. 24 in Virginia expressed eloquently in a resolution,

1. The American Legion is an outgrowth of the first World War and as a cohesive body
marks a definite period in American history continued from the end of the war to date by
a group of closely knit veterans of one generation of like ideals, aims, purposes and
experiences, pledged to preserve the memories and incidents of our Association in the
great war and to consecrate and sanctify our comradeship by our devotion to mutual
helpfulness, and
2. The veterans of the present war are not of our day and age and are not and will not be
able to understand our past and present problems, nor to enter into our comradeship, the
disparity in age being too great to overcome…40

The concern that both generations would fail to understand or work with each other was one

thing; in the background was also the greater threat that the younger veterans would wrest control

of the group from the hands of the older generation. Indeed, the number of military personnel

had already reached nearly 3.8 million by 1942—almost as many as all World War I veterans still

38 William Pencak, For God & Country: The American Legion, 1919-1941 (Boston: Northeastern University
Press, 1989), 307.
39 The Proceedings and Transactions of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Convention of the American Legion,

Department of Michigan, Held at Kalamazoo, Michigan, on August 15 and 16, 1942, 119-120, Box 7,
American Legion, Department of Michigan Records, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
40 “Resolution, May 1st 1942,” Reel 95-1060, ALA.

38
alive, and nearly four times more than the Legion’s 1.1 million members—and it kept climbing

with no end in sight. This almost guaranteed that the young cohort would eclipse the old,

prompting fears among some Legionnaires that they would be relegated to subordinate positions

in their own group. As a memorandum circulated by the National Commander made clear, it was

possible that “[a]s the membership of the new veterans overshadowed the original Legionnaires,

they would take over the whole show and relegate the original Legionnaires entirely to the

background, thus creating a most disruptive influence and being the source of much strife and

bickering.”41 One high-ranking Legionnaire echoed these concerns, writing that “while I am

always open to conviction I still believe that we should hold onto this legion of ours. […] if this

change is made and the men now in the service take advantage of the opportunity I can readily

see where we will be entirely absorbed.”42 A day later, he stressed that the move “would really

mean changing our entire American Legion.”43

The reluctance of a small group of Legionnaires to admit new and younger members points

to a larger truth about the group. Far more than simply an elite interest group tasked with

defending veterans’ interests on Capitol Hill, by the early 1940s the Legion had come to represent

a massive investment of time, money, and emotions for most of its members. The total combined

net worth of its national, state, and local branches exceeded $100,000,000. 44 Most Legionnaires

in positions of power had had to spend years, often decades slowly moving up the multiple rungs

of the Legion’s extended hierarchical ladder, and therefore were understandably attached to their

leadership positions. The career of Warren H. Atherton, who became National Commander in

1943, illustrates this point well. His Legion career began more than two decades earlier in 1919,

when he co-founded his home Post in Stockton, California. He was elected Post Commander in

41 “Pro and Con Discussion Reflected in Mails Reaching the National Headquarters of the American Legion
with Reference to Possible Inclusion of Veterans of the Second World War in the American Legion,” n.d.
(ca. March 1942), Reel 95-1060, ALA.
42 Harry Benoit to Ralph B. Gregg, February 27, 1942, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
43 Harry Benoit to Ralph B. Gregg, February 28, 1942, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
44 Jones, A History of the Legion, 320-321.

39
1926, then rose up the ranks to the position of Department Commander six years later; after

serving on the National Americanism Commission for a few years, he then became Chairman of

the National Defense Commission in 1939, where he stayed until his election to the top office in

September 1943.45 Even to the overwhelming majority of the rank-and-file who were not involved

in running the group’s business, the Legion was still more than just a lobby: especially in small

towns across the United States, local Posts were often the center of social life, in which people

socialized, married, celebrated, staged celebratory parades, etc. Through its Americanism

division, the group had sponsored thousands of community programs such as American

Education Week, Junior Baseball, Boys’ State, Boy Scouts, etc. It was not surprising that an

organization with such an oversized role in its members’ life—indeed, one in which many had

invested a crucial part of their identity—would not easily be turned over to newcomers.

It is also worth remembering that Legionnaires were stepping into uncharted territory.

Prior to 1942, no veterans’ group in U.S. history had decided to open its ranks to former soldiers

of more than one war without an additional restriction based either on the location of service (as

did the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which welcomed only those who had served overseas), ability

(such as for the Disabled American Veterans), ethnicity or religion (like the Jewish War Veterans

or the Catholic War Veterans), or military rank (the Retired Officers Association). Whether it was

possible for a large group to claim to be the voice of all veterans while not silencing the needs of

specific constituencies within this whole remained an open question, one that Legionnaires could

not look to the past to answer. Not for nothing did a Legion historian later call this the “two-war

experiment.”46

But these less-than-enthusiastic reactions also tapped into deeper cultural trends. The

concern expressed by some members over the potential differences in the “philosophies of the

respective generations” and whether the future veterans would “be dedicated fundamentally and

45 Walter Naughton, “He Takes Objectives,” ALM, December 1943.

46 Richard Seelye Jones, “The Legion: As We Are,” ALM, June 1947.
40
primarily to fostering and maintaining the American way of life” reflected widely shared anxieties

about how young men and women would be changed by their military service.47 During the war,

many Americans feared that the inherently totalitarian and violent institution of the military

would profoundly transform those who joined it by erasing their individuality and alleged love for

democracy, thus making them friendly receptacles for illiberal ideas. Given the central role played

by soldiers and veterans in the rise of militaristic regimes in Italy, Germany, and Japan, it was

certainly not a stretch to imagine the same phenomenon occurring in the U.S. 48 After all, both

government officials and a majority of the population expected the country to return to

widespread unemployment at the end of the war.49 In this context, some worried that veterans’

military discipline and know-how could make them the favorite target of demagogues from either

side of the political spectrum.50 “Will the veterans of World War II turn into Storm Troopers who

will destroy democracy?” Columbia University Professor Willard Waller asked provocatively in

1944. “Unless and until he can be renaturalized into his native land,” he wrote, “the veteran is a

threat to society.”51 Even outside of politics, rumors of “a postwar crime wave” in which

unemployed veterans would be “holding people up, robbing banks, breaking into apartments”

were sufficiently widespread for J. Edgar Hoover to feel the need to publicly deny that the Army

47 “Shall the American Legion Admit Veterans of World War II?,” Reprinted from the Arkansas Legionnaire,
Reel 95-1060, ALA.
48 Benjamin L. Alpers, “This is the Army: Imagining a Democratic Military in World War II,” The Journal

of American History 85, 1 (June 1998): 129-163.

49 In June 1943, for instance, the National Resources Planning Board estimated that there may be “as many

as 8 or 9 million unemployed persons…in the second or third quarter following the termination of
hostilities,” see National Planning Resources Board, Demobilization and Readjustment, Report of the
Conference on Postwar Readjustment of Civilian and Military Personnel, 1943, 83. That same month, a
poll found that 56 percent of respondents thought that “men in the armed forces will have a hard time
finding jobs when the war is over,” see Hadley Cantril, ed., Public Opinion, 1935-1946 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1951), 1001.
50 On the image of soldiers and veterans during World War II, see Andrew J. Huebner, The Warrior Image:

Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to the Vietnam Era (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2008), chap. 1.
51 Willard Waller, The Veteran Comes Back (New York: Dryden Press, 1944), 13, 191. Emphasis original.

41
was “breeding criminals.”52 As veterans themselves, Legionnaires were probably more skeptical

of such tales than the average civilian, but they nonetheless remained a concern.

Of course, not all Legionnaires were against welcoming the new generation. Some Legion

officials, in fact, used World War II veterans’ potential radicalism as an argument in favor of

getting them to join the Legion, so that the group could rein in these radical impulses. The effort

to prevent the spread of radical ideas among ex-soldiers, after all, had been one of the motivating

factors behind the creation of the group in 1919.53 Writing to Eleanor Roosevelt, Stambaugh

assured her that his group was “very much concerned about the aftermath of this war” and that

its influence “will be exerted to the end that any organization of veterans of this war will be based

upon sound American principles and not along lines inimical to the American form of

government.”54 As former National Commander Harry Colmery from Kansas further argued in a

letter to the Los Angeles Times editor, “many of us…are interested in the American Legion as an

instrumentality through which to stabilize one large group of its citizenry [veterans] and mobilize

their efforts along constructive lines for the good of the nation and her civilization…large

percentages of men who come out of a war can either make a country or break it, or promote

national and world order, or World War III. The outcome will depend much upon the leadership

at this time.”55

Among the letters prompting the national leadership to take a decision on the issue, many

writers also emphasized the similarities between the two world wars and the generations shaped

by them. North Carolina Legionnaire Edward Hanson argued for instance that “the Veterans of

all wars have one and the same bond of fellowship ‘Service to our country in peace as well as in

52 J. Edgar Hoover, “Is the Army Breeding Criminals?,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1945.
53 Pencak, For God & Country, 24–77.
54 Lynn U. Stambaugh to Mrs. Roosevelt, April 8, 1942, Administration & Organization, Publicity, Criticism,

Eleanor Roosevelt Statement, ALA.

55 Harry W. Colmery to the Los Angeles Times Editor, June 7, 1944, Box 56, Folder: 223G: G. I. Bill:

Correspondence (1943 – 1949), HWC, Chairman of Special Committee on Servicemen’s Readjustment Act
of 1944, Harry W. Colmery Collection, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas (KSHS thereafter).
42
war.’”56 Also important was the fact that about 100,000 sons of Legionnaires were already

servicemen, and that in all likelihood “they would like to belong to the same post as their

fathers.”57 Besides such high-minded motives, others also insisted on the fact that the new “crop”

could take advantage of the solidly-established position of the Legion to avoid having “to go

through the same laborious years as did those of No.1 to bring their newer organization to a peak.”

The benefit was reciprocal: taking in a new generation would allow the Legion to “live for 100

years at least.”58 As an official of the South Carolina Legion argued, this was a bargain in which

“both sides have something to offer”: while “[t]he present Service man would strengthen and

prolong our organization through his membership…our organization is so well established as to

facilities and policies that we could be of great service to the newly provided for member.”59

Bringing in the new generation would also allow the Legion to keep its leadership position

among veterans’ groups, especially at a time when the VFW and the DAV were already carrying

out their own recruitment drives. As Wisconsin Legionnaires knew well, the VFW’s constitution

allowed it to accept active-duty soldiers as members, while the Legion had to wait for them to be

(honorably) discharged, thus placing the group at a comparative disadvantage. The VFW was

“now taking [G.I.’s] in to their organization,” Legionnaires argued, and “[u]nless The American

Legion open our door [sic], the men of this war are very likely going to join the other organization.

If they do, and we close our doors, the other organization is going to be far stronger than we are

in the next few years.”60 All these debates pointed to a simple fact: while some argued that

accepting the new generation was simply the right thing to do, the material and political

56 Edward J. Hanson to Lynn U. Stambaugh, December 11, 1941, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
57 Damon Runyon, “The Brighter Side,” San Francisco (CA) Examiner, April 1, 1942, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
58 “Legion Should Admit World War 2 Veterans,” Hudson Dispatch (NJ), March 30, 1942, Reel 95-1060,

ALA.
59 W. D. Schwartz, Jr. to S. L. Latimer, Jr., March 25, 1942, Box 11, Folder 635, Samuel Lowry Latimer

Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.

60 Twenty-Fourth Annual Convention, The American Department of Wisconsin, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin,

July 31, August 1, 2, 3, 1942, Reel 4, P82-1868, Part 2 (Micro 8), Records of the Wisconsin American Legion,
WHS.
43
advantages for the Legion of doing so—a new lease on life and a more secure position vis-à-vis its

competitors—also loomed very large.

Knowing the vitally important character of this problem, the group acted quickly.

Throughout the spring and summer, local posts debated the issue. In the end, an overwhelming

majority came out in favor of the move, with thirty-nine of the fifty-eight departments approving,

three issuing conditions, five opposing any action, and one defeating a resolution in this

direction.61 The national leadership, however, was more divided: at the National Convention in

Kansas City in September, the committee in charge of the issue presented a majority and a

minority report. The press expected a “bitter floor fight,” with the Los Angeles Times divulging

that “word was circulated around the convention premises and hotels […] that many high leaders

in the organization are opposed to throwing open the membership ranks and will fight on the

convention floor.”62 Yet this never happened. According to Harry Colmery, “[t]he rank and file of

the boys were so overwhelmingly in favor of [the resolution to welcome the new generation], that

[it] went through more or less as a matter of course.”63 Differences were ironed out behind closed

doors, and delegates adopted the resolution to expand eligibility unanimously and without

debate: a reporter even noted that “a counterproposal to postpone the question until after the war

was shouted down.”64 A few weeks later, the bill amending the Legion’s congressional charter was

introduced on Capitol Hill, and it passed swiftly through both Houses before being signed by

Roosevelt. The Legion was now officially open to U.S. veterans of World War II, whether serving

with allied or American forces, who “shall have an honorable discharge or separation from such

61 Russell B. Porter, “Legion Gathering in War Solemnity: Taking in Veterans of Present Conflict is a Major
Question at Kansas City Session,” New York Times, September 19, 1942.
62 “Legion Argues Membership: Veterans Can’t Agree on Admitting ‘Boys’ From Present Conflict,” Los

Angeles Times, September 16, 1942; “Veterans Gather for Legion Meet: Internal Scrap Looms Over
Affiliation of Present-Day Soldiers,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1942.
63 Harry W. Colmery to Roane Waring, October 5, 1942, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
64 “Legion Will Accept Soldiers of Today,” Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1942; “Streamlined for

Victory,” ALM, November 1942.

44
service or continue to serve honorably after the date of cessation of such hostilities […].” The same

day, the first new veterans were officially admitted in the Legion.65

Selling the American Legion

The fact that the eligibility of new veterans was now enshrined in law, of course, did not

guarantee that they would join the group upon returning home. As one journalist put it in May

1943, even though the Legion had been working out a new “formula,” “it will take some selling

because war veterans are notoriously diverse in their organizations.”66 Indeed, more than 200

groups, by most estimates, vied for their membership. Alongside the groups already cited were a

number of smaller organizations such as the Blinded Veterans’ Association, the United Negro and

Allied Veterans of America, and the Marine Corps League. There were also groups for veterans’

relatives, such as the American War Dads, the Mothers of World War II, and the Navy Mothers

Clubs of America.67 World War II veterans soon created their own groups, the largest of which

were the centrist American Veterans of World War II (AMVETS) in December 1944 and the more

liberal American Veterans Committee in 1943. On the fringes, far-right clergyman and political

organizer Gerald L. K. Smith created his Nationalist Veterans of World War II, while Nazi

sympathizer Edward J. Smythe formed the Protestant War Veterans.68 On the other side of the

political spectrum, the Communist Party of the U.S.A., aware of the “invaluable experience and

political prestige” that veterans would enjoy after their return, quickly tried to initiate a campaign

65 Edward J. Donoghue to Ralph B. Gregg, December 3, 1942; Ralph B. Gregg to Edward J. Donoghue,
December 9, 1942; Jack Cejnar to W. Elliott Nefflen, November 30, 1942, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
66 “Veterans of World War II,” Pittsfield (MA) Berkshire Eagle, May 8, 1943, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
67 William R. Spear, “The American Scene: 200 Organizations Bid for Favor of Veterans,” Stars & Stripes

(Western Europe, Paris Edition), June 29, 1945 (S&S hereafter).

68 Louis Falstein, “Veterans Welcome,” New Republic, January 28, 1946, 117-119; A. Victor Lasky, “The

Veterans Organizations,” American Mercury (August 1946), 167-173.

45
to recruit the nearly 15,000 Party members who had entered the armed forces.69 Finally, the

unions joined the fray. Recognizing the potential lying in its more than 2 million members serving

in the armed forces, the United Auto Workers-CIO created its own veterans’ committee in April

1944.70

The Legion created its own World War II Liaison Committee in November 1942.71 Its

chairman J. Ernest Isherwood made the urgency of the task clear in a letter to all Post

commanders, where he wrote that “The future of The American Legion depends upon how well

the World War II liaison activities of the organization are carried out now…It is purely a public

relations program…The big, all-important job now is for Posts and individual Legionnaires to

keep in contact with the men and women in service from their community by letter or postal card.

Let the members of the armed forces from your community hear from you! Tell them what The

American Legion is doing now in their behalf.”72 The work of the national Liaison Committee was

to coordinate all local efforts. As Liaison Coordinator Charles Wilson wrote in 1943, “the post is

the hub of the wheel around which the entire program revolves.”73 Of course, the prior

involvement of the Legion in the war effort provided a ready-made platform from which to jump-

start this program. Scrap drives, blood drives, cigarette and phonograph campaigns, for instance,

were as many activities in which the Legion had long been involved and which it could now use

for a more directly self-promotional goal. The hundreds of thousands of musical records sent to

servicemen, for instance, all carried a small sticker with the Legion’s name. As Wisconsin’s Badger

Legionnaire noted in 1943, “War activities have given [the Legion] more extensive publicity this

last year than perhaps at any other time. Locally, the recruiting, salvage, war bond, high school

69 John Williamson, “New Organizational Problems of the Communist Party,” Political Affairs, December
1945.
70 J. Donald Kingsley, “Veterans, Unions and Jobs: II. Labor and the Veterans,” New Republic, November

23, 1944, 621–23.

71 Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the American Legion (Omaha, Nebr., 1943), 177-181.
72 J. Ernest Isherwood to Commander, n.d., Reel 95-1060, ALA.
73 Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the American Legion, 181.

46
victory corps and numerous other projects have earned hundreds of columns of newspaper

space.”74

But the Liaison Committee did more than simply recycle extant activities. With a

$250,000 budget voted in 1943, it considerably expanded the reach of the Legion’s recruitment

effort at home and overseas.75 Public relations offices, for instance, were created in London and

Paris to better reach G.I.’s serving overseas.76 Legionnaires at home were urged to send their

copies of the American Legion Magazine and National Legionnaire to someone in service (Army

writer Justin Gray later recalled that “in some places,” the Legion’s distribution system abroad

“even beat ours on Yank,” the Army’s own weekly).77 Regardless of their location, soldiers were

likely to receive constant reminders of the Legion’s interest in them, whether they were reading

the more than 1,200 Army or Navy newspapers (in which the Legion placed clip sheets, mat

articles, editorials, and cartoons) or their mail (where they might find one of the more than 3.5

million “Hospitality Cards” as well as the short Legion Digest with general news about the group),

traveling (Legion panel posters, stickers, and window cards were everywhere), or at the movies

(1,000 motion picture trailers prints were distributed to local movie theatres). At its 1944 National

Convention in Chicago, the group organized the “world’s largest chicken dinner,” serving over

62,000 meals to soldiers in twelve hours. Overall, more than 21 million pieces of Legion literature

were distributed to service members throughout the war.78 The goal of all this activity, as Wilson

reminded one of his subordinates, was to always “keep the name of The American Legion before

those now in uniform.”79

74 “Legion Gathers Record Publicity Thru War Effort,” The Badger Legionnaire, August 1943, 19, WHS.
75 See resolution no. 333 in Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the American Legion, 112-113.
76 Proceedings of the 27th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago, 1945), 170-1.
77 Justin Gray and Victor H. Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion (New York: Boni & Gaer, 1948), 18-

19.
78 Proceedings of the 27th National Convention of the American Legion, 169-173.
79 C.M. Wilson to Lewis Van Wezel, July 23, 1943, Reel 95-1060, ALA.

47
 Some activities changed from Department to Department. In Wyoming, for instance, Posts

typically wrote letters of sympathy to the next of kin of soldiers who had died in service and

publicized the Gold Star citations received by the family. They also organized “going-away” parties

for all inductees, and used their Employment committee to help returning veterans find jobs.80 In

Indiana, all posts were encouraged to send a letter to soldiers on furlough or discharged, which

read in part: “You are back home—after a good job well done—and the American Legion welcomes

you. We want you to join as soon as you have sweated out the point system and won that honorable

discharge…The Legion is several times bigger than all other veterans organizations put together,

and there is a reason.”81 Returning soldiers from Michigan received a small booklet entitled “You

Are Patriotically Invited to Join the American Legion,” which contained a short survey of the

Legion’s role in advocating for veterans’ benefits and military preparedness. “That is why the

American Legion needs you,” it went on, “you need the American Legion; and our country needs

us both—united!”82 In Iowa, Davenport Post No. 26 paid for all the candy, cigarettes, coffee, and

other doughnuts distributed by the Red Cross Canteen Service to soldiers as they left the city.

Beyond that, it also paid the dues of its members in the armed services, sent them Christmas

presents, and welcomed each returning veteran with a personal call offering the post’s services

and inviting him or her to dinner.83

While each Post went about the task of recruiting new members its own way, a brief

overview of the range of activities undertaken by the Benjamin A. Fuller Post provides a better

understanding of what this effort looked like on an everyday basis at the local level. A center of

civic life in the small town of Pittsburg in the southeastern corner of Kansas, the Post welcomed

new draftees for a complimentary “army style” dinner a few days before their scheduled departure.

80 Jack Oakey to J. Ernest Isherwood, February 20, 1943, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
81 Quoted in Richard M. Clutter, “The Indiana American Legion, 1919-1960” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana
University, 1975), 217.
82 The Fourth District Association of the Department of Michigan, “You Are Patriotically Invited to Join the

American Legion,” Reel 95-1060, ALA.

83 Davenport Post No. 26, “World War II Liaison,” March 14, 1945, Reel 95-1059, ALA.

48
Planned to “simulate army chow” and featuring distinguished guests and music, the banquet was

an opportunity for future soldiers and Legionnaires to mingle. The centerpiece of the program

was a speech by a Legion official, in which he gave draftees information on their future veterans’

benefits. Among other services, the Post also sent a monthly shipment of cigarettes overseas,

welcomed members of the armed forces in Legion club facilities, and prepared powers of attorney

and wills for them free of charge. In late 1943, it opened a canteen at the local railroad station that

handled troop trains, with volunteer personnel drawn from the Legion Auxiliary, Army Mothers,

Navy Mothers, and other women’s groups under the supervision of the Red Cross. Coffee,

doughnuts, and cookies were furnished free of charge to men and women in uniform, while “[a]ll

other drinks, tobacco, cigarettes and confections are sold to them below cost.” Service members

traveling through the town were given an announcement card by the conductor as their train

approached Pittsburg: on one side was a list of items available and on the other the name of the

Post and the Legion’s emblem. “It is hoped,” the Kansas Legion Commander noted in an official

report, “that some of these cards will be kept by the recipients and will in the future stimulate a

friendly feeling toward The American Legion…”84

Many Legionnaires thought that even this extensive recruitment drive did not go far

enough. Even after the new charter was signed by Roosevelt, letters continued to pour in from the

rank-and-file, who chafed at their constitution’s prohibition of membership to soldiers still on

active duty and tried to circumvent it one way or another. Always in the back of their mind was

the very real threat that the VFW, their longstanding competitor, would overcome the Legion’s

advantage in numbers. Indeed, as columnist Drew Pearson noted in his regular “Washington

Merry-Go-Round” op-ed in July 1944, though the VFW had started the war in a disadvantaged

position (it counted merely 240,000 members on the day of Pearl Harbor, four times less than

84Ben W. Weir, “How One Post Builds Good Will Among Servicemen and Women of World War II,” Digest
of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants, November 15,
16, 17, 1943, 50, ALA. Emphasis original.
49
the Legion), it “has picked up more than 400,000 new members since [then], while the Legion’s

gains have been relatively paltry…Today the VFW magazine has the largest overseas circulation

of any non-governmental publication, is now read by 300,000 mean monthly. As a result, VFW

is picking up members at the rate of 5,000 a week, while Legion officials fret, plan their own

recruiting drive.”85 After reading this piece, Idaho Legionnaire T. H. Kobs wrote in angst to his

Department Adjutant that the VFW was “conducting a great membership drive, while the

American Legion is waiting to do that later on…I think it is high time that the Legion gets busy if

they are not already doing so, and make statements as to what they done for the exservice man

compared to VFW [sic].”86

Several ideas circulated as to how to answer this challenge. As soon as the decision was

taken to open the group to the younger generation in October 1942, in fact, “a number of Posts”

began to make plans to enlist men and women still in uniform—only to be rebuked by the national

leadership, which insisted that the group should be open only to veterans.87 The idea of a

membership pledge, by which soldiers would commit to joining the Legion after their discharge,

was also widely popular. Texas Department Adjutant Harry E. Rather, for instance, claimed that

this “would discourage them for joining [sic] any other veteran organization.”88 Others suggested

the creation of a “provisional membership card.”89 Both these proposals, however, violated the

Legion constitution’s provision that only one membership status be allowed.90 Aware of this

problem, Warren Atherton took up the idea himself after his election as National Commander in

85 Drew Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round,” Washington Post, August 1, 1944; Herbert Molloy
Mason, Jr., VFW: Our First Century, 1899-1999 (Lenexa, KS: Addax, 1999), 98.
86 T.H. Kobs to Wm. O. Hall, August 1, 1944, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
87 Roane Waring, “Memorandum,” September 29, 1942, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
88 Harry E. Rather to C. M. Wilson, February 3, 1944, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
89 Ralph S. Mohr to Warren Atherton, October 14, 1943; C. M. Wilson to Ralph S. Mohr, March 2, 1944; C.

M. Wilson to Ralph S. Mohr, May 22, 1944, Reel 95-1060, ALA.

90 Constitution of the American Legion, Article IV, Section 2. This point generated some controversy, as

some Posts argued that they had complete autonomy to decide who could join their ranks. See for instance
Lewis Van Wesel to Frank E. Samuel, April 20, 1943; Frank E. Samuel to Lewis Van Wesel, August 13, 1943;
O.P. Stites to National Adjutant, May 27, 1943; Frank E. Samuel to O. P. Stites, May 28, 1943; Harry E.
Fitch to Ralph B. Gregg, July 2, 1943; Ralph B. Gregg to Harry E. Fitch, July 9, 1943; Harry E. Fitch to Ralph
B. Gregg, July 17, 1943; Al. C. Stevens to Chuck Wilson, February 9, 1944, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
50
September 1943, and personally advocated revising the group’s charter to offer active-duty service

members full membership.91 Yet his request was blocked by the Committee on Constitution and

By-Laws, for reasons which spoke volumes about the continuing concern of some Legion leaders

for the preservation of their group’s cultural and social identity. Such a major change, they argued,

“should not be prompted merely by the fact that other service organizations have followed a

similar practice,” especially since they considered their group superior to its competitors. The

Legion was and should remain “a civilian organization,” they argued, and “the men and women

of the present war should be taken into [it] at a time when they can be initiated into the local Posts

of their home towns, with the proper ritualistic services that will impress upon them the great

work of the Legion and give them an incentive to be active members.”92

While all these debates were going on internally, the group made its case to the future

generation of veterans by insisting on certain specific points. First and foremost, the Legion’s

official discourse emphasized the comradeship shared by all former soldiers regardless of their

period of service. An early op-ed in the American Legion Magazine thus claimed that “Spiritually,

the veterans of the First World War and of the conflict now raging all over the globe are one, for

the aggressions that brought us into uniform in 1917-1918 and those which the United Nations are

in process of crushing utterly, stem from the same source—Germany.” Addressing World War II

veterans directly, the author emphasized that “it’s the same fight as before,” and “you’ll feel at

home with us, because you and we think alike about the freedom and democracy won by our

common sacrifices.”93 Another way to insist on this shared comradeship was to emphasize

veterans’ differences from the rest of the population. In a suggested talk for local Legion speakers,

the National Public Relations division presented the Legion as “the most exclusive organization

91 Warren H. Atherton to Department Commanders, Department Adjutants, Members of the National

Executive Committee, and Members committee on National Constitution and By-laws, July 27, 1944, Reel
95-1060, ALA.
92 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, April 30, May 1 and 2, 1944, 35. See also

Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, September 17 and 20, 1944, 21-25, ALA.
93 “The Editorial Viewpoint: Together,” ALM, January 1943.

51
in the nation…No proclamation of President, edict of king or dictator can command

admission…The Legion’s door opens for veterans only on the presentation of a bit of parchment,

worn, torn, and begrimed as it may be, which certifies to an honorable discharge…That is the all-

powerful tie which binds all legionnaires in eternal bonds of comradeship and continued service

to God and country.”94

To be sure, such ties did not bind “all legionnaires” equally. For all the talk about their

shared love for freedom and democracy, the Legion continued to tolerate the outright exclusion

of African-Americans from most of its Southern Departments, and their de facto segregation in

many states north of the Mason-Dixon line. Black Legionnaires relentlessly denounced this

hypocrisy by drawing on the same wartime discourse. Herman Caserta of New York, for instance,

pointed out that racial segregation was “contrary to the very essence of our Democracy and to the

principles for which the last war was fought and for which the present World War is being

fought.”95 In South Carolina, the President of the State Agricultural and Mechanical College

condemned the Legion’s exclusion of black veterans as “entirely un-American” and in

contradiction with the group’s stated goals. “This not tolerance,” he wrote, “it is not Americanism,

and it is not in the creed of The American Legion.”96 “We fought side by side with the white men

that makes up the Legions of this country [sic],” wrote Rev. H. C. Calloway of Alabama, “[a]nd we

feel that we are entitled to a post where we can at least meet and enjoy the comradeship of one

another.”97 The white Legion leadership noticed the growing unrest, but their initial response was

to turn a deaf ear to such complaints and to stick to their laissez-faire policy on issues of race.98

94 National Public Relations Division, “Suggested Membership Talk for American Legion Speakers before
Community Groups for World War II Enrollment Drive, 1945-1946,” Reel 95-1060, ALA.
95 Herman Caserta to National Executive Committee, November 22, 1943, Administration & Organization,

Organization, Post, ‘Class’ Posts, Black, ALA. (Black, ALA hereafter)

96 M. F. Whittaker to Edward N. Scheiberling, April 3, 1945, Black, ALA.
97 H. C. Calloway to Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 22, 1942, Black, ALA.
98 R. Q. Venson to Roane Waring, November 5, 1942, Black, ALA. The national organization formed a small

subcommittee in 1942 to study the issuance of Post charters “to certain groups of veterans”—a euphemism
for black veterans—but its final report was inconclusive. See Digest of Minutes, National Executive
Committee Meeting, May 6 and 7, 1943, 72, ALA.
52
 Aside from the talk of common ideals and values, the Legion also emphasized the more

materialistic advantages of membership. It is “the greatest bargain ever offered the veterans of

any war,” the same suggested talk went on. With “posts in almost every community and whistle

stop in the nation,” “splendid clubhouses everywhere,” leaders “from all walks of life from the

President in the White House to the village constable,” “unparalleled prestige and influence,” and

“more than $100,000,000” in physical assets,” the Legion offered the kind of power no other

veterans’ group could match. And to really drive the point home, the group also put forward its

ability to defend veterans’ interests in the nation’s capital. Freshly returned G.I’s who often felt

alienated by civilians’ inability to understand their war experiences could count upon the Legion

to stand up for them and make sure their sacrifices would not be quickly forgotten. “As the war

recedes more and more into history,” they were told, “there will be greater and greater clamor for

government economy and for lower taxes. Politicians will try to respond to that clamor as they

always do. Unless the veterans are strong in their unity, the only economy that will be sought will

be at their expense.”99 “Veterans soon become a forgotten generation unless there is somebody

who will not forget them,” a suggested radio script read. “That somebody is the American

Legion.”100

Defending Veterans’ Interests on Capitol Hill and Nationwide

The fact that the Legion portrayed itself not just as a place of shared comradeship but as a

vehicle for the advocacy of veterans’ benefits was hardly surprising, given its long and

distinguished (its opponents would say notorious) record in this field. From liberalized pensions

on the eve of Pearl Harbor, the group’s lobbyists quickly shifted their focus to pushing for new

99 Ibid.
100 National Publicity Division, “New Blood for the Legion: Suggested Radio Script for Local Post Production
(Timed for 15 Mins.),” March 1945, Reel 95-1059, ALA.
53
benefits for the future veterans of the ongoing war. In doing so, they remained faithful to the

Legion’s longstanding ideal of martial citizenship, which held that veterans should be treated

separately from other citizens. As the official wartime legislative program of the group declared,

“it is the policy of the Legion that veterans’ affairs must be under the sole jurisdiction of the VA.”101

The first real test of this philosophy came as early as December 1941 when, under the

impulse of the President, his administration began to design plans for a new and wide-ranging

vocational rehabilitation program. Seeking to meet the dire need for manpower created by the

ever-expanding war effort, FSA Director Paul McNutt pushed for a bill that would place job

training for both disabled soldiers and civilians under his agency’s authority. He and FDR, as well

as other progressives such as La Follette of Wisconsin who introduced the bill in the Senate, saw

the war emergency as a unique opportunity to lay the groundwork for a major expansion of the

federal government’s power in the field of rehabilitation. Needless to say, the idea that civilians

and veterans should be treated under the same program was anathema for veterans’ groups like

the VFW, the Legion, and the DAV, as well as for the VA; their leaders all opposed it.102 Not only

did the Legion believe that concentrating veterans’ benefits under one separate agency (the VA)

made their administration more efficient, but more fundamentally, it considered veterans to be a

separate and superior class of citizens. The Legion’s core objection to the administration’s bill, the

Badger Legionnaire explained, was that it “would treat all disabled alike, denying the veterans

the class distinction they have always enjoyed.”103 Senator Bennett “Champ” Clark, the Legion’s

voice in the upper House, argued in hearings that “the veterans ought to have special treatment…it

is our view that since these men are treated specially when they are taken from civil life and put

into the armed services, they should be treated specially when they come out of the armed services

101Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 19-20, 1942, 37, ALA.
102 On the making of the Veterans’ Vocational Rehabilitation Act (Public Law 16), see Davis R. B. Ross,
Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans During World War II (New York: Columbia University Press,
1969), 38–50; Kathleen Frydl, The GI Bill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 79–94.
103 “Bills Affecting New War Veterans Before Congress,” The Badger Legionnaire, December 1942, p. 2,

WHS.
54
and back to civil life.”104 After the 1942 midterm elections produced a much more conservative

Congress in which the enemies of FDR’s programs had the upper hand, it was not hard for

veterans’ advocates to score their first major legislative victory of the war. Contrary to the White

House’s original plans, the Veterans’ Vocational Rehabilitation Act of March 1943 applied only to

former soldiers and was entirely under the VA’s control.

This defeat indicated to the President that the momentum was no longer his. A shrewd

politician, Roosevelt realized that the option of a benefit package exclusively for veterans was

more popular than a general program. Still, he hoped that federal financing for G.I.’s readjustment

could be an “entering wedge” that would allow the federal government to establish a beachhead

in fields like education, from which it could then hope to expand in the future beyond just

veterans. Once the tide of war seemed to have turned decisively in the Allies’ favor after the

victories in North Africa, Guadalcanal, and Stalingrad in the first half of 1943, FDR publicly

announced his plans for the postwar period in a fireside chat on July 28 of that year. He used the

radio broadcast to ask Congress to enact laws that would provide mustering-out pay, educational

assistance, and unemployment insurance for veterans. He provided more details in two official

messages a few months later. After having given the movement for readjustment benefits his

blessing, however, he turned his attention back to the management of the war and left the fate of

specific proposals entirely in the hands of Congress.105

The Legion wasted no time to step into this leadership vacuum. Recently elected to the

head of the group, Warren Atherton immediately went to Washington, D.C., to meet with his

Legislative Director Francis Sullivan for a briefing. Informed of the dire situation facing many

disabled World War II veterans, he sent telegraphs to Legion Departments asking them for

information on the problem in their state. The results of this canvass, which he disclosed to the

104 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance, Veterans’ Legislation, Hearing, February 25, March 1,
1943 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1943), 17.
105 Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2009), chap. 2; Ross, Preparing for Ulysses, 50–66.

55
press to great fanfare in early December, showed that the claims for compensation of 1,537

veterans in thirty-four states had been delayed by red tape for months, while their authors were

forced to survive on charity.106 The same arguments were repeated by Legionnaires at the local

and state levels.107 It was not the first time that this problem was singled out, but the mobilization

of its full membership allowed the Legion to draw more attention to it than ever before. 108 The

support of the conservative press chain of William Randolph Hearst, a rabid anti-New Dealer,

also proved decisive.109 Using the time-tested strategy of creating vocal outrage over the

mistreatment of disabled veterans, Atherton called the situation a “national disgrace.” The cost of

rehabilitating disabled vets, he claimed, was “just as much a part of the cost of waging war as is

building of battleships, planes, or tanks, and that is a Federal responsibility.” He used his message

to call, among other things, for the immediate passage of a mustering-out pay bill.110

Already evoked by Roosevelt, the idea of a one-time, lump-sum payment to all soldiers

upon discharge had a broad popular and bipartisan appeal. A Gallup poll found almost 90 percent

of respondents in favor of the concept. For lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, it was a way to

forestall the mounting calls for an expensive World War II “Bonus” of the same kind that had

stirred controversy for so long after World War I.111 Yet while everyone agreed on the principle,

the details were more controversial. The Legion was behind a bill that would provide for a

maximum of $500 depending on the length of service.112 While this version passed the Senate a

106 For the text of his statement, see U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Military Affairs, Mustering-Out
Payments, Hearing, December 1, 1943 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office,
1943), 18–21. For evidence that Atherton might have exaggerated the extent of the crisis, see Frydl, The GI
Bill, 104–5.
107 Deborah Lane, “Disabled Vets’ Claims Stalled: Discharged Nassau Heroes Kept Waiting for Funds,”

Newsday, Nassau Ed., December 9, 1943; “Speed Demanded in Aid to Veterans: State Groups Condemn
Delay In Adjudicating Disabled Men’s Claims,” The Sun, December 7, 1943.
108 Ross, Preparing for Ulysses, 79.
109 Ibid., 80–82.
110 “Legion Head Hits Slow Action Pit Wounded Veterans’ Claims,” The Washington Post, December 3,

1943; “Service Claims Delay Stirs Action,” The Christian Science Monitor, December 13, 1943.
111 Ross, Preparing for Ulysses, 82–88.
112 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on World War Veterans Legislation, World War Veterans’ Legislation,

Hearing, January 11-13, 17-18, February 24, March 9-10, 27-31, 1944 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1944), 23.
56
couple of weeks after Atherton’s dramatic intervention, the House proved more reluctant.

Kentucky Democrat Andrew Jackson May, chairman of the Military Affairs committee, prevented

the bill from being rushed through before Christmas; when the new session of Congress started

in January 1944, he reported out a bill that was closer to the administration’s more modest

proposal of $300. After further negotiating, both Houses agreed on a version that kept this

maximum amount but varied on both length and location of service: it gave $100 to individuals

who served less than 60 days, $200 to those who served over 60 days but within the U.S., and

$300 to those who served overseas. Distinctions between veterans on the basis of where they

served made no sense to the Legion, which argued that former soldiers had no say on where the

military decided to send them. A day before its passage, the Legion sent a telegram to every

member of the House and Senate opposing the bill as “inequitable…true muster-out recognizes

no difference between foreign and domestic service”—but this last-ditch attempt was to no avail.113

In what amounted to a victory for FDR and a setback for the Legion, the President signed the bill

into law in early February 1944.114

However consequential the debates on vocational rehabilitation and mustering-out pay

had been, they were only appetizers for the much more crucial and acrimonious one that began in

earnest in January 1944. When Atherton had met Sullivan in D.C. after his election as National

Commander, the veteran lobbyist had informed him that a flurry of bills to provide World War II

veterans with the benefits outlined by Roosevelt in his fireside chat had already been introduced

in Congress, and that they often fell under the responsibility of separate committees. While this

situation clearly showed widespread interest among lawmakers, it also made it significantly

113 National Legislative Committee, Legislative Bulletin, no. 4 (February 9, 1944), Box 4, Folder 9, Stephen
Fowler Chadwick Papers, Accession No. 0014-001, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle.
(SFCP hereafter)
114 David Ross has described the passage of the Mustering-Out Payment Act as a victory for the Legion,

arguing that the group “could claim that its disclosures brought about [the bill]” while it could still “deny,
if necessary, responsibility for the precise form of the act” and instead blame Congress for its avarice. See
Ross, Preparing for Ulysses, 87. Though it is true that the Legion could easily portray this defeat as a
victory, it remains that the group’s initial plans for a more generous program had been defeated.
57
harder for the Legion to ensure the success of its program, as it would need to meet the varying

and possibly conflicting demands of several different committee chairmen and members. As a

result, Atherton approved the strategy suggested by his predecessor John Stelle of Illinois that “all

legislation concerning or affecting veterans should be considered by a single committee of the

House…and…of the U.S. Senate,” and appointed him, just a few days before disclosing the results

of his survey of disabled veterans, as chairman of a small team in charge of drafting a plan for an

omnibus readjustment bill.115 Combining different legislative provisions into one giant bill, of

course, was an old and notorious legislative tactic meant to render opposition much harder. Just

a few months earlier, the Legion had used it to pass legislation providing various changes in

veterans’ disability and death benefits, among other things.116 After Stelle’s committee moved to

D.C. in December, it started meeting with representatives from a number of groups, such as the

VA, the military, Congress, business, labor, agriculture, and education, in order to draft its own

program.117

The bill that this committee made public in early January 1944, presented as “a bill of

rights for G. I. Joe and G. I. Jane” tapped into two major trends.118 On the one hand, it was born

out of the desire to avoid a repetition of the dreadful aftermath of the Great War, marked by a

depression and major political unrest, and to allow veterans to readjust more seamlessly to

civilian society. On the other hand, the bill was the product of widespread feelings that the country

for which G.I.’s had fought had a moral obligation to ensure that their sacrifices would be honored

and to facilitate their reinsertion. This was the first bill in U.S history not only to provide a truly

extensive program of benefits for disabled and able-bodied veterans alike, but to go beyond

115 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 18-19, 1943, 39, ALA;
Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago, 1944), 17.
116 Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the American Legion, 14. The law in question was PL

78-144, signed on July 13, 1944.

117 Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion, 372-3.

“Legion Bill Asks Wide Veteran Aid: Seeks Demobilization Pay Up to $500, College Money and
118

Doubled Idleness Cash,” New York Times, January 9, 1944.

58
rewarding them for their service—as had more traditional benefits such as land grants or civil

service preference—by actively helping them return to civilian life. Its different titles included

additional funds for veterans’ hospitals, educational benefits for college, vocational school or on-

the-job training, a program of guaranteed home, business, and farm loans, employment services,

and an unemployment allowance of up to a year. Mustering-out pay was initially included in the

bill, but later taken out and passed by Congress separately. By echoing the language of rights so

often employed by FDR himself (he gave his landmark “Second Bill of Rights” speech just two

days after the Legion’s plan was made public), the bill’s iconic name, later shortened to the “G.I.

Bill of Rights” proved a stroke of political genius.119 It not only clearly marked its benefits as earned

advantages instead of “welfare,” but strongly connected them to the powerful wartime symbol of

the citizen-soldier. By taking advantage of the enormous wave of patriotic support for G.I’s, the

Legion managed to avoid the severe stigma still attached to older forms of veterans’ benefits such

as pensions, even though this new bill was premised on the same principle that veterans should

receive privileged treatment distinct from that offered to civilians. Repeated attempts by

progressives to extend the bill’s provisions to nonveterans, or to place its administration in

another agency than the VA, were all defeated by the Legion and its allies.120 Credited with drafting

the original version of the Legion’s bill, Harry Colmery of Kansas made it clear that the rationale

behind vesting all authority in this agency (as opposed to one more tightly controlled by New

Dealers such as the FSA) was partly to defeat any attempt by Roosevelt to use the benefits the law

would provide as so many “entering wedges” in fields like education, where the federal

government had traditionally been absent.121 Colmery knew that his rationale had popular

119 On the origins of the bill’s name, see Karen Hofer Luecke, “‘What Shall Be Done When Victory Is Won?’
The Cultural Foundations and Implications of the 1944 G.I. Bill of Rights” (Master of Education, George
Mason University, 2005), 177–81.
120 Frydl, The GI Bill, chap. 2.
121 Harry W. Colmery to Morgan Barnes, April 13, 1944, Box 61, Folder 223G, Harry Colmery Papers, KSHS.

59
support, for wartime polls showed that over 80 percent of Americans approved of the main

features of the G.I. Bill—educational benefits, loans, and unemployment compensation.122

As the bill was making its way through Congress, the Legion launched a massive publicity

campaign in its support. A mimeographed copy of the bill was sent to every daily newspaper in

the country, for instance, leading to the publication of more than 600 favorable editorials. Every

local Post received its own copy as well, along with instructions about what to do to gather

community support—suggested telegrams, letters, postal cards, radio interviews (some of which

featuring wounded servicemen), short movie trailers, and so on. Uniformed Legionnaires were

often present in the lobby of local movie theatres where the trailers were screened, with blank

cards ready to be signed by patrons and mailed to the Member of Congress from that district. On

March 15, two days after the bill reached the floor of the House, the Legion conducted a national

“Sign-Up” day during which it gathered more than 2 million signatures. On top of this, the group

also continued to benefit from its partnership with the powerful right-wing Hearst press, whose

newspapers further mobilized public opinion. In all this maelstrom of publicity, soldiers were not

neglected: not only did all Posts receive a special brochure with questions and answers about the

Bill, which they were expected to forward to those in service from their respective communities,

but the Legion provided full coverage of the Bill’s progress in Congress through its clip sheet

service supplied to more than 1,100 Army and Navy publications.123

122 For evidence of support for education benefits and unemployment compensation, see Cantril, Public
Opinion, 1935-1946, 1001. For evidence of support for government loans to veterans, see Office of Public
Opinion Research, Office of Public Opinion Research Roosevelt Survey, June 1943, “In Canada, the
government has provided that any solider who wants to can borrow money at a very low interest from the
government to buy a house, or a farm, or a business. Would you approve or disapprove of a law of this kind
in the United States?” USOPOR.43-012.Q09. Office of Public Opinion Research. Cornell University, Ithaca,
NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL, accessed Mar-9-2017.
123 Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion, 196-199.

60
 The Legion’s Legislative Director Frank Sullivan ca. 1944, surrounded by petitions endorsing the G.I.
Bill. Source: American Legion Magazine, October 1949, p. 18.

The consequences of this campaign can hardly be overstated. In the minds of most

Americans, what had for years been a confusing legislative back-and-forth between members of

the administration, veterans’ organizations, and Congress to try to pass some kind of veterans’

legislation suddenly became a clearly-identifiable effort by the American Legion to pass the “G.I.

Bill of Rights.” The disrepute into which other kinds of veterans’ legislation had fallen all but

disappeared. FDR’s role in initiating Congressional action in mid-1943, along with the support,

however reluctant and belated, of other groups such as the VFW were relegated to oblivion as the

Legion used its publicity campaign to claim single ownership of the Bill for itself. This claim was

largely accepted by the public: the letters sent to Congress during the first half of 1944 frequently

called the plan “the American Legion Bill of Rights,” or more simply “the Legion’s bill.” Soldiers

were no exception, as illustrated by a V-Mail sent to Mississippi Democrat and Chairman of the
61
House Committee on World War Veterans’ Legislation John E. Rankin by Private Frank Johnson

“to let you know that I and a large number of my associated request and firmly support

educational subsidies (as for instance, advanced by the Legion proposals) now being considered

of post-war servicemen.”124

The American Legion’s federalist structure proved ideally suited to the job of channeling

grassroots energy from across the country and turning it into timely pressure to break legislative

logjams on Capitol Hill. As Posts and Departments carried out the publicity campaign at the local

and state levels, the members of Stelle’s special committee worked around the clock in

Washington, D.C., visiting congressional offices, fighting for votes, and keeping a day-by-day tally

of the situation in the House and Senate on a large wall chart. When the chart indicated that a

given lawmaker was hesitant, at the end of the day “telegrams would go out to Legion officials in

the States, or districts, in which the doubtful votes were found,” urging “the local Legion forces to

direct a flood of public opinion against the hesitant legislator.”125 Illustrating the same

coordination between national lobbyists and rank-and-file pressure—as well as the group’s flair

for the dramatic—the more than 2 million signatures collected by the Legion during “Sign-up” day

were presented to Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn on the steps of the Capitol by Atherton,

with many Representatives from both major parties as well a “battery of photographers”

present.126 To be sure, combining a “barrage” of letters with publicity stunts was not an innovative

strategy: the group’s chief lobbyist John Thomas Taylor had used it to great effect throughout the

interwar period.127 And just like it had then, this approach also caused some resentful political

opponents to charge the Legion with being a “powerful lobby.” The key difference, however, was

124 Quoted in Luecke, “What Shall Be Done When Victory Is Won,” 182-183, 187.
125 R. B. Pitkin, “How The First G.I. Bill Was Written,” n.d. (ca. 1969), Box 66, KSHS.
126 “Petition for ‘G. I.’ Measure Bears 1,000,000 Names,” The Christian Science Monitor, May 11, 1944;

Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago, 1944), 199. The Monitor’s
estimate of the size of the petition was only half of what the Legion claimed.
127 Pencak, For God & Country, 119–20.

62
that the Legion and its allies were now able to parry such attacks by responding that their “energy”

was merely “displayed in behalf of the men and women serving our country in this war.”128

Nowhere was the potential of this energy better illustrated than in the group’s last-ditch

effort to secure passage of the bill. In late May 1944, after having passed the Senate and then the

House, the G.I. Bill was finally being debated in the conference committee in charge of reconciling

both chambers’ versions before it could be sent to the President for his signature. There, however,

Rankin’s intransigence threatened to doom everything the Legion had fought for. With John S.

Gibson of the Eighth Georgia District absent for sickness, Rankin’s objections caused a

deadlock.129 In the late afternoon on June 9, 1944, Bernard Kearney of New York walked out of

the conference room and told Stelle’s team that they had to bring back Gibson back to D.C. by 10

a.m. the next morning to cast his vote, or Rankin’s opposition would kill any chance of enacting

the bill in this session of Congress. The Legion’s formidable organization immediately went into

high gear to find the missing Representative. Due to wartime restrictions, calls to southern

Georgia were delayed by five hours, but the night city editor of the Atlanta Constitution used his

paper’s telephone priority to get the Legion’s calls through. Radio stations in Valdosta and

Atlanta, as well as the Georgia State police and the Jacksonville (FL) Times-Union, were enlisted

to help locate Gibson. A phone call to Assistant Secretary of War Robert Patterson obtained a high

plane priority, while the Hearst press chain used its influence to convince Eastern Air Lines to

hold its 2:20 a.m. flight from Jacksonville to D.C. After Gibson was found around 11 p.m. in a town

155 miles away from Jacksonville, he was driven by the Georgia Legion Commander to the

Waycross Army air base, where he switched to a fast car with two chauffeurs. Cruising at 90 miles

an hour into the night, the car managed to get Gibson in time to Jacksonville for his flight. After

128 Rep. Fred Busbey (R-Ill.) used this line to defend the Legion against criticism from educational groups
on the floor of the House, see Congressional Record 90, no. 4 (May 15, 1944): H4504.
129 For accounts of the legislative debates around the passage of the G.I. Bill, see Ross, Preparing for

Ulysses, chap. 4; Frydl, The GI Bill, chap. 2; Altschuler and Blumin, The GI Bill, chap. 3; Michael J. Bennett,
When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America (Washington, DC.: Brassey’s,
1996), chaps. 4–6.
63
being greeted by Stelle’s entire committee when he landed at Washington’s National Airport,

Gibson delivered his crucial vote on the morning of June 10 to break the stalemate. Without the

deep connections that the Legion had built over the years at all levels of government and civil

society as well as the group’s remarkable ability to mobilize them on such short notice (what Stelle

appropriately called “real teamwork”), the G.I. Bill would have floundered in its final stretch.130

The fingerprints of the American Legion could be found everywhere on the document that

Roosevelt signed into law on June 22, 1944. It was the Legion that was responsible for creating

the momentum behind its passage, even though FDR’s blessing in his July 1943 fireside chat had

also been crucial. Though the actual content of the bill was directly inspired from various state

laws passed during the interwar period, it was the Legion that brought together all these piecemeal

initiatives into an omnibus plan.131 It was also the Legion that came up with the bill’s catchy

nickname, which proved so politically powerful. It was the Legion’s time-tested lobbying

juggernaut that carried the bill through Congress and over many successive hurdles, including the

very last one. Symbolically, it was a Legionnaire—Sam Rorex, U.S. District Attorney for

Arkansas—who delivered the final, physical copy of the bill from the Senate to the White House.

Five top Legion officials, including Stelle himself, were present in the Oval Office when Roosevelt

appended his signature to what was known officially as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act.132

Though nominally color- and gender-blind, the Act was in fact profoundly discriminatory.

Funding for its benefits was to come from the federal government, but their administration was

to be shared—in a manner typical of much of New Deal legislation—between the VA, individual

states, and private institutions. As a result, the law never directly challenged local racist practices.

For instance, veterans had to get the approval of a bank before the VA could guarantee part of the

loan. As most southern banks routinely refused to lend to African-Americans, the overwhelming

130 Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion, 375.
131 Frydl, The GI Bill, 114.
132 Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion, 326.

64
majority of black veterans who lived in this region were therefore largely unable to take advantage

of the provision. The same logic applied to educational benefits: most white schools in the South

refused to enroll blacks, forcing them to flock to overcrowded and underfunded all-black

institutions.133 Far from a coincidence, this discrimination was exactly what the authors of the bill

had intended. With racist Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans dominating

Congress during the war, a bill guaranteeing black veterans equal access to their benefits would

have been dead on arrival. Rankin fully understood that granting African-American veterans

generous advantages would have posed a threat to the system of racial segregation in his home

region, for it relied on the economic marginalization of non-whites.134 In this process, the Legion

was a willing accomplice. When faced with Rankin’s attempts to torpedo the G.I. Bill out of fear

that it would undermine white supremacy, Atherton did not defend black veterans’ rights to equal

benefits but instead argued that Rankin underestimated the degree to which “states rights” were

embedded into the law. “[C]ontrol of many of the features of the bill,” he assured, “will still rest

with the individual states.”135

Women veterans were also not treated on an equal basis—as was evident from the fact that

the initial mention of “G.I. Jane” in the law’s title was eventually dropped, making it clear that the

bill was intended to serve male veterans first and foremost. This discrimination took two forms,

one internal and the other external. Since the general expectation for women who had served in

the military during the war was that they would return home, find a husband, and become

housewives and mothers, the law not only assumed that recipients would be mostly men but

sought to discourage the possibility of men depending on their wives for a living. As a result, a

married woman veteran who wanted to use the G.I. Bill’s educational benefits could not claim her

133 David H. Onkst, “‘First a Negro... Incidentally a Veteran’: Black World War Two Veterans and the G. I.
Bill of Rights in the Deep South, 1944-1948,” Journal of Social History 31, no. 3 (April 1998): 517–43.
134 Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in

Twentieth-Century America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005), chap. 5.

135 Quoted in Frydl, The GI Bill, 137.

65
husband as a dependent and thus receive an additional allowance for him. Likewise, the widower

of a veteran was not eligible for a G.I. Bill loan, whereas a widow was. But perhaps more

importantly, neither the Legion nor the VA actively reached out to women veterans to inform

them of their rights under this law and encourage them to apply, as they did for men. The wartime

emphasis on the figure of the (male) citizen-soldier only reinforced the dominant notion that

women’s contributions to the war were inferior to men’s, and that their benefits would therefore

naturally be unequal. Most women accepted this idea: a survey conducted decades later revealed

that almost 60 percent of former female soldiers of World War II did not even know that they

were eligible for G.I. Bill benefits.136

From Legionnaires’ standpoint, the signature of the bill represented a major victory that

they could use to attract new members. Unbeknownst to them, the same future veterans they were

trying to court were already engaged in a debate of their own.

World War II Soldiers and the American Legion

Despite all the efforts expended by the Legion to try to convince servicemen and women

to join after the war, it is hard to escape the sense that this propaganda had little effect. For most

soldiers, “getting the job done” so that they would be able to go home was by far the most pressing,

if not the only concern. Few, even until the final years of the war, devoted much thinking to what

they would do after the fighting would be over, and when they did, the issue of which veterans’

organization they would join typically ranked quite low on their list of priorities, far behind

finding a job or getting married. As famous war cartoonist Bill Mauldin later wrote in an Atlantic

136On gender discrimination and World War II veterans’ benefits, see June A. Willenz, “Invisible Veterans,”
The Educational Record 75, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 40; Mary V. Stremlow, “Women as Veterans: Historical
Perspective and Expectations,” in A Woman’s War Too: U.S. Women in the Military in World War II, ed.
Paula Nassen Poulos (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1996), 355–66;
Altschuler and Blumin, The GI Bill, 118–29.
66
Monthly article, during the war the soldiers’ attitude towards veterans’ groups “ran pretty well to

one feeling: it’s better to be a Mister than a Veteran. A few thought it would be nice to have a social

club to keep war-made friendships alive; a handful thought the vet should organize for political

reasons. But most guys…didn’t want anything in the way of clubs, uniforms, parades, or

conventions—anything that would remind them of what they had been through.”137 Past Legion

National Commander Hanford MacNider, who had served in the Great War and then re-enlisted

in World War II as an officer, concurred. “When word seeped through to us that the Legion would

open its membership to those who were serving in World War II,” he wrote in response to

Mauldin, “it evoked no great enthusiasm among us. […] When a newly elected National

Commander visited our theater some months later, he was astonished that any of us should be

lukewarm over the proposed expansion.”138 In September 1944, Legion officials themselves

reported that “it is quite apparent that there is no great demand on the part of those now in the

service for membership in the Legion.”139 African-American soldiers were perhaps even less

interested than whites: as one of them wrote, it was hard not to notice the “conspicuous absence

of anything concerning the negro soldier and his activity” in the Legion publications that they

were receiving.140

This general lack of interest did not mean that soldiers had no opinion on the question, far

from it. Though no general survey appears to have been taken on this issue in particular, the letters

sent by service members to Army newspapers such as Army Times, Stars and Stripes, and Yank:

The Army Weekly conveyed a general picture of their feelings on the topic. When questioned, they

typically expressed a predilection to form their own group after the war, though mostly in

understandably vague terms. “We believe there should be an organization among the service men

137 Bill Mauldin, “Poppa Knows Best,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1947, 29-36.
138 Hanford MacNider, “The GI and the Legion,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1947.
139 Digests of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, September 17 and 20, 1944, 24, ALA.
140 Felton L. Thomas to Warren H. Atherton, November 9, 1944, Administration & Organization,

Membership, Black Veterans, ALA.

67
and women of this war, formed on a fraternal, non-partisan basis, for the purpose of continuing

after the War the fellowship we have formed during it,” wrote Technician Thomas J. Evoy and

Private John L. Fraser to the Army Times editor as late as November 1944, “Could you help us

with a little information, and some expression of popular opinion on the subject.” 141 The debate

about the contours of this organization ranged beyond the binary options of either joining the

established groups or creating a new one. Reflecting the widespread resentment of military

regulations and hierarchy among enlisted soldiers, some wanted to exclude officers from the new

group entirely.142 Others had global ambitions, and sought to create “a post-war organization

made up of veterans of all the United Nations for the fostering of international fellowship and

legislation for keeping the peace.”143 A few, finally, were against the very idea of a veterans’

organization and instead hoped “to go home, without bonus or adulation, and become, not a VFW,

Legionnaire or what have you, but an American citizen vowed to oppose special privileges and

support the tenet of equality for all Americans.”144

A majority of soldiers, however, did plan on joining some form of veteran’s group after the

war. In a survey of more than 3,700 soldiers in the European theatre of operations in April 1945,

the Army Research Branch found that 55 per cent said they would definitely join them, and that

only 3 per cent thought they were a bad idea.145 In general, most soldiers seemed to agree with the

feelings expressed by Technician Leroy J. Petrillo of Chicago that “we ought to have a vets’

organization of our own. We are young and we will make the future. The Legion and VFW just

don’t have our ideas.”146 According to Yank writer Charles Bolté, when the magazine asked its

141 T/5 Thomas J. Evoy and Pfc. John L. Fraser to editor, Army Times, November 11, 1944, 4.
142 Pfc. William R. Loeffler to the editor, Army Times, February 24, 1945.
143 Pvt. J.C.L. Bryant, Inf., “Peace Front,” S&S, January 8, 1945, 2. See also “International Good Will,” Yank:

The Army Weekly, November 23, 1945, 18.

144 T/5 Lou Hirsch, SHAEF, “On Various Gripes,” S&S, April 11, 1945, 5; Cpl. H. Rosenberg, Reinf. Depot,

“As Citizens,” S&S, April 18, 1945, 5.

145 Samuel A. Stouffer et al., The American Soldier: Combat and its Aftermath, vol. 2, Studies in Social

Psychology in World War II (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1949), 622-623.
146 “$64 Question, By Tomorrow’s Inquiring Reporter,” S&S, January 24, 1945, 3

68
readers for their thoughts on the topic in early 1945, the mail they received was “two to one in

favor of a new organization” (though they had to publish the same number of letters on each side,

due to War Department regulations on impartiality).147 Serving as a public relations officer during

the war, the Legion’s John Thomas Taylor agreed with this statement. In a private letter, he wrote

that his daily interactions with service members had convinced him that “they are going to get a

show of their own started as soon as they can. I live, eat, drink and sleep with them. I know what

they think and talk about.”148

There were several reasons behind G.I.’s predilection for creating their own group. In a

few cases, it may have stemmed from a gut feeling that the failures of the previous generation

were somehow responsible for World War II—or as an article in Stars and Stripes put it, that “the

older group may not have done so well on their plans, or we might not be in this war.”149 More

often, it came from a sense that the Legion represented a more conservative generation. “We will

not be led like sheep into the fold of the Legion with its ideas of a quarter-century ago,” wrote

Private Robert Shaw, “We will not be dazzled by brilliant uniforms on dull minds. We are not

looking back, but forward. We are fighting for a better world—our world—and we will not be led,

we will lead.”150 At least among those G.I.’s of more liberal inclinations, the Legion’s pre-war

reputation as a right-wing and sometimes reactionary group was clearly a problem. It was only

exacerbated by the infamous decision of a Post in Hood River, Oregon, to remove from its town’s

honor roll the names of sixteen Nisei soldiers in November 1944. The event sparked immediate

outrage not only at home but among soldiers serving overseas, dealing a severe blow to the

Legion’s image in the eyes of those men and women it was trying to recruit.151 It was precisely

147 Charles G. Bolté, The New Veteran (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945), 79.
148 John Thomas Taylor to Stephen Chadwick, February 26, 1944, Box 17, Folder 2, SFCP.
149 “Vet’s Problem: Which Group Best,” S&S, January 24, 1945, 6.
150 Pvt. Robert E. Shaw, Ord., “Four Freedoms,” S&S, January 10, 1945, 5.
151 On the Hood River Legion Post No. 22 and anti-Japanese sentiment, see Linda Tamura, Nisei Soldiers

Break Their Silence: Coming Home to Hood River (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012), esp.
chap. 10.
69
because they thought that the Legion was too conservative and not democratic enough that some

of the more liberal World War II veterans, led by Gilbert Harrison and Charles Bolté, created the

American Veterans Committee in 1943 as a progressive alternative for their generation.152

But above all, the preference of most G.I.’s for creating their own group originated in a

widespread feeling that the current war was fundamentally different, and so would the generation

shaped by it. “The problems, attitudes, ideas and needs of World War II soldiers are different from

those of World War I veterans,” wrote a staff sergeant stationed in the Dutch East Indies, “We

fight a global war. They fought only in France. We have many times their numbers. We have been

longer overseas under conditions which they never faced.”153 These differences, it was feared,

would create tensions if the two generations joined the same organization. “Would we not be the

junior members of the American Legion or VFW?” asked Sergeant Don E. Williams. “Would it be

possible for us to bring forth our true thoughts and efforts when the executive positions of our

organizations would be held by men of another generation?...Would they as the officers of our

organization work as diligently for soldier benefits for us as they did for themselves?”154

Interestingly, this argument—that the inter-generational gap was too wide to be bridged—was the

same that some Legionnaires had used to argue against opening their group to the new generation

back in 1942. It was this rationale that led to the creation of the American Veterans of World War

II (AMVETS), a more centrist group than AVC, in December 1944.155

Yet not all soldiers were against joining existing veterans’ organizations. What is perhaps

most striking about G.I.’s letters, in fact, is that even those who argued in favor of joining the

Legion or the VFW did so not because they believed in shared comradeship and ideals, but because

they understood that this would be the easiest way to secure the influence they would need to

152 Bolté, The New Veteran, chaps. 5–7.

153 S/Sgt. Gabe Sanders, Netherlands East Indies, “A Different War,” Yank: The Army Weekly, February 2,
1945.
154 Sgt. Don E. Williams, “Views to Air,” S&S, February 21, 1945, 5.
155 “New Veterans Organize: Nine Groups of Discharged Men of This War Merge,” New York Times, 1944.

70
defend their own interests as World War II veterans in the future. The need for the new generation

to remain united after the war, for instance, was a common theme. As Private Bill Fromer asked,

“Instead of every World War II vet and his pal initiating a postwar vet outfit why not join an

established organization like the American Legion? In this manner World War II vets could solve

the problem of quick and efficient unification…A multitude of vet organizations, each trying to

gain or initiate their own objectives, will only tend to defeat our common goal or happiness and

prosperity.”156 Or, as a Staff sergeant who had met Legionnaires in service put it, “I know we want

to be independent and run our own organization, but why not benefit by the greatest teacher,

experience, and use the resources and facilities of the American Legion?”157 The letter of a pro-

VFW sailor reflected the same emphasis on direct benefits, when he wrote plainly that “The VFW

has been lobbying in Congress for the GIs of this war. It has helped such bills as the GI Bill of

Rights and many others. Men are being trained by VFW posts to help GIs when they are

discharged. If you want a farm loan or plan to go to school, this VFW counselor will help cut red

tape and put you on the right track.”158 It should not come as a surprise that the men and women

who had been raised in the privations of the Great Depression and had gone through the sacrifices

of a total war were thinking primarily about bread-and-butter issues and the defense of their own

interests. As the same April 1945 Research Branch survey mentioned earlier also found out, when

it came to postwar life “the soldier was mainly thinking about himself and his family, not about

his country or the world” and saw veterans’ groups as vehicles to advance not the reformation of

society but rather “the protection of veterans’ rights and provision of personal help.”159

Some Legionnaires seemed to have gotten wind of the fact that the new cohort would not

be easily relegated to a secondary role. In a private letter to the group’s leadership in March 1943,

Past National Commander Milo J. Warner suggested segregating the Legion by generation, with

156 Pfc. Bill Fromer, 29 M.R.U., “Legion Gets a Plug,” S&S, July 20, 1945, 2
157 S/Sgt. T.J. O’Connell, Luxembourg, “Change of Mind,” Yank: The Army Weekly, February 2, 1945.
158 Daniel J. Scarry, “Don’t Split Up,” Yank: The Army Weekly, February 2, 1945.
159 Stouffer, The American Soldier: Combat and its Aftermath, 597, 622-623.

71
a “World War I Section and a World War II Section,” both “under one big tent and the big show,

the American Legion,” but each with its own administration and Posts. This would signal to World

War II veterans, he argued, that they could access leadership positions more quickly, thereby

encouraging them to join. “Unless we make it clear to them in some way that they can set up their

own Posts, if they desire,” he feared that “they may be inclined to go into an organization of their

own and entirely by-pass us with the exception of only a very few.”160 “We are too old to attract

these younger men and women socially”, one Legionnaire agreed in December 1944, “and the

sooner we realize it the sooner we will get at a solution of the problem.” 161 Yet these plans for a

“two-in-one organization” were consistently turned down, and not only for the same reasons that

had led to the dismissal of membership pledges. “It seems to me the idea is like asking a man to

come to your home but asking that he eat at a second or separate table,” one high-level Legion

Committeeman wrote. The new generation would not allow it, he felt, for “these men who are

coming back will not be the boys that left their homes. They will be men in every sense of the word

and they are not to be fooled. Either we want them and they want us or the opposite is true.”162

Until the end of the war and well into the postwar period, the directives from the Legion’s national

leadership to local posts would remain the same. World War II veterans were not only to have the

same status as their elders, but to be integrated as quickly as possible into the framework of the

group. “It is extremely important,” one typical memorandum from the national headquarters

read, “that all World War II veterans…be given a job to do in the Post programs. These new

Legionnaires must be made to feel that this is their organization.”163

160 Milo J. Warner to J.E. Isherwood, March 31, 1943; Milo J. Warner to Frank E. Samuel, April 20, 1943,
Reel 95-1060, ALA.
161 Pfc. James O. Cade to Jack Cann, December 19, 1944, Reel 95-1060, ALA.
162 Milt D. Campbell to Mr. Samuel, April 3, 1943; Frank E. Samuel to Milo J. Warner, April 16, 1943, Reel

95-1060, ALA.
163 National Headquarters of the American Legion, “Suggestions for Welcome Home Parties for Members

of the Armed Forces,” May 21, 1945, Reel 95-1059, ALA.

72
 Once again, there were caveats to this broad statement. While the idea of segregating

veterans by generation was rejected out of hand, the national leadership continued to support

their segregation by race. This was made clear in a remarkably candid memorandum on “Negro

Membership after World War II,” typed by the Legion’s chief administrative officer, Donald

Glascoff, a few months before the end of the war. In it, he stressed that the policy of most Southern

Departments not to accept black veterans as members was becoming increasingly untenable and

even counter-productive. “Great pressure will come the way of both the National Organization

and the Departments after this war,” he wrote, “for wider acceptance of colored Posts.” This

pressure, he argued, could come from one of two sources. Likely aware of the 1944 Supreme Court

decision Smith v. Allwright, which outlawed all-white political primaries, he considered

increasingly likely that “our hand could be forced by lawful action” if black veterans decided to

sue (as some already had, though without success, in Alabama). But he also recognized that “our

little token of 300 negro posts with a membership of 30,000 to 40,000” would never be enough

to welcome the one million African-American veterans about to come home. Either way, this

development risked giving ammunition to “the so-called progressive groups” which would be able

to “put the ‘hated’ Legion in a bad light.” Echoing the concerns voiced by Stambaugh and Colmery

about reining in the new generation’s potentially radical impulses, he also argued that black

veterans rejected by the Legion might instead “gravitate toward radical veterans’ groups formed

especially to exploit them and to use the negro veteran as a weapon in outright attack upon our

form of government and mode of democratic life.” “Unless there is strong influence among Negro

veterans exercised by the Legion and other patriotic groups,” he wrote, “Communism, Black

Dragonism,164 and other isms will flourish among this race here. We can do little about controlling

and defeating tendencies of this nature, if the negro veteran is kept outside the Legion.” In

164The Black Dragon Society was a Japanese paramilitary group that sent spies to the U.S. prior to Pearl
Harbor, reportedly to harness discontent among African-Americans and undermine the U.S. war effort. In
October 1942, over 80 African-Americans were arrested by the FBI on charges of sedition, pro-Japanese
activities, and draft-dodging. See “Takcihashi’s Blacks,” Time, October 5, 1942.
73
essence, Glascoff was making the conservative case for change: the Legion ought to accept black

members, in his view, not because they deserved equal treatment but because clinging to their

exclusion risked engulfing the group in a major scandal and facilitating the rise of radical groups.

Reflecting the continuing conservatism of the group’s leadership, his case was for segregation, not

integration.165

The same approach held true for women. Though they were never subjected to the same

outright exclusion as black veterans, they continued to be encouraged to join separate Posts when

their numbers were high enough. “[S]omehow women do not feel all together at home in the

typical [male-dominated] Legion Post,” the head of the Sons of the American Legion thought,

“and likewise this might tend to cramp the style of some of the men who are Legionnaires.”166 The

impending return of hundreds of thousands of women veterans never led Legion leaders to

question their status within the group.

The first results of the Legion’s intensive public relations campaign targeting World War

II soldiers began to be felt in the winter of 1944-1945. During this period, as more and more

veterans were coming back, local Posts were encouraged to organize lively homecoming parties,

with “one good speaker who will talk on the programs and services of The American Legion” and

“good entertainment”—“bands, orchestras, glee clubs, vaudeville acts, community singing of war

songs, etc.”167 Of the 2 million soldiers who had been discharged prior to the end of the war,

approximately 285,000 had already joined the organization by December 1944.168 This influx of

new blood represented a radical transformation for the Legion. “Day by day, all former

membership records are being shattered,” National Adjutant Donald Glascoff reported in August

165 Donald G. Glascoff, “Memo to: Edw. N. Scheiberling—Subject: Negro Membership after World War II,”
March 20, 1945, Black, ALA.
166 Joe E. Rabinovich to Wm. M. Todd, June 13, 1945, Administration & Organization, Membership,

Women, ALA.
167 Ibid.
168 Henry H. Dudley to G.H. Stordock, January 11, 1945, Reel 95-1060, ALA.

74
1945. “New Posts are being chartered rapidly…Legion Posts generally throughout the country are

buying new clubhouses, building new homes, remodeling and expanding existing quarters. Legion

full-time staffs, whether they be county council, district, department or national, are being

augmented constantly with additions of WWII veterans.”169 Thanks to this influx, the Legion hit

an all-time membership peak in 1944 with a little over 1.4 million members.170

Two World War II veterans and their ten-week old baby are sworn into the Edsel B. Ford Post #379 in
Ypsilanti, Michigan (ca. July 1945)
Source: Lisle H. Alexander to Jack Cejnar, July 27, 1945, Reel 95-1059, ALA.

Yet the integration of these new Legionnaires did not always go smoothly. As many on

both sides of the generational divide had correctly predicted, the age difference did in fact prove

169 National Adjutant Donald G. Glascoff, “Article for Forty & Eighter: New Membership Plasma Revitalizes
the Legion,” August 1945, Reel 95-1059, ALA.
170 American Legion, National Membership Record, 2012, ALA.

75
a major obstacle. “Many of our American Legion Posts,” Texas Legionnaire Alvin Owsley wrote,

“have become ‘old soldier homes’ where a lot of old worthless, bald-headed, men sit around, spit

on the floor, shoot craps, play dominoes, checkers, poker, put their nickels and dimes in the slot

machines and stay about half-drunk and blear-eyed.”171 Though he may have exaggerated, Owsley

also pointed to a real problem. In addition to the unavoidable age gap, the old core of World War

I leaders was often reluctant to let go of its control on the local level. Based on hearsay, one self-

proclaimed “Legionnaire of long standing” from Pennsylvania reported that “in many posts there

is a sharp cleavage between so called WW1 and WW2 boys […] there is a reluctance, in some cases

even abhorance [sic], to grant equality of expression, action, and participation in Post direction

to the new members. Furthermore, there is a tendency on the part of the old guard to manipulate

to exclude the new boys, while perpetuating themselves in office, meanwhile referring to the new

veterans as inept, irresponsible, radical, etc.”172 This problem was compounded by the fact that

most of the soldiers who had left the service before the end of the war tended to fall into one of

five categories: the physically or mentally disabled, those who were too illiterate to pass training,

those who had left for disciplinary reasons, those who were overage, and those who were of more

value as civilians than in uniform.173 These individuals were not always seen as equally deserving

as the ones who remained in the service. As one World War I Legionnaire wrote in November

1944, “we must handle these [World War II] fellows very carefully until the real heroes of this war

and the boys who did the real slugging return.”174 In those conditions, it was hardly a surprise that

some among the new Legionnaires refused to join established Posts and instead created their own.

171 Alvin Owsley to Paul Griffith, July 19, 1946, Box 607, Folder 10, Alvin Mansfield Owsley Collection,
University of North Texas Archives.
172 N.E. Ekers to National Adjutant, April 20, 1945, Reel 95-1059, ALA.
173 Benjamin Cushing Bowker, Out of Uniform (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1946), chap. 6.
174 Robert H. Storz to Donald G. Glascoff, November 10, 1944, Reel 95-1060, ALA.

76
 The first such “World War II Post” was the Pearl Harbor Post 187 in Richmond, formed as

early as April 1943. By July 1944 they were seven; a year later, at least twenty-two.175 This practice

created a certain amount of bitterness among many old-time Legionnaires, who were attached to

the unity of their organization and feared that World War II veterans would go astray without

their leadership. “If the veterans of this war are absorbed by other Posts as they become members

of them,” South Carolina Adjutant R. T. Fairey wrote to the national headquarters, “the old

Legionnaires will continue to be a guiding and stabilizing influence even within each Post where,

after all, the greatest amount of stabalizing [sic] must be done.” If they chose to form their own

Posts, however, “I can easily visualize a Post made up entirely of young men of this war flying off

at an unfortunate tangent to the main program and principles of our organization and thereby

becoming involved and, at the same time involving us, in trouble.”176 Recognizing that “this

question has caused considerable discussion and agitation among the present members of the

American Legion,” National Judge Advocate Ralph B. Gregg reminded them that Posts were free

to accept whoever they wanted, though he agreed that “a finer spirit of cooperation would be

developed in the Legion if the Post membership was not so restricted, as it is the purpose of our

organization to weld together the veterans of both Wars.”177 In the end, the creation of these new

and separate Posts reflected a phenomenon that Legion officials disliked but were powerless to

stop: even the World War II veterans who joined the Legion, they came to realize, remained

attached to their identity as a separate generation.

Conclusion

175 “American Legion Posts Composed of World War II Veterans,” July 27, 1944; “World War II Posts,” n.d.
(ca. August 1945), Administration & Organization, Organization, Post, Class Posts, WWII Veterans, ALA.
176 R.T. Fairey to Frank E. Samuel, May 19, 1943, Administration & Organization, Organization, Post, Class

Posts, WWII Veterans, ALA.

177 John R. Fawcett to National Judge Advocate, August 4, 1945; Ralph B. Gregg to John E. Fawcett, August

10, 1945, Administration & Organization, Organization, Post, Class Posts, WWII Veterans, ALA.
77
 One thing that the Legion was more at liberty to influence was its public image. Over the

last several months of the war, the group undertook yet another large public relations campaign,

overlapping with but not entirely identical to its concurrent recruitment drive, with the goal of

enhancing its public profile and prestige among the larger public. This effort was initiated by the

Americanism Endowment Fund, a small group of Legionnaires led by Alvin Owsley and created

in 1943 to promote patriotic values.178 Though Owsley’s grandiose ambitions for the Fund never

materialized, his decision to hire the New York-based Institute of Public Relations headed by John

Darr in September 1944 would play an important role in reshaping the Legion’s image.179 In the

next eight months, the Institute helped the Legion carry out a wide-ranging promotional

campaign whose main goal consisted, in its own words, of “lifting [the group] from the public

acceptance status of a strictly veterans’ service organization into the sphere of an institution of

broad national service concerned with the whole fabric of our nation.” The Institute spared no

effort. Not only did it cooperate with the National Commander to help him prepare speeches,

radio addresses, and press articles, but it printed tens of thousands of booklets and reports to

build support for various Legion activities, and supplied newspaper editors, columnists, writers,

and radio commentators with material for thousands of favorable pieces “throughout the

country.” It also developed “special features and pictures for newspapers, magazines and radio,”

resulting in “[m]ore than 50,000 inches of newspaper space, approximately 3,100 columns.” The

result of this collaborative effort, the Institute reported in June 1945, was “a gradual awakening

of greater interest in the Legion.” “While some still see [it] as a ‘pressure group,’” it claimed, “they

178The Fund was officially approved by the National Convention in September 1943, though the idea behind
it predated the war. See Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the American Legion (Omaha,
Nebr., 1943), 97; Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department
Adjutants, November 15, 16, 17, 1943, 55, ALA.
179 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,

November 14, 15, 16, 1944, 14, ALA.

78
recognize it as a ‘pressure group’ for a strong united nation…rather than for any single element of

our population.”180

Though the Institute was understandably trying to present its work in the best possible

light, its report nevertheless hinted at a major transformation that had taken place during the war.

By claiming to speak on G.I.’s’ behalf and to defend their interests, the Legion managed to take

advantage of the wave of patriotic enthusiasm for the image of the citizen-soldier that had swept

the nation during the war. Just as the image of the “G.I.” was that of a white male soldier, the

benefits that the group enshrined into law clearly privileged one set of veterans over others.

However, the Legion was largely—if never completely, as we will see in the next chapter—able to

shed its reputation as a self-interested, conservative pressure group for one segment of the

population and remake itself instead as a prestigious, mass membership civic organization central

to national politics. The Institute’s eight-month long campaign was one factor that contributed to

this change; more important was the Legion’s prior decision to redefine its identity as a veterans’

group open to all honorably discharged former soldiers of both World War I and World War II—

though, again, not all of them were treated equally as members. In becoming a “two-war” group,

the organization naturally inherited some of the political and cultural authority that befell the

men and women fighting the Axis. As early as May 1944, indeed, some in Congress were predicting

that the group would soon “become the greatest political force in the country, even greater than

labor.”181 Illustrating this newfound prestige, the Director of the National Americanism

Commission commented approvingly in 1945 that “the newspapers are backing the Legion” and

180 Institute of Public Relations, Inc., “Building Better Public Acceptance for The American Legion: Report
to the Trustees of the Americanism Endowment Fund on Public Relations Activities,” June 1945, Box 757,
Folder 4, Alvin Mansfield Owsley Collection, University of North Texas Archives. Emphasis original.
181 “Legion Is Pictured Mighty in Politics: Congress Sources Predict New Veterans Will Give It Power

Exceeding Labor’s,” New York Times, 1944.

79
that many “with huge circulation” were saying “Join The American Legion.”182 In the span of just

a few years, the group had truly undergone a major transformation.

It was amid this atmosphere of rapid change that Japan was defeated in August 1945. The

flow of returning veterans, which had already substantially increased after Hitler’s defeat, became

nothing less than a flood after V-J Day. More than a million men and women were discharged

every month from October to December.183 For the Legion, the surrender of Japan meant that the

rehearsal was over, and the curtains were about to open for the real show. This was the essence of

the telegram that National Commander Edward Scheiberling wrote the day after the second

atomic bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki, even before the capitulation had been announced.

“Suggest immediate initiation of department and post membership promotion plans,” it read, “so

when cessation comes, world wide membership contacts will be started at once.”184 As

Scheiberling must have known only too well, the domination of his group in the upcoming race

for new members was far from assured. The VFW had built up a substantial lead—600,000 had

joined since the beginning of the war, compared with the Legion’s 400,000—and seemed to be

bent on further progress.185 In addition, the AVC and the AMVETS were rapidly asserting their

position as influential voices for the new generation. The future, in other words, was still very

much in the making.

182 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,
Indianapolis, Indiana, December 10, 11, 12, 1945, 29, ALA.
183 Ibid., 92.
184 Telegram from National Commander Edward N. Scheiberling, August 10, 1945, Reel: 95-1060, ALA.
185 “Million War II Vets Have Joined the VFW or Legion,” Army Times, June 23, 1945.

80
 CHAPTER TWO
“The Welding of the Partnership”: The American Legion, World
War II Veterans, and the Postwar Housing Crisis

“There is a new army present in America today. It is an army

several million strong. It has been mobilized from tents, from
shanties, from trailers, from crowded homes throughout the
nation.
It is the army of homeless war veterans.”
- American Legion National Commander Paul Griffith, 19461

“This hero business is more strenuous than army life in Italy,” Technical Sergeant Charles Kelly

admitted. The first enlisted man to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War II,

“Commando” Kelly was often described by a press not afraid of ethnic stereotyping as a “fighting

Irishman.” Yet even he found the attention lavished upon him and his family during his furlough

in the spring of 1944 hard to bear, comparing his situation to being “like a monkey in a cage.” One

picture drew the nation’s attention more than others: that of the house in which he grew up with

his six brothers and widowed mother in Pittsburgh’s “Dutchtown” neighborhood. “The Kelly

home,” as one journalist described it, “is two rooms and an attic on the second floor of a

ramshackle frame building in a setting of converted barns, junk yards and dangling fire escapes,”

with “no electricity, no hot running water, no inside toilet facilities.” To their dismay, Americans

learned that their newest hero lived in what the Washington Post called a “modest apartment”

and others described less euphemistically as “a typical slum building.”2

1“TALE ON HOUSING BY NATIONAL COMMANDER PAUL H. GRIFFITH OF THE AMERICAN LEGION OVER
RADIO STATION WYBC, INDIANAPOLIS, AT 9 P.M, NOVEMBER 20, 1946,” Cooperation, Housing, American
Legion Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Housing, ALA hereafter)
2 “Kelly Calls ‘Hero Business’ Tougher Job Than Army Life,” The Washington Post, May 6, 1944; “Hero

Kelly Disdains Luxury Of Hotel for Home With ‘Mom’: What Do Two Heroes Talk About?,” The Christian
Science Monitor, April 25, 1944; “Mother of Sergt. Kelly To Remain in Own Home: Prefers 2 Rooms and
Attie to a Modern Apartment,” New York Herald Tribune, April 15, 1944; “Photo of Kelly’s House Jolts
Press,” Public Housing 10, no. 4 (April 1944): 1.
81
 This sight revolted both the press and public officials. “Will anyone,” the New York Times

demanded, “dare say that [this house] is good enough for the Kellys?” Writing in PM, radical

journalist I. F. Stone asked his readers “whether in the future America ought not to do better for

its heroes.” Pittsburgh’s mayor apparently agreed with this rhetorical question, and offered that

the family stay in an “expensive suite in a downtown hotel” during Charles’ visit. Likewise, the

city’s Public Housing Authority offered his mother a permanent new apartment in a nearby

project. But where some saw a wrong to be righted, others perceived a dangerous threat to private

industry. Seizing on the refusal of Charles’s mother to move until the “hullabaloo” of war had

subsided, several local papers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Georgia reprinted a syndicated editorial

castigating the Authority and advocates of public housing more generally as “misguided social

uplifters who adopt the New Deal formula of regeneration at no matter what cost of

dissatisfaction.” The Pittston (Ga.) Gazette praised the mother’s “pride” and condemned the

Authority for publicly humiliating her with its offer, in an editorial which it argued was “not a

defense of poor housing, but a protest against the unconscious snobbery of a lot of professional

do-gooders.”3

The squabble over the Kellys’ living conditions highlighted several defining features of the

wartime and postwar years. First and perhaps most obviously, it shed light on a situation that

dated back to the Great Depression and that the global conflict had only made worse: the housing

shortage. Due to the economic crisis and then wartime restrictions, the country’s housing supply

was woefully inadequate at the war’s end. The episode also illustrated how Americans

spontaneously agreed that G.I.’s deserved the best that their country could give them. It was the

contradiction between feelings of patriotic obligation toward those who fought and the reality of

their sometimes-dire living conditions that prompted Pittsburgh officials to act. Yet the

3“Mrs. Kelly’s Doorstep,” New York Times, April 11, 1944; “Photo of Kelly’s House Jolts Press”; “Hero Kelly
Disdains Luxury Of Hotel for Home With ‘Mom’”; “Mother of Sergt. Kelly To Remain in Own Home”; “Kelly
Editorials Show Working of Free Press,” Public Housing 10, no. 5 (May 1944): 3.
82
syndicated column published by several local papers also showed that the logical connection

between these two developments—the idea that government should guarantee better housing to

those men and women who had fought under its banners—was far from a consensual proposition.

On one side of this fierce debate were the representatives of the private housing industry, who had

staunchly opposed public housing since long before World War II, seeing it as an unwarranted

and dangerous expansion of the federal government’s authority. On the other side were advocates

of public housing, who confidently predicted long before D-Day that “[t]he current housing

shortage throughout the country” would only “become even more critical when millions of our

men come back to resume or begin family life,” and who used this argument to renew their calls

for the federal government “to assure decent homes for the veterans of this war.”4 It would not be

long before veterans themselves—and their interest groups—weighed into that longstanding

dispute.

Though the difficulties faced by many World War II veterans in their effort to readjust to

civilian life have received a considerable amount of attention from historians, we have yet to fully

reckon with the depth of the upheaval caused by their return. In their accounts of the postwar

housing crisis, not only have most historians downplayed its continuing importance past 1947,5

but they have tended to focus on veterans’ use of VA- and/or FHA-guaranteed loans to acquire

new single-family homes in the rapidly expanding suburbs.6 This well-known story certainly

mattered: in October 1955, a survey of the Bureau of the Census found over 10.7 million veteran

homeowners, nearly half of the total veteran population and almost all of them from World War

4 “The Conference Speaks: Texts of Resolutions Adopted at Annual Meeting,” Public Housing 10, no. 5 (May
1944): 16.
5 This point is made by Andrew Huebner in his The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the

Second World War to the Vietnam Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 63.
6 See for instance Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial

Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005), chap. 5; Kathleen Frydl, The
GI Bill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), chap. 6; Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier:
The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), chap. 11; Glenn C.
Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009), chap. 7.
83
II.7 However, homeownership was the preferred solution only for middle- or upper-class veterans.

Many lower-income former soldiers and their families who could not afford to buy instead became

renters in public projects. That same year, for instance, over one-third of all families living in the

490,000 units of low-rent public housing available nationwide were veterans’ or service

members’.8 This over-representation (veterans accounted for slightly more than 10 percent of the

total population in this era) was the result not only of the high demand among veterans for decent,

affordable dwellings but of official government policy. Just like they enjoyed a preference in civil

service examinations, veterans were given priority in applications to public housing (first at the

state, then at the federal level).

As historian Lawrence Vale has argued, public housing during the postwar years was “a

reward system for veterans and their families” (not unlike 18th- and 19th-century land grants

programs), a way for “two-parent, one-earner, low-income, blue-collar families” of veterans to get

publicly subsidized housing.9 Most scholarly studies of public housing, focused as they are on

tracing the decline of this program after the 1960s and its growing association not with the

“deserving white poor” but with black families on welfare, have typically devoted only passing

attention to this earlier, fleeting moment.10 By contrast, this chapter zooms in on the crucial period

from the armistice in 1945 to the passage of the landmark Housing Act of 1949, which defined

postwar housing policy. During these four years, veterans’ organizations were among the most

vocal advocates of public housing—though as always, they did not speak with one voice on the

7 Quoted in Altschuler and Blumin, The GI Bill, 188. For the veteran population, see Table Ed245-261 in
Susan B. Carter et al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present,
Millennial ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
8 The exact percentage was 37.4. See Table 14 in Robert Moore Fisher, 20 Years of Public Housing:

Economic Aspects of the Federal Program (New York: Harper, 1959), 168–69. For the number of units, see
Housing and Home Finance Agency, Annual Report: 1955 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1956), 302.
9 Lawrence J. Vale, From the Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors (Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 98–99, 260.

10 The literature on public housing is vast, but see for instance John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and

Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 87–
90.
84
issue. The chapter examines how they managed to carve special benefits for their clientele in this

lesser-known area, and how in so doing they added public housing to the already expansive realm

of veterans’ welfare state. It also demonstrates how, as with so many other aspects of that welfare

state, race- and gender-based discrimination were embedded in this program from the start.

The postwar period was a crucible not only for federal housing policy but for the American

Legion itself. The transformation undergone by the group after it opened its ranks to a new

generation of members climaxed in 1946, when its membership reached a peak of 3.3 million

(more than twice as high as the second largest veterans’ group, the VFW).11 The situation feared

by some Legion leaders back in 1942 had come to pass: World War II Legionnaires now

outnumbered their Great War elders by a ratio of about two to one. And just like some had also

feared, the “rebirth” of the group was far from seamless. Petty wartime rivalries over World War

II-only Posts took on more significant dimensions as the newest crop of veterans turned their

attention to the postwar housing crisis. Because they were struck particularly hard by the

shortage, no other issue mobilized younger veterans politically on such a large scale and over such

a long period of time. At first, their calls for direct government intervention were staunchly

resisted by the Legion’s old guard of conservative World War I leaders. It was only after a few

years that they gained the upper hand in this fight. While public housing was far from the only

noteworthy debate in which the Legion was involved during these years—the campaign for

universal military training, for instance, was another top priority—no other issue was more central

to the conflict-ridden process of generational transition that took place in the group at that time.12

11The American Legion, National Membership Record, 2012, ALA. The VFW in 1946 counted 1.5 million
members, see Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr., VFW: Our First Century, 1899-1999 (Lenexa, KS: Addax, 1999),
142.
12 On UMT, see Matthew J. Seelinger, “Breaking Ranks: Veterans’ Opposition to Universal Military

Training, 1943-1948” (M.A., Ball State University, 1996); William A. Taylor, Every Citizen a Soldier: The
Campaign for Universal Military Training after World War II (College Station: Texas A&M University
Press, 2014).
85
 This chapter is divided into four sections. First, it examines the conflictual relationship

between both generations of Legionnaires in the immediate aftermath of the war. As a series of

controversies soon made clear, the politics of the two cohorts were far from aligned. Next, it zooms

in on the dynamics of the housing shortage, a crisis that set powerful forces into motion not only

at the national level but within the Legion itself. The group’s old guard retained control in the first

few years, but its grip gradually loosened. The third section paints a picture of the Legion’s

housing philosophy, highlighting its connections as well as its differences with the private housing

industry of which it was so often (wrongly) accused of being the puppet. Finally, the chapter

concludes with a look at the run-up to the passage of the Housing Act of 1949, and its

consequences for public housing and veterans’ welfare state.

It all began, however, with a moment that million other service members like

“Commando” Kelly had long been waiting for: the return home after victory.

The American Legion and the Problem of World War II Veterans

Despite all the laws passed by Congress to facilitate this process, the transition from

wartime to peacetime remained difficult for many veterans. From the beginning, millions of

servicemen and women impatient to return home after the victory over Japan in August 1945

found that the frantic pace of demobilization—nearly one million soldiers a month were

discharged between October 1945 and June 1946—was still not fast enough. Their frustration

translated into small-scale mutinies in military bases across the globe in January 1946, from

Manila to Paris to Calcutta.13 Those who made it home were often disappointed with what awaited

them outside the gates of separation centers. Years of service abroad had led many G.I.’s to paint

13Jack S. Ballard, The Shock of Peace: Military and Economic Demobilization after World War II
(Washington, D.C: University Press of America, 1983), 73–116; R. Alton Lee, “The Army ‘Mutiny’ of 1946,”
The Journal of American History 53, no. 3 (December 1966): 555–71.
86
for themselves a glamorous picture of civilian life and to be convinced, as one Canadian author

remarked years later, “that civilians are living a life of ease with fantastic incomes.”14 Their naiveté

made veterans easy targets for swindlers eager to dispossess them of their mustering-out

payments or G.I. Bill loans by selling them shoddy furniture or fanciful business ventures.15 On a

more personal level, as one veteran confessed, it was difficult for them to transition from the

strong comradeship of military life to the “civilian world of competition, money profits, the black

market, and what often seems…like a niggardly scramble for purely personal gain.”16 A

contemporary survey found that about a third of discharged soldiers felt estranged from their

peacetime environment: “their friends weren’t around anymore, food was scarce, prices high, and

gasoline nonavailable.” On a personal level, more than forty percent felt that the war had changed

their life for the worse, making them “more nervous,” “irritable,” and “short-tempered,” not to

mention a widespread alcohol and gambling addiction.17 A journalist who talked to veterans for

three months found their “dominant mood” to be “one of dangerous cynicism and frustration,”

and of “appalling loneliness and bitterness.”18

The very real problems faced by veterans in the process of readjusting to civilian society

contributed to a lively public debate on the “veteran problem.” As historian David Gerber has

argued, Americans at the end of World War II harbored a “sharply divided consciousness that

both honored the veteran and feared his potential to disrupt society.”19 With dreadful memories

of the Great Depression still fresh, a majority expected that the end of the war would bring another

14 Robert England, Twenty Million World War Veterans (Toronto, New York: Oxford University Press,
1950), 109.
15 Sgt. H.N. Oliphant, “Rackets and Veterans,” Yank: The Army Weekly, November 2, 1945; Harry Lever,

“They’re Out to Get You,” American Legion Magazine, March 1946. (ALM hereafter)
16 Charles G. Bolté, “The Veterans’ Runaround,” Harper’s Magazine, April 1945.
17 Joseph C. Goulden, The Best Years, 1945-1950 (New York: Atheneum, 1976), 46–47; Robert J. Havighurst

and al., The American Veteran Back Home: A Study of Veteran Readjustment (New York: Longmans,
Green, 1951), 68–89.
18 Agnes E. Meyer, “The Veterans Say-Or Else!,” Collier’s, October 12, 1946.
19 David A. Gerber, “Heroes and Misfits: The Troubled Social Reintegration of Disabled Veterans in ‘The

Best Years of Our Lives,’” American Quarterly 46, no. 4 (December 1994): 545.
87
severe economic downturn.20 Alanson Edgerton neatly captured the nature of this anxiety in the

title of his book, Readjustment or Revolution? (1946).21 Scores of self-help manuals, academic

articles, and government reports were published during the early postwar years with the goal of

explaining (both to civilians and veterans) how to manage the transition.22 As Charles Bolté noted,

this literature reproduced a wide range of worn-out stereotypes about veterans, portraying them

as either

a simple-witted boy whose only thought is coming home to Mom and blueberry pie, a
trained killer who will stalk the land with a tommy-gun shooting up labor leaders and war
profiteers, a mental case whose aberrations will upset the tidy households and offices of
America for a generation, a bitter and cynical man who will ruthlessly seize the reins of
political power for selfish ends, a starry-eyed idealist who will fashion a perfect world
single-handed, or a hopeless incompetent who will flounder when released from army
discipline and become a charge upon the community.23

As inconsistent as this literature might have been, it reflected very real anxieties over the political

impact of this new cohort of 16 million veterans, which everyone expected to be decisive.24

“Postwar America’s most precious prize,” journalist Arthur Derounian wrote, was “the mind of

the veteran.”25 It was a sign of the urgency of this debate that even the American Historical

20 “The Fortune Survey,” Fortune, April 1946.

21 Alanson Harrison Edgerton, Readjustment or Revolution? (New York, London: Whittlesey House,
McGraw-Hill, 1946).
22 For manuals, see for instance Maxwell Droke, Good-By to G. I.: How to Be a Successful Civilian (New

York, Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1945); Morton Thompson, How to Be a Civilian (New York:
Doubleday & Co., 1946); Benjamin Cushing Bowker, Out of Uniform (New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1946); George K. Pratt, Soldier to Civilian: Problems of Readjustment (New York: McGraw-Hill Book
Company, 1944); Howard Kitching, Sex Problems of the Returned Veteran (New York: Emerson Books,
1946). For academic articles, see for instance the March 1945 issue of the Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, on “Postwar Jobs for Veterans.” For government reports, see War
Department and Navy Department, Going Back to Civilian Life ([Washington, D.C.]: War and Navy
Departments, 1945).
23 Charles G. Bolté, The New Veteran (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945), 1–2.
24 Walter Davenport, “12,000,000 in Search of a Leader,” Collier’s, November 11, 1944.
25 John Roy Carlson, The Plotters, 1st ed (New York: Dutton, 1946), viii.

88
Association felt the need to weigh in, arguing in a pamphlet that much depended on the path that

veterans’ organizations would take.26

The problem, as we saw in the previous chapter, was that the variety of these groups

prevented any easy generalization. There existed some 200 smaller veterans’ organizations,

ranging in their politics from the Communist left to liberalism to the anti-Semitic far-right.27 None

of these groups, however, even remotely approached the size and prestige of what contemporaries

called the “Big Two,” the VFW and the American Legion. While the former adopted a more

populist stance and pushed early on for a large World War II bonus, the Legion had a more

conservative reputation.28 Especially among younger veterans who had come of age under

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the group suffered from its “notoriously unliberal past,” as an

Army Captain put it.29 Yet most former G.I.’s also knew, if only vaguely, that the Legion was among

the most powerful lobbies in Washington, D.C.—a factor that played strongly in its favor at a time

when many veterans were still struggling to readjust to civilian life and felt acutely the need to

defend their common interests. After all, as Bolté put it, this was “a time of big business, big labor,

big agriculture, big government. Everybody was organizing,” and it made sense for veterans to do

the same.30

Perhaps more than any of its peers, the Legion was not afraid to appeal to such feelings of

shared interests. “No one is going to fight the veteran’s battle except the organized veteran

himself,” a suggested address for local Legion speakers read. “As a lone individual you cannot do

26 American Historical Association, Why Do Veterans Organize? (Madison, Wis.: United States Armed
Forces Institute, 1946).
27 On veterans’ groups after 1945, see Louis Falstein, “Veterans Welcome,” New Republic, January 28, 1946;

J. Donald Kingsley, “Veterans, Unions and Jobs: II. Labor and the Veterans,” New Republic, November 13,
1944; Victor Riesel, “Fascist Pie for Veterans,” Nation, April 17, 1943; Sam Stavisky, “The Veterans Make
Their Choice,” Harper’s Magazine, September 1946; A. Victor Lasky, “The Veterans Organizations,” The
American Mercury, August 1946; Carlson, The Plotters.
28 “VFW Sets Big Bonuses As Main Postwar Goal,” Army Times, May 12, 1945.
29 National Conference of Union Labor Legionnaires, “Newsletter, by George C. Danfield and Maurice A.

Frank,” November 1945, Folder: National Conference of Union Labor Legionnaires (January 1946 –
February 1946), Box 5, UAW Veterans’ Department Collection, 1943-1955, Walter P. Reuther Library,
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.
30 Bolté, The New Veteran, 82–83.

89
much about solving these problems yourself…But united with millions of your comrades of both

wars your voice will ring over the land and the nation will heed.”31 By November 1945, 600,000

new veterans had already joined, but Legion leaders set their sights much higher—5 or 6 million

members.32 To reach this goal, they spared no expenses. Their public relations budget more than

quadrupled from 1945 to 1946, from almost $73,000 to over $300,000.33 The money was spent

on countless movie trailers, posters, window display cards, stickers, clip sheets and pamphlets

distributed across the country.34 Throughout all this maelstrom of publicity, Legionnaires knew

that their major handicap with the new generation was their image as a group dominated by an

establishment of World War I veterans—known as “kingmakers”—who would not easily

relinquish the reins of power.35 This was why their public addresses hammered on the message

that “We expect you younger Legionnaire to become members of the team. Our democratic

processes within the Legion assure you early control. Every member has an equal voice and an

equal vote. The majority controls. It is as simple as that.”36

Or was it? The Legion certainly did manage to attract unmatched numbers of World War

II veterans, as mentioned earlier. The group’s ranks grew so quickly in the first few years after the

war, in fact, that its official magazine was unable to buy enough paper to print copies for every

member, and was forced to publish a miniature “pony edition.”37 Symbolically, two World War II

men, Fred LaBoon and H. Dudley Swim, were chosen in 1945 as National Vice-Commanders, and

Paul Griffith, a “retread” (veteran of both world wars), was elected National Commander the

31 National Public Relations Division, “Suggested address for American Legion Speakers in connection with
the World War II Membership Campaign…,” September 25, 1945, Reel 95-1059, Administration &
Organization, Membership, World War II Veterans, A-Z, ALA. (95-1059, ALA hereafter)
32 Proceedings of the 27th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago, 1945), 29.
33 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, October 13, 14 and 18, 1951, 54-55, ALA.
34 Proceedings of the 27th National Convention of the American Legion, 169-173.
35 On the kingmakers, see Robert S. Allen, “Legion GIs Challenge the Brass,” PIC, October 1948.
36 National Public Relations Division, “Suggested Address for American Legion speakers for World War II

Veterans’ Welcome Home Parties (1946),” n.d., 95-1059, ALA.

37 Richard Seelye Jones, A History of the American Legion (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill company, 1946),

352.
90
following year.38 Underneath the surface, however, the World War I generation remained solidly

entrenched. Many top Legion officials realized the need for the new generation to take over, but

also took great care to ensure that the new leaders would fit in the same ideological mold. Fred

LaBoon had spent his childhood in Legion programs like the Sons of the Legion, the Boy Scouts,

and Boys’ State, while H. Dudley Swim was a rabid anti-New Dealer, a former Treasurer of the

New York chapter of the America First Committee, and a prominent Republican businessman. 39

As to Paul H. Griffith, his election to the top leadership position in the Legion was likely the result

of a deal struck back in 1943 between the kingmakers to give the job to someone from

Pennsylvania, one of the most populous Departments in the Legion. He certainly belonged to the

same well-to-do constituency that had always monopolized top Legion positions: the vice-

president of an East Coast electric corporation, he also owned dairy and public relations

businesses. As one high-level Legionnaire explained with uncharacteristic honesty, “After all, this

Legion a billion-dollar corporation. You don’t just throw something that big over to a bunch of

inexperienced boys.”40

Griffith shared these feelings. “I am for the World War II boys one hundred per cent,” he

later wrote, “But I am of the opinion that it would be very unwise to turn an organization as large

and as great and as influential as The American Legion over to men who know nothing about its

program.”41 To ensure that this would not happen, the national leadership created the American

Legion College in July 1946, a two-week long course of study during which a small group of

38 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, December 13, 14, 15, 1945, November 17 &
21, 1945, ALA.
39 On LaBoon, see Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, December 13, 14, 15, 1945,

November 17 & 21, 1945, 47-49, ALA. On Swim, see his correspondence with Herbert Hoover in Box 232,
Folder: Swim, H. Dudley Correspondence, 1938-1964, Post-Presidential Papers Individual Correspondence
File, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library; John E. Moser, Right Turn: John T. Flynn and the
Transformation of American Liberalism (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 119–20; Who Was
Who in America with World Notables, vol. V, 1969-1973 (Chicago: Marquis Who’s Who, 1973).
40 George Draper, “Legion Ferris Wheel: Colonel Griffith Is Coming Up in the Top Seat, Say Vet Politicos,”

San Francisco Chronicle, September 28, 1946.

41 Paul H. Griffith to David W. Robinson, December 20, 1946, 95-1059, ALA.

91
promising World War II Legionnaires, hand-picked by their respective Departments and often

already full-time Legion workers, attended lectures on all aspects of the group’s activity. This

educational program was described internally as “a complete American Legion course of

indoctrination.”42 The idea was not only to train future Legion leaders and fast-track their

promotion, but to make sure that they would be imbued with the Legion’s conservative values.

Among the goals of the course was listed, for instance, that of increasing “knowledge and

appreciation on the part of the future leaders of The American Legion for our American way of

life and our Constitutional form of government; along with a sound understanding of the

contributions to these basic philosophies by the programs of The American Legion.”43 In the

words of one knowledgeable critic, this certainly constituted “self-perpetuation in power with a

vengeance.”44

The very existence of the Legion College reflected the belief of some in the group’s

leadership that an attitudinal gap existed between the older and the younger generation. This gap

became the subject of public attention twice in less than a year after the victory over Japan. The

first time was in December 1945, when the National Executive Committee of the Legion voted

unanimously to award its Distinguished Service Medal to conservative press magnate William

Randolph Hearst for the “all-out support” provided by his newspapers to the campaign for the

passage of the GI Bill the previous year.45 This award shocked and bewildered more left-leaning

World War II veterans, who remembered Hearst less for that bill than for his friendly

relationships with Italian Fascists and German Nazis in the interwar period as well as his

42 Digests of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, September 29, October 4, 1946, 53, ALA;
Joseph C. Keeley, “American Legion College for Leaders,” ALM, November 1946; Resolution 138 quoted in
Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago, 1944), 143. Emphasis
added.
43 Keeley, “American Legion College for Leaders”; Donald G. Glascoff, “Orientation,” in Lectures American

Legion College First Term, July 8-20, 1946, ALA.

44 Justin Gray and Victor H. Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion (New York: Boni & Gaer, 1948), 173.
45 Raymond H. Fields to Edw. McGrail, February 1, 1946; John Stelle to George E. Broome, August 21, 1946,

Administration & Organization, Distinguished Service Medal, Hearst, William Randolph, ALA. (Hearst,
ALA hereafter)
92
relentless criticism of the New Deal.46 For them, the Medal amounted to a rejection of the ideals

for which they just fought.47 “If Hearst is an outstanding American,” one recently discharged

veteran wrote, “then we never won the war.”48 Several writers reported that upon learning the

news, many World War II veterans decided either that they would not join the Legion or that they

would resign their membership.49

Much more serious than the brief controversy over Hearst’s medal was the Legion’s high-

profile feud with VA Administrator and four-star general Omar Bradley in February 1946. Having

just recently assumed his new position at the head of the VA, Bradley was struggling with the

herculean task of expanding and modernizing the agency to meet the demands of sixteen million

new veterans (more on that in the next chapter). After it was disclosed that he tried to solve the

shortage in qualified medical personnel by asking President Truman to temporarily suspend the

admission of non-service-connected patients to VA hospitals, Legion National Commander John

Stelle called him to discuss the issue. The exact nature of their exchange remains unclear—there

are varying accounts, all acrimonious—but soon thereafter, Stelle sent an open letter to Congress

calling for an investigation of the “tragic breakdown” in the agency’s operations. At a press

conference, he was quoted as saying that the VA should be headed not by a soldier but a “seasoned

businessman.” Though he later backtracked from what many took to be a call for Bradley to resign,

the attack backfired, as the Administrator promptly received the backing not only of Truman and

Eisenhower but of other veterans’ organizations. All stressed that while his agency was facing

serious problems, he deserved to be given more time to solve them.50

46 Abe L. Levine to Dear Comrades, December 17, 1945; Abe L. Levine to John Stelle, December 17, 1945;
Robert E. Thompson to John Stelle, January 15, 1946, Hearst, ALA.
47 Eugene Feingold to American Legion, Public Relations Division, January 16, 1946, Hearst, ALA.
48 J. Glenn to Dear Sir, January 17, 1946, Hearst, ALA.
49 Fred G. Huntington to John Stelle, January 15, 1946; Pfc. Willys Peels to National Commander, January

17, 1946; Thomas Painter to Dear Sirs, January 12, 1946; Lester A. Harris to the American Legion, March
6, 1946, Hearst, ALA.
50 For an account of this controversy, see Jack A. Underhill, “The Veteran’s Administration and the

American Legion (1945-1947)” (M.A., Columbia University, 1959), 29–37.

93
 Undertaken on his own initiative, Stelle’s surprise sally seemed a particularly misguided

move to World War II veterans. In early 1946, Bradley still retained some of the aura of the victory

in Europe in which he had played a major role, and he remained popular among the men and

women who had served under him (according to one journalist, he was “for the G.I. the Knight in

Shining Armor…one of the few leaders in whom the veterans still have confidence,” simply thanks

to his “name and character”).51 Many therefore reacted to the attack with dismay and anger. In

Departments across the country, Legion headquarters found themselves besieged with letters,

phone calls, and telegrams, many written by their younger members and demanding an

explanation. In Ohio, for instance, local Posts passed “resolutions too numerous…to count” on the

subject, forcing Legion officials to crisscross the state and hold a series of meetings to placate the

unrest. Two World War II Posts suspended their application for a charter, and another one with

260 members even decided to withdraw from the group.52 One former National Commander

wrote that Stelle’s behavior caused “many men of WWII” to seriously doubt “whether the Legion

is the institution which they want to express their views.”53

Though the controversy soon subsided from the headlines, major damage had nonetheless

been done. Taken together, the disputes over Hearst’s medal and Bradley’s handling of the VA

made it clear that the “old,” conservative Legion was still firmly in control. The struggle of younger

members to assert themselves was barely beginning. Over the next few years, housing would be

their main battleground.

The Postwar Housing Shortage: National Politics and Internal Turmoil

51 Meyer, “The Veterans Say-Or Else!”

52 Digest of Minutes (Special), National Executive Committee Meeting, February 17, 1946, 32-33, ALA.
53 SFC to John Stelle, n.d. (ca. February 1946), Accession No. 0014-001, Folder 25-48, Stephen F. Chadwick

Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle.

94
 The immediate aftermath of the Second World War witnessed a global housing crisis. In

the U.S as elsewhere, the roots of the problem went back over a decade. The Great Depression had

caused housing construction to enter a long slump (after a peak at 937,000 in 1925, housing starts

dropped to only 93,000 in 1933) and even after the war effort revitalized the economy, most

building resources like lumber or steel were strictly reserved for military production. The only

housing construction allowed during World War II was for migrating defense workers, millions

of whom flocked from the countryside to urban centers to work in war industries. Those persons

already living in a community were prohibited from building new homes. As a result, cities filled

up quickly, and most of the newcomers were there to stay.54 When peace finally arrived, millions

of veterans returned home with limited savings and incomes to find that, in addition to other

items like meat, sugar, clothing, or butter, affordable housing was in extremely limited supply—a

shortage soon made even worse by the rapid post-war rise in birth rates. In September 1945, only

2,000 vacancies could be found in New York City’s 2.2 million dwellings.55 Though estimates

varied widely, the official appraisal of the total number of homes needed in 1946 only to answer

the most pressing short-term need was 2.7 million.56

Veterans were not the only category of the population to suffer from this situation.

Approximately a fifth of all respondents to an April 1946 Fortune survey said they were doubling

up with friends or family, while another fifth said they were actively looking for another place to

live.57 Still, former soldiers were certainly among the most affected. 25,000 of them were

reportedly homeless in Washington, D.C., and 100,000 in Chicago, while 210,000 were looking

54 Mark D. Van Ells, To Hear Only Thunder Again: America’s World War II Veterans Come Home
(Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001), 210.
55 Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Public Housing That Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 11.

56 This was the number given by Wyatt to Truman in February 1946, see Wilson W. Wyatt, Veterans

Emergency Housing Program: Report to the President, February 7, 1946, Box 63, Folder 5, Wilson W.
Wyatt papers, 1926-1992, 95m4, University of Kentucky Special Collections.
57 “The Fortune Survey.”

95
for housing in New York City.58 In Los Angeles, 50,000 veterans lived in “tents, garages, trailers,

and firetrap hotels.”59 As early as September 1945, when only about 2.5 million of them had been

discharged, an official survey from the National Housing Agency (NHA, the agency in charge of

coordinating all federal housing policy) noted bluntly that their situation was “bad” and only

getting worse. At that time, 53 percent of all veterans lived in dwelling units lacking one or more

standard facilities like a private shower or central heating, 25 percent of married veterans were

doubling up with in-laws or friends, and only 13 percent of all veterans were homeowners.60

Depending on the region, the nature of the problem varied: in the Northeast and the urban centers

of the Midwest, it was mostly a lack of affordable apartments to rent; in the South, housing was

cheap but often of poor quality; in the West, most veterans sought to buy but prices were often

too high. In general, about a third wished they could move out of their current habitations.61

The shortage was a particularly bitter pill to swallow for veterans. “Home is probably the

most precious thing in the world to a man who endured war,” Navy veteran Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Jr., wrote in The Nation, “There is hardly a man who didn’t spend hours remembering his home,

how it used to look, or how it was going to look when he and his wife got a place and bought their

furniture.”62 As another veteran explained, “To me, and to hundreds of thousands of other ex-GIs

who watched the Army and Navy build whole cities all over the world almost literally overnight,

the housing shortage at home seemed incredible. We couldn’t believe that the United States,

having put up a roof for the GI on Guam, couldn’t put one up for the GI in Ephrate [sic],

58 D.C and Chicago estimates quoted in Richard O. Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman
Administration (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1966), 41. For New York City, see Bill Jenkins to
Program Director, “Subject: Operation Housing,” May 7, 1946, Operation Housing, ALA.
59 Donald Craig Parson, Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red Scare, and the Direction of

Modern Los Angeles (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 76.

60 National Housing Agency. Statistics & Control Branch, Statistics Division, Survey of World War II

Veterans’ Housing Accommodations: September 1945, 1946, 1.

61 Housing and Home Finance Agency, Office of the Administration, Housing Data Staff, Veterans’ Housing

Plans and Living Arrangements in 1946 for 108 Survey Areas: By Geographic Region and Division, and
by Population Size of Central City, Statistics Bulletin 2, 1948.
62 Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., “No Homes for Veterans,” Nation, November 10, 1945.

96
Pennsylvania.”63 Underpinning all these accounts was the clear sense that veterans, having been

promised so much while they served in the military, were entitled to a better treatment from their

government than what they were getting.

It was thus hardly a surprise that World War II veterans were the first to mobilize against

the housing crisis, especially in big cities and through left-leaning groups. In L.A., they organized

a motorcade to the state capitol in Sacramento (dubbed the “Veterans’ Housing Caravan”) to

dramatize their plight.64 In October 1945, 1,500 gathered at a rally sponsored by the AVC in New

York City to elect a Veterans’ Housing Committee, which Roosevelt, Jr., himself led to

Washington, D.C., to consult with federal housing officials.65 Later in 1946, some veterans even

led a dramatic “sit-down” in the New York Senate Chamber in Albany to ask that a special session

of the legislature be convened in order to solve the crisis.66 Cities tried to respond by acquiring

temporary war housing built by the federal government in their area and selling or renting it to

veterans and their families.67 Such facilities provided a crucial stopgap solution, but they were

often too shoddily built or awkwardly located to be satisfactory in the long-term. The description

made by a Saturday Evening Post journalist of reconverted war housing in Oklahoma City was

representative of the problem that continued to face many veterans’ families in this situation. The

small size of the barracks-turned-apartments, he wrote, “suggests so many goldfish bowls…the

bus to town takes a half hour…and the fire hazard has everyone walking around with fingers

63 Gray and Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion, 112–13.

64 Parson, Making a Better World, 89.
65 “Veterans Hold Angry Meeting On City Housing: F. D. Roosevelt Jr. Asks Red Tape Cut to Aid 20,000

Homeless Service Men,” New York Herald Tribune, October 25, 1945; Charles G. Bolte, “100,000 Veterans
Homeless Unless City Acts,” New York Herald Tribune, November 11, 1945.
66 “Albany To Hear Demands Today: Thousands From New York City to Demonstrate for Pay Rises,

Housing, Milk Control,” New York Times, October 19, 1946; “Veterans See Dewey, Lift Albany Siege,” New
York Herald Tribune, October 21, 1946; “Veterans Occupy Senate Chamber at State Capitol,” New York
Times, October 20, 1946; “Veterans ‘March on Albany’ Is Laid to Left Wing Sources,” The Christian Science
Monitor, October 21, 1946.
67 For examples of this in New York and Chicago, see Bloom, Public Housing That Worked, 113; D. Bradford

Hunt, Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2009), 79–84.
97
crossed.” Still, residents could hardly complain given the lack of alternatives (one family had lived

previously in “a four-room shack, without electric lights, water or gas…including black-widow

spiders”).68 Realizing the emergency of the problem, the leaders of the AMVETS and the VFW

both urged President Truman to tackle what they called respectively “an acute national crisis” and

a situation “that borders on a National calamity.”69

Truman responded by appointing the liberal Democrat and outgoing mayor of Louisville,

Kentucky, Wilson W. Wyatt, as both Housing Expediter (a new post whose title reflected the

urgency of the job) and administrator of the NHA. His mission was deceivingly simple: to “direct

a crash program designed to relieve the situation as rapidly as possible.” Announced in February

1946, Wyatt’s Veterans’ Emergency Housing Program (VEHP) was premised on the idea that only

wartime emergency controls could solve this extraordinary situation. Despite growing opposition

to these regulations, he continued and expanded them, implementing measures such as the

prevention of all new and non-veteran’s housing construction, price controls, government loans

to manufacturers of prefabricated houses, the expedited release of surplus war housing, and

subsidies to producers of raw building materials. He boldly announced his goal of creating 1.2

million homes that year (nearly five times more than in 1945) and 1.5 million the next, while

keeping their prices under $10,000. Sponsored by Rep. Wright Patman (D-Tex.), one of the

champions of the Bonus during the interwar years, the bill allowing this program passed Congress

despite the fierce opposition of the private housing industry.70

68 Stanley Frank, “They Licked Their Veterans Problem,” Saturday Evening Post, May 17, 1947.
69 Jack W. Hardy to Harry S. Truman, December 7, 1945; Joseph M. Stack to Hon. Harry S. Truman,
December 14, 1945, White House Central Files: Official File 63 (Dec 1945), Box 360, Truman Papers,
Truman Library.
70 Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman Administration, 1–58; Barton Bernstein, “Reluctance and

Resistance: Wilson Wyatt and Veterans’ Housing in the Truman Administration,” Register of the Kentucky
Historical Society 65 (1967): 47–66.
98
 Wyatt’s job was to deal with the immediate postwar crisis. As a more long-term solution

to the housing shortage, Truman also endorsed the Taft-Ellender-Wagner (T-E-W) bill, also

known as the “comprehensive housing bill.” Named after its three sponsors in the Senate—Robert

Taft of Ohio, the leader of conservative Republicans, Allen Ellender of Louisiana, a populist

Southern Democrat, and Robert F. Wagner of New York, the champion of the urban liberal wing

of the Democratic Party—the T-E-W bill was the product of the housing reform movement born

in the Progressive era. Though its exact content would vary over the next few years, its essential

provisions were a declaration of national policy making it the government’s role to provide decent

housing to its citizens, funding for housing research, loans to farmers for home improvements,

federal aid to slum clearance and urban redevelopment, and, last but not least, the construction

of several hundred thousand public housing units over a decade.

It is worth pausing here for a moment to consider the following puzzle: how could a liberal

Democrat like Wagner find himself in coalition with Taft, someone described by a like-minded

Senator as “the patron saint of the ultra-conservatives,” and with Ellender, a staunch white

supremacist?71 In and of itself, the uneasy alliance of these strange bedfellows spoke volumes

about the extraordinary character of postwar housing politics. The leader of urban liberals,

Wagner had long sought to improve the living conditions of the working class in big cities like

New York and to break urban ghettos. Having co-sponsored the 1937 Wagner-Steagall Act that

expanded the reach of the federal government in public housing, he was recognized by 1945 as the

Senate’s foremost authority on the issue. Ellender came to the problem from a similar angle but a

radically different starting point: like many Southern Democrats who supported the early New

Deal, he sought to enroll the assistance of the federal government to alleviate the chronic slum

conditions endemic in several Southern cities. Taft’s support was more surprising. Though he was

a vocal critic of the New Deal’s expansion of administrative power, his own personal visits of the

71 Ralph E. Flanders, Senator from Vermont, 1st ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961), 221.
99
Cincinnati slums had convinced him of the need for action. He also recognized that government

had to step in since private industry simply could not satisfy the demands of low-income groups,

and he believed that decent housing was key to preserving the unity of the family structure.72

Behind these three men stood a range of interest groups coordinated by the National Public

Housing Conference, such as the National Association of Housing Officials, the U.S. Conference

of Mayors, social workers, the AFL-CIO, religious groups, women’s groups like the League of

Women Voters, and civil rights groups like the NAACP.73

The federal policy that all these groups lined up behind was, by the war’s end, barely more

than a decade old. Begun in 1933 under the responsibility of the Public Works Administration,

public housing was later placed under the United States Housing Authority. Like many other New

Deal programs (including the 1944 G.I. Bill), it was premised on a division of power between the

federal government, which provided the funds, and local authorities, which not only had to give

their approval before a new project could be built but decided where it would be located. And like

many other New Deal programs, this division ended up reinforcing pre-existing discriminatory

practices on the ground. Not only were most public housing projects racially segregated, but they

were typically built in lower-income urban areas instead of on the more attractive land of the

suburbs, typically reserved for white families. Gender also played a crucial role, as public housing

managers tended to select applicants based on their idea of a traditional two-parent, male-

breadwinner family. Single persons as well as single parents were generally rejected during this

period, and inspections of residences were carried out regularly to ensure that wives maintained

“good housekeeping habits.” Public housing during this time period was yet another form of what

72 Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman Administration, 33–37; James T. Patterson, Mr.
Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972), 315–20; J. Joseph
Huthmacher, Senator Robert F. Wagner and the Rise of Urban Liberalism (New York: Atheneum, 1968),
205–16.
73 Leonard Freedman, Public Housing: The Politics of Poverty (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

1969), 75–78.
100
historian Ira Katznelson has called an “affirmative action” program in which the federal

government provided assistance to certain, but not all categories of working-class Americans.74

Veterans’ groups were relative latecomers to this debate. Even more than others, the

national leadership of the American Legion was slow to grasp the new and utmost urgency of the

housing crisis. Housing had never been a major priority of the group in the interwar period.

Besides, Legion leaders were accustomed to working in partnership with top-level administration

officials as they had throughout World War II, and were therefore reluctant to adopt a more

confrontational approach. Even when mail began to pour in to demand immediate action,

National Commander Scheiberling remained largely unmoved and promised only that local Posts

would cooperate on a community level with whatever action the government would take.75 To a

large extent, the group’s national housing policy in 1945 was limited to pushing for revision of the

home loan provision of the G.I. Bill.76 Legion leaders did not seem to realize that public housing

was becoming a lifeline for increasing numbers of former soldiers: from 1945 to 1949, the

percentage of veterans’ or service members’ families in this program rose from 28.3 to 36.3.77

Their rank-and-file knew it, however, and they were in a state of intense ferment. Between the

end of the war and the 1946 National Convention, three different groups of Legionnaires pushed

their organization to take action.

Surprisingly, it was the Communist Party of the U.S.A. (CPUSA), the Legion’s sworn

enemy, that was at least partly responsible for the latter’s highest-profile mobilization against the

74 Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White; Peter Marcuse, “Interpreting ‘Public Housing’
History,” Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 12, no. 3 (1995): 240–58; Jackson, Crabgrass
Frontier, chap. 12.
75 John B. Blandford, Jr., to Edward H. Scheiberling, July 16, 1945; Edward H. Scheiberling to John B.

Blandford, Jr., July 18, 1945; Edward H. Scheiberling to My Dear Adjutant, n.d., Veteran Welfare, Homes,
ALA.
76 The original text of the 1944 G.I. Bill stipulated that the VA could guarantee loans only for houses of

“reasonable, normal value,” which in the postwar context of runaway inflation caused the overwhelming
majority of applications to be rejected. Of 208,000 private nonfarm homes built in 1945, only 6,000—less
than 3 percent—were sold with VA mortgages. The clause was revised in December 1945. See “Veteran
Complains GI Bill Too Restrictive,” Army Times, July 7, 1945, Civilian Front Edition; Glenn C. Altschuler
and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 74.
77 Fisher, 20 Years of Public Housing: Economic Aspects of the Federal Program, 168.

101
shortage. Like the rest of the country, the CPUSA recognized that returning World War II veterans

would “in the post-war period exercise a profound influence in the course of events and help to

decide which way America will go.” In an attempt to win this powerful section of the population

over to their ideas, American Communist leaders envisioned a bold postwar program in which

labor unions and veterans’ organizations would work together to provide leadership to ex-GIs and

ultimately unite to form a “powerful progressive movement” around issues such as public housing,

price control, or racial democracy.78 This movement, the official Party journal Political Affairs

argued, would come together only if unions urged their members to join the two leading veterans’

groups, the VFW and the Legion, so that they could help fight “the reactionary policies of [their]

present leadership.”79 It was the traditional Communist strategy of boring established groups

from within. As Communist veteran Justin Gray explained, “if enough World War II guys like

ourselves got into the Legion, we could remake it in our own image…by staying out, we were

handing the Legion over to the reactionaries by default.”80 The logic was simple: “You went where

the masses went,” another later recalled.81

In practice, this approach proved a complete failure. The infiltration of a few members of

the CPUSA was quickly thwarted by the rigid top-down control of the Legion leadership. In the

process, however, they did manage to attract a disproportionate amount of attention. In March

1946, after meeting with the Party functionary in charge of veterans’ affairs, a small group of about

half a dozen Communist ex-correspondents of the army newspapers Yank and Stars and Stripes—

including Gray and Walter Bernstein—joined with other left-leaning veterans working in the radio

78 “The Veterans’ Policy of the Communist Party: An Outline for Discussion in All Clubs…,” n.d. (ca. 1948),
Communist Party of the United States of America, TAM 132, Box 186, Folder 48, Tamiment Library/Robert
F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
79Robert Thompson, “Party Policy in the Veterans’ Field,” Political Affairs, January 1946. On Communist

Party policy regarding veterans, see also Communist Party of the United States of America, Veterans
Commission, Who Ruptured Our Duck? What’s the Deal for Veterans? (New York: New Century
Publishers, 1946); John Gates, “Whither the American Legion?” Political Affairs, December 1946; John
Gates, “The American Veterans Committee Convention,” Political Affairs, August 1946.
80 Gray and Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion, 25.
81 Walter Bernstein, Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1996), 140.

102
and entertainment industry to form the Duncan-Paris Post no. 1422 in New York City. Its

Commander was Marion Hargrove, author of the best-selling See Here, Private Hargrove

(1942).82 With the support of more than three hundred other Posts in New York, Duncan-Paris

immediately launched a city-wide campaign entitled “Operation Housing” in support of Wyatt’s

VEHP. Several high-profile events took place over the course of the next three months, including

one where a veteran spent four days in Ludwig Baumann’s department store show-window

chatting with celebrities like actress Lucille Ball. The campaign climaxed at a rally held in mid-

May at the 69th Regiment Armory, when 3,000 World War II veterans met some of their

representatives such as Patman or Governor Dewey and celebrities like Gene Kelly.83 Perhaps in

part because this operation drew so much media coverage—it made the front page of the New

York Times—the Post quickly faced accusations of being a Communist front, and its charter was

arbitrarily suspended a few months later by the New York Legion.84 Having no doubt realized that

even its own secretive tactics were no match for the Legion’s strict top-down control, the Party

82 On the history of the Duncan-Paris Post, see Gray and Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion, 21–27,
185–190; Bernstein, Inside out, 139–43; William Price, “The Veterans’ House Divided,” Nation, May 25,
1946.
83 “For Immediate Release: Kilroy IS Here!! Living in Store Window, Lucille Ball, First Visitor,” May 13,

1946; “What Is Operation Housing?” n.d., Folder: Operation Housing, ALA; “Duncan-Paris Post The
American Legion,” November 13, 1946, Box 39, Folder 1, The J. B. Matthews Papers, David M. Rubenstein
Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University; “Congressmen Hear Veterans’ Housing Gripes: 12 N. Y.
Representatives at Rally Here Attended by 3,000 Ex-Service Men,” New York Herald Tribune, May 19,
1946.
84 “New Housing Plan Offered to Mayor as Homeless Rally,” New York Times, May 19, 1946. On the legal

battle that followed, and which ended with a victory for the Legion, see Report of National Judge Advocate
to National Executive Committee, May 1951, Folder: 238, Box 61 (110-7-4-1), Harry W. Colmery Ms.
Collection, no. 795, 1911 - 1975, Library and Archives Division, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka
(KSHS thereafter); “Duncan-Paris Post Sues: Action Started to Compel the Legion to Restore Charter,” New
York Times, March 26, 1947; “Legion Post Loses Fight for Charter,” New York Times, January 14, 1949;
“Legion Wins on Post’s Appeal,” New York Times, May 3, 1950; “Legion Drops Duncan-Paris Post,” New
York Times, May 4, 1951.
103
moved on.85 Noticing the quick growth of the AVC, whose more liberal politics and less entrenched

leadership made it a better target, it focused instead on infiltrating this smaller group.86

The second group to pressure the Legion leadership for action were black Legionnaires,

whose numbers skyrocketed after the end of the war.87 Once inside, many African-American

members advocated forcefully for their civil rights, for instance by sponsoring resolutions calling

for the abolition of racial segregation in the group.88 Some thirty black veterans of both World

Wars picketed outside a Legion Convention hall to demand “open membership in all American

Legion posts, North and South…on the basis of equality of sacrifice—not race or color,” only to be

beaten up and dispersed by white Legionnaires.89 Due in part to the pressure of this new wave of

members—but also to the self-interested realization by white Legion officials that the move was

necessary to forestall the growth of their competitors—Southern Departments gradually

abandoned their policy of racial exclusion.90 First Texas, then North and South Carolina, Georgia,

Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, and finally Alabama decided to accept black Legionnaires—

though always in separate, all-black districts and Posts, with their own commander and

85 Gray himself was hired by the Legion to work for a few months as a field organizer and then as Assistant
Director of the Americanism Division in charge of subversive activities, but he was fired in October after
taking the defense of the Duncan-Paris Post. For a detailed history of his work in the Legion, see Henry H.
Dudley to Harry Colmery, July 15, 1948, Folder: 239, Box 61 (110-7-4-1), Harry W. Colmery Ms. Collection,
KSHS. For the case of a single Communist veteran who failed to join the Legion, see “Communist Quits
Legion: Sidney Reiter Had Faced Ouster Trial by Duffy Post,” New York Times, February 16, 1949.
86 On the struggle to purge communist members from the AVC, see Robert Francis Saxe, Settling Down:

World War II Veterans’ Challenge to the Postwar Consensus (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 117–
54; Daniel James, “The Battle of A. V. C,” Nation, June 14, 1947; Charles G. Bolté, “We’re on Our Own,” The
Atlantic Monthly, May 1947; Lasky, “The Veterans Organizations.”
87 The number of “colored” Posts went from 311 in 1944 to 943 in 1950, see Progress Report, Colored Posts,

May 15, 1944, Administration & Organization, Organization, Post, Class Posts, Black, ALA; George N. Craig
to Laddell Washington, February 2, 1950, Administration & Organization, Membership, Black Veterans,
ALA.
88 “Legion Refuses to Lower Color Bar: Vets Denied Membership Resolutions,” The Baltimore Afro-

American, December 1, 1945.

89 Fred Atwater, “Legionnaires Beat Negro Vets,” The Chicago Defender, October 12, 1946.
90 “Florida Legion Sets Up JC Posts: Formerly Lily-White Group Changes Policy,” The Baltimore Afro-

American, September 28, 1946.

104
delegates.91 In Virginia, African-American veterans continued to be forced to form their own

Posts.92

Housing was a key issue for black veterans. Because they were often poorer than their

white counterparts, they relied on public housing and price controls to a much greater extent. In

large northern cities such as Chicago or New York, black veterans played a central role in protest

movements targeting racial segregation in several areas, including housing.93 Some black

Legionnaires tried to draw attention to this problem: the Commander of a black Legion Post in

Chicago’s South Side, for instance, expressed “keen disappointment at the existing [housing]

conditions” in his neighborhood. Black veterans, he argued, “feel discontented because on

returning home, they could find no adequate housing,” due to “restrictive covenants and obdurate

owners who want to sell at exorbitant prices or who refuse to sell to colored citizens.” 94 Yet such

complaints failed to sway the group’s leaders, who steadfastly refused to advocate for the specific

needs of their nonwhite members. When the American Council on Race Relations conducted a

survey of the administration of G.I. Bill benefits (which included home loan guaranties)

throughout the country, for instance, it found “discrimination as usual” to be the norm from

federal agencies all the way down and called the situation a “national disgrace.”95 Given the

Legion’s insistence on claiming sole authorship of the G.I. Bill, one would have expected the group

91 “Negro Legion Posts,” Greenville (TX) Banner, September 29, 1945, Administration & Organization,
Organization, Post, Class Posts, Black, ALA; “Legion Lifts Ban In South: Rule Covers Georgia, Alabama,
Carolinas,” The Chicago Defender, April 13, 1946; “Dixie Drops Bar: La., Florida Legions Absorb Negro
Posts,” The Pittsburgh Courier, August 3, 1946; “Ala. American Legion Approves Race Groups: Vote Is
Overwhelming, but Negroes Will Function in Separate District,” The Pittsburgh Courier, August 9, 1947. It
is unclear exactly when Mississippi dropped its ban, but the state is mentioned as having done so in Henry
H. Dudley to A.B. Kapplin, September 4, 1946, Administration & Organization, Organization, Post, Class
Posts, Black, ALA.
92 Albert Hinton, “Behind the Headlines: Interpretation of Democracy By The American Legion,” New

Journal and Guide, March 30, 1946.

93 Lionel Kimble, A New Deal for Bronzeville: Housing, Employment, & Civil Rights in Black Chicago,

1935-1955 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2015), chaps. 5–6; Martha Biondi, To Stand
and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City / Martha Biondi. (London: Harvard
University Press, 2003).
94 Alonzo Mead, “Legion Post To Get Action,” The Chicago Defender, February 15, 1947.
95 American Council on Race Relations, “Veterans Are Finding ‘Discrimination As Usual,’” New Journal

and Guide, July 20, 1946.

105
to be involved in efforts to correct its deficiencies. When the Council called a National Action

Conference on Minority Veterans Problems later that year, however, the American Legion was

conspicuously missing from the list of veterans’ groups that participated.96 This silence had

dramatic consequences. As P. L. Prattis wrote in the Pittsburgh Courier, “[h]ousing is almost the

special and peculiar need of Negroes wherever you find them. By opposing liberal housing

programs, the Legion places its seal of approval on every Negro slum ghetto in the United

States.”97

Finally, the grassroots push for action on housing also came from college campuses. As a

nationwide New York Times survey published in January 1946 reported, most colleges and

universities, woefully unprepared to accommodate a postwar surge in enrollment often two to

three times their regular size, were “turning away thousands of discharged war veterans because

of insufficient housing, overcrowded classrooms and lack of instructional staff.” Of all these

problems, the survey claimed, housing was the “most serious.”98 Those vets who did manage to

enroll often had to live in ad-hoc accommodations ranging from gyms filled with rows after rows

of bunk beds (for singles) to hastily-built trailer parks (for married couples).99 On many campuses,

veterans responded to the crisis by organizing themselves, and some decided to form their own

Legion Posts.100 The first campus Post was created in October 1944 at the University of Oklahoma;

by December 1945, they were approximately 30 nationwide.101 The range of activities varied from

96 “Veterans Groups To Protest To Pres. Truman About Bias: President to Get Proposals Of Vet Groups,”
Cleveland Call and Post, July 27, 1946.
97 P. L. Prattis, “The Horizon: Instead of Waiting to Be Kicked Out by Legion, Negro Posts Should Seek New

Home,” The Pittsburgh Courier, September 13, 1947.

98 Benjamin Fine, “Facilities in Colleges Taxed By Returning War Veterans,” New York Times, January 6,

1946.
99 On the colleges’ response to this crisis, see Keith W. Olson, The G.I. Bill, the Veterans, and the Colleges

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974), esp. 57-78.

100 For a description of the different reasons why veteran students created their own Legion Posts, see

“Expansion-Stabilization” by Don White, Assistant Chief, in Lectures American Legion College First Term,
July 8-20, 1946, ALA.
101 “Review of the Activities of The Thomas C. Reynolds Post #303 University of Oklahoma, Norman,

Oklahoma,” undated; Don White, Memorandum to C.M. Wilson, December 18, 1945, Administration &
Organization, Organization, Post, Class Posts, Campus, ALA. (Campus, ALA hereafter)
106
one school to another, but it typically involved an emergency loan fund for members, advice to

new students on issues like pensions or how to navigate the VA administration, counsel to

university administrators on veterans’ issues, sports teams and social clubs, etc. Housing also

figured prominently on their agenda: at the University of Oklahoma for instance, the Legion Post

arranged for the administration to issue bonds to finance a housing project for 100 married

veteran students and their families.102

Legion leaders could afford to dismiss the complaints of those rank-and-file whose politics

and/or race placed them in a marginal position. The situation was altogether different for the

mostly white members of campus Posts, whom the national leadership had welcomed with open

arms and hoped to retain. Top Legion officials saw these students as the ideal future Legionnaires:

men and women who, as one wrote, would likely go on to become “leaders of thought in their own

communities” and thus “will be of tremendous help to the Legion if they are properly

indoctrinated in the work of the Legion now.”103 They also expected that “any competition to The

American Legion would come from the college campus since these men were the thinking

veterans.”104 It was therefore not a coincidence that the Legion leadership gave their complaints

a hearing when it ignored those of the other two groups. In December 1945, the National

Commander invited representatives from six college Posts to meet with him in Indianapolis.

Coming from places such as Indiana University, Georgia Tech, Michigan State College and the

University of West Virginia, delegates all reported that their respective institutions and World

War II veterans in general were facing an “immediate and critical housing shortage”—at Georgia

Tech for instance, 200 couples had to live in a housing project 18 miles from Atlanta, forcing them

to take the Greyhound to school. They adopted a resolution calling for the President to use his

102 Don White, “Report On Visit To Norman, Oklahoma, To Study The Background Of The Formation Of
Thomas C. Reynolds Post 303 – June 26 – July 1, 1945,” July 2, 1945, Campus, ALA.
103 C. M. Wilson, Coordinator, World War II Activities, The American Legion, to R. C. Patterson, Adjutant,

The American Legion of Nebraska, May 27, 1945, Campus, ALA.

104 “Report On Visit Of Collegiate Field Representative To Indiana University, July 27 And July 30, 1945,”

Campus, ALA.
107
wartime emergency powers by executive order, for public attention to be mobilized, and for

Legion Departments to take immediate action.105 The National Executive Committee passed the

resolution unanimously, though it did little to act on it.106

All this grassroots pressure put the Legion’s conservative leadership in an awkward

position. As a Legion employee in charge of reporting legislative developments on housing

recognized privately in early 1946, the issue could no longer be avoided. “[H]ousing is the hottest

issue of the day,” he wrote, and “if we do not meet the issue face to face we will lose immeasurable

ground.”107 Since the 1945 National Convention had failed to pass a resolution on the topic,

however, the group lacked a clear mandate to act. After the House voted early in March 1946 to

exclude premium payments and price ceilings provisions from Wright Patman’s VEHP bill, for

instance, a press release came out announcing that National Commander John Stelle would throw

the Legion’s weight behind the campaign to restore these two key clauses in a speaking tour of

twenty southern and New England states. The day after the release was issued, however,

Representatives Lawrence H. Smith (Wisconsin) and Frank A. Mathews, Jr. (New Jersey)—both

conservative Republicans, World War I Legionnaires, and adamantly opposed to Wyatt’s

program—sent angry telegrams to the national headquarters challenging the release.108 A few days

later, Smith and Rep. Raymond S. Springer (R-Indiana) took the House floor to lambaste Stelle

and deny that he had any authority to make such a statement, since “at no time…had the Legion

executive committee or the Legion in convention assembled ever endorsed the Wyatt housing

program.”109 Claiming that the release had been issued through an oversight, Stelle immediately

105 “Digest of Conference attended by six college representatives called into session by National Commander
John Stelle at Indianapolis, on December 13, 1945,” Campus, ALA.
106 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, December 13, 14, 15, 1945, November 17

and 21, pp. 113-114, ALA; Donald G. Glascoff to Dear Sir, January 15, 1946, Campus, ALA.
107 Hayes to Roy Hickox, n.d., Housing, ALA.
108 Lawrence H. Smith to John Stelle, March 27, 1946; Frank A. Mathews Jr. MC to Donald Glascoff, March

27, 1946, Housing, ALA.

109 Representative Springer (IN). “Does the Rank and File of the American Legion Support the Wyatt

Housing Bill?” Congressional Record 92:2 (March 28, 1946) p. H2774-2776; Representative Smith (WI).
108
withdrew it. Following this new humiliation, which was barely a month after the very public feud

with Bradley, the only action the Legion dared to take through the summer of 1946 was to sit on

Wyatt’s Veterans Advisory Council, a consultative body with little power where every major

veterans’ group was represented.110

Months of pent-up frustration from rank-and-file Legionnaires were on display at the 1946

National Convention, held over the course of a week in San Francisco in September-October. The

first sign was the disappointing attendance: instead of the 150,000 Legionnaires anticipated, only

about 25,000 showed up, less than for the 1939 Convention. World War II veterans accounted for

only 20 percent of delegates, even though they were estimated to account for nearly 68 percent of

the total Legion membership.111 Though this was partly the result of the precarious economic

situation in which many recently-discharged veterans found themselves—very few could afford

the $350 to $500 necessary to attend the conference—it also reflected the widespread

dissatisfaction with the passivity of the national leadership.112 As reporters noted, a “rumble of

discontent” could be heard from younger veterans: many resented, for instance, the hand-picking

of Paul Griffith by the kingmakers for the position of National Commander.113 But their main focus

remained housing and especially the T-E-W bill, which was being debated in Congress. On

September 30, spontaneously assembled in a “rump caucus,” nearly one hundred World War II

veterans demanded “a more vigorous attack” of the “vital housing problem.”114 In typical Legion

fashion, their protest was not repressed outright by the leadership—rather, the latter took control

“American Legion Commander Reverses Stand on Wyatt Housing Plan” Congressional Record 92:10 (April
13, 1946): E2195.
110 For the minutes of the first meeting, see “ NATIONAL HOUSING AGENCY-First Meeting of the VETERANS

ADVISORY COUNCIL,” May 9, 1946, Housing, ALA.

111 Charles Hurd, “Few Young Men at Legion Session: World War II Veterans Said to Lack Money and Time

for San Francisco Trip,” New York Times, October 6, 1946; Alvin D. Hyman, “American Legion Rolls Out
the Barrel,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 2, 1946; George Draper, “‘Lost’ Legionnaires: Convention
Chief Reports Only 25,000 Have Officially Registered,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 3, 1946. For
membership figure, see The American Legion, National Membership Record, 2012, ALA.
112 Hyman, “American Legion Rolls Out the Barrel.”
113 Stanton Delaplane, “Kilroy Is Here,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 1946.
114 “Young Vets’ Lobby: World War II Men Win a Point on Housing (but Too Late for Action),” San Francisco

Chronicle, October 1, 1946.

109
of the caucus by packing it with its own men.115 The strategy was successful: even though five

Departments had previously endorsed the T-E-W bill and a resolution in its favor was submitted

to the caucus, the convention went on record against it. Instead, delegates voted to refer the

question to a new National Housing Committee (NHC).116 Before the caucus dissolved, its

handpicked leaders—headed by Dudley Swim, the National Vice-Commander and former

America First treasurer—issued a reassuring statement that “there were no schisms or

dissidence,” and that “the welding of the partnership of World War I and World War II veterans

had made great progress under the Commandership of John Stelle.”117

The truth, of course, was quite the opposite. The fact that the seven members of the new

NHC were all World War II veterans was the only symbolic concession made by Paul Griffith when

he appointed them in early October. For the rest, they all embraced the old guard’s conservative

line. The chairman, Richard Cadwallader, was a former Army engineer and a Harvard law

graduate from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who made no mysteries of his feelings toward the

government’s role in the economy. “I am a Southerner,” he later declared, “I am a Confederate.

And, I am a States Rights man. I believe that John C. Calhoun was right. And, we talk about Damn

Yankees, and of course, we don’t like federal government anyway.”118 According to Justin Gray,

nearly every other committee member was personally connected to the real estate and

construction business.119 They did not remain idle, however: each was assigned a section of the

115 For unofficial accounts of this event, see Gray and Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion, 120; Gates,
“Whither the American Legion?”
116 Proceedings of the 28th National Convention of the American Legion (San Francisco, 1946), 115–116.
117 National Public Relation Division, “Joint Statement of Dudley Swim of Idaho, National Vice Commander

(WWII), Richard Marvel, Department Commander of Nebraska (WWII), Wesley Sampier, Department
Commander of Arkansas (WWII), William Gallosy, Department Commander of Idaho (WWII),” October 2,
1946, Housing, ALA.
118 Sam Stavisky, “Convention Elects D.C. Publicity Man By Acclamation,” The Washington Post, October

5, 1946; “Remarks of Richard Cadwallader, Chairman of American Legion Housing Committee, on Veterans
Housing Panel at National Association of Home Builders Convention, Stevens Hotel, Chicago, February 25,
1947,” Housing, ALA.
119 Gray and Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion, 121. Richard Vail, one of the committee members,

would later be indicted for selling houses to veterans in Fresno, California, at prices higher than legally
authorized, see Albert Q. Maisel, “Scandals in Veterans’ Housing,” Collier’s, July 3, 1948.
110
U.S., and they toured the country to gather information on the housing shortage in cooperation

with Legion Departments and Posts.120 After a month of hearings, their work culminated in a

national “Housing Conference” held in early November in Washington, D.C., with testimonies

from nearly every group of national stature—churches, labor unions, state and federal agencies,

civic groups, banks, construction, real estate, etc. A few days later, the NHC released its final

report in a great fanfare of public relations.121 The national leadership clearly intended the

document—later published in booklet form to give it wider circulation—to grab the nation’s

headlines and allow them to claim the mantle of expertise and authority on the topic.122

The striking features of this report, which was unanimously adopted as the Legion’s official

housing program, were not just its thoroughness but how little it departed from the resolutions

already endorsed by the 1946 National Convention a few weeks earlier. Though it listed no less

than thirty-one findings and twenty-one conclusions, the report read like a manifesto against

government intervention. It listed a wide range of examples of “incompetence and red tape” and

even plain “apathy” in several federal agencies, whose administration of the regulations had been

“very poorly done.” Not only had they been unforgivably slow to recognize the emergency of the

situation, it charged, but their cooperation and coordination had been “extremely poor.” As a draft

of an official press release made clear, “members of the committee did not believe…as did some

of the Washington bureaucrats, that ample housing could be granted by writing a national law, or

issuing a federal edict.” “The American Legion plan,” it continued, “was aimed at brushing aside

those controls and impediments which were throttling the housing program…Under the stimulus

of our system of free enterprise and competition, we have led the work in inventiveness and

resourcefulness.” As a remedy to the current situation, the report suggested, among other things,

120 Letter from Donald G. Glascoff, October 10, 1946, Housing, ALA.
121 Letter from Raymond H. Fields, November 13, 1946; Letter from Jack Cejnar, November 15, 1946,
Housing, ALA.
122 On the booklet, see Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 21, 22, 23,

1946, 165, ALA.

111
the abolition of the NHA and the Office of Housing Expediter, the creation of an emergency

housing board composed of World War II veterans, an immediate 10 percent increase in rent

levels, and home loans guaranteed 100 percent by the Federal Housing Administration. And of

course, it explicitly rejected the T-E-W bill.123

The Legion’s report came at a turning point in the national housing debate. By late 1946,

Wyatt’s VEHP was running into headwinds. His self-proclaimed goal of 1.2 million house starts

for the year was far from accomplished, and discontent was brewing across the country as veterans

realized that they could find few of the houses the Housing Expediter had promised them. This

gap was partly the result of the continued shortages in essential building materials such as

plywood, lath, and nails, caused by strikes in the lumber, steel, railroad and coal industries. Wyatt

himself did not help his case either by gambling on the untested prefabrication industry, which

he hoped would deliver 250,000 assembly-line homes in 1946 but ended up producing less than

40,000. His confrontational style also cost him the support of a few key administration figures,

such as John Small of the Civilian Production Administration or George Allen of the

Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The crushing blow to his efforts, however, was the landslide

Republican victory in the November 1946 midterm elections, which demonstrated the

unpopularity of wartime controls (the GOP had campaigned on the slogan “Had enough?”). As a

result, Truman lifted almost all of them a few days later, in a move that amounted to nothing less

than a death warrant for the VEHP. Hoping to salvage whatever he could, Wyatt submitted a

revised plan to the White House later that month, but his credit had eroded beyond recovery.

Though he had the support of the AMVETS, AVC, and VFW, Truman had already made his

decision. On December 3, he announced that he had rejected Wyatt’s proposals and accepted his

123 Ibid., 145-165; “Suggested talk on Housing,” n.d, Housing, ALA.

112
resignation. Ten days later, he issued another executive order relaxing rent controls and removing

price ceilings on houses as well as restrictions on construction materials.124

Though Cadwallader’s claim that his committee’s report was responsible for the change in

Truman’s program was clearly an overstatement, it is nevertheless true that the Legion leadership

could be satisfied with the situation of housing policy in late 1946. 125 President Truman did not

abolish the NHA and the OHE, but the two new administrators he appointed to replace Wyatt at

the head of these agencies (Raymond Foley and Frank Creedon, respectively) immediately

announced that they would limit their activities to a coordinating role as opposed to a more

directive one. Foley in particular was an efficient but cautious and business-friendly bureaucrat

who had no intention of replicating Wyatt’s populist style.126 Later that same month, they both

met with Griffith, who agreed that their policy declarations met the “final objectives” of the

Legion’s program—namely scaling down the government’s involvement in housing. According to

his secretary, Griffith was “gratified, beyond words, in the success of this conference and the

assurances given us,” and was “certain that we are now dealing with two gentlemen who are

working for exactly the same thing that we are, housing for veterans.”127 As for the T-E-W bill, the

Senate passed it by a voice vote that year, but it was bottled up in the House Banking and Currency

Committee, whose chairman Jesse Wolcott (R-Mich.) was “a long-time friend of the private

housing groups.” After the Republican victory in the midterms, its chances of passage in the next

session of Congress seemed almost nonexistent.128

124 On the demise of Wyatt’s VEHP, see Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman Administration, 50–
58. On the support of veterans’ groups, see “How Veterans Organizations Stand on Housing Issues,”
Journal of Housing 3, no. 12 (December 1946): 279.
125 “Address of Richard Cadwallader, Chairman, National Housing Committee before National Employment

Conference,” February 26, 1947, Housing, ALA. Internal White House documents show clearly that the
Legion’s program was received after the administration had decided what measures to take, see especially:
Memorandum from Harold Stein to John R. Steelman, December 13, 1946, White House Central Files:
Official File 63 (December 1946) [2 of 3], Box 362, Truman Papers.
126 On Foley’s management style, see Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman Administration, 60–62.
127 Robert R. Poston to Richard C. Cadwallader, December 20, 1946, Housing, ALA.
128 Freedman, Public Housing: The Politics of Poverty, 17.

113
 As 1946 drew to a close, then, the national leadership of the Legion had reasons to feel

contented. By creating the National Housing Committee, they had succeeded in neutralizing the

grassroots housing insurgency within their group while sticking to their conservative laissez-faire

politics. Nevertheless, their victory was less clear-cut than they perhaps recognized it at the time.

The very creation of this Committee, after all, amounted to a tacit recognition that their earlier

policy of simply ignoring the housing crisis had failed. More importantly, by acting as a lightning

rod for advocates of a more activist position, it would also unwittingly contribute to pushing the

Legion to the center.

The Legion and the Real Estate Lobby

The fact that the Legion had come out against Wyatt’s VEHP and remained staunchly

opposed to the T-E-W bill was, for many outside observers, evidence that they were “playing hand-

in-glove” with the “powerful real estate lobby.” The charge that the Legion’s kingmakers had

silenced the voice of younger veterans in order to advance their own anti-government agenda

became increasingly common in the months following the 1946 Convention. The most persistent

of these critics was the nationally-syndicated Washington Post columnist Drew Pearson, who

never missed a chance to attack the Legion for “sabotaging” Wyatt’s program.129 Another

influential voice was World War II veteran and cartoonist Bill Mauldin, made famous by his

wartime drawings of G.I.’s Willie and Joe, who first attacked the Legion in an Atlantic Monthly

article and then in his best-seller Back Home (1947). “Youth has no voice in the Legion,” he

charged, for it “is a political machine in the hands of a comparative few,” whose policies “are made

Drew Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round,” The Washington Post, December 12, 1946; Drew
129

Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round,” The Washington Post, January 18, 1947; Drew Pearson, “The
Washington Merry-Go-Round,” The Washington Post, January 30, 1947; Drew Pearson, “The Washington
Merry-Go-Round,” The Washington Post, March 6, 1947.
114
at the top and not by the votes of its individual members.”130 Even more bluntly, Franklin D.

Roosevelt, Jr., who had become the AVC’s national housing chairman, declared in May 1947 that

the Legion’s opposition to the T-E-W bill amounted to nothing less than a “gross betrayal of the

millions of homeless veterans” and a “surrender by the Legion hierarchy to the vested housing

interests.”131 These charges were repeated often enough in local newspapers “throughout the

country” that Legion officials began to worry about the negative consequences on their

membership.132

A sample of the cartoons drawn by Mauldin to criticize the Legion’s old guard.
Source: left: Leo Howard to Harry W. Colmery, October 22, 1946, Folder: 239, Box 61 (110-7-
4-1), Harry W. Colmery Ms. Collection, KSHS; right: Bill Mauldin, Back Home (New York: W.
Sloan Associates, 1947), 92.

130 Bill Mauldin, “Poppa Knows Best,” The Atlantic Monthly, April 1947; Bill Mauldin, Back Home (New
York: W. Sloan Associates, 1947).
131 “Roosevelt Jr. Hits Legion on Housing: Stand on Taft Bill Is Called ‘Betrayal of Veterans,’” New York

Herald Tribune, May 18, 1947.

132 Lisle Alexander to Robert R. Poston, May 26, 1947, Housing, ALA.

115
 The fact that such attacks had become commonplace makes it worthwhile for us to

consider the following questions: what exactly was the “real estate lobby,” and what was its

connection with the Legion, if any? It is important to understand, first, that the term was a

deceiving shorthand for what was really a wide-ranging alliance of trade associations, each

representing specific interests. The most prominent of these groups were the National Association

of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), the Realtors’ Washington Committee, the National Association

of Home Builders (NAHB), and the United States Savings and Loan League (USSLL). Taken

together, they were one of the most efficient lobbying coalitions on Capitol Hill, notorious for their

use of such tactics as counterfeit letter-writing campaigns or truth-distorting pamphlets. One

reason for their zealous opposition to the VEHP and the T-E-W bill was that they represented a

sector that remained uniquely decentralized. Unlike other major industries like steel or oil,

housing in the postwar period was still dominated by small businesses operating locally and rarely

involving more than a few houses at a time. As a result, these groups often saw themselves as

embodying “the true spirit of the free enterprise system” and fiercely opposed state intervention

in their field. There was a certain measure of irony there, to be sure, for by the end of the 1930s

the housing industry did in fact greatly depend on public programs such as FHA-insured

mortgages, which had made it more stable and profitable. Nevertheless, industry advocates

conveniently distinguished between these policies, which they welcomed as an “aid to private

enterprise,” and others such as the public housing provision of the T-E-W bill, which they saw as

unwarranted government competition. In addition, they feared that public housing would create

an “opening wedge” that would in time lead to “European socialism in its most insidious form.”

In response to the arguments of housing reformers that decent public housing would cure most

116
social ills, they claimed that it would encourage idleness and create a class of citizens who would

rely on the state for a living.133

Their passionate embrace of the rhetoric of “free enterprise” was certainly shared by most

of the Legion’s national leaders. For Paul Griffith, public housing represented “a potential trend

of socialization,” which he thought was “dangerous to the democratic principles of free enterprise

and should not be supported in any bill.”134 Cadwallader echoed such feelings in his remarks at

the NAHB Convention in Chicago in February 1947, where he argued that, now that the war was

over, “we’ve got to get back to a system of free enterprise and a condition where the law of supply

and demand operates.”135 “I think that when we are talking decontrol,” he further explained to the

group’s board of directors, “we have to go the whole way. Sure, we have to get rid of federal

legislation. We have to get rid of federal administration. We have to get rid of all these central

props that have been built up that artificially interfere with this free competitive system.”136 Such

statements help explain why, on the defining issue of the housing debate in 1947—the T-E-W bill—

the Legion stood shoulder to shoulder with the real estate lobby in stubborn opposition to its

passage. The members of the Legion’s National Housing Committee not only disagreed that the

government had any responsibility to provide decent housing for its citizens, but felt that “such a

theory could lead to socialism and cancerous bureaucracy” and would “seriously impair the

economy of this country.”137 It was not surprising, then, that many contemporary observers who

133 Freedman, Public Housing: The Politics of Poverty, 59–75; Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman
Administration, 15–22; Nathan Strauss, “Why You Can’t Get That New Home,” The American Magazine,
December 1947; Tris Coffin, “The Slickest Lobby,” Nation, March 23, 1946; Leo Goodman, “What Makes
the Real Estate Lobby Tick?,” Journal of Housing 6, no. 12 (December 1950): 423–27.
134 Paul H. Griffith to Milo J. Warner, December 11, 1946, Housing, ALA.
135 “Remarks of Richard Cadwallader, Chairman of American Legion Housing Committee, on Veterans

Housing Panel at National Association of Home Builders Convention, Stevens Hotel, Chicago, February 25,
1947,” Housing, ALA.
136 “Remarks of Richard Cadwallader, Chairman of American Legion Housing Committee Before NAHB

Board of Directors, Stevens Hotel, Chicago, February 24, 1947,” Housing, ALA.
137 Proceedings of the 29th National Convention of the American Legion (New York City, 1947), 265, 269.

117
disagreed with the Legion’s approach saw the ideological collusion between it and the real estate

lobby as evidence of the former serving as a front for the latter.

A closer look at the evidence, however, reveals the charge that the Legion “was stooging

for real estate people” to be overly simplistic.138 First, the Legion always justified its opposition to

the T-E-W bill by arguing that it failed to give priority to veterans’ problems. This was a fair point:

none of the several titles of that bill, as described earlier, were specifically designed for veterans.

For a group like the Legion, which had long believed that veterans should be treated separately

and on a more favorable basis than the rest of the population, this was a key stumbling block.

Instead of trying to solve a problem affecting the entire population of the country in the long run,

Legion leaders argued that the bill should give priority to veterans’ issues. As Cadwallader’s

Secretary Bob Poston explained, “until the emergency proportions of housing had been reduced,

it would be a breach of promise for the veteran to even consider this legislation.” The bill’s slum

clearance provision, they also feared, would only make the situation worse by evicting many of

the veterans who were forced to live in this “sub-marginal property” for lack of a better option.139

Finally, they were concerned that an “economy-minded” Congress would be tempted to fund

public housing “by depriving veterans of some of their other hard-won benefits.”140

The Legion also did not buy the real estate lobby’s “trickle-down” theory of housing.

According to this view, the free operation of the market would quickly solve the crisis once

government stepped out of the picture. If builders were allowed to create housing for upper-class

families first, they claimed, less prosperous families would then be able to move into the empty

dwellings left behind, and so on down the income ladder until the whole population would have

adequate shelter. Legion leaders did not entirely reject the idea, but they did not believe that “this

natural economic process alone can provide adequate housing for all the lower income families

138 Roy Hickox to Ray Fields, December 12, 1946, Housing, ALA.
139 Robert Poston to Thomas W. Miller, February 10, 1947, Housing, ALA; Digest of Minutes, National
Executive Committee Meeting, May 5, 6, 7, 1947, 299-310, ALA.
140 Clarence Woodbury, “Should Veterans Come First in Housing?,” ALM, January 1948.

118
any time soon,” as the group’s Magazine put it.141 For them, the ideal counterweight to

government intervention was not only private enterprise but local community action. “[T]he only

way we are ever going to be able to lick the problem of prices, of housing,” Cadwallader recognized,

“is the same way we are going to lick most of the other problems in American government. That

is to get back to a realization that the local community is the basis of democracy.” 142 For him, the

“bedrock principles” of the Legion’s housing policy combined “private ownership and operation,

private financing and local community control and management without government subsidy.”143

More than just a view of the mind, the Legion tried to implement this community-centered

perspective as early as September 1946. In a short pamphlet entitled Here’s How on Vets Housing,

it outlined the steps that local Posts could follow to form a non-profit corporation that could build

housing for veterans under a cooperative agreement allowing substantial cost savings. Building

on this initial step, the Legion then released a second pamphlet a few months later entitled

Operation Housing (whether the title was drawn from the earlier, Communist-led publicity stunt

in New York City is not known), which presented the details of six “community action plans” that

had been “found successful in widely separated areas.” The idea was that “at least one of [them]

is adaptable to the needs of any community.”144 While the “Lambert Plan” in operation in New

Brunswick and Princeton, New Jersey, called for the re-adaptation of unused local property or

slums, the Massachusetts plan consisted of a guide for a dwelling of “economical dimensions,”

and the “Greendale plan” in Wisconsin of a limited dividend corporation formed by financial,

labor, construction, and veterans’ groups. As the introduction made clear, these plans all

emphasized the need for veterans to solve the problem themselves: “You are the only one who can

do the job, and only then by rolling up your sleeves in the good old American way and pitching

141 Strauss, “Why You Can’t Get That New Home”; Woodbury, “Should Veterans Come First in Housing?”
142 “Remarks of Richard Cadwallader, Chairman of American Legion Housing Committee Before NAHB
Board of Directors, Stevens Hotel, Chicago, February 24, 1947,” Housing, ALA.
143 Richard C. Cadwallader to George J. Kelly, September 15, 1948, Housing, ALA.
144 “For A.M. Release, Jan. 30 (American Legion News Service),” January 28, 1947, Housing, ALA.

119
in…Your government can help but it cannot and should not be expected to provide these

individual homes. That is not ‘the American way.’”145

Though there is no estimate of the total number of these local projects—the Legion

admitted in December 1949 that it had “no idea as to how many actually exist”—they were

remarkably popular.146 In Oklahoma, for instance, the Legion Department organized veterans’

cooperative groups in eleven cities by May 1950, and completed plans for twelve more.147 In

Larchmont, New York, fifty veterans started a venture in cooperative building and financing in

February 1946. With financing from G.I. Bill loans, they each saved approximately $2,000 by

using the same plan for all houses. Completed nine months later, the project received the

affectionate nickname of “Foxhole Acres.” In Wallingford, Connecticut, Legionnaires joined

representatives of other civic groups in early 1947 to conduct a city-wide publicity campaign to

find rooms for ex-GI’s or convince inhabitants to convert unused portions of their homes into

small apartments; they managed to locate forty rooms.148 In East Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

Cadwallader himself led a project called the “Legion Village,” in which the local Post formed a

corporation, purchased 160 acres from the federal government, made plans for the construction

of 250 homes with FHA loans, and constructed all the houses with mass-produced items following

a basic two-bedroom model (see image below).149 The idea of veterans’ cooperatives was not

unique to the Legion: several such independent corporations existed throughout the country,

including some sponsored by the AVC or the AMVETS.150 The popularity of such projects

145; The American Legion, Operation Housing: Community Programs for Veterans, 1947, ALA.
146 Robert S. Dinger to Henry Dudley, December 2, 1949, Housing, ALA.
147 “News Notes,” Journal of Housing 6, no. 5 (May 1950): 165.
148 Joseph C. Keeley, “Three Answers to the Housing Question,” ALM, July 1947; Bob Richelson, “They

Ganged Up To Get Homes,” ALM, March 1948.

149 Helping Them to What They Fought for…How VETERANS Provided Homes for VETERANS, n.d. (ca.

August 1948), Housing, ALA.

150 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Banking and Currency, Subcommittee on Housing and Rents,

Report on Domestic Cooperative Housing (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office,
1950), 7, 11, 13, 17–19, 27.
120
demonstrated the continuing appeal of community-based efforts, which were also taking root at

the same time in fields like healthcare, agriculture, and even foreign relations.151

The “Legion
Village” in East
Baton Rouge,
La.: an example
of the Legion’s
local community
projects.
Source: Journal
of Housing, 3,
no. 7 (July
1946): 184.

The Pyrrhic Triumph of Public Housing

These piecemeal initiatives, however, were not enough to make a difference for the 2.8

million families doubled up and the additional half a million still living in temporary housing,

Jennifer Klein, For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America’s Public-Private
151

Welfare State (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2003); Meg Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics:
Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2005);
Daniel Immerwahr, Thinking Small: The United States and the Lure of Community Development (London:
Harvard University Press, 2015).
121
trailers, and rooming houses in the spring of 1947.152 In January, more than half of all Americans

still considered housing the most important topic for the new Congress to deal with.153 Within the

Legion itself, support for public housing and the T-E-W bill had not disappeared. In Mineral

Wells, Texas, for instance, a few Legion districts publicly endorsed the bill. 154 In April and May,

several Legionnaires involved in the housing industry in Kansas City, Missouri, and in two Illinois

towns wrote to the National Commander to voice their disagreement with the Legion’s repeated

attacks on the Federal Public Housing Authority, whose role was to provide cities and college

campuses with temporary housing units reconverted from wartime. Calling the FPHA’s work “a

godsend for individual veterans,” one of them added that “I am a member of the American Legion

and active in its local activities. If the vast majority of the American Legion membership has not

been and is not now for the FPHA—Veterans Housing Program—then Kansas City is not typical

of the nation.”155 Their efforts were vain, however, for the T-E-W bill was once again bottled up in

Congress that year by Jesse Wolcott, who refused to even report it to the floor.156

Still, it was becoming increasingly clear to the Legion leadership that their hardline

position on housing did not have the support of most members. The outcome of their push against

Truman’s effort to reorganize the NHA showed this. The President sought to merge the agency as

well as other federal housing services into a permanent and unified branch, the Housing and

Home Finance Agency, as part of his larger program to streamline and modernize the

government’s bureaucracy. The Legion declared its “unequivocal opposition” to the plan on the

grounds that it would not only mark the government’s intention to remain involved in housing,

152 Quoted in Henry H. Dudley to Herbert U. Nelson, November 4, 1948, Housing, ALA.
153 “Housing Should Come First for Action by the 80th Congress,” Journal of Housing 4, no. 1 (January
1947): 9.
154 “City News,” Journal of Housing 4, no. 8 (August 1947): 228-229.
155 Quoted in: W. M. Symon to Paul H. Griffith, April 26, 1947, Housing, ALA. In same category, see also:

Jas. L. Warren to Paul Griffith, April 29, 1947; Paul Griffith to James L. Warren, May 3, 1947; Burdette R.
Weaver to Paul Griffith, April 25, 1947; Paul Griffith to Burdette R. Weaver, May 12, 1947; Paul R. McCauley
to Paul Griffith, May 9, 1947; Paul Griffith to Paul R. McCauley, May 20, 1947.
156 Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman Administration, 64–65.

122
but that it would “lump public housing, banking, and private housing functions under one agency”

and thus confer its administrator dangerous power.157 Yet despite the fact that all Department

Commanders and Adjutants were asked to wire their Senators against the bill, it passed Congress

and was signed into law.158 As Poston remarked, this was a clear blow to the Legion’s agenda,

especially because “senators representing states in which the American Legion is reputedly strong,

voted loudly and firmly” in favor of the bill.159 Clearly, grassroots support for the national

leadership’s position had failed to materialize. Upset by this “disheartening” defeat, Poston

realized that “this action foretells a bad situation for the [housing] program at our National

Convention” later that summer.160

Probably aware that they could no longer take the Legion’s support for granted, the real

estate lobby also geared up for the upcoming Convention. As the president of the NAHB Edward

Carr emphasized in early 1947 to the directors of affiliated local groups, the stakes were high: in

the “all-out battle” over housing in Congress, he wrote, “the policy position of the American Legion

will be the most important single factor.” Knowing full well that the key decisions at the

Convention were typically made “by a comparatively few men behind the scenes” in a handful of

committees, he urged his troops to contact Legion adjutants and Department Commanders in

their states and encourage them to appoint “private-enterprise men” as delegates to the

convention, so that “we will have far less to fear than if they have the opposite philosophy.” He

insisted that this task was “extremely vital.”161 It is worth noting that the Legion was not the only

target of this strategy: just like the CPUSA, the real estate lobby tried to infiltrate most veterans’

157 John Thomas Taylor to Ray Fields, June 2, 1947; George Kelly to Ray Fields, June 19, 1947, Housing,
ALA.
158 Bob Poston to Don White, July 1, 1947, Housing, ALA; Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman

Administration, 62–64.
159 Bob Poston to Don White, July 23, 1947, Housing, ALA.
160 Robert R. Poston to Richard C. Cadwallader, July 24, 1947, Housing, ALA.
161 Housing Lobby: Part 2 of Hearings before the House Select Committee on Lobbying Activities, House

of Representatives, 81st Congress, 2nd session, April 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, May 3, 5, and 17, 1950, 376.
123
groups.162 By August, Carr’s lobbyists reported that they had contacted Legion officers in twenty-

eight states and established indirect contacts in four others. They also produced a list of fifteen

Legionnaires, each from a different state, who had all “promise[d] to carry out our suggestions.”163

And yet just like the CPUSA as well, the real estate lobby’s effort to manipulate the Legion

from within ultimately ended in failure. To be sure, the 29th National Convention, which opened

in New York City on August 28, 1947, did not disappoint those who expected a confrontation. As

a Legion official later observed, the T-E-W bill provoked three days of “intense and at time,

acrimonious” debate in committee as well as two more hours of discussion on the floor of the

convention, without reaching a consensus.164 A journalist for the American Legion Magazine

remarked that “No brass knuckles were used, as far as I know, nor was anyone slugged with a dead

cat, but every other tool of controversy was brought into play…When the chips were down on the

Convention floor, feeling was still running so high that Commander Griffith had to declare

everybody out of order at one point.”165 Resolutions from seven different Departments had been

submitted in favor of the bill, while its opponents (including Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy,

who gave a speech against it) continued to steadfastly oppose the public housing provision. After

a roll call vote was taken, the final tally gave a landslide victory to the anti-T-E-W side, 2,796 to

722.166 An unusual occurrence indicative of the bitterness of the fight, the supporters of the bill

decided to write their own minority report, in which they chastised their opponents for offering

nothing more than “a nebulous hope for future action.”167 The vote provoked the same wave of

negative reactions as the year before. New York City Mayor and Legionnaire William O’Dwyer

162 Harry Conn, “Housing: A Vanishing Vision,” New Republic, July 23, 1951.
163 Ibid, 379-380.
164 Rollins MacFadyen, “Housing Committee, Department of California, The American Legion,” September

16, 1947, Housing, ALA.

165 Woodbury, “Should Veterans Come First in Housing?”
166 “American Legion Votes Against Taft-Ellender-Wagner Bill,” Journal of Housing 4, no. 9 (September

1947): 255–56.
167 “Caution—Hold For Release: Minority Report of the Veterans’ Housing Committee, Twenty-Ninth

Annual National Convention, The American Legion, New York City,” ALA.
124
denounced it as a “deep low in ingratitude to the veteran,” while Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., charged

that the Legion had once again proven that it was “the principal errand boy on Capitol Hill for the

powerful real estate lobby.”168

Appearances were deceiving, however, for in hindsight the Convention was a victory for

the pro-T-E-W faction. Not only was the new National Commander, James F. O’Neil of New

Hampshire, a self-avowed champion of public housing who had no principled objection against

federal subsidies, but he came from a state that had submitted a resolution in favor of the bill and

he privately admitted having voted for the minority report.169 The fact that he was rumored to be

the kingmakers’ choice suggests that the national leadership had seen the handwriting on the wall

and knew that its opposition to public housing was no longer tenable. 170 Given the National

Commander’s central position in the power structure of the Legion and especially his authority to

appoint committee members, O’Neil’s election was a turning point. After Cadwallader resigned

from his position as the Chairman of the NHC, O’Neil replaced him with Walter E. Alessandroni

of Philadelphia. Though both men were World War II veterans and lawyers, their politics differed

sharply. Describing himself as a “good Republican,” Alessandroni was a typical representative of

the GOP’s moderate wing. He had been the executive secretary to the mayor of Philadelphia from

1940 to 1947 and was appointed director of the city’s Housing Authority that same year.171 As one

astute observer noted, his “big-city” background was essential, for “Alessandroni automatically

thinks in terms of Philadelphia and the problems of 2,000,000 people all bunked together, while

Cadwallader instinctively remembers Baton Rouge and its 38,000 people.”172 His position on

public housing was clear: he had led the pro-T-E-W faction at the New York convention.

168 “Action of Legion on Housing Upheld: Senator M’Carthy Challenges O’Dwyer’s Criticism of Group for
Rejection of Taft Bill,” New York Times, September 5, 1947.
169 James F. O’Neil to Walter E. Alessandroni, September 15, 1947, Housing, ALA. On O’Neil, see Bill

Cunningham, “Meet the Commander,” ALM, April 1948.

170 Army Times Vet-Letter 2, no. 34 (August 23, 1947), Wisconsin Veterans Museum, Madison, Wisconsin.
171 Walter Alessandroni to James F. O’Neil, November 21, 1947, Housing, ALA; for his biography, see Who

Was Who in America with World Notables, vol. IV, 1961-1968 (Chicago: Marquis-Who’s Who, 1968).
172 Rollins MacFadyen to Comrade Commander, October 22, 1948, Housing, ALA. Emphasis original.

125
 Contemporary observers were legitimately confused by this quick succession of events,

whereby the Legion had voted against the T-E-W yet also chosen a new leadership team that

supported it. Rumors immediately abounded: some journalists argued that this was another move

to co-opt the opposition, others a way to circumvent the mandate of the convention.173 Drew

Pearson compared it to an “American Legion Rebellion,” arguing that Cadwallader had been

ousted by O’Neil “under pressure from disgruntled World War II veterans” for his support of the

real estate lobby.174 The exact nature of the negotiations that took place behind closed doors is

unclear, but it is difficult to imagine that O’Neil did not know who he was appointing. The Legion

was a tightly controlled bureaucracy where access to positions of power was the result of intricate

backroom deals, and major turns in the group’s political orientation like this one simply could not

have happened by chance. And indeed, while the new NHC chairman did not directly challenge

the Convention’s mandate, he did adopt a new approach. As he emphasized repeatedly to his

colleagues, he was convinced “that the Legion could do a great deal for the cause of housing for

the veteran if we spent less time following the negative policy of condemning public housing and

expend more effort in advancing a program of our own.”175 On at least one occasion, he even

privately insisted that the Legion’s Public Relations Director withdraw “the usual tirade…against

public housing” from a speech prepared for the National Commander.176 In other words, even if

the change was perhaps not as sensational as headlines-thirsty journalists would have liked it to

be, it certainly set the stage for the more dramatic events that followed.

For now, the Legion remained focused on its community housing program. In its October

1947 report, the NHC found it “successful in many communities throughout the United States”

173 Walter Alessandroni to James F. O’Neil, November 21, 1947, Housing, ALA.
174 Drew Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round: SEC in Wall Street Groove,” The Washington Post,
November 19, 1947.
175 Walter E. Alessandroni to James F. O’Neil, September 9, 1947; Walter Alessandroni to James F. O’Neil,

November 21, 1947; Walter Alessandroni to Ray Fields, National Public Relations, November 24, 1947,
Housing, ALA.
176 Walter E. Alessandroni to Ray Fields, February 11, 1948, Housing, ALA.

126
and recommended turning it into law as the Veterans’ Homestead Act. The bill allowed groups of

at least five veterans to create nonprofit corporations (“Homestead Associations”), which would

be empowered under the supervision of the VA to issue government-backed, tax-free bonds to

finance the purchase, construction, maintenance, and sale or rental of housing to other veterans.

The idea was attractive not only because such bonds would be a valuable investment that would

reduce the overall cost of housing for veterans, but because, in the NHC’s own words, the program

was all about community action: “all we are doing is making these tools available to the local

veterans’ groups to satisfy their housing needs if they want to use them.”177 The same reasons for

which the bill appealed to the Legion, however, were directly responsible for the lack of

enthusiasm with which it was met in Congress after its introduction in January 1948. Most

government agencies were reluctant to support it because it would have given additional powers

to a VA already struggling with the administration of the 1944 G.I. Bill. In addition, they feared

that easy credit would contribute to inflation, and were concerned over the absence of any

guarantee that the personnel in charge of these associations would have the necessary skills and

experience. Finally, they were reluctant to allow any veteran to participate, without guarantee that

they actually needed the help.178 The real estate lobby was equally skeptical; in off-the-cuff

comments, the NAHB called the plan “loaded with subsidy” and disapproved of the idea of

“hundreds of co-ops set up…by amateurs.”179 Lacking support from both government and private

industry, the bill was not acted upon before the June 1948 congressional recess.180

Most observers focused their attention on the T-E-W bill instead. After Wolcott had buried

the bill in committee the previous year, Truman decided to make housing reform in general and

the passage of the comprehensive housing bill in particular a key topic of his 1948 re-election

177 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 30, 31, and November 1, 1947, 86-
99, ALA.
178 John Thomas Taylor to James F. O’Neil, February 17, 1948, Housing, ALA.
179 Army Times Vet-Letter, November 8, 1947, Housing, ALA.
180 Proceedings of the 30th National Convention of the American Legion (Miami, 1948), 211-217.

127
campaign. By mentioning the bill in his State of the Union address in January, he made clear that

he would personally push for its passage. His strategy was simple: knowing full well that the bill

was popular but that the chances of the same Republican Congress passing it this year remained

very slim, he hoped that a negative vote would allow him to portray the GOP as a party sold to

“special interests” and oblivious of the needs of the “people,” and thus to sway voters in his favor

at the polls in November.181 Further heightening the bill’s public profile, five of the major veterans’

organizations—AVC, VFW, DAV and the Jewish and Catholic War Veterans—organized a

“Veterans’ Housing Conference” in Washington, D.C., in March to pledge their support for the bill

and mobilize congressional support. The conference was a success, bringing 1,500 veterans to the

capital along with key Congressional figures such as Taft and Ellender, and plans were made for

out twenty-five more mass meetings in other cities.182 The Legion’s absence showed the limits of

Alessandroni’s ability to turn his group around.

It was in this larger context that Republican Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont

introduced a series of amendments to the T-E-W bill in March 1948, one of which gave preference

to veterans in applications for public housing.183 As a junior first-term Senator, Flanders had been

assigned by the Republican leadership to introduce those changes after leading a seven-month

long joint congressional investigation of housing conditions across the country.184 Preference for

former soldiers was not a new concept in housing. The Housing and Rent Act of 1947 had given

World War II veterans and their families a 30-day priority for new single-family dwellings and

rental housing, and former soldiers had been given priority over civilians in applications to public

181 Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman Administration, 74.

182 Chat Paterson to NPC Members & Al Josephy, George Ebey, Justin Stewart, “National Veterans Housing
Conference – March 1st and 2nd,” Folder: National Veterans Housing Conference 02/29/1948-03/01/1948,
Box 174, American Veterans Committee Records, Special Collections Research Center, The George
Washington University; “T-E-W Bill Principles Get Congressional, Vet Support,” Journal of Housing 5, no.
3 (March 1948): 59–60.
183 Proceedings of the 30th National Convention of the American Legion, 214.
184 William S. White, “Big Housing Plan Filed in Congress: Committee Calls for 15,000,000 Homes in the

Next 10 Years With Wide Public Help,” New York Times, 1948; Flanders, Senator from Vermont, 220.
128
housing at the local level before.185 Nevertheless, the addition of this provision to the T-E-W bill,

which would have made it the law of the land, certainly helped nudge the Legion closer to

supporting it. In early April, Alessandroni’s NHC decided that while the bill was by no means

perfect, “it certainly presented an improvement over the old TEW bill which had been considered

last year and was worthy of our support.”186 The National Executive Committee officially endorsed

it a few weeks later, provided that it would include veterans’ preference and the Veterans

Homestead Act.187

This decision represented a remarkable turnaround, nothing less than the complete

reversal of what had been the Legion’s stance for the past three years. After having charged

repeatedly that public housing was tantamount to communism, the Legion now found this

measure “entirely a proper and democratic way of accomplishing our objectives.” 188 During a

congressional hearing, Alessandroni said that he was “sure” that public housing “is not

socialization of housing.”189 Yet however dramatic, the decision of the Legion leadership to

endorse T-E-W was also the result of the change in personnel that had taken place at the previous

year’s convention. Over the course of several months, Alessandroni and O’Neil had succeeded in

steering their group away from its hardline opposition to public housing. Alessandroni’s report to

the NEC reportedly emphasized “how the tide is running against the Legion because of their

indifference to this piece of legislation.”190 O’Neil also hinted at the same reasoning when he

publicly admitted that “I don’t think we can ever stand in very good grace before anybody if we

are willing to accept federal subsidies for ourselves [as was the case with the Veterans Homestead

185 Congress and the Nation, 1945-1964, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964),
1368.; “Service Men Get Housing Priority: Large Number of Applicants for Quarters Here Restricts Aid of
Two City Agencies,” New York Times, November 2, 1944.
186 Proceedings of the 30th National Convention of the American Legion, 214.
187 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 3, 4 and 5, 1948, 158, ALA.
188 Proceedings of the 30th National Convention of the American Legion, 215.
189 He added: “I am sure the American Legion would not be for anything that was socialism.” See U.S.

Congress, House, Committee on Banking and Currency, General Housing, Hearing, May 3-7, 10-14, 17, 24,
27, June 1-4, 7-8, 1948 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1948), 475–76.
190 Gray and Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion, 125.

129
Act] and indicate we want them denied to anybody else.”191 The palace revolution that had taken

place at the 1947 National Convention had finally borne its fruits.

The backing of the Legion, however, did not prevent the comprehensive housing bill from

initially making little headway in Congress. Re-introduced in April 1948, it passed the Senate but

died once again in Wolcott’s House Banking and Currency Committee. During the special August

session called by Truman, the bill once again failed to pass—thereby providing him with the

example he needed to press his case with voters that the GOP was sold to special interests. After

his unexpected reelection in November, Truman made the bill a central plank of his “Fair Deal”

address on January 5, 1949. The Senate passed the bill again and, for the first time in four years,

it got out of committee and reached the floor of the House in June. The final version of the bill did

not contain the Veterans’ Homestead Act, but it did include a lifelong public housing preference

for veterans and their families. With help from the young Democratic Representative from Texas,

Olin E. Teague, the Legion had managed to defeat House Republicans’ efforts to limit this

provision to 5 years.192 As a result, the group announced that it would join all the other major

veterans’ organizations and throw “its full weight behind the…bill,” called the possible rejection

of public housing an “irreparable tragedy,” and encouraged the House membership “to weigh the

plight of hundreds of thousands of American families against ‘synthetic’ propaganda” by the real

estate lobby.193 These statements, which would have been unthinkable in 1945, showed that the

Legion had come a long way in four years. After several more days of debate, the House passed

the bill and the President signed it into law in July.

191 “Taft-Ellender-Wagner Bill Before House Committee,” Journal of Housing 5, no. 4 (May 1948): 123–24.
192 Robert R. Poston to Bradley R. Taylor, May 18, 1949, Box 4, Folder: Correspondence, 1946-1949, Bradley
R. Taylor Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. Apparently on the Legion’s behalf,
Teague introduced the amendment eliminating the 5-year limit on the day of the House vote, see “Housing
Act of 1949,” Congressional Record 97, no. 7 (June 29, 1949): H8647-8; “Washington, D.C. --- (ALNS),”
July 5, 1949, Housing, ALA.
193 George Kelly to Harry Guinivan, June 20, 1949, Housing, ALA.

130
 Under its final version, the Housing Act of 1949 gave veterans and their family a

permanent priority in applications for public housing units as well as in government loans for the

building of homes on farms.194 This was a clear success for the Legion: its news services hailed it

as “the greatest American Legion legislative accomplishment in the present Congress.”195 Thanks

to this achievement, Alessandroni was elected Vice-Commander in October 1948.196 Though the

group could hardly claim credit for the passage of the entire bill, it could nevertheless rightfully

boast—as could the many other veterans’ groups that had also supported the T-E-W—that it had

obtained the inclusion of provisions favoring former soldiers. There is also some evidence that the

addition of the Legion to the list of pro-public housing groups helped tip the balance in the bill’s

favor. Even the Journal of Housing, a longtime critic of the Legion’s opposition to public housing,

later recognized that “had it not been for this tremendously effective veterans support, we would

all have been in a bad way.”197

In the long run, however, the larger meaning of the bill for housing politics and veterans’

welfare state turned out to be much more ambiguous. Though it authorized the construction of

810,000 public housing units over the next six years, a combination of several factors—such as

the Second Red Scare and the prevalence of red-baiting, the continued opposition of the real estate

lobby at the local level, and the growing association of the program with minority groups—

contributed to making the actual number of units built under the Housing Act of 1949 much lower.

Barely two years later, in fact, public housing advocates complained that their program had lost

so much steam that it was already “a vanishing vision.” In the next eleven years, Congress only

funded some 322,000 units.198 What is more, the rejection of an amendment banning racial

194 See Sections 302 and 507 of “Housing Act of 1949,” Pub. L. No. 81–171, 63 Stat. 338 (1949).
195 “Washington, D.C. --- (ALNS),” July 5, 1949, Housing, ALA.
196 Proceedings of the 30th National Convention of the American Legion (Miami, 1949), 129.
197 “We Present...,” Journal of Housing 7, no. 3 (March 1950): 89.
198 Harry Conn, “Housing: A Vanishing Vision,” New Republic, July 16, 1951; Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier,

chap. 12; Parson, Making a Better World; Elizabeth Wood, The Beautiful Beginnings, the Failure to Learn:
Fifty Years of Public Housing in America (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Housing Management,
1982), 44.
131
discrimination in the program (about which the Legion remained silent) meant that public

housing projects would continue to be segregated and would increasingly be concentrated in

poorer, nonwhite urban areas.199 In the following years the proportion of nonwhite families

applying for public housing increased steadily while that of veterans’ or servicemen’s families

decreased markedly.200 By the end of the 1950s, the program was no longer known as a place for

the “deserving poor,” but instead for mostly nonwhite “problem families.”201 This was partly the

result of the improvement in the general housing situation, which allowed increasing numbers of

former soldiers to become, with the crucial help of the federal government, homeowners. What

happened over the course of a decade after the pyrrhic victory of the Housing Act of 1949, then,

was not only that it produced much less public housing than expected, but that it became less and

less oriented toward white working-class veterans and their families.

But there is a way in which the Housing Act of 1949 ended up hurting the interests of

minority veterans even more directly. Public housing was not the only title of the bill; one of its

other provisions, as noted earlier, dealt with urban “redevelopment,” also known as “urban

renewal.” Under this title, the federal government provided funds to cities seeking to raze and

then rebuild “slum” neighborhoods with the help of private enterprise. Over the course of the

1950s and early 1960s, the program earned a notorious track record, as many of the “slums” slated

for rebuilding were minority, especially African-American communities, whose size had swelled

following the Great Migration of blacks out of the South. Abuses were so common that the

program soon became known as “negro removal”: dislocated dwellers were typically given few

199 Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman Administration, 107–8; Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier,
chap. 12.
200 The percentage of nonwhite families applying for public housing went from 24.4 in 1949 to 35.1 in 1957,

at the same time as the percentage of veteran’s or servicemen’s families applying decreased from 54 to 37.1.
See Fisher, 20 Years of Public Housing: Economic Aspects of the Federal Program, 166.
201 Edward G. Goetz, New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.:

Cornell University Press, 2013), 37–38.

132
attractive relocation options and dwellings were replaced by more expensive housing.202 The

impact of this program on minority veterans is difficult to estimate with any kind of precision.

Nevertheless, it seems fair to say that by throwing its weight behind the Act that set urban

redevelopment into motion, the American Legion unwittingly wound up dealing a severe blow to

the already precarious economic situation of nonwhite veterans living in urban areas.

Of course, this was still years in the future. In 1949, the housing crisis was certainly not

over, but clear signs of improvement were begin to appear. An investigation published by Collier’s

the same month that Truman signed the Housing Act of 1949 found 1.5 million veterans,

predominantly in the middle-income category, still living “under appalling conditions” in the

reconverted war housing that was supposed to have been only a temporary shelter. 203

Nevertheless, nearly 3.5 million of housing units had been built between 1946 and 1949, and 1950

would be a record year with an all-time high of almost 1.4 million. Though the Legion continued

to push (without success) for the passage of a separate cooperative housing bill over the next year,

housing was no longer the burning topic it once had been.204 The housing situation had improved

so much, in fact, that in 1950 the NHC recommended its own dissolution.205

Conclusion

The problem of housing might have become less salient with time, but its impact on the

American Legion had been nothing less than transformative. No other issue played as central a

202 Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, chap. 12; Mark I. Gelfand, A Nation of Cities: The Federal Government
and Urban America, 1933-1965 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); James T. Patterson, Grand
Expectations: Postwar America, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 335.
203 Frank D. Morris, “Our Shameful Record in Veterans’ Housing,” Collier’s, July 23, 1949.
204 For details on the continuing problem of middle-income veterans’ housing, see Frank D. Morris, “Our

Shameful Record in Veterans’ Housing,” Collier’s, July 23, 1949. On the evolution of the cooperative
housing bill in Congress, see Davies, Housing Reform during the Truman Administration, 117–21. For the
Legion’s endorsement of the cooperative housing bill (also known as the Sparkman Bill), George Kelly to
Ray Fields (Attention Hank Dudley), February 18, 1949, Housing, ALA.
205 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 3, 4, and 5, 1950, 208-209, ALA.

133
role in the process of generational transition that took place within this group from 1945 to 1949.

Though the World War I leadership had tried its best to select and “indoctrinate” new members

through devices such as the Legion College, they also had to reckon with structural factors beyond

their control. Their own commitment to a conservative worldview came increasingly into conflict

with their role as leaders of a veterans’ group competing for prominence in a crowded field. As

such, they realized that clinging to their unpopular position would condemn their group to

irrelevance. Afraid of losing their dominant position, Legion leaders were forced to grudgingly yet

inexorably concede more and more ground to public housing advocates, until by 1948 their initial

position had been entirely overturned. In addition, time played against them. By the late 1940s,

at an average age of 55, it was estimated that 150 World War I Legionnaires were dying off every

day. The death in December 1947 of William H. Doyle, known as the “king of the kingmakers,”

dealt a particularly crushing blow to the old guard. It was his behind-the-scenes presence that had

kept them more or less united; with him gone, the group and its hold over the Legion’s power

structure gradually disintegrated.206

Let us take a step back in closing, then, and reflect upon the outcome of the transition that

had taken place during these years. With 2.9 million members in 1949, the Legion’s membership

had nearly tripled from a pre-war high of 1.1 million. So many new Legionnaires joined, in fact,

that in August 1950 the group moved into a new and larger national headquarters building in

Indianapolis (an imposing $2.5 million limestone structure paid for by the state of Indiana) and

a few weeks later laid the cornerstone for a new building for its legislative branch on D.C.’s K

Street, not far from the White House.207 The number of local Posts also increased from about

11,000 to 15,000. Most importantly, World War II veterans occupied more and more positions of

leadership. 11 were elected as Department Commanders in 1947 and almost 30 a year later. In

206 Allen, “Legion GIs Challenge the Brass”; “William H. Doyle, 56, Executive of Legion,” New York Times,
December 4, 1947.
207 Proceedings of the 32nd National Convention of the American Legion (Los Angeles, 1950), 89, 96.

134
September 1949, George N. Craig of Indiana became the first “World War II-only” National

Commander. Not coincidentally, his Legion career was deeply intertwined with housing. A lawyer

and a veteran of Patton’s Third Army, he made a name for himself when, in 1947 and 1948, he

protested discrimination against veterans in the sale of homes in a federal housing project in

Knox, Indiana, and eventually testified before Congress and in federal court.208 At the 1949

National Convention in Philadelphia, Craig was unanimously elected even before the completion

of the first ballot.209 In the remarkably short span of just four years, the new generation had

effectively seized control of the Legion. For better or for worse, housing had been the torch that

welded the partnership between the two generations.

Yet there was no time for celebrations. For one thing, total membership was high, but still

far short of where Legion leaders expected it to be. In 1941, more than a quarter of the total eligible

population of World War I veterans had been Legionnaires; eight years later, with an eligible

population of 18.9 million, the Legion’s share dropped to 16 percent.210 In addition, membership

was continuously declining after the 1946 peak, and only stabilized around 2.7 million in the early

1950s—barely half of the 5 million-mark that Legion leaders had hoped to reach. The consequent

diminution in revenue from dues had very real consequences on the Legion’s bottom line: from

1947 to 1949, finances were in the red.211 In September 1948, O’Neil sounded the alarm in an

article entitled “We Spread Ourselves Too Thin.” He argued that the Legion had grown overly

ambitious over the past few years and become involved in too many different debates, thereby

reducing its actual impact. “In trying to cover too much territory we cannot properly concentrate

on the big jobs to be done,” he argued, “We are using a shotgun instead of a rifle, and instead of

208 On Craig, see “George North Craig.” (June 6, 2005): Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson),
EBSCOhost (accessed January 20, 2015).
209 “The Election Battle for National Commander,” ALM, October 1949.
210 See The American Legion, National Membership Record, 2012, ALA; Series Ed229, “Veterans Living in

the United States and Puerto Rico, by age, 1865-1999,” in Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United
States.
211 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, October 13, 14 and 18, 1951, 54-55, ALA.

135
nailing our objectives with bullets we often only pepper them with birdshot…By drastically

trimming the number of subjects to be taken up with Senators and Representatives, we can

certainly make better progress with them.”212 Though O’Neil did not mention it by name, the

recent creation of the economy-minded Hoover Commission in 1947 had surely reminded him

that the Legion’s core mission of defending veterans’ benefits remained as urgent as ever, and

would require its undivided attention in the future.

212 James F. O’Neil, “We Spread Ourselves Too Thin,” ALM, September 1948.
136
 CHAPTER THREE
“The Honeymoon for Veterans is over”: The American Legion,
the First Hoover Commission, and Veterans’ Welfare State

“There are two groups of people in this country who hate each others’ guts,
but who each have their own reason for wanting to strip the veterans
program…One group is the welfare staters, who look with longing eyes at
the tailor-made veterans program as a building block to be turned into
everybody’s program…The other group is the ultra-conservative camp who
hate the welfare state, but also hate the expense of veterans medicine and
veterans benefits in general…It seems apparent that these opposite interests
were present in the Hoover Commission from the start, and that there was
almost unanimous agreement among them that their prestige could be used
to break up the veterans program and with it the veterans’ influence.”
- American Legion Magazine, February 19521

On May 2, 1950, the cameras of CBS filmed a new group of self-proclaimed revolutionaries gather

on the steps of the Philadelphia Independence Hall. The President of Temple University Robert

L. Johnson and several other speakers were there to launch the National Reorganization Crusade.

The goal of this campaign was to “reach citizens everywhere with the message of federal efficiency

and economy” carried by former President Herbert Hoover’s Commission on Organization of the

Executive Branch of Government (better known as the First Hoover Commission). The

centerpiece of the Crusade was the Cracker Barrel Caravan, a road show that would go on to visit

seventy-seven communities in the Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic regions through July

1950. A red-white-and-blue trailer carrying a 30-foot long imitation of an old-fashioned country

store, fitted out with an actual cracker barrel serving as rostrum—throwbacks to an imagined,

simpler past of small-town conviviality—was its main attraction. At each stop, actors brought the

issue of government reorganization alive: in one such performance, a woman impersonating “The

Hoover Commission Report” cut a helpless Uncle Sam free of bonds made of actual red tape.

While local speakers gave the viewpoints of a “typical” housewife, World War II veteran, and

1 “Group Seeks to Destroy U.S. Vet’s Program in Four Months,” American Legion Magazine, February 1952,
30–31.
137
college student, basket-toting volunteers crisscrossed the audience to hand out literature and

gather signatures. Over the course of three months, the Caravan distributed 90,000 pamphlets,

circulated thousands of petitions, and convinced over 4,700 people to join the Crusade—all with

the financial backing of some of the world’s largest corporations, including General Foods, Esso

Standard Oil, Firestone Tire & Rubber, and Ford Motor.2

The presence of a speaker representing the viewpoint of a “typical” former soldier from

World War II was no mere coincidence, for this group constituted a key target of the Crusade. Not

only did World War II veterans account for more than two-thirds of all men between the age of

23 and 39 in 1950, but veterans’ benefits occupied a central place in the overall reform of the

executive branch put forward by the Hoover Report (the collective title of the nineteen reports

published by the Commission).3 The massive expansion of these benefits during and after World

War II had produced a mammoth separate welfare state reserved for honorably discharged

veterans. From $637 million in 1940, the expenditures of the VA had skyrocketed to $6.9 billion

in 1949, more than any other single item of federal spending save the military and nearly one-

third of all public expenditures on social welfare.4 Such rapid growth had not been without

scandals, and by the late 1940s the agency was the target of several different congressional

investigations. More than a year before the launch of the Crusade, the country’s most widely

circulated magazine, the Reader’s Digest, called the VA’s inefficiency “a national disgrace.”5 It was

2 “Caravan Launches Crusade,” Reorganization News (May 1950), Citizens Committee for Reorganization
of the Executive Branch of the Government records, Box 2, Folder 2, Hoover Institution Archives
(CCREBGR, HIA thereafter); “Caravan on Tour for Hoover Report: The ‘Cracker-Barrel’ Caravan Comes to
Town,” New York Times, May 23, 1950; “Cracker-Barrel Caravan Pays Visit to Bay State: Red, White, and
Blue More for the Money,” The Christian Science Monitor, June 17, 1950; Citizens Committee for the
Hoover Report, “Impact! Of the Cracker Barrel Caravan,” n.d. (ca. July 1951), Box 32, Folder: Charles B.
Coates, 1950, Records of the First Hoover Commission, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (RFHC, HHPL
thereafter).
3 See James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: Postwar America, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1996), 13. Patterson did not include veterans discharged before 1945.
4 Susan B. Carter et al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present,

Millennial ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), volume 5, series Ed297-310; volume 2, series
Bf188-195. The VA accounted for nearly 17 percent of total federal expenditures in 1949.
5 Charles Stevenson, “How Bureaucracy Swindles the Taxpayer,” Reader’s Digest, March 1949.

138
therefore only logical for the First Hoover Commission to identify veterans’ programs as a major

potential area for government reform.

Overall, the Commission’s proposals amounted to nothing less than the first serious and

bipartisan attempt to cut back on veterans’ benefits since the Great Depression. Though the list

of co-sponsors of the Caravan clearly showed that its efforts were backed by big business, the

campaign also enjoyed support on both sides of the aisle.6 On the one hand, liberals followed in

the footsteps of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in opposing privileged treatment for a specific segment

of the population based only on their military service, and in seeing veterans’ benefits as an

obstacle to the growth of a more universal welfare state. The New York Times, for instance, argued

that it was “the duty of the citizen to defend his country” and that “he should expect no special

reward for carrying [it] out.”7 On the other hand, conservatives not only rejected the very idea of

a welfare state but worried, as Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek had forcefully argued in his

best-selling pamphlet The Road to Serfdom (1944), that mounting government spending would

pave the way for a totalitarian regime.8 As the American Legion Magazine correctly perceived,

these two groups “[hated] each others’ guts” but nevertheless joined in backing the Hoover

Commission’s agenda for reforming veterans’ affairs, whose two key planks were the integration

of VA hospitals into a unified federal medical agency and a radical diminution of veterans’

preference in civil service. And yet despite the Commission’s otherwise very positive record—over

70 percent of all its recommendations were implemented, resulting in total estimated savings of

6 On the First Hoover Commission, see Walch and Miller, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman; Joanna
Grisinger, The Unwieldy American State: Administrative Politics since the New Deal (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2012); Ronald C. Moe, Administrative Renewal: Reorganization
Commissions in the 20th Century (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2003); Peri E. Arnold,
Making the Managerial Presidency: Comprehensive Reorganization Planning, 1905-1996, 2nd ed., rev
(Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas, 1998); William E. Pemberton, “Struggle for the New Deal:
Truman and the Hoover Commission,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 16, no. 3 (Summer 1986): 511–27;
Ronald C. Moe, The Hoover Commissions Revisited (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1982); Peri E. Arnold,
“The First Hoover Commission and the Managerial Presidency,” The Journal of Politics 38, no. 1 (February
1976): 46–70.
7 “A New Bonus Plan,” New York Times, September 7, 1949.
8 Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago, 1944).

139
between $5 and $7 billion—none of its major recommendations on veterans’ affairs were

eventually translated into law.9

The main reason for this surprising defeat was that the Commission was met by a powerful

and broad-based counter-mobilization led by the American Legion.10 This effort represented the

culmination of the process begun in the first chapter of the dissertation, when Legionnaires

decided to open their group to a new generation of veterans. The previous chapter illustrated how

the crucible of the postwar housing shortage brought these two cohorts together. The fight over

the First Hoover Commission provided an example of what this new, two-war Legion could

achieve when both segments of its membership acted in unison against a common threat. To be

sure, the group was not alone in this fight: with it sided most other major veterans’ groups from

the VFW to the DAV and the AMVETS, as well as key political figures such as the VA Administrator

and the head of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Yet the fight was more open than

might have been expected: with public opinion not clearly in favor of one camp over another and

most major press organs siding with the Commission, Hoover’s reorganization effort was not

doomed to fail from the beginning. If the Legion had not spurred its rank-and-file into action by

defending its vision of martial citizenship, strategically rekindling traumatic memories, and

channeling members’ energy into its federalist structure, the Commission might have prevailed.

The fact that it did not also suggests a broader lesson about the role of interest group

mobilization and policy feedback in the formation of political identity. The Legion managed to

mobilize its rank-and-file because it did the essential political work of raising their awareness of

9 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Government Operations, Summary of the Objectives, Operations,
and Results of the Commissions on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, 88th Congr.,
1st Sess., 1963, 6–7.
10 The only other historian to have studied this episode portrayed it as the almost predictable result of a

lopsided battle against entrenched political and bureaucratic interests. While these factors certainly played
a role, they fail to explain why the Commission proved so successful at surmounting the same kind of
obstacles in other fields but not in veterans’ affairs—especially given the heightened political vulnerability
of the VA during these years. See Kathleen Frydl, The GI Bill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2009), 179–85.
140
the issues at stake, identifying the risks of defeat, and highlighting the influence they could wield

on the policy process through such avenues as letter-writing or petition-signing. In responding to

the First Hoover Commission, in other words, the Legion brought veterans of both World Wars

together as veterans by stressing the shared interests that they had in common. It helped, of

course, that the Commission was targeting two veterans’ programs—VA hospitals and civil service

preference—that were open to all former soldiers regardless of the war in which they had fought

(as opposed, for instance, to G.I. Bill benefits, which applied only to veterans of World War II),

and more broadly the VA itself. Because the Legion had pushed during the interwar period to

centralize the administration of all veterans’ benefits in this agency, an attack on it could be

portrayed (as the Legion did) as an attack on all veterans. The very existence of the VA, in other

words, helped erase the differences between U.S. veterans and bind them together, in much the

same way that the creation of Social Security helped bring elderly Americans together as a new

political constituency. To paraphrase Andrea Louise Campbell, interest groups and policy made

citizens.11

The chapter examines how this happened in three separate sections. The first one

describes the rise of government reorganization as a political issue in the postwar period, the

background behind the creation of the First Hoover Commission in 1947, and the specific

recommendations made by this blue-ribbon group two years later. The second section lays out the

forces on either side of this fight, detailing their strengths as well as their flaws. While the debate

sometimes hinged on narrowly technical policy questions, it was also, at its core, about competing

visions of citizenship and of the role of veterans in society. Finally, the chapter concludes by

examining the fight as it unfolded from 1949 to 1952 in both Washington, D.C., and across the

country. It shows how the Legion’s greatest strength came from the mobilization of the rank-and-

file, carefully and expertly marshalled by the national leadership behind their lobbying effort.

Andrea Louise Campbell, How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American
11

Welfare State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).

141
The First Hoover Commission and Veterans’ Welfare State

Americans coming of age in 1949 had witnessed the state expand tremendously over the

course of their life. With 1.6 million men and women, the military was now more than four times

larger than its pre-war peak. Federal debt per capita reached $1,700, a more than tenfold increase

from its 1929 level of $139. Annual federal expenditures had skyrocketed, from nearly $3.1 billion

in 1929 to $39.5 billion in 1949. Similarly, the number of civil service employees nearly

quadrupled from 580,000 to 2,100,000.12 This phenomenal growth had also been disorderly, the

aggregated result of ad hoc responses to specific crises or events. President Truman later

recognized as much in his Memoirs, where he wrote that “I always fully supported the Roosevelt

program, but I knew that certain major administrative weaknesses existed. President Roosevelt

often said he was no administrator. He was a man of visions and ideas, and he preferred to

delegate administration to others.”13 FDR had tried to address this problem by creating the

Brownlow Committee in 1937, but in a context of mounting Congressional opposition to his

agenda following the Supreme Court-packing scandal, its proposals to strengthen the executive

branch had gone unheeded. By 1949, this branch counted between 74 and 89 different staff offices,

departments, regulatory agencies, boards, and commissions, often with overlapping functions.14

Due to the absence of a central records facility, for instance, more than seventy government

divisions ran their own storage facilities in the capital. The Army alone had five million items in

its warehouses, but no inventory.15

12 Carter et al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States, volume 5, series Ed26-47, Ea650-661, Ea636-
643, Ea894-903.
13 Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, vol. 1 (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1955), 12.
14 For a list of these agencies, see U.S Congress, House, Committee on Expenditures in the Executive

Departments, First Report of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of Government
(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1949), 47–50.
15 Walch and Miller, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman, 18.

142
 As World War II drew to a close, then, the issue of government reorganization came to the

fore. The new President had a first-hand experience in such matters, dating back to the 1920s in

Missouri when he had been involved in county reorganization as a judge. In World War II,

Truman had made a name for himself as chairman of the Special Committee Investigating

National Defense, which revealed numerous examples of corruption and red tape in the nation’s

war effort. Reorganization was thus a natural choice for the theme of his very first message to

Congress in May 1945, in which he asked and obtained the right to submit plans that would go

into effect unless Congress vetoed them within sixty days. In his first two years in office, however,

his efforts were stymied by the conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats

dominant in Congress. Bent on rolling back the New Deal, they adamantly opposed Truman’s

attempts to streamline its structure.16

Ironically, the key to unlock this stalemate was provided by those who had created it in the

first place. Acting on the then-widespread assumption that Truman would lose the upcoming

presidential election, a Congress turned Republican after the 1946 midterms created the

Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government in July 1947. Allowed

by law to “abolish services, activities, and functions not necessary to the efficient conduct of

government,” conservatives hoped that this blue-ribbon group would develop a blueprint to scale

back government that the next Republican administration would find ready to use upon taking

office.17 The appointment as chairman of Herbert Hoover, the ex-President turned champion of

the GOP’s right wing, made it abundantly clear that the Commission’s goal was to liquidate the

New Deal state. Hoover was then just emerging from more than a decade in the political

wilderness after his defeat to FDR in 1932 had ostracized him from public life. His deep-seated

16 William E. Pemberton, Bureaucratic Politics: Executive Reorganization during the Truman

Administration (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1979), 21–78.
17 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Government Operations, Summary of the Objectives, Operations,

and Results of the Commissions on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (1st and 2nd
Hoover Commissions), 88th Congr., 1st Sess., 1963, 3.
143
personal and political opposition to the New Deal were such that, after their first meeting, Truman

found him “to the right of Louis the Fourteenth…he doesn’t understand what’s happened in the

world since McKinley” (though they would later become friends).18

Hoover embraced his mission wholeheartedly and largely controlled the group’s early

work. He handpicked most of the senior staff and outside experts, making sure that they reported

directly to him and shared his politics. His task was made easier by the fact that though the

Commission was nominally bipartisan, it was de facto dominated by like-minded conservatives.

Of the twelve Commissioners, only three were reliable liberal forces: Dean Acheson (appointed

Secretary of State by Truman while he served on the Commission), former Administrative

Assistant to Roosevelt James Rowe, and University of Michigan political scientist James J.

Pollock, a liberal Republican. Two of the Democrats were conservative Southerners

(Representative Carter Manasco of Alabama and Senator James McClellan of Arkansas) and two

were detached from the Commission’s deliberations (Boston business executive and former

Ambassador to Great Britain Joseph P. Kennedy allowed Hoover to use his vote by proxy, while

James V. Forrestal, the head of the National Military Establishment, was handicapped by his

declining health). Besides Hoover and Pollock, the other four Republican appointees were

Vermont Senator George D. Aiken, Representative Clarence Brown of Ohio, paper magnate

George Mead, and Republican member of the Civil Service Commission Arthur Flemming.19

Truman’s unexpected re-election in 1948, however, forced Hoover to change his plans.

Facing the perspective of another Democratic administration and Congress, he struck a deal with

Truman. Hoover agreed that his Commission would no longer try to challenge some of the basic

functions of government, and admitted publicly that “it is not our function to say whether [every

Government activity] should exist or not, but…to see if we cannot make it work better.”20 Truman

18 Quoted in Pemberton, “Struggle for the New Deal,” 520.

19 Ibid., 512–515.
20 Quoted in Ibid., 518.

144
thus seized the unexpected chance to claim bipartisan authority for his own reorganization plans,

hoping to turn a Commision initially designed to do away with his legacy into an instrument to

solidify it. As Budget Director James E. Webb wrote to him after the election, “there is now a

possibility of getting the last Republican President to urge you to accept an implementation of and

organization for executive responsibility that the Republican Party has historically denied to

Presidents…This could serve to establish a fundamental advance in the nature of the Presidency

and its relations with the Congress.”21 The liberal Commissioners, who until then had had no

choice but to go along with Hoover’s leadership, started to push their views more aggressively and

forced him to move to the middle.22

The Commission eventually submitted nineteen reports over the first half of 1949, each

covering a specific aspect of the executive branch such as the Post Office, Foreign Affairs, or the

Department of the Interior.23 Fairly homogeneous as a whole, they all sought to streamline the

confused tangle of agencies and departments that was the executive branch by following three

basic management principles. First, they called for the establishment of a centralized and

uninterrupted chain of command flowing from the President through heads of departments to the

field level and vice versa, so that ultimate responsibility and accountability would always lay at

the top. This meant the elimination of any interference, either from Congress, other agencies, or

within these agencies themselves. Second, they sought to reorganize executive agencies by major

function in order to eliminate any overlap, with the goal of consolidating them into one-third of

21 James E. Webb to Truman, November 5, 1948, White House Central Files: Official File 285-E (1948), Box
1059, Truman Papers, Truman Presidential Library.
22 For details on the operations of the Hoover Commission, see Ferrel Heady, “II. The Operation of a Mixed

Commission,” The American Political Science Review 43, no. 5 (October 1949): 940–52.
23 For a factual summary of the reports, see “Summary of Reports of the Hoover Commission,” Public

Administration Review 9, no. 2 (April 1949): 73–99. For a more analytic (albeit not comprehensive)
perspective, see Ferrel Heady, “The Reports of the Hoover Commission,” The Review of Politics 11, no. 3
(July 1949): 355–78. All nineteen reports (without the dissents) were compiled in a single published
volume: United States Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, The
Hoover Commission Report on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1949).
145
their present number. Third and last, they aimed to expand the staff assigned to the President and

department heads so as to allow for a better supervision of subordinate agencies. 24 From these

broad principles stemmed no less than 273 specific recommendations, some narrowly technical

and others more substantial. Among the most important were the unification of the military under

a civilian Secretary of Defense, the creation of a new General Services Administration to furnish

supply, records, and building maintenance to all executive agencies, and the decentralization of

personnel recruitment and management away from the Civil Service Commission to individual

agencies.

Unsurprisingly, veterans’ affairs loomed large in the Hoover Report. As noted earlier, the

benefits reserved for ex-soldiers had expanded tremendously during World War II, thereby

fundamentally transforming the agency responsible for their management, the VA. Before the

war, it had been a relatively small agency with a reputation for administrative and political

conservatism, mostly concerned with the same functions it had been assigned at its birth two

decades earlier: veterans’ life insurance, pension benefits, and hospitalization. The Second World

War changed all that, bringing brand new programs and dramatically expanding old ones. From

nearly 4 million in 1940, the clientele of the VA jumped to 19 million in 1949. Following the

passage of the 1944 G.I. Bill, the agency had to provide millions of new veterans with services it

had never handled before: education benefits, business, home, and farm loan guaranties, and

unemployment compensation. With 129 hospitals and a daily average patient load of 107,000, the

VA hospital system was the largest in the nation. 2.3 million veterans were now receiving disability

compensation, pension, or retirement pay, up from merely 600,000 in 1940. In addition to the

500,000 life insurance policies of Great War veterans, the VA now had to process, entirely by

hand, about 7.2 million National Service Life Insurance policies for World War II veterans, of a

total value of over $41 billion (which represented about a quarter of all life insurance in the

24See U.S Congress, House, Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, First Report of the
Commission, 1–8.
146
country and several times more than the biggest private company).25 With 200,000 employees,

the VA was the third largest government entity behind the military and the Post Office.26 This

mind-boggling expansion was perhaps best summed up by a Canadian government official and

specialist of veterans’ affairs, Robert England, who wrote in 1950 that the VA had become over

the span of just a few years

bank, benefactor, hospital, custodian, life insurance company, educational endowment,

guardian of orphans, medical adviser, vocational counselor, welfare agency, protective and
benevolent association, property appraiser, loan guarantor and broker, compensation
board, old age shelter and burial society, to nineteen million adults who under its auspices
go to school, seek and find jobs, purchase farms and businesses, buy houses, are ill in
veterans’ hospitals, and buried in national cemeteries. Even the flag to drape the casket
comes from the V.A.27

All this growth did not come without pain. Despite the repeated assurances of its

Administrator Frank T. Hines throughout the war, the VA was woefully unprepared to handle the

increase in work load that came with the postwar demobilization.28 Hines’ ingrained conservatism

and the highly centralized organizational structure of the VA—in which even the purchase of

scissors had to be reported to the central office in Washington, D.C.—were compounded by

wartime restrictions on doctors and construction materials.29 Starting in January 1945, damning

exposes of the situation began to appear with increasing frequency in the press, calling for a

25 Annual Report of the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs, 1940 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1941), 1–7; Annual Report: Administrator of Veterans Affairs, 1949
(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1950), 1–4, 73–74; HERE’S HOW we can get
better service for veterans—at lower cost, n.d., Box 73, Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.
26 Annual Report: Administrator of Veterans Affairs, 1949, 4.
27 Robert England, Twenty Million World War Veterans (Toronto, New York: Oxford University Press,

1950), 94–95.
28 “Plans Are Already Under Way to Pay World War II Pensions,” The Christian Science Monitor, January

13, 1944; “Disabled Veterans Will Receive Care: General Hines Says Many Have Been Placed on Pensions,”
New York Times, June 22, 1944.
29 Kammerer, “The Veterans Administration in Transition,” 105–106.

147
Congressional investigation.30 In the New York newspaper PM for instance, Albert Deutsch called

the VA a “vast dehumanized bureaucracy, enmeshed in mountains of red tape, ingrown with

entrenched mediocrity, undemocratically operated under autocratic control centered in

Washington, prescribing medieval medicine to its sick and disabled wards, highly susceptible to

political pressures, rigidly resistant to proposed reforms.”31 At a news conference in May, Truman

himself conceded that this “mess” would have to be “modernized.”32 He accepted Hines’

resignation the next month and replaced him with four-star General Omar N. Bradley. Over the

course of his next two years in office, Bradley implemented a series of reforms that profoundly

overhauled the agency. In an attempt to loosen its hierarchy, he created thirteen branch offices,

each with operational authority over several states. Striving to improve the quality of VA medical

personnel, he formed a new Department of Medicine and Surgery exempted from civil service

rules. Likewise, he fought with Congress to end the pork barrel politics that plagued VA hospitals

and strove to affiliate them with class-A medical schools and build as many as possible on

university campuses.33

In the end, however, Bradley was unable to entirely solve the VA’s problems before his

planned departure in December 1947, and the agency’s reputation would remain tarnished for

years to come. “There was simply too much to do and not enough time,” he later admitted in his

autobiography.34 The combination of the vast increase in workload caused by the sudden

demobilization of millions of veterans with the addition by the G.I. Bill of brand new benefits

proved insuperable. The VA was swamped by the flood of disability claims, which came in at a

30 For a brief summary of the crisis, see Charles G. Bolte, The New Veteran (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,
1945), 125–128.
31 Quoted in Omar Nelson Bradley and Clay Blair, A General’s Life: An Autobiography (New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1983), 441.

32 Harry S. Truman: “The President's News Conference,” May 15, 1945. Online by Gerhard Peters and John

T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=12236.

33 On Bradley’s tenure as VA Administrator, see Kammerer, “The Veterans Administration in Transition”;

Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 446–462.

34 Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 456.

148
rate of nearly 400,000 a month after the end of the conflict. Requests for conversion of wartime

life insurance into peacetime policies accounted for 6.5 million letters in Bradley’s first six months

in office—in his own words, “the most mind-boggling mail logjam I have ever seen.”35 The

administration of G.I. Bill benefits posed another set of issues, the product not simply of a lack of

personnel but of the decentralized structure of the law itself, which as we will see in the fifth

chapter encouraged fraud and discrimination.36 In the field of education and training benefits

(Title II of the Bill), the unexpectedly high rate of veterans who chose to return to college took

both educational institutions and the VA by surprise. Not only were the VA subsistence checks on

which these students depended often late, but the lack of centralized control over the kinds of

programs that they could enroll in caused widespread abuse by “fly-by-night” schools. VA

standards for granting business loan guaranties (Title III) were initially so high that ridiculously

few veterans could qualify: less than 1 percent of all requests had been approved a year after the

passage of the bill.37 Finally, readjustment allowances (Title V) also became the target of

widespread mockery for allowing many veterans, known pejoratively as the “52-20 club,” to

remain unemployed with enough income for “beer and movies” every week for a year.38 All these

problems created a political opening for critics of veterans’ benefits. As one of Hoover’s

lieutenants remarked in 1951, “[t]here is no more vulnerable agency in government today than

the VA.”39

Aware of this unique window for reform, the First Hoover Commission made two sets of

recommendations concerning veterans’ benefits, which together represented the first attempt to

overhaul the massive structure of veterans’ welfare state that had emerged from World War II.

First were those recommendations that stemmed from the Commission’s broader emphasis on

35 Ibid., 453–456.
36 Frydl, The GI Bill.
37 Altschuler and Blumin, The GI Bill, 75.
38 Bradley and Blair, A General’s Life, 453.
39 Charles B. Coates to Paul C. Smith, June 21, 1951, Box 73, Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.

149
functional re-organization. Of these, none was more important than the call for consolidating

most large-scale medical activities of the federal government—military and VA hospitals as well

the Public Health Service—into a new United Medical Administration (UMA).40 This proposal

amounted to taking away from the VA not only its most sizeable division, with over half of its

employees working in hospitals and medical centers, but its most prestigious.41 Indeed, the

Department of Medicine and Surgery was the only unqualified success of Bradley’s tenure. Thanks

to the alliance forged by his Medical Director Paul R. Hawley with medical schools and the

American Medical Association, observers could claim by 1947 that veterans’ healthcare had

become “second to none!”42 Following the same logic of vertical rather than horizontal

concentration, the Commission also recommended the transfer of the G.I. Bill home loan guaranty

program from the VA to the Housing and Home Finance Agency, and of hospital construction to

the Department of the Interior.43 The VA itself was also to be streamlined along functional lines,

with a single official in charge of each major program, all management services under the

centralized control of an Assistant Administrator, and ultimate responsibility laying with the

Administrator.44 The agency faced a drastic transformation along with the loss of some of its core

functions.

The second category of recommendations put forward by the Commission reflected its

emphasis on strengthening the authority of heads of departments and agencies and improving the

40 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, Report of Commission
on Organization of Executive Branch of the Government on Federal Medical Activities, 81st Congr., 1st
Sess. (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1949), 2–3. The VA was to retain only
the authority to certify whether patients were eligible and to determine disability and ratings.
41 See Table 100 in Annual Report: Administrator of Veterans Affairs, 1949, 263.
42 Lois Mattox Miller and James Monahan, “Veterans’ Medicine: Second to None!,” Reader’s Digest,

September 1947.
43 See recommendation no. 6 in U.S Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Reorganization of

Veterans’ Affairs, 23–24; and recommendation no. 8 in U.S, Commission on Organization of the Executive
Branch of the Government, Report of Commission on Organization of Executive Branch of the Government
on Interior Department (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1949), 15.
44 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Report of the Hoover Commission Committee on

Veterans’ Affairs (Commission Task Force) to the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch
of the Government (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1949), 5–8.
150
quality of their administrative staff. Ever since the Civil War, veterans had enjoyed a range of

advantages in civil service. Not only were they granted five additional points on entrance exams

(ten with a service-connected disability), but certain positions such as guard, elevator operator,

messenger, and custodian were reserved for them. Minimum educational, height, age, and weight

requirements were waived. They were also the last to be fired and the first to be re-employed.45

Though these benefits proved highly popular—nearly 59 percent of all civilian employees of the

federal government were veterans in March 1951, up from 15 percent six years earlier—the

Commission saw them as obstacles to the establishment of a real merit system, for they made it

harder to hire and promote the best candidates and to fire incompetent workers.46 To remedy this

situation, it called for the Civil Service Commission to relinquish some of its central control over

the recruiting and examining process to the heads of departments and agencies. In addition, it

recommended the end of the absolute preference enjoyed by veterans in reduction of force

procedures. Finally, instead of giving veterans a straightforward point bonus, all applicants for a

given position were to be grouped into categories such as “outstanding,” “well-qualified,”

“qualified,” and “unqualified,” and veterans were to be considered ahead of non-veterans only

within those categories (disabled veterans were to be considered ahead of everyone else, but only

for certain low-level positions). Even though the Commission also recommended carrying out a

nation-wide recruiting campaign over the next few years to help place veterans in government

positions, this was clearly a vague attempt to sweeten the pill of what amounted, overall, to a

blistering attack on the principle of veterans’ preference in civil service.47

It is also worth pointing out what the Commission left unsaid. While questions of racial

and, to a lesser extent, gender discrimination featured prominently in public discussions of

45 Miriam Roher, “Veterans and the Civil Service,” The American Mercury, December 1946.
46 Proceedings of the 33rd National Convention of the American Legion (Miami, 1951), 173.
47 See recommendations no. 2, 7, 8, 9, and 23 in U.S Congress, House, Committee on Post Office and Civil

Service, Report of Commission on Organization of Executive Branch of the Government on Personnel

Management (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1949).
151
veterans’ benefits in the postwar years, there was not a word about the subject in the reports of

Hoover and his fellow Commissioners. Dominated by conservatives and narrowly focused on

internal questions of administrative efficiency and economy, the group did not address the larger

problems faced by minority and women veterans as well as their dependents. If there was one

point on which the Legion and the Commission were in complete agreement, it was their

ignorance of the diversity of the veteran community.

Still, the final recommendations of the Commission should perhaps have come as no

surprise. Its focus on reorganizing the executive branch along functional lines set it almost

inevitably on a collision path with the VA, since this agency existed precisely to administer all

government services only for one specific group of the population. It is worth pointing out, as the

notes from an early Commission meeting revealed, that its members took the very existence of the

agency for granted and stopped short of challenging it.48 Commissioners saw the VA as an obstacle

in the way of a more efficient and economical government, but they also knew that by the late

1940s it was far too deeply entrenched to be attacked head-on. Even their more limited reform

proposals, as it turned out, immediately provoked a bitter controversy.

Veterans as Citizens, or Veterans and Citizens?

This, too, should hardly have been a surprise. For in issuing its report, the First Hoover

Commission was merely opening the latest act in a long-running national debate about veterans’

benefits. Nor were its members entirely newcomers to this discussion. It was Hoover himself, in

fact, who as President in July 1930 had signed the executive order marking the creation of the VA.

Its institutional predecessor, the Veterans Bureau, was created in 1921 to consolidate three

48Ferrel Heady to Dr. James K. Pollock, “Action to be Taken by the Subcommittee on Veterans’ Affairs,”
December 7, 1948, Box 42, Folder 13, James K. Pollock Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of
Michigan.
152
different agencies serving veterans of the Great War. Nine years later, the Bureau was given

responsibility over all veterans’ programs by absorbing the Bureau of Pensions (for Civil War

veterans) and the National Home of Disabled Soldiers, thus becoming the VA. In both 1921 and

1930, these reorganizations had been motivated (and pushed by veterans’ groups, chief among

them the Legion) by a desire to achieve efficiency and economy in government by placing all

services for veterans under the charge of only one entity.49 In 1921, for instance, the New York

Times saluted the creation of the Bureau by arguing that it would “cut out the red tape” and allow

disabled veterans to “receive service from three agencies of the Government carried out by one

directing head.”50 Likewise, in his statement establishing the VA in 1930, Hoover said that the

move was intended to “make important economies in administration of hospitalization and

domiciliary questions” for veterans.”51 As his opponents would not tire of reminding him, the

recommendations of the First Hoover Commission in 1949 to transfer key functions out of the VA

seemed therefore to be in direct contradiction with what the ex-President himself had said while

in office.

Of course, most Americans associated Hoover’s name with veterans not because of his role

in the creation of the VA, but for his infamous handling of the Bonus March in 1932, when tens of

thousands of former soldiers of the Great War who had descended on Washington, D.C., to

demand immediate payment of adjusted compensation for their wartime service were forcefully

expelled by General MacArthur. This episode became a public relations disaster, the symbol of

49 Rosemary A. Stevens, “The Invention, Stumbling, and Reinvention of the Modern U.S. Veterans Health
Care System, 1918-1924,” in Veterans’ Policies, Veterans’ Politics: New Perspectives on Veterans in the
Modern United States, ed. Stephen R. Ortiz (Gainesville, Fl.: University Press of Florida, 2012), 38–62;
Stephen R. Ortiz, Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era
(New York: New York University Press, 2010).
50 “Veterans’ Bureau at Work: Colonel Forbes Clearing Up the Tangle of Service Men’s Relief Claims,” New

York Times, September 25, 1921.

51 Herbert Hoover: “Statement About the Establishment of the Veterans’ Administration,” July 8, 1930.

Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=22277
153
Hoover’s inability to sympathize with the dire situation facing ordinary Americans during the

Great Depression, and contributed to his defeat at the polls in November that year.52

The ex-President therefore had enough experience to know that his Commission’s

recommendations would not sail effortlessly through Congress. After submitting its last report in

June 1949, the normal course for his Commission would have been to simply disband. Instead,

Hoover took the additional step of creating the Citizens’ Committee for the Hoover Report

(CCHR). The mission of that group was to organize a “continuing national program of public

education and support” with the goal of “keeping the ideas and recommendations of the

Commission alive, and of encouraging the adoption of these recommendations.”53 Hoover

maintained close ties with the committee, though he kept publicly aloof from its day-to-day

operations. He delegated the latter to Robert L. Johnson, president of Temple University and a

former vice-president of Time magazine. Charles B. Coates, an executive at General Foods, was

hired as Director of Public Relations, and Robert L. L. McCormick, a banker and Harvard Business

School graduate, as Research Director.54 With $390,000 budgeted for the first year, the CCHR

soon had affiliates in thirty-seven states. In order to mobilize support for specific pieces of

legislation, it endorsed television shows, published various pamphlets and newsletters such as

Action Sheets, Washington Watchdog, or the Committee Report, and also provided thousands of

independent newspapers as well as hundreds of companies nationwide with favorable material

for them to re-print.55 The National Reorganization Crusade and its Cracker Barrel Caravan was

52 Ortiz, Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill, 32–65.

53 Charles B. Coates, “Memorandum for the Honorable Herbert Hoover,” January 5, 1949; “A Program to
Promote the Recommendations of The Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the
Government: The State Program Phase,” December 31, 1948, Box 32, Folder: Charles B. Coates, 1948-49,
RFHC, HHPL.
54 On Coates, see Grisinger, The Unwieldy American State, 163. On McCormick, see John White, “Did You

Happen To See: Robert L. L. McCormick,” Times Herald, June 22, 1952; Robert L. L. McCormick to George
T. Weymouth, Laird and Company, September 29, 1950, Box 35, Folder: Robert L. L. McCormick, June-
December, 1950, RFHC, HHPL.
55 Charles B. Coates, “Memorandum for the Honorable Herbert Hoover,” January 5, 1949, Box 32, Folder:

Charles B. Coates, 1948-49, RFHC, HHPL; Pemberton, Bureaucratic Politics, 110.

154
only one example of its effort to create a broad constituency for its reform agenda (see image

below). Never before had government reorganization been so widely publicized.

The Cracker Barrel Caravan in action.

Top: picture of a “typical meeting” (according to CCHR material) with speakers waiting for their turn
on the stage provided by the trailer-turned-country-store. Note the joint portraits of Truman and
Hoover on the right side.
Bottom: close-up of two actors dramatizing the stakes of the Hoover Report in front of radio
microphones. On the left is an Uncle Sam tied in actual red tape, and in the center an actress playing the
Report. Note the cracker barrel in the foreground.

155
 Source: Citizens Committee for the Hoover Report, “Impact! Of the Cracker Barrel Caravan,” n.d. (ca.
July 1951), Box 32, Folder: Charles B. Coates, 1950, RFHC, HHPL.

In this massive public relations campaign, the CCHR hammered home three points. First,

it presented itself as nonpartisan and above politics, fighting for the public interest against

lobbies. Coates argued, for instance, that the CCHR was a “national civic cause” and “the furthest

thing from a ‘special interest’ group that has come together in America for many years.”56 Some

of the posters on display during the National Reorganization Crusade carried Truman and

Hoover’s portraits, with the inscription: “President and former President Agree. Enlist Now.”57

Their second major selling point was that an efficient federal government was essential to national

security and global leadership in the context of the Cold War. “Every dollar, every scrap of

material, every bit of human effort we waste is a gift to the enemies of freedom,” declared a CCHR

pamphlet issued after the outbreak of the Korean War.58 In a speech before the Boston Association

of Taxpayers, Johnson stressed that the need to maintain a large standing military force meant “a

great drain on our resources, financial, material, and human. Too great a drain may render us

unfit to defend ourselves against the very forces, at home and abroad, which seek our downfall.”

Last but not least, the CCHR played on ordinary Americans’ gut feelings that their government

had expanded beyond reason and impacted their everyday life more heavily than ever before. “We

are government and government is part of us,” Johnson later said in the same speech, “Today we

are all taxpayers for taxes not only affect our incomes, they enter heavily into the cost of the things

we buy and build.” Allowing government to continue its unchecked growth would not only whittle

away at American families’ purchasing power, Johnson argued, but ultimately risked turning the

U.S into the very kind of system it was now fighting against. “Free peoples all through history have

56 Quoted in Grisinger, The Unwieldy American State, 183.

57 “Caravan on Tour for Hoover Report.”
58 Citizens Committee for the Hoover Report, Will We Be Ready? The Job of Reorganizing our Government

Must Be Finished Immediately…BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!, United States, Reorganization (inc. Hoover Plan),
A-Z, American Legion Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana (A-Z, ALA thereafter).
156
yielded their freedom when bureaucracy overwhelms them economically,” he claimed, “This is

not necessarily because of any plot or plan…we can drift into slavery if we fail to swim against the

tide.”59

The overwhelming majority of Americans responded favorably to this message. As

political scientists Charles Aiken and Louis W. Koenig wrote in October 1949, “[i]t has become

something of a mode to favor the Hoover reports, just as one opposes sin.” 60 The first National

Reorganization Conference organized by the CCHR in December 1949 showed that the goal of

economy enjoyed wide bipartisan support. Not only did Truman send a message assuring the

audience of his commitment to achieving the goals of the Commission, but the list of speakers

included the Democratic Governor of Illinois Adlai E. Stevenson, Secretary of Labor Maurice J.

Tobin, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, Lewis Hines of the A.F.L. and Stanley Ruttenberg of

the C.I.O., Republican Senator from Wisconsin Joseph McCarthy and the women’s division of the

Democratic National Committee.61 The same pattern was true for the national press. The right-

wing Chicago Tribune, for instance, praised the Commission’s “great intelligence and drive.” 62

The Washington Post called the report “the most thorough job in history in a study of this

Government” and the Wall Street Journal praised its “fine service in showing us what a cancer

bureaucracy has become.”63 In the New York Times, James MacGregor Burns claimed that the

Commission’s “excursion into the Dark Continent of the national bureaucracy” had shown that

“our super-Government…has become a fixed part of the ‘American way of life.’”64 Americans in

general also seemed to approve. In September 1950, the White House mailroom counted no less

59 “Boston Speech,” undated (ca. May 7, 1949), Box 33, Folder: Robert L. Johnson, May 1949-February 1952,
RFHC, HHPL. Emphasis original.
60 Charles Aikin and Louis W. Koenig, “I. Introduction,” The American Political Science Review 43, no. 5

(October 1949): 933.

61 Clayton Knowless, “Hoover Warns U.S. Must Halt Waste to Retain Liberty: Former President Says Quick

Government Reform Is Vital to Economic Survival,” New York Times, December 13, 1949.
62 “4 Billions Not Saved,” Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1950.
63 Quoted in Grisinger, The Unwieldy American State, 181.
64 James MacGregor Burns, “Our Super-Government -- Can We Control It?,” New York Times, April 24,

1949, sec. Magazine.

157
than 45,600 newspaper poll clippings and petitions in support of the Commission.65 The reports

were well-received by the academic community as well, with the American Political Science

Review devoting a symposium to what it called “the most monumental product of government

research in American history.”66

Yet the same political scientists who had compared endorsing the reports to opposing sin

also noted that “just as many of us deplore sins we have never experienced, so, unfortunately,

many who exalt the Hoover reports actually have never read them.”67 Indeed, a March 1950 Gallup

poll reported that 69 percent of respondents either did not know about the reports or did not

understand them well (among those who did, 80 percent approved). The survey also showed a

clear class bias, with the percentage of respondents informed about the report ranging from 65

percent among the college-educated to only 18 percent among those who had only graduated from

grade school.68 This should not be surprising, for even though the CCHR spared no efforts to

vulgarize the reports, they remained of a highly technical nature. It also reflected the background

of its own leadership team, which as we have seen was clearly an elite group. But this gap

portended the larger and more fundamental problem that the group would soon encounter: while

the general idea of economy in government appealed to a large majority of Americans in the late

1940s and 1950s, whether they approved of the specific measures recommended by the

Commission to achieve it was another matter. To cite only a few examples, the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers heartily endorsed the principle of

economy, but nevertheless opposed a reorganization plan that would have abolished the office of

general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. Patent lawyers opposed the transfer of the

65 Pemberton, Bureaucratic Politics, 111.

66 Aikin and Koenig, “I. Introduction,” 933. For the symposium, see ibid., pp. 933-1000. For a dissenting
perspective, see Herman Finer, “The Hoover Commission Reports: Part I,” Political Science Quarterly 64,
no. 3 (September 1949): 405–19; Herman Finer, “The Hoover Commission Reports: Part II,” Political
Science Quarterly 64, no. 4 (December 1949): 579–95.
67 Aikin and Koenig, “I. Introduction,” 933.
68 George Gallup, “Voters Overwhelmingly Back Hoover Commission Report,” The Washington Post, March

8, 1950.
158
patent office to the Department of Commerce, while mining interests fought any attempt to give

additional powers to the Secretary of the Interior over the Bureau of Mines. This was what the

Reader’s Digest mocked as the “We’re for economy, but—” school of thought.69

More specifically, the elite segment of the population that constituted the core of the support

for the First Hoover Commission was remarkably united behind its agenda for veterans’ benefits.

Generally, policy experts agreed that these advantages had become too generous and needed to

be reined in. Think tanks such as the Public Affairs Institute, for instance, welcomed as “both

sound and obvious” the transfer of VA hospitals to an integrated medical administration, on the

basis that “veterans are first and foremost citizens and…their needs should be considered in the

same way as the needs of other human beings.”70 Frances T. Cahn of the Brookings Institution

likewise called for the revision of veterans’ preference in civil service, comparing the advantages

it granted this group to “a handful of sand in a gear box,” which “fouled and stalled the whole

delicate machinery that had been set up to find, measure, and secure merit.”71 Major newspapers

concurred. The Washington Post, for instance, declared that it “would not be entirely unfortunate

from the point of view of the public interest” if veterans’ preference was dropped altogether, and

agreed with the New York Times that the Hoover Commission was “not going nearly far

enough.”72 Writing in the former, columnists Ysabel and Robert Rennie saw the Commission as a

chance to “reconsider most seriously that bright political line dividing the veteran from the

citizen.” “Functionally,” they argued, the centralization of so many different jobs into one agency

was “absurd.” The recommendations of the Hoover Commission to put these functions back

69 Stanley High, “‘We’re For Government Economy, But--’,” Reader’s Digest, January 1950.
70 Public Affairs Institute, The Hoover Report: Half a Loaf, Occasional Paper Series 3 (Washington, D.C,
1949), 19.
71 Frances T. Cahn, Federal Employees in War and Peace: Selection, Placement and Removal (Washington,

D.C., 1949), 92–93, 246.

72 “Veterans’ Preference,” The Washington Post, December 21, 1949; “Veterans’ Report,” New York Times,

February 15, 1950; “Congress and Legion,” The Washington Post, February 4, 1950.
159
“where they belong” made sense, for in the end veterans needed to be treated just like any other

citizens.73

A bipartisan coalition quickly arose to support these proposals. Liberals joined because

they saw the growing size and cost of veterans’ benefits as a threat to more universal welfare

programs. For instance, Truman argued in his 1950 Budget Message that instead of providing

special benefits to veterans without service-connected disabilities, “[o]ur objective should be to

make our social security system more comprehensive in coverage and more adequate, so that it

will provide the basic protection needed by all citizens.”74 The liberal veterans’ group American

Veterans’ Committee, led by the owner of the New Republic Michael Straight, also endorsed the

Hoover Report.75 As for conservatives, they resented the dramatic expansion of the federal

government more generally and pushed for large spending cuts. Prominent right-wing anti-

communist activist George Sokolsky, for instance, argued that generous veterans’ benefits would

diminish Americans’ purchasing power. “In the end,” he wrote, veterans “will pay more in taxes,

in devalued dollars, in high prices, than they get in benefits.” “Profligacy is a misery no matter

who practices it,” he added more generally, “and a profligate government becomes a menace to

its citizens.”76 In addition, business-friendly groups such as the Junior Chamber of Commerce and

the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were among the most fervent allies of the CCHR.77 Likewise, the

Tax Foundation (whose list of board members, according to the Legion, read “like a ‘Who’s Who’

in the National Association of Manufacturers”) compared the VA hospital system to “socialized

73 Ysabel Rennie and Robert Rennie, “Political Economy: Veterans as a Special Interest,” The Washington
Post, January 17, 1950.
74 Harry S. Truman, “Annual Budget Message to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1951 - January 9, 1950,” Public

Papers of the Presidents of the United States 1950 (1950): 68.

75 “American Veterans Hail Hoover’s G.I. Plan; Denounce Legion on Stand Over Hospitals,” New York

Times, February 27, 1950.

76 George Sokolsky, “These Days,” Washington Times-Herald, October 23, 1949, Box 279, Folder 5, George

Sokolsky Papers, HIA.

77 McCormick called them the CCHR’s “firmest props,” see McCormick to Hoover, October 13, 1950, Box

35, Folder: Robert L. L. McCormick, June-December, 1950, RFHC.

160
medicine for a favored group.”78 This coalition may not have enjoyed wide popular support among

all classes of the population, but it nevertheless represented a formidable force.

Perhaps the most telling sign that the Commission’s agenda constituted a serious threat was the

alarmed reaction of the American Legion. Its National Commander Perry Brown warned that the

Hoover Report represented a “real crisis for all war veterans,” and top officials commented that

“the honeymoon for veterans is over.”79 Legionnaires had reasons to worry. Not only did their

group face their more serious and difficult challenge since the end of the war, but it was hardly in

an ideal position to respond to the threat. For at the same time as the First Hoover Commission

issued its report, the Legion was going through its own internal upheaval.

Like the VA, the Legion had been overwhelmed by the massive influx of World War II

veterans. Its National Rehabilitation Commission, charged with overseeing legislation related to

veterans’ benefits as well as the thousands of local service workers who helped veterans navigate

the VA system free of charge, was badly overstretched. While disability claims had nearly

quadrupled from 610,000 in 1940 to 2,315,000 in 1948, within the same period the Legion’s

rehabilitation staff had only increased from 40 to 71.80 Brown admitted frankly in 1949 that “Yes,

today, nationally, though we have grown our task has grown more—and we no longer measure

up to it.”81 This was compounded by a second problem. Ever since its peak in 1946 at 3.3 million,

the Legion’s membership had been on a course of slow yet steady decline. 82 The subsequent

decrease in revenue from dues meant that its balance sheet was constantly in the red three years

in a row, undermining any attempt to meet the concurrent increase in workload.83 As Past

78 Jack Cejnar, Memorandum of Information to Craig, Dudley, Sayer, and Oakey, October 10, 1949, A-Z,
ALA; Daniel W. Bell, “Economy in Government,” Tax Review X, no. 12 (December 1949): 57–62.
79 Perry Brown, “The Growing Attack on Veterans’ Benefits,” ALM, July 1949, 14; Digest of Minutes, NEC

Meetings, August and September 1949, 36, ALA.

80 John H. Walsh, “Cold Facts about Legion’s Job in Rehabilitation,” ALM, July 1949.
81 Perry Brown, “Are We Big Enough for Our Job?,” ALM, August 1949, 39. Emphasis original.
82 The American Legion, National Membership Record, 2012, ALA.
83 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, October 13, 14 and 18, 1951, 54-55, ALA.

161
National Commander Edward Hayes admitted before the May 1949 National Executive

Committee, “we have been forced to dig into our reserve and restricted funds to meet budget

requirements. We approach the bottom of the barrel.”84 Desperate times calling for desperate

measures, Hayes was appointed head of a new Special Rehabilitation Committee in March 1949.

His mission to convince rank-and-file Legionnaires of the need for the first increase in national

per capita dues in the Legion’s history, from $1 to $1.25, with the additional revenue earmarked

for rehabilitation purposes. After months of intense campaigning during which, in Hayes’ own

words, “portions of the Hoover Commission report came into the picture in a big way,” the effort

proved successful. At the National Convention in August-September 1949, three-fourth of the

3,339 delegates approved the increase.85

Having secured the financial wherewithal to respond to the First Hoover Commission, the

Legion began to deploy its own counter-arguments. In a wide range of suggested speeches, news

releases, and editorials distributed to its rank-and-file, the leadership encouraged them to call

attention first and foremost to the fact that the Hoover proposals would produce everything but

their self-proclaimed goals of economy and efficiency. Dispersing veterans’ programs into several

different agencies, they argued, would not only require duplicating veterans’ records but

increasing taxes to support the creation of new bureaus to do a job already performed by others.

A suggested script for local Legion speakers compared the Commission proposals for the VA to

telling General Motors that “You may retain your administrative functions, but you will have to

divorce yourself from the other operations of your corporation. Ford will take over your

production. Engineering will go to Studebaker. Your distribution will be conducted by Chrysler.

And your sales can be handled by Kaiser-Fraser.”86 Just as importantly, the Legion argued that

the proposals would produce more confusion and result in a less efficient service for veterans,

84 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 4, 5, 6, 1949, 169, ALA.
85Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 4, 5 and 6, 1949, 169, ALA.
86 National Public Relations Division, “Suggested 15-Minute Talk for American Legion Speakers: The

American Legion and the Hoover Report,” n.d. (ca. January 1950), A-Z, ALA.
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who would not be able to rely on a “one-stop” agency anymore. “No longer could the veteran go

to one agency and inquire about his disability claim, check up on his chance to get vocational

training, make application for hospitalization if he were ill, inquire about a G. I. loan, or if called

in for a physical examination, do it all in one place. He conceivably might have to visit four or five

different Federal agencies.”87 In a nutshell, the Legion charged that implementing the Hoover

report was tantamount to buying “a pig in a poke”—foolishly accepting a deal without prior

inspection.88

But the clash between the Legion and the Hoover Commission was also about conflicting

visions of citizenship. It was political—almost philosophical—instead of just economic or

technical. For the Legion, veterans were a special and privileged class by virtue of their military

service, and any benefits which they consequently received were the product of a moral contract

between them and the Government, “a sacred obligation of the nation.”89 Their programs were

therefore not “welfare” but earned advantages. It was this principle of a special identity for

veterans, the idea of martial citizenship, that the group had successfully institutionalized with the

creation of the VA in 1930, and that it now saw as under threat. The recommendations of the

Hoover Report to take core functions away from this agency were dangerous, the Legion argued,

not only because they would fail to cut costs but because they would “divorce all veterans from

their identity as veterans” and thus “tear down what [the Legion] has worked a lifetime to build.”90

“It is particularly alarming,” wrote a top Legion official, “to have the veterans’ benefit programs

classified as welfare programs. We resist that idea whenever it is possible to do so…The American

Legion has consistently held to the position that the cost of caring for the disabled veteran is as

much a part of the cost of war as are the cash moneys laid on the barrel head to pay for the ships

87 “What Would Happen to the Veteran if these Proposals Became Law,” n.d., A-Z, ALA. Emphasis original.
88 “Pig in a Poke?” n.d. (ca. January 1950), A-Z, ALA.
89 National Public Relations Division, “Suggested 15-Minute Talk for American Legion Speakers: The

American Legion and the Hoover Report,” n.d., A-Z, ALA.

90 “McCurdy Denounces Economy Movement as a Blow at Disabled War Veterans,” ALM, January 1950;

“Legion Declares Privates War,” The Badger Legionnaire, February 1950, Wisconsin Historical Society.
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and guns and tanks and planes…such Federal veterans benefits are a direct cost of war. They have

no relation to the Oscar Ewing type of welfare state cost,” he argued, referring to the man in charge

of the Federal Security Agency (FSA), which was responsible for some of the most emblematic

New Deal welfare programs like Social Security.91 Hayes likewise recognized that “we don’t want

the veteran taken out of the class…in which he has been placed throughout the history of this

beloved nation of ours, and placed in the position where he has to be hospitalized and cared for

by an all developing, overlapping Federal Agency designed to do things for people.”92

This cartoon illustrated the Legion’s view of the coalition behind the Hoover Commission’s
recommendations on veterans’ affairs. From left to right, affluent-looking men representing “‘Give Us
the Veterans’ Money’ groups,” “Anti-Veteran Propaganda,” and “‘We Don’t Want to Pay’ groups” are
cutting down the tree of “VA Appropriations,” whose fruits are various veterans’ programs.

91 T. O. Kraabel to Frank J. Falcone, April 10, 1952, A-Z, ALA.

92 “Ed Hayes, Talk at Dept Comdrs Conf. at Indpls Jan 8, 1950 [sic],” A-Z, ALA.
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 Source: Perry Brown, “The Growing Attack on Veterans’ Benefits,” ALM, July 1949.

This approach was not new. As we saw in the previous two chapters, martial citizenship

had long been the Legion’s quasi-official ideology, one which its original members—veterans of

the Great War—had adopted as their own. But the group now faced a new challenge: would the

nearly two million younger Legionnaires who had so recently joined follow this outlook as well?

On the answer to that question depended, to a large extent, the outcome of the fight over the First

Hoover Commission’s proposals. For if roughly two-thirds of the Legion’s total membership did

not buy their leadership’s arguments and decided instead to remain on the sidelines, the group

would lose its most valuable shock troops as well as its main source of influence. The Legion’s

internal correspondence was imbued with a clear sense that while the older generation of veterans

could be counted on to respond to this new threat because they had already been the target of

similar criticism in the past, the same was not true for the new cohort. In other words, Legion

leaders had to convince their own rank-and-file of the validity of their arguments before they

could even hope to influence the nation’s lawmakers. They did the former by drawing explicit and

deliberately exaggerated comparisons between the experience of World War I veterans in the

interwar period and the current situation. “Obviously we can’t cite any recent condition as

example of what we are trying to prevent from happening again,” the Legion’s assistant director

of national public relations Jack Cejnar candidly explained in a private letter, “The World War II

veteran received everything on a gold platter. If we are going to dramatize the consequences of

the proposed dismemberment of the VA we must go back into history and drag out and dust off

the tragic lessons of the past.”93

As it turned out, there were many such lessons to drag out, dust off, and put to creative

use. Of course, the Legion did not refrain from pointing out the irony of Hoover making a case for

Jack Cejnar to Leonard McGinnis, January 26, 1952, United States, Reorganization (inc. Hoover Plan),
93

Operation Victory, ALA. (Operation Victory, ALA hereafter)

165
the dismantlement of the same agency he had helped create two decades earlier. “The Hoover

report’s recommendation that veterans affairs be decentralized,” National Commander Craig

argued, “would be a throwback to an old and wasteful system which did not work…President

Hoover ordered the organization of the VA in 1929 because the system now recommended by the

ex-President’s advisors then existed and was wasteful, inefficient and subject to political

meddling.”94 Adopting a more aggressive approach, the official publication of the Harold A. Taylor

Post 47 in Chicago called Hoover “the greatest enemy of the ex-service man.” “Those of you who

remember the bonus army,” it argued, “will applaud this statement…It is Hoover vs. the Veteran

again.”95 Beyond attacking the ex-President, the Legion also compared his Report to the

“infamous, callous and cold-blooded” Economy Act of 1933, which had made major cuts to

benefits for veterans with non-service-related disabilities.96 Using a well-known image from the

time of the Great Depression, one suggested article to be published in local newspapers argued

that the reform of civil service would force veterans out of work and “Back to Apple Selling” in the

streets.97 All these comparisons were meant to make the stakes of the debate more vivid for World

War II veterans. “There is growing evidence,” the editors of the American Legion Magazine wrote

in preface to a piece about Memorial Day in 1949, “that the boys who fought in World War Two—

and their widows and orphans—are now being forgotten, just as the boys who fought in War One—

and their dependents—were eventually forgotten…The big economy drive is under way.”98

Such claims were purposefully overblown, of course. Far from being “forgotten,” veterans

and the Legion could still rely on strong allies. The VFW, the AMVETS, and the DAV all rallied

against most of the recommendations of the Commission.99 Similarly (and predictably), VA

94 Robert B. Pitkin, “Craig Reveals Hoover Commission Ignored Vital Veterans Problems,” ALM, March
1950, 32.
95 “Legion Declares War,” Taylor (Chicago, Ill.) Topics, February 1950, A-Z, ALA.
96 Perry Brown, “The Growing Attack on Veterans’ Benefits,” American Legion Magazine, July 1949.
97 Local American Legion Post, “Back to Apple Selling?” n.d. (ca. January 1950), A-Z, ALA.
98 “The Editors’ Corner: They’re Forgetting Again,” ALM, May 1949, 3-4.
99 “Battle Developing over Veteran Unit: 4 Ex-Servicemen’s Groups Fight Hoover Reforms, as Citizen

Committee Advocates Them,” New York Times, January 20, 1950.

166
Administrator Carl R. Gray, Jr., was opposed to diminishing his agency’s power. In a letter to

Congress in July 1949, he wrote in a language closely echoing the Legion’s that nearly all of the

relevant recommendations of the Hoover Report were “in basic conflict with the traditional policy

of the Government to accord to veterans as a class, special consideration through one agency

responsible for administering the various benefit programs.”100 The House Committee on

Veterans’ Affairs, the key gatekeeper for all veterans’ legislation in Congress, was also in friendly

hands. This was not surprising, for the Legion had been instrumental in its creation in 1924—

following the same logic as for the VA, that veterans’ policies ought to be separate from other

matters—and maintained close ties with its chairman, John E. Rankin of Mississippi.101 A

conservative Southern Democrat, Rankin was known as the “foremost defender in Congress of

white supremacy and one of the most vicious of the [anti-communist] witch hunters.”102 A staunch

ally of veterans’ groups, he helped them secure the passage of non-service connected pensions

and the Bonus in the interwar period.103

The Legion needed such supporters in positions of power, for its standing with public

opinion was strong but far from secure. In February 1950, a Gallup poll asked whether Congress

should follow either the Hoover Commission’s plan to “[split] up major functions…of the VA

among other government agencies” or veterans’ organizations’ claim that “it would be neither

efficient nor economical.” While a plurality of respondents (44 percent) sided with veterans, the

percentage of those who sided with the Commission was not far behind (34 percent) and could

100 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Comments of the Veterans Administration on the
Recommendations of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of Government as Applied
to the Activities of the Veterans Administration, 81st Congr., 1st Sess., 1949, 4.
101 Stephen R. Ortiz, Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era

(New York, 2010), 23.

102 “Exit Mr. Rankin,” The Washington Post, August 28, 1952.
103 Davis R. B. Ross, Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans During World War II (New York, 1969),

24–25; Kenneth W. Vickers, “John Rankin: Democrat and Demagogue” (M.A., Mississippi State University,
1993), 10.
167
potentially become a majority, if enough undecided voters (23 percent) were convinced.104 With a

final outcome impossible to predict and the lines clearly drawn between two different visions of

veterans’ role in society, the battle over the Hoover Report could begin.

Ideas in Practice: The Fight over Veterans’ Benefits

Though the positions of the Legion and the Hoover Commission were clearly at

loggerheads, their conflict did not immediately burst into the open after the latter released its

reports. While the CCHR had introduced several bills to implement the recommendations of the

Commission, those dealing with veterans’ affairs were not high on its list of priorities for 1949.105

More pressing fights required its undivided attention, such as that over the creation of the

Department of Defense, the overhaul of the Department of State, the Reorganization Act of 1949,

and the creation of the brand new General Services Administration.106 Only after Congress

adjourned in October, then, did the CCHR enter into top-level negotiations with the American

Legion in the hope of reaching a compromise and averting a head-on conflict during the next

session.107 McCormick was fully aware that on some issues, especially hospitals, their two groups

were probably “irreconcilably placed in opposite corners.”108 As he wrote in a letter to Hoover,

however, he thought that both sides would stand to profit from an amiable relationship and from

working out agreements on less divisive topics, since “an open battle…would put our organization

in the position of being against the veteran...and it would put their organization in the light of

104 Gallup Organization. Gallup Poll (AIPO), Feb, 1950. USGALLUP.50-453.QK08B. Gallup Organization.
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL, accessed May 8, 2017.
105 For a summary of the Hoover Commission legislation introduced in 1949 on veterans’ affairs, see Digest

of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 3, 4, and 5, 1950, 35-36, ALA.
106 “Status when Congress Adjourned,” Reorganization News (November 1949), Box 2, Folder 2,

CCREBGR, HIA.
107 Robert L. L. McCormick to C. B. Coates, Memorandum, n.d (ca. 1950), Box 72, Folder 2, CCREBGR, HIA.
108 Robert L. L. McCormick to Honorable Herbert Hoover, January 6, 1950, Box 35, Folder: Robert L. L.

McCormick, January-March, 1950, RFHC, HHPL.

168
being opponents of progress and reforms….”109 Coates shared his optimism, thinking that by mid-

January 1950, after several meetings including one between the Legion leadership and Hoover

himself, “the peace pipe [had] been smoked.”110

As it turned out, this was a serious miscalculation. While Coates held out hope of an

agreement, the Legion was gearing itself for an all-out attack. In early December 1949, while

negotiations were still running, Craig sent a letter inviting Legion Departments to send two

delegates to a national meeting the next month in the Indianapolis national headquarters, with

the explicit goal “to discuss and formulate plans to defeat the Hoover Commission Report and the

legislation that has been introduced as result of such recommendations.” 111 The Hoover

Commission, he stressed, would be “the NUMBER ONE legislative problem” of his group in the

near future.112 When the meeting opened on January 7, 1950, Legion officials outlined “Operation

Survival,” a nationwide public relations campaign that delegates were to launch upon returning

to their Departments.113 Similar in its methods to the CCHR’s own propaganda enterprise, the

Legion’s operation sought to sway public opinion and lobby Congress in preparation of the group’s

National Rehabilitation Conference the next month in D.C., when Departments would meet with

their Congressional representatives.114 Every state delegation was given a brochure with

background material, suggested editorials, a series of seven stories to be published by local

newspapers under the signature of the local Post Commander, and suggested five-, ten-, and

fifteen-minute talks for Legion and Auxiliary speakers.115 The public launch of the campaign came

109 Robert L. L. McCormick to Honorable Herbert Hoover, December 20, 1949, Box 35, Folder: McCormick,
Robert L. L. Oct-Dec, 1949, RFHC, HHPL.
110 Charles B. Coates to Arch Ely, January 13, 1950, Box 73, Folder 3, CCREBGR, HIA; Thomas A. Rumer,

The American Legion: An Official History, 1919-1989 (New York: M. Evans, 1990), 320.
111 George N. Craig, “(Call to special conference of Department Commanders in U.S. only),” December 1,

1949, A-Z, ALA.

112 Letter from George N. Craig, January 1, 1950, A-Z, ALA.
113 Edward F. McGinnis, “Operation Survival,” n.d. (ca. January 8, 1950), A-Z, ALA.
114 “National Rehabilitation Conference, The American Legion: February 6-7-8-9, 1950, Washington, D.C.:

Change In Date,” December 15, 1949, A-Z, ALA.

115 “American Legion Mobilizes for Offensive against ‘Economy’ Sell-Out of Veterans by Hoover Report,”

ALM, February 1950.

169
a week later, when the Legion testified against the Hoover Report at a highly publicized hearing

of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.116 A week later, Craig met with President Truman.117

Aware that their success depended largely on their rank-and-file’s response, Legion

officials deliberately adopted an aggressive rhetoric. The tone of the February 1950 issue of the

Badger Legionnaire, the official monthly of the Wisconsin Department, was typical of Legion

publications throughout the country. In an article headlined “Legion Declares Private War,”

Wisconsinites learned that Craig had sounded a “call to arms” and outlined a “mobilization plan.”

Post commanders were to act as “combat company commanders,” with several committees under

their direct orders (canvassing was to be performed by a “mop-up squad”), and to lead the “over-

all post offensive.”118 The material distributed at the January meeting was described as a “full

supply of ammunition.”119 Mincing no words, the Badger Legionnaire went on to claim that the

Hoover Commission was responsible for “a vicious attack,” a “ruthless campaign to sell the

veteran down the river.” The Hoover Report was “another knife in the backs” of veterans. “The

time for silk gloves is past,” it concluded in a final rhetorical flourish, “Now is the time to take off

the gloves…use brass knucks [sic] if necessary…and keep swinging until we have kept faith with

our less fortunate veterans!”120 The Legion’s News Service also directly attacked Hoover himself

in a cartoon portraying him as insensitive to the plight of a disabled veteran unable to find a bed

in a United Medical Administration hospital where he no longer had priority (see image below).121

116 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 1950 Legislative Programs of the American
Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, American Veterans of World War II, and
United Spanish War Veterans, Hearing, January 17, 1950 (Washington D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1950).
117 “Truman, Legion Head Talk: President Is Told Group Opposes Veteran Agency Reforms,” New York

Times, January 26, 1950.

118 “Legion Declares Privates War,” The Badger Legionnaire, February 1950, Wisconsin Historical Society.
119 “Pass the Ammunition!! What Every Post Should Do,” ALM, February 1950.
120 “Time for Action,” The Badger Legionnaire, February 1950, Wisconsin Historical Society.
121 “American Legion Cartoon Hit by Hoover Group,” New York Herald Tribune, February 12, 1950.

170
Sensing that this crude ad hominem attack on an ex-President was going too far, Legion officials

tried to withdraw it from the mails at the last minute, but it was too late.122

This cartoon, published in the

Legion’s News Service in
January 1950, showed on the
left a disabled veteran on
crutches, unable to find a bed in
a United Medical
Administration hospital as they
were occupied (from left to
right) by a merchant mariner,
an Army wife, a member of the
armed forces, and “other federal
employees.”
In the foreground, Hoover says
to a frowning Legionnaire that
“They all look alike in pajamas!”
This (very likely apocryphal)
quote expressed the view that
the Legion wanted to associate
with the Hoover Commission:
that veterans should not be
considered apart from the rest
of the population when it came
to medical care.
Source: “American Legion
Cartoon Hit by Hoover Group,”
New York Herald Tribune,
February 12, 1950

Their foreboding was right, for as Coates later commented joyfully, the cartoon and the

warlike language of Operation Survival more generally “brought the newspapers and Members of

Congress down around [the Legion’s] ears like a swarm of hornets.”123 At a hearing on the UMA

in late March 1950, Craig was castigated by several Congressmen. Georgia Democrat Henderson

Lanham called the Legion propaganda “very unwise” and “very unfair,” while Chairman William

L. Dawson, a liberal Democrat from Chicago and one of only two African-Americans in Congress,

122 Henry H. Dudley to Lewis K. Gough, February 2, 1950, United States, Reorganization (inc. Hoover Plan),
Comments, Departments-AL-WY, ALA. (AL-WY, ALA hereafter)
123 Charles B. Coates to Robert L. Johnson, February 27, 1952, Box 72, Folder 1, CCREBGR, HIA.

171
advised him that “sending threatening letters” would not get the desired response but “rather

raises an antagonism.”124 Their pushback was nothing compared to the almost uniformly negative

reaction of the national press.125 The Washington Post and the New York Times dismissed the

Legion’s charges as “plain tommyrot” and “the height of absurdity,” while the Washington Times-

Herald called the Hoover cartoon the “dirtiest kind of dirty pool.”126 More importantly, these

papers explicitly condemned the Legion’s ideal of martial citizenship. The view that veterans

belonged to a separate and privileged class of citizens and that their benefits should therefore

remain under the single authority of the VA, the Long Island Newsday argued, was nothing more

than a self-interested position underpinned by “the idea of perpetrating [the Legion’s] own power

to manipulate the VA.”127 “In the long run,” the Post agreed, “the real enemy of the veteran may

prove to be the leader who wants to keep him out of the main stream of American life, who wants

to isolate him and make him a member not of the whole community but of a manipulable special

interest group.”128 The Times also called on the Legion to stop “acting as though the veterans of

this nation are and want to be a specially privileged class set apart from the rest of the

population.”129 Editorial comment was so vitriolic that the Legion’s Assistant National Adjutant

feared his group might “lose a great deal of the prestige we have gained during the past years.”130

As a new session of Congress began in January 1950, four different bills embodied the

recommendations of the Hoover Commission on veterans’ affairs. Two of them—to reorganize the

124 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments, United Medical
Administration, Hearing, March 29, June 13-14, 22, July 12, 1950 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1950), 35–36. The other African-American was Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a
Democrat representing Harlem in New York City.
125 In addition to the articles quoted in this paragraph, see also Ysabel Rennie and Robert Rennie, “Political

Economy: Veterans As A Special Interest,” The Washington Post, January 17, 1950; “A Voice of Reason,”
New York Herald Tribune, February 28, 1950; “Management of Veterans Affairs,” New York Herald
Tribune, February 10, 1950; “Efficiency or Privilege?,” The Christian Science Monitor, February 17, 1950.
126 “Congress and Legion,” The Washington Post, February 4, 1950; “Veterans’ Report,” New York Times,

February 15, 1950; “Play Fair, Legion,” Washington (D.C.) Times-Herald, n.d. (ca. February 5, 1950),
United States, Reorganization (inc. Hoover Plan), Comments, ALA. (Comments, ALA hereafter)
127 “Pressure, With Brass Knucks,” Newsday, February 14, 1950.
128 “Legion Blast,” The Washington Post, February 8, 1950.
129 “Veterans’ Report.”
130 Wm. E. Sayer to Robert L. Moorehead, March 22, 1950, Comments, ALA.

172
VA and to create a Veterans’ Insurance Corporation—fell under the jurisdiction of Rankin’s

committee, and he buried them there without allowing a hearing for the whole year. The bill to

reform federal personnel management, in the meantime, went before the House and Senate

Committees on Post Office and Civil Service. In his testimony against it, a Legion official argued

that by decentralizing recruitment and introducing a category system, the bill would “result in

destruction of veterans’ preference and encourage the return of the patronage and spoils

system.”131 But it was the United Medical Administration that the Legion saw as the most serious

threat. As Craig argued in his testimony before the House Committee on Expenditures in

Executive Departments, “the medical and hospital program of the VA is the key point in that

organization…Take that out of the VA, and the remaining structure is greatly weakened.”132

To understand the dynamics of this complex debate, it is worth stepping back for a

moment to consider the fight over national health insurance that raged at the same time between

Truman and the powerful doctors’ lobby, the American Medical Association (AMA).133 In his State

of the Union address in January 1949, Truman had proposed the creation of a Department of

Welfare to perform the functions administered by the FSA, a move opposed by the AMA because

it would have elevated to cabinet rank those officials who were among the staunchest advocates

of national health insurance, which it condemned as “socialized medicine.” Southern Democrats

were also against it because of Ewing’s support of civil rights. As a result, the Senate voted the

plan down. The Hoover Commission sought to avoid this bitter conflict by taking health activities

away from the FSA and into the United Medical Administration, while recommending the creation

of a new Department of Welfare with authority only over education and social security.134 Yet this

131 U.SCongress, Senate, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, Bills To Implement Recommendations
of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (The Hoover Commission),
Hearing, June 30, July 20, 27, 1949, March 1, 14, 21, June 29, July 18, 27, August 7, 1950 (Washington,
D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1951), 176–77.
132 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments, United Medical

Administration, 15–16.
133 Monte M. Poen, Harry S. Truman versus the Medical Lobby: The Genesis of Medicare (Columbia, 1979).
134 Pemberton, Bureaucratic Politics, 117–120.

173
compromise ended up displeasing both sides. The AMA believed health activities should be

incorporated into a Department of Health, not another agency with lower status in the

government, while Ewing declared himself “unalterably opposed” to the transfer of the Public

Health Service away from his agency.135

The real strength of the Legion, however, lay beyond Capitol Hill. Long before the first

hearings had even been held, rank-and-file Legionnaires’ response to Operation Survival

exceeded the leadership’s wildest expectations. Within less than two weeks after the January

meeting, more than half of all Departments in the continental U.S. (and nearly all of the most

populous) reported that they had taken action.136 In Texas, the 21 district Commanders met in

Austin and agreed to poll their own Congressmen, in addition to planning meetings in all 758

Posts in the state.137 In Ohio, the Department Adjutant reported an “enthusiastic,” “emergency

state-wide meeting,” “with perhaps 700 to 800 present,” of which “about 70 per cent” were World

War II veterans.”138 In Illinois, the Department executive committee voted an emergency

appropriation of $10,000 to establish an “educational plan to acquaint veterans and non-veterans

in the state with the provisions of the Hoover Report as they affect veterans.” 139 In Washington

state, model petitions were sent to individual Posts, veterans applying for disability claims

received flyers, Department officials crisscrossed the state to give speeches, and a speaker’s

bureau was set up.140 A Northern California pro-Hoover group reported to the CCHR that “a

vigorous attack is being made by the American Legion” in the region, adding that “we are

135 U.S Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Subcommittee on Health, United
Medical and Hospital Administration Act, Hearing, July 10-12, 1950 (Washington, D.C., 1950), 70; U.S
Congress, Senate, Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, Progress on Hoover
Commission Recommendations (Washington, D.C., 1949), 328–331.
136 Jack Oakey to T. O. Kraabel, January 27, 1950, A-Z, ALA.
137 Department Headquarters, The American Legion, Department of Texas, “Release upon Receipt,”

received January 20, 1950, A-Z, ALA.

138 Joseph S. Deutschle to George N. Craig, January 23, 1950, AL-WY, ALA.
139 George Selgrat, “For Immediate Release,” January 25, 1950, A-Z, ALA.
140 Fred M. Fuecker to Henry H. Dudley, February 9, 1950, AL-WY, ALA.

174
encountering it everywhere.”141 In Albuquerque, New Mexico, an “overflow crowd jammed” the

local high school auditorium to hear the Legion state Commander Seaborn Collins “lash out” at

the Hoover Report.142 Finally, in Alabama, a petition with 20,000 names was sent to Washington,

D.C., and local newspapers agreed to insert large anti-Hoover Report ads at no cost.143 On top of

this, Department representatives met with their Congressional delegations at the Legion’s

National Rehabilitation Conference in early February.144 Clearly, the effort by Legion leaders to

mobilize both sections of their membership—veterans of World War I and of World War II—had

succeeded, as the rank-and-file mobilized effectively against the Hoover Commission by

channeling their energy through the group’s federalist structure.

The results of this campaign proved highly positive. Though the Army Times Newsletter

disapproved of the Legion’s propaganda campaign, it was forced to concede barely a month after

its launch that it “already can be labeled an unqualified success,” adding that “[m]embers of

Congress are jumping through Legion-held hoops like well-trained animals.”145 Indeed, many

Departments followed Nevada in reporting that their Congressional delegation was “on record

squarely behind our program.”146 By February, influential legislators on both sides of the aisle,

such as former chairwoman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Edith Nourse Rogers

(R-Mass.), House Majority Leader and Massachusetts Democrat John W. McCormack, and

Republican Senator from South Dakota Karl E. Mundt had come out against the

141 Sylvester J. McAtee to Charles B. Coates, “Memo re: Veterans,” February 15, 1950, Box 73, Folder 2,
CCREBGR, HIA.
142 “State Legion Head Scores Hoover Recommendations,” Albuquerque Journal, undated (ca. January 20,

1950), Box 73, Folder 2, CCREBGR, HIA.

143 “Hoover Commission Report, Subject: Campaign Being Carried on by American Legion Departments as

Requested in National Adjutant’s Letter of March 3, 1950.”

144 “National Rehabilitation Conference, The American Legion: February 6-7-8-9, 1950, Washington, D.C.:

Change In Date,” December 15, 1949, A-Z, ALA.

145 Quoted in James E. Warner, “Hoover Group Asks Apology From Legion: Citizens’ Committee Terms

Cartoon in Drive Against V.A. Reform ‘Scurrilous,’” New York Herald Tribune, February 12, 1950.
146 “Hoover Commission Report, Subject: Campaign Being Carried on by American Legion Departments as

Requested in National Adjutant’s Letter of March 3, 1950.”

175
recommendations of the Hoover Report on veterans’ affairs.147 Their statements clearly embraced

the idea of martial citizenship put forward by the Legion. McCormack, for instance, condemned

the transfer of functions out of the VA, arguing that the result would be “that veterans rights would

be trimmed” and that “the lesson of the past is most emphatic that there must be no division of

authority in the vast operation of administering the affairs of 19,000,000 veterans…Divided

responsibility means no responsibility.”148 In a letter to the President, both Democratic Senators

from Oklahoma Elmer Thomas and Robert S. Kerr also expressed the position of their state’s

entire Congressional delegation in terms that could have been the Legion’s own. “We believe,”

they wrote, “that in order to provide a special service for a segment of our people, a special agency

must be provided for its administration…there remains uppermost in our minds the necessity for

a continuous program of benefits for our war veterans above and beyond those provided for the

whole of our citizenry.”149 Taking note of this growing support, Jack Cejnar wrote that while his

group was “definitely losing [the fight] in the press,” “we may win [it] in Congress.”150

On the other side of the fence, the CCHR was reluctantly reaching the same conclusion.

Having been informed of the Legion’s massive letter-writing campaign, McCormick wrote an

alarmed letter to Coates in January where he expressed his fear that “if we wait too long before

we do our work, we will be completely stopped.”151 The next month, they both recognized that the

Legion had been “giving us a very bad time,” and that the CCHR needed to respond at once if it

were to prevent Legionnaires from “trying to rope and hogtie all the Congressmen in advance.”152

By then, it was clear that the Legion would be, more than any other single group, the “apparently

147 National Legislative Commission, Legislative Bulletin, no. 5, February 7, 1950; Karl E. Mundt to George
N. Craig, February 27, 1950, A-Z, ALA.
148 “House Leader Says Split of VA Will Add to Costs,” American Legion Magazine, March 1950.
149 Elmer Thomas and Rob’t S. Kerr to the President, February 7, 1950, AL-WY, ALA. Emphasis added.
150 Jack Cejnar to Harold Saidt, March 17, 1950, AL-WY, ALA.
151 Robert L. L. McCormick to Charles B. Coates, Memorandum: Veterans, January 20, 1950, Box 73, Folder

2: Correspondence, CCREBGR, HIA.

152 Robert L. L. McCormick to James K. Pollock, February 9, 1950; Charles B. Coates to John Stuart,

February 1, 1950, Box 73, Folder 2, CCREBGR, HIA.

176
insuperable obstacle” in the way of implementing the Hoover Report’s recommendations on

veterans’ affairs.153 McCormick was convinced of the cynicism of their opponent. He wrote to

Hoover that “it all comes down to one fundamental. They do not want anything removed from

the Veterans’ Administration because it is their private preserve and they are able to exercise

leverage when it is separate.”154 Nevertheless, CCHR officials refused to retaliate by attacking the

Legion head-on. They genuinely believed that the Hoover Report was above politics and that its

defense should therefore be grounded mainly in the austere exposition of facts, as opposed to

what they saw as the Legion’s “strictly emotional appeal.”155 CCHR speakers, for instance, were

urged to “[a]void rip-snorting words such as ‘slash,’ ‘abolish,’ ‘taxeater,’ ‘bureaucrat,’ ‘living at the

public teat,’” and to strive “above all, [for] exactitude.”156 “[W]e do not intend to engage in any

shirt-waving,” McCormick made clear in a private letter, “[t]hat’s not our specialty.” 157 Yet this

rather mild approach was not enough to break the deadlock in Congress. As McCormick

acknowledged in a letter to Hoover, by the end of 1950 “[v]irtually nothing” had been done

regarding the reform of veterans’ affairs, the creation of the United Medical Administration

remained “a major task,” and “[n]othing was accomplished” on the bill to reform civil service.158

The next year did little to improve the situation. Robert Johnson had hoped that the

election of a new Legion National Commander in October 1950, Erle Cocke, Jr., of Georgia, would

be enough to “brush aside a great many of the irritations of the past.”159 Yet after two meetings,

negotiations broke down again with the acknowledgment that the positions of both groups

153 Charles B. Coates to Paul C. Smith, June 21, 1951, Box 73, Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.
154 Robert L. L. McCormick to Honorable Herbert Hoover, December 20, 1949, Box 35, Folder: McCormick,
Robert L. L. Oct-Dec, 1949, RFHC, HHPL. Emphasis original.
155 Robert L. L. McCormick to James K. Pollock, Box 73, Folder 2, CCREBGR, HIA.
156 CCHR, “‘Do’s and Don’ts,’ on Preparing Material about the Hoover Report,” n.d. (ca. November 28,

1949), WHCF: OF 285 E Citizens Committee for Reorganization of the Executive Branch of the Government,
TP.
157 Robert L. L. McCormick to Robert W. Lucas, April 4, 1952, Box 72, Folder 1, CCREBGR, HIA.
158 McCormick to Hoover, November 20, 1950, Box 35, Folder: Robert L. L. McCormick, June-December,

1950, RFHC, HHPL.

159 Robert L. Johnson to Hon. Erle Cocke, November 14, 1950, A-Z, ALA.

177
remained “irreconcilable” and the “lines of battle…clearly drawn.”160 Cocke was determined to

follow in the footsteps of his predecessor. In the light of the generally hostile reaction to Operation

Survival, he took the tactical decision to avoid overtly publicizing his group’s opposition to the

Hoover Commission’s recommendations on veterans’ affairs. Calculating that this would only add

grist to the CCHR’s mill, he chose to focus instead on what the Legion did best: lobbying legislators

behind the scenes by flooding their offices with letters from constituents back home. 161 As the

Director of the group’s National Field Service put it, “it is pretty much our policy this year to

oppose these things in the Committees of Congress rather than in the press of the nation.” 162 In

doing so, the Legion continued to rely on Rankin to bury the bills to reform the VA and create a

Veterans’ Insurance Corporation in his Committee. He refused to hold hearings and to invite the

CCHR to testify on the ground that “it has long been the policy of the Committee to hear only

representatives of the four veterans’ organizations chartered by act of Congress [the Legion, VFW,

DAV, and AMVETS], officials of government agencies, and Members of Congress”—a decision

correctly interpreted by Johnson as “exactly as though a court of law were to announce that it

would hear only witnesses for the defense.”163

The most pressing challenge for the Legion in 1951 was internal, as it struggled to placate

the dissent that had been simmering in its own ranks. Several factors contributed to the situation.

California Commander Lewis Gough remarked, for instance, that while traveling in his

Department he had heard “many many [sic] Legionnaires express themselves quite strongly on

the cartoon [of Hoover]...This alienates many Republicans and others who very much admire

President Hoover.”164 Other Legionnaires were distressed by the violent rhetoric employed in

160 Memorandum to Erle Cocke, Jr., from Leonce Legendre, T. O. Kraabel, Watson Miller, Miles Kennedy,
John T. Taylor, Edward McGrail, Ralph Lavers, Norman Lodge, Edward McGinnis, George Kelly, C. H.
Olson, n.d. (ca. February 1951), A-Z, ALA.
161 Jack Oakey, “Memorandum to Henry H. Dudley, William E. Sayer,” January 4, 1951, A-Z, ALA.
162 Jack Oakey to Donald M. Irish, May 14, 1951, A-Z, ALA.
163 J. E. Rankin to Charles J. Biddle, June 19, 1951; “Attention, Veterans,” Reorganization News, October-

November 1951, Box 2, Folder 2, CCREBGR, HIA. Emphasis original.

164 Lewis K. Gough to George N. Craig, January 30, 1950, AL-WY, ALA.

178
Operation Survival, commenting that it had “some of the earmarks of a ‘Goebbel’s’ type of

propaganda.”165 They found it hard to reconcile the Legion’s aggressive defense of the VA with

their own first-hand experience of its inefficiency—red tape, delays, etc. In Kentucky, for instance,

Legion officials reported that their members felt “VA was praised too highly,” while in Maryland,

the “poor VA reputation in Dept. has minimized Legion’s stand.” Nevertheless, such dissent was

neither widespread nor deep-seated, and most Departments reported that the campaign against

the Hoover Report had had either a positive effect or (most often) none at all on their overall

membership.166 What worried the national leadership more than these isolated examples of rank-

and-file disgruntlement, then, was the possibility that pro-Hoover groups or individuals would

infiltrate the Legion. As we saw in the previous chapter with the CPUSA or the real estate lobby,

this would not have been the first time. After one pro-Hoover Legionnaire from Pennsylvania

attempted unsuccessfully to get his local Post to pass a resolution in support of the Report, Legion

officials began to fear that this isolated incident was a serious attempt to “discredit the national

organization” and that other groups might try to “plant” resolutions at the local or state level so

as to make the Legion present “a cracked front.”167

“Cracking” the unity of the major veterans’ groups aligned against the Hoover Report was

precisely the strategy that the CCHR hoped would break the stalemate in Congress. In August

1951, they formed the Independent Veterans’ Committee (IVC) with the mission to “demonstrate

to Congress and the public that the established veterans’ organizations are not the sole spokesman

for the nation’s veterans in this issue” and especially to free Congress “of its fear of the Legion.”168

The “paramount objective” was to “get some action on [the] reform of the VA” that Rankin was

165 Richard F. Bailey to Donald R. Wilson, May 9, 1952, Operation Victory, ALA.
166 “Hoover Commission Report, Subject: Campaign Being Carried on by American Legion Departments as
Requested in National Adjutant’s Letter of March 3, 1950,” A-Z, ALA.
167 “Revolt in the Legion,” Time, February 12, 1951.; Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee

Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1951, 92; Miles D. Kennedy to Jerome F. Duggan, May 14, 1951; Jerome F. Duggan
to Miles D. Kennedy, May 16, 1951, A-Z, ALA.
168 Charles B. Coates to Robert L. L. McCormick, June 21, 1951, Box 73, Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.

179
blocking.169 Paul Smith, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and decorated veteran of the

Pacific, was named chairman, and the list of its founding members included such prestigious

names as the actor Douglas Fairbanks, Randolph A. Hearst, son of the publishing magnate,

Generals Lucius Clay and A. C. Wedemeyer, Harold E. Stassen, President of the University of

Pennsylvania, and T. Coleman Andrews, accountant and future presidential candidate of the

States’ Rights Party in 1956.170 What the names did not reveal, of course, was that the IVC was

merely a figurehead for the CCHR: its members had all been handpicked by Coates and

McCormick and were there only to make public speeches while the CCHR handled all the staff

work behind the scenes.171 In other words, this was what would later be known as an “astroturf”

group: a fake grassroots campaign which, as the Legion perfectly understood, had “no other

purpose than to lend the name ‘veterans’ to the support of the Hoover proposals.”172

Even with the creation of this new Committee, the CCHR made very little progress in 1951.

Rankin remained as unyielding as ever, preventing any consideration of the bills to reform the VA

and create a Veterans’ Insurance Corporation. The bill to create a UMA was replaced by one to

create a Department of Health, but no one was willing to seriously consider such sweeping reforms

in the emergency situation created by the Korean War. As a result, no hearings were held on the

bill that year.173 The only minor victory for the CCHR was on the bill to reform civil service, which

the Senate voted one day before adjourning.174 By the end of the year, the CCHR estimated that

while slightly more than half of all the Commission’s recommendations had been implemented,

169 Charles B. Coates to Paul C. Smith, June 21, 1951, Box 73, Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.
170 “Veterans to Spur U.S. Streamlining: Heads New Committee,” New York Times, August 19, 1951.;
“Founding Members, Independent Veterans Committee for the Hoover Report,” September 6, 1951, Box 73,
Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.
171 Charles B. Coates to Robert L. L. McCormick, June 21, 1951, Box 73, Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.
172 “Group Seeks to Destroy U.S. Vet’s Program in Four Months,” 30.
173 Proceedings of the 33rd National Convention of the American Legion, 184, 310.
174 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, Indianapolis, Indiana, November 18, 19 and

20, 1951, 41, ALA.

180
5.5 billion dollars could still be saved with those that remained.175 It decided to focus for the next

year on six bills “of primary importance,” those “in areas where the greatest savings can be made,

where waste, overlapping and duplication are most prevalent and where the largest government

agencies and private pressure groups are in a position to offer the strongest resistance to change

and improvement.” Of these six, three were related to veterans’ affairs: Federal Personnel

Management, the Department of Health, and the reorganization of the VA.176 Though it had

initially planned to disband in January 1952, the group decided to continue operating until May

in order to make a final push for these bills, after which it would suspend its activities to avoid

being forced to take sides in the upcoming presidential campaign.177

Unbeknownst to the CCHR, the Legion was already charting its own final offensive. Aware

that this was the last session of Congress before its foe would disband, the National Commander

decided to embark on one last push in order “to get these fellows on the defensive” and not “quit

the job until the thing was definitely at rest.”178 The new campaign, tellingly called Operation

Victory, essentially replicated the goal and methods of 1950’s Operation Survival. In charge of this

operation, Legion lobbyist John Thomas Taylor asked rank-and-file Legionnaires to “literally

flood” their Congressional delegation with letters and petitions, while national officials would

meet with them in person at several different events during the spring.179 He continued to direct

efforts inward rather than outward, seeking to mobilize his membership rather than to sway

175 “55% Streamlined,” The Washington Post, February 18, 1952; U.S Congress, House, Committee on
Veterans’ Affairs, Recommendations of Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the
Government (Hoover Commission) Providing for Reorganization of the Veterans’ Administration and
Creating a Veterans’ Insurance Corporation, Hearing, May 27-28, June 3-6, 10-12, 1952 (Washington D.C.:
United States Government Printing Office, 1952), 2214.
176 Citizens Committee for the Hoover Report, “See It Thru in ’52: The Unenacted Recommendations of the

Hoover Commission Are Essential Steps in Any Program to Halt…Unnecessary Non-Defense Spending,
Avert…Inflation, Enable…Economical, Efficient Government Operation,” undated (ca. December 1951), A-
Z, ALA.
177 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 18, 19 and 20, 1951, 16, ALA;

Charles B. Coates to Paul C. Smith, March 25, 1952, Box 73, Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.
178 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 5, 6 and 7, 1952, 39-40, ALA.
179 Operations-Chief of Staff to the National Commander, “OPERATION VICTORY,” December 10, 1951,

Operation Victory, ALA.

181
public opinion. The Legion thus returned to the same hyperbolic rhetoric it had employed two

years earlier. The March 1952 issue of its Legislative Bulletin, for instance, called the bill to create

a Department of Health a “diabolic scheme” part of the larger “octopus-like maneuvering” by the

CCHR “to strangle the VA, destroy Veterans’ Preference, and place all veterans’ benefits in

jeopardy…”180 “This is the most crucial point in our history,” wrote the head of the Kansas

Department to all Post Commanders in his state, “If we fail in this fight, we have little or no

future…Gentlemen, this is it. Either we win this fight, or we lose every benefit we have secured for

our Veterans and the American Legion is a doomed organization.”181

Confident that he had the upper hand, Taylor calculated that it was time to score a clear-

cut victory. He took advantage of the professional ties forged with Rankin over more than two

decades of collaboration to convince him to finally allow hearings on the bills to reorganize the

VA and create a Veterans’ Insurance Corporation, so that the Legion would be able to defeat them

once and for all.182 When the hearings took place in the spring of 1952, it became clear that Taylor’s

strategy had worked, for the CCHR faced an obviously skeptical Committee. Unsurprisingly,

Rankin himself was openly hostile. As he saw it, reorganizing the VA along functional lines with

each core service under the responsibility of one deputy amounted to taking power away from the

Administrator. Such decentralization, he argued, would not only “multiply the red tape” but more

importantly “remove one step, the responsibility, the answerableness [sic], to the Congress of the

United States” of the Administrator—in other words, he feared it would make the VA less

subservient to Congressional authority.183 Texas Democrat Olin Teague also voiced his own

doubts, arguing that reorganization should be handled by the Administrator, not Congress. Even

180 National Legislative Commission, Legislative Bulletin, Special Bulletin No. 4, March 1, 1952, Operation
Victory, ALA.
181 Verner Smith to all Post Commanders, received February 20, 1952, Operation Victory, ALA.
182 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 5, 6 and 7, 1952, 43-44, ALA.
183 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Recommendations of Commission on

Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (Hoover Commission) Providing for
Reorganization of the Veterans’ Administration and Creating a Veterans’ Insurance Corporation, 2079.
182
though Carl Gray had opposed the Commission’s recommendations from the beginning, Teague

thought that the CCHR simply needed to “spend time with [him] on this and convince him as to

the correctness or incorrectness” of their proposals.184 In the end, the Committee suspended

action on both bills until the results of a management survey of the VA conducted by the firm Booz

Allen Hamilton would be made public and studied in September. This decision amounted to a

defeat for the CCHR, since it meant that Congress would adjourn in July without taking any

decision on the matter.185

Outside of Rankin’s committee, the other two bills of consequence—on Federal Personnel

Management and the Department of Health—met a similar fate. Backed once again by the DAV,

the AMVETS, and the VFW, as well as by a coalition of federal employee unions, the Legion

repeated the same familiar arguments against the reform of civil service put forward by the

Hoover Commission.186 Taylor was confident that the House Committee on Post Office and Civil

Service felt “well disposed toward us at the moment,” and indeed the bill was not reported out

before the end of the session.187 The bill to create a Department of Health faced long odds from

the beginning, if only because its hearings were held before a Subcommittee of the Senate

Committee on Government Operations, whose chair, Senator John McClellan, had already made

clear two years earlier that he believed the military needed to retain its own hospitals.188 More

importantly, the fight was clearly lopsided. Against the bill stood the Army, Navy, Air Force, the

VA and veterans’ groups, and the FSA, all opposed to the removal of their own medical services

from their sphere of authority. The AMA joined them, arguing that a transfer of military and

184 Ibid., 2091.

185 Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion (New York, 1952), 336.
186 For the statement of the AVC, see U.S Congress, House, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service,

Recruitment Procedures in the Federal Government, Hearing, March 25-26, April 1, 3, 8, 24, 29, May 13,
15, 1952 (Washington D.C.: U.S Government Printing Office, 1952), 237.
187 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 5, 6 and 7, 1952, 43, ALA.
188 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, Report of Commission

on Organization of Executive Branch of the Government on Federal Medical Activities, 81st Congr., 1st
Sess. (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1949), 37–40.
183
veterans’ hospitals to a new entity in the current emergency situation in Korea would be “fraught

with danger.”189 On the other side stood only the CCHR and its doctors’ committee. It was hardly

a surprise, then, that the Senate Committee rejected S. 1140 without submitting a report on it.190

With the suspension of the CCHR’s activities and the adjournment of Congress in July

1952, the Legion’s campaign thus came to a successful conclusion. The IVC itself was forced to

recognize that “in nearly three years little real progress toward better organization and

management had been made.”191 In April 1952, its Chairman Paul C. Smith resigned.192 The

Legion, on the other hand, could rightfully boast in August that it had had “a good legislative year,”

not least because “[n]ot a single one of the bills advocated by the CCHR and opposed by The

American Legion was enacted into law.”193 In recognition of Taylor’s work, the Legion passed a

resolution praising his “magnificent accomplishment of Operation Victory.”194 For a total cost of

less than $30,000, the campaign had undeniably lived up to its name.195

Conclusion

For all the praise heaped upon him, Taylor could not claim sole responsibility for the

ultimate defeat of the First Hoover Commission’s recommendations on veterans’ affairs. Not only

did the Legion benefit from the support of powerful allies within the state, but the CCHR

contributed to its own undoing by sticking to its principled yet ultimately self-defeating belief that

189 U.S Congress, Senate, Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on Reorganization, To

Establish a Department of Health, Hearing, February 29, March 3, 19, April 3, 1952 (Washington D.C.:
United States Government Printing Office, 1952), 55. For the arguments of various agencies against the bill,
see Ibid., 7-11.
190 Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion, 179-180.
191 “Action Sheet—Independent Veterans Committee for the Hoover Report,” undated (ca. 1952), Box 73,

Folder 9, CCREBGR, HIA.

192 Charles B. Coates to Paul C. Smith, April 10, 1952, Box 72, Folder 1, CCREBGR, HIA.
193 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, New York City, N.Y., August 24 and 28,

1952, 5, ALA.
194 See resolution no. 575, Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion, 65.
195 Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion, 420.

184
facts would be enough to win the day. Legion leaders knew otherwise, and their strategic use of

historical memory succeeded in galvanizing their rank-and-file into action. In so doing, they

demonstrated the tremendous political power that the “two-war experiment” begun in 1942 had

put into their group’s hands. As CCHR officials were the first to recognize, no pushback had been

more damaging to their campaign than the one led by the American Legion. By bringing together

the legislative expertise of its lobbyists and the passionate response of two generations of veterans

across the country, the Legion achieved the remarkable feat of preventing the dismemberment of

the VA at a time when it was politically vulnerable. This success validated those who had

supported opening the group to World War II veterans by showing that, regardless of the war in

which they had fought, former soldiers did in fact have enough in common with each other to

form a distinct political constituency. It also demonstrated the feedback effect of a relatively

recent change in the institutional framework of the U.S. state: the decision in 1930 to centralize

the administration of veterans’ programs into one agency. Because an attack on the VA would be

seen as an attack on all former soldiers, the creation of this agency also helped create veterans as

a united political constituency. In the end, martial citizenship prevailed because millions of

Americans decided that their identity as veterans and, crucially, the generous benefits that came

along with it were under threat and needed defending.

The end of Operation Victory was not the last time that Americans debated the fate of

veterans’ separate welfare state. The successful conclusion of this campaign certainly marked the

peak of the Legion’s influence in the postwar period, but other threats were already emerging just

as Taylor was planning his final push. The Korean War, for instance, forced the country to

confront the thorny issue of what benefits to grant a new generation of veterans. Far from being

a dead issue, government reorganization also remained very much on the national agenda. Both

major parties endorsed it in their platforms for the 1952 presidential election, and the very first

executive order of the new Republican President Dwight Eisenhower upon taking office in 1953

185
was to set up his own Advisory Committee on Government Organization, chaired by Nelson A.

Rockefeller.196 Taking note of these developments, an official Legion report commented in

October 1952 that “the present status of the veterans medical and hospital program is in a rather

fluid situation.”197 Ex-soldiers would continue to wage a bitter fight against liberals and

conservatives alike throughout the postwar years. The clash between the Legion and the First

Hoover Commission had been but the opening skirmish in the continuing battle over veterans’

welfare state.

196 Paul Southwick, “Rebuff Given Ike on Power to Reorganize,” The Washington Post, January 28, 1953.
for the 1952 platforms, see the planks “Government Reorganization” for the Republican Party and
“Streamlining the Federal Government” for the Democratic Party at:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php
197 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 10, 11 and 12, 1952, 19, ALA.

186
 CHAPTER FOUR
A House Divided: The American Legion and the Second Red
Scare

“The American Legion is a democratic institution and as is true

of all such institutions, organized minorities radically devoted
to a ‘cause’ can often prevail against the sober thought of those
who wish to look before they leap and whose endeavors do not
lend themselves to the dramatic.”
- Stephen F. Chadwick, October 19551

“Which Legion is the real Legion?”

- The Christian Century, 19552

Following a well-established Legion tradition, every newly-elected National Commander marked

the beginning of his one-year term with a big homecoming celebration. The first World War II

veteran elected to this position, George Craig, thus received a “royal welcome” in his hometown

of Brazil, Indiana. On November 3, 1949, this otherwise peaceful small town of 9,000 was gripped

by “a carnival atmosphere.” More than 30,000 Legionnaires and their friends, three times more

than expected, gathered to honor their new leader. The mayor had set apart the afternoon as a

holiday and businesses and schools were closed. The six-mile, two-hour-long parade, including

floats, more than forty bands, and 3,500 marchers, climaxed with the “impressively thunderous”

flyover of four jet fighter planes and three B-29 bombers. At the reviewing stand were not only

representatives from forty-six Legion Departments, but Indiana Governor Henry F. Schricker—

who had proclaimed a state-wide “George N. Craig Day”—as well as the mayor and U.S. Senator

Homer E. Capehart. Tents were planted on two downtown streets with “enough food and drink

for a good sized army.” The joyous and careless spirit of the afternoon’s celebrations, however,

jarred with the more anxious tone of the evening’s speeches, which were broadcast nationwide

1 Stephen F. Chadwick, “For THE ARGUS,” October 25, 1955, Accession No. 1522-002, Box 5, Folder 5-12,
Stephen Fowler Chadwick Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle (SFCP thereafter).
2 “Which Legion Is the Real Legion?,” The Christian Century, September 28, 1955.

187
from the local high school gymnasium by famous radio tenor Morton Downey. “We are passing

through a period of jitters,” Craig declared in reference to the recent reports that Russia had just

tested its first atomic bomb. “Our first job is to eliminate the enemy termites in our midst,” he

added. “There is no room in the United States today for both the American Legion and

communism, and the Legion does not intend to move out.”3

This vignette captured two important facts about the American Legion in the late 1940s.

First, it illustrated the postwar renewal of its popularity and prestige, which was largely the

product of the decision to welcome a new cohort of veterans. The presence of high-level

government officials, fighter planes, and unexpectedly large crowds all attested to how deeply the

Legion was interwoven into the fabric of national as well as community life in those years. This

phenomenon was true not just in traditionally conservative Midwestern states like Indiana.

According to a Roper survey conducted in May 1952, the Legion was the civic group to which

Americans would turn most often for an opinion about a political candidate, ahead of churches

and unions.4 This reputation was paralleled by its prominent role in politics. In 1949, political

scientist Dayton McKean wrote that the Legion was “commonly regarded by Washington

newspapermen as the most powerful pressure group of any sort.”5 But the topic chosen by Craig

on the evening of his homecoming also hinted at the growing fear of communist influence both

worldwide and at home, which was quickly becoming a major concern for the Legion’s leadership.

This marked a significant shift from previous years, when the group had focused first and

foremost on veterans’ affairs, with the passage of the 1944 G.I. Bill and the postwar housing crisis.

As Craig was speaking, the Legion was just preparing its response to the recently released reports

3 “Brazil Will Honor New Legion Chief on Nov. 3,”

American Legion Magazine (ALM thereafter), November
1949; “Royal Welcome Accorded National Commander Craig by His Home Town,” ALM, December 1949;
Thomas A. Rumer, The American Legion: An Official History, 1919-1989 (New York: M. Evans, 1990),
302–303; “Baby Guarded as Legion Chief Assails Reds,” Los Angeles Times, November 4, 1949.
4 Elmo Roper, “Roper Study Indicates Role Of Groups in Swaying Voters,” New York Herald Tribune, May

19, 1952.
5 Dayton David McKean, Party and Pressure Politics (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1949), 510.

188
of the First Hoover Commission, which directly attacked veterans’ welfare state. Over the next few

years, however, the group would witness a fierce debate over the definition of its core mission,

between those who wanted the Legion to focus on anti-communism and those who wanted it to

remain devoted primarily to the defense of veterans’ benefits.

To be sure, anti-communism and veterans’ affairs had been among the Legion’s highest

priorities ever since its inception in 1919. Not until the Second Red Scare, however, were advocates

of an aggressive strand of anti-radicalism really in a position to redefine the group’s identity. This

chapter shows how, while they certainly managed to bring the Legion to the center of the national

and global anti-communist crusade, they nevertheless failed to convince a majority of both the

leadership and the rank-and-file to follow their ideas. Not only were most Legion officials

reluctant to turn their group into a partisan vehicle for the defense of controversial ideas that

risked undermining their respectable image, but the average Legionnaire on the ground felt

largely unconcerned by these issues. Indeed, while the process of generational transition begun

in 1942 had given the Legion more prestige and influence than it had enjoyed since the Great

Depression, it also meant that fewer of its members now supported a hardcore anti-communist

line. Yet while a majority of its membership was largely apathetic on this issue, the Red Scare

provided a crucial opening to an organized and committed minority of far-right activists at the

local and state level. Taking advantage of the reluctance of the national leadership to crack down

on dissenters with whom they disagreed more on methods than goals, these activists were able by

1955 to turn a wild conspiracy theory about international organizations into official policy. In so

doing, they concluded the transformation of anti-communism from a theme that some Legion

officials had hoped would solidify the position of their group at the center of American politics

into one that increasingly alienated them from the mainstream. By the late 1950s, the Legion had

in many ways returned to its pre-World War II position on the margins of public discourse.

189
 While focused on the Legion’s inner workings, this chapter nevertheless contributes to our

broader understanding of the Second Red Scare in two ways. First, the fact that the Legion played

so central a role in the larger anti-communist crusade even though its leadership was never united

behind it and its membership largely indifferent, suggests that this enterprise was primarily—as

Christopher Endy has suggested—a top-down “battle waged by a relatively small and often elite

group of anti-communists…who wanted to prioritize cold war strategies over more private

concerns.”6 This is not in any way to deny the dramatic impact that these activists had on the

course of postwar U.S. politics; to the contrary, it underscores how much a zealous minority can

achieve when the majority remains silent.7 Second, this chapter shows that the main thrust of the

recent scholarship on the rise of the conservative movement, which has been to move away from

an earlier portrayal of right-wing activists as irrational and mentally deranged and instead to take

their ideas and actions seriously, should not be pushed too far.8 Though there is no need to return

to condescending psychological explanations, the various conspiracy theories deployed effectively

by a minority of far-right activists in the Legion demonstrate that the Second Red Scare did in fact

encourage the spread of a certain “paranoid style” in U.S. politics. In turn, this suggests that we

need to see such theories as integral to politics instead of external to it.9

This chapter is organized in three sections. It starts by discussing the different layers of

the conservative anti-communist discourse deployed by the Legion during these years, as well as

6 Christopher Endy, “Power and Culture in the West,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War, ed. Richard
Immerman and Petra Goedde (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 323–40.
7 This argument echoes some of the points made by an older school of interpretation of the Second Red

Scare. Inspired by the New Left, these scholars saw the anti-communist crusade not as a mass movement
but an elite-based phenomenon. See Michael Paul Rogin, The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical
Specter (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1967); Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy
and the Senate (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky Press, 1970); Robert Griffith and Athan G.
Theoharis, eds., The Specter: Original Essays on the Cold War and the Origins of McCarthyism (New York:
New Viewpoints, 1974).
8 For examples of the earlier approach, see Daniel Bell, ed., The New American Right (New York: Criterion

Books, 1955); Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, and Other Essays, 1st ed. (New
York: Knopf, 1965); Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing
Extremism in America, 1790-1977 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
9 Donald Critchlow, “The Great American Plots,” Books and Ideas, 8 May 2017. ISSN: 2105-3030.

http://www.booksandideas.net/The-Great-American-Plots.html
190
its multiple connections with like-minded groups and individuals both at home and abroad.

Second, the chapter contrasts this façade of leadership with the very real divisions that existed

internally, at the level of both the national organization and the rank-and-file. Finally, it concludes

by showing how the Legion’s embrace of anti-communism led to the erosion of its image and its

gradual alienation from mainstream public debate. The inability of the leadership to censor an

empowered minority of far-right voices eventually cost the group its reputation.

The Heart of the Second Red Scare

If the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been accurately described by historian

Ellen Schrecker as the “bureaucratic heart of the McCarthy era,” then it is fair to say that the

Legion was its public heart.10 Much like the National Review would later seek to bring together

the different strands of the conservative intellectual tradition, the Legion and its publications

served as a key rallying point for right-wing anti-communist activists.11 In the years following V-

J Day, perhaps no other group occupied as central a position in the extensive network of

conservative activists and associations that fueled the Second Red Scare. Not only did the Legion

share their ideas, but it actively supported them financially and politically. In doing so, it made a

significant contribution to the broader resurgence of anti-communism both at home and abroad.

Anti-communism, of course, ran deep in the Legion’s blood from the very beginning. One

of the main reasons behind the group’s formation in 1919 had been to help contain the spread of

radical ideas among the discontented rank-and-file soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force

waiting overseas for their demobilization. Throughout the interwar period, the Legion became

one of the most prominent voices to speak out against the perceived infiltration of Communist

10 Quoted in Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Boston: Little, Brown,
1998), 203.
11 On the role of the National Review in the rise of the conservative movement, see Carl T. Bogus, Buckley:

William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011).
191
influences in national politics, an activity that took the form of legislative action, public

interventions, and sometimes street-fighting. Legionnaires supported a variety of bills on topics

ranging from anti-sedition to anti-immigration to the jailing of war dissenters. Under the

leadership of the rabid anti-communist Homer Chaillaux, the Legion played a key role in the

establishment of the Dies Committee in 1938. The group also regularly tried to prevent the

appearance of public speakers, or the publication of textbooks, films, and plays which it deemed

subversive. Finally, Legionnaires on the ground often provided the shock troops in fights against

left-wing movements such as the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest in the

early 1920s or the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in industrial centers in the mid- to

late-1930s. In its effort to fight “radicals,” the Legion maintained connections with other like-

minded groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution and published its own counter-

subversive pamphlets and bulletins. Already in this period, however, some in the Legion

leadership argued that the group was squandering its political capital and public image by taking

extreme positions in the fight against radicalism, and that it should instead “save our strength for

the disabled”—in other words, focus on fighting for veterans’ rights.12

Specifically anti-communist activities, however, were always only a subset of the Legion’s

broader Americanism program, which fell under the responsibility of its National Commission of

the same name. To a large extent, the activities of that Commission were primarily local and

educational, focused not on fighting a radical enemy but on imbuing the country’s youth and local

communities with the kind of values that the group approved of. For instance, Posts were

encouraged to undertake civic programs in their own communities to help prevent road accidents

or improve marksmanship skills. The Commission also funded or sponsored activities such as

high school oratorical contests about the Constitution (to which 300,000 students participated in

12Quoted in William Pencak, For God & Country: The American Legion, 1919-1941 (Boston: Northeastern
University Press, 1989), 159. On the Legion and anti-communism during the interwar period, see Ibid.,
chaps. 6, 9; Christopher C. Nehls, “‘A Grand and Glorious Feeling’: The American Legion and American
Nationalism between the World Wars” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 2007).
192
1949), Boys’ State (a mock government program for youngsters), Junior Baseball (a league with

16,000 teams that same year), and the Boy Scouts.13 These programs sought to promote

patriotism, sportsmanship, and fitness among the nation’s youth, thereby blunting the potential

appeal of subversive ideas. With the help of its women’s Auxiliary, the Legion was a constant

presence in local community life, helping build parks, airfields, playgrounds, and war

memorials.14 By sponsoring patriotic parades and pageantry, the group played a crucial if less

visible role in the spread of anti-communism into Americans’ everyday life.15

After a lull during World War II, fears of radicalism soon returned to the center of the

national debate. In response to a historic wave of strikes in 1946, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

and the National Association of Manufacturers exploited the public’s growing fears of disorder in

a nationwide propaganda campaign aimed at rolling back the gains of labor and of New Deal

liberalism in general. Republicans joined this effort, accusing Democratic policy of bearing a

“made-in-Moscow label” and condemning “the infiltration of alien-minded radicals” into the

government.16 Red-baiting tactics were key to their victory in the midterm elections that year.

Making good on their campaign promises, they not only passed the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act,

which included an anti-communist affidavit clause for union leaders, but increased funding for

the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which made the headlines in the fall of

1947 with its hearings on the communist infiltration of the Hollywood movie industry. Meanwhile,

the notion that Communist spies represented a threat gained some credence with the discovery of

classified documents in the office of the Amerasia magazine and of a Soviet spy ring in Canada.

Hoping to placate the increasingly loud chorus of his right-wing critics, President Truman

13 For a brief description of these programs in 1949, see Proceedings of the 31st National Convention of the
American Legion (Philadelphia, 1949), 119-125.
14 Pencak, For God & Country, chap. 10.
15 Richard M. Fried, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! Pageantry and Patriotism in

Cold-War America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

16 Quoted in M. J. Heale, American Anticommunism: Combating the Enemy Within, 1830-1970 (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 136.

193
implemented a loyalty program for government employees in March 1947.17 That same month,

the President also recognized the growing threat of Soviet Russia, vowing in a landmark speech

to Congress to contain communist influence worldwide.

This shift was greeted by the American Legion with a sense of vindication. “We have seen

a decided change in the nation’s thinking on un-American activities and influence,” its lobbyist

John Thomas Taylor declared triumphantly in 1947, “[f]or many years we have been called Red-

baiters and warmongers, but finally the entire country seems to be aroused to dangers recognized

by the Legion long ago.”18 In response to the perceived uptick in subversive activities, the 1946

National Convention passed a resolution mandating the spending of $250,000 on an expanded

Americanism program.19 A few months later, Karl Baarslag was appointed at the head of a

subcommittee on Un-American Activities to lead this fight.20 A rising star in the circles of right-

wing anti-communist experts, Baarslag had cut his teeth fighting the communist infiltration of his

commercial telegraphers union in the 1930s. During the war, he served in the anti-subversive

branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence.21 Under his dynamic leadership, this new subcommittee

took on three different tasks. He expanded Chaillaux’ index card system, which contained

information on individuals and organizations with potential subversive affiliations, from 5,000 to

about 200,000.22 Baarslag also began distributing a newsletter, initially under the bland title of

Summary of Trends and Developments but later changed to the catchier Firing Line, with the

17 Quoted in Ibid., 138.

18 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 5, 6, 7, 1947, 14-15, American Legion
Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana (ALA thereafter).
19 Proceedings of the 28th National Convention of the American Legion (San Francisco, 1946), 160-161.
20 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,

November 21, 22, 23, 1948, 38, ALA.

21 On Baarlsag’s background, see U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee To

Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, Subversive
Infiltration in the Telegraph Industry, Hearing, May 14-16, June 5-6, 12, 14, 1951 (Washington, D.C.:
United States Government Printing Office, 1951), 1–26; “Karl Baarslag, Author And Ex-Congress Aide,”
New York Times, January 14, 1984.
22 Proceedings of the 28th National Convention of the American Legion, 144-145; Karl Baarslag, “V. What

Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” p. 2, Box 6, Folder 1, Karl Baarslag Papers, Hoover
Institution Archives (KBP thereafter).
194
goal of providing “not only an up-to-date source of current activities in Communism or Commie-

front activities but also a primer on Communism.”23 Finally, his subcommittee also published a

number of anti-communist pamphlets, such as How You Can Fight Communism, which provided

readers with a “check list” of eleven ways to recognize communist front groups.24

All these publications can be boiled down to a simple message, which constituted the core

of the Legion’s anti-communist discourse. It was the belief, as expressed by a Legion official before

Congress, that communism was “not an idea…a club…[or] a political party,” but rather “an

organized international conspiracy.” American Communists were therefore not “debaters arguing

about ideas” but “coldly scheming revolutionists and betrayers” who received their orders directly

from Moscow.25 The point of saying that communism was not an idea, of course, was to exclude it

from the protection of the First Amendment and thus be able to prohibit it. Outlawing the

Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) had ranked high on the Legion’s agenda since well before

World War 2, and it remained its top priority in the postwar era.26 But the Legion saw the CPUSA

as only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Most of communist influence, they believed, was exercised

in secret and behind front organizations. This is why the Legion considered its “main task” to be

the public exposure of hidden Party activities, members, and sympathizers.27 “We’ve got a weapon

the communists fear more than any other,” argued the fictional characters of the Legion-

sponsored weekly radio broadcast Decision Now in June 1948, “We’ve got the means to expose

the whole kit and kaboodle of them. They can only do their dirty work in the dark.”28 It was this

23 Proceedings of the 29th National Convention of the American Legion (New York City, 1947), 170; Digest
of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, August 24 and 28, 1952, 22, ALA.
24 National Americanism Commission, The American Legion, How You Can Fight Communism

(Indianapolis, Ind.: American Legion, 1949).

25 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on S. 1194 and S. 1196, Control of

Subversive Activities, Hearing, April 29, May 4, 6, 18-20, June 10, 1949 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1949), 115–16.
26 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Un-American Propaganda

Activities in the United States, Hearing, March 24-28, 1947 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1947), 23.
27 National Americanism Commission, The American Legion, Addresses: Counter-Subversion Seminar,

1948, 223.
28 Episode 74, “Communism,” June 27, 1948, Decision Now, 1947-1949, ALA.

195
rationale—that no patriotic Americans would knowingly associate themselves with communists,

and that it would therefore suffice to expose them—that underlay Baarslag’s index cards as well

as the Legion’s enthusiastic support for the Internal Security Act of 1950, which required all

members of the CPUSA to officially register with the government.29

Just as it had in the late 1930s, the Legion also used anti-communism as a wedge to fight

liberalism in general and the Truman administration in particular. Despite being prohibited by

its own constitution from endorsing politicians, the group’s discourse took increasingly partisan

overtones from the late 1940s on, especially on foreign affairs. After the “loss” of China and the

test of the Soviet atomic bomb in 1949, the Legion went on record the next year declaring its “clear

lack of confidence in the present administration of the State Department.”30 In 1952, it declared

its patience “exhausted,” and “forcefully demand[ed]” the immediate dismissal of Secretary of

State Dean Acheson as well as “those in his department found wanting in the proper activation of

their duty to their country.”31 But the criticism also extended to domestic policy. In an address to

the American Federation of Labor (AFL), for instance, National Commander George Craig decried

the idea of the welfare state, condemning the “growing disposition on one part of more and more

of our people to surrender their rights and freedoms, bit by bit, in return for government

guarantees of their present and future security.”32 Such attacks on the legacy of the New Deal were

common in the Legion Magazine. In a typical article titled “Is Our Constitution Doomed?,” for

instance, William LaVarre condemned the “fanatic neosocialists who, with foreign doctrines, have

so widely infiltrated not only our federal government but the legislatures and executive offices of

so many of our states.” “For twenty years now,” he argued, radicals had implemented their vision

29 The Legion endorsed its predecessor, the Mundt-Nixon bill, as soon as it was introduced in 1948, see
Proceedings of the 30th National Convention (Miami, 1948), 74.
30 Proceedings of the 32nd National Convention of the American Legion (Los Angeles, 1950), 67.
31 Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion (New York City, 1952), 52.
32 American Federation of Labor, Report of the Proceedings of the Sixty-Eighth Convention of the American

Federation of Labor, 1949, 396.

196
of a “socialist slave-state” and chopped away at property rights.33 The article made no mention of

Franklin D. Roosevelt or Truman, but most informed readers could and did see right through such

transparent attacks. “In reading your editorials,” an Ohio Legionnaire complained to the editors,

“I have gotten the impression that the Legion [Magazine] is printed only for Republicans and

Dixiecrats and that anyone who doesn’t believe every word those - - - liars Pegler and McCarthy

say must therefore be a communist.”34 No wonder, then, that by 1951 Truman himself admitted

privately that he saw the Legion’s leaders as nothing more than “fascists.”35

There were at least two ways, however, in which the Legion’s anti-communism of the late

1940s and early 1950s differed from that of the interwar period. First, the group no longer resorted

to physical violence, despite a few isolated episodes which attracted disproportionate media

attention (the most prominent being the 1949 Peekskill riots).36 Second, the group’s major target

was no longer labor unions and immigrants, but instead the one realm where the left was still

somewhat dominant in the postwar years: culture. The Legion Magazine repeatedly attacked

artists, writers, publishers, journalists, foundations, as well as teachers and professors.37 It was in

the field of education in particular that, according to future Legion National Commander James

33 William LaVarre, “Is Our Constitution Doomed?,” ALM, September 1952.

34 J. C. McLachlan, “Sound Off: Republicans and Dixiecrats,” ALM, July 1952. Westbrook Pegler was one of
the most famous right-wing columnists of the era, see David Witwer, “Westbrook Pegler and the Anti-Union
Movement,” Journal of American History 92, no. 2 (September 2005): 527–52.
35 Quoted in Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1995), 566.

36 On Peekskill, see James Rorty and Winifred Raushenbush, “The Lessons of the Peekskill Riots,”

Commentary 10, no. 4 (October 1950): 309–23. On the other incidents—one in Glendale, Cal., another in
Philadelphia, and the last in Bridgeport, Conn.—see “Legionnaires Fined for Breaking Up Home Meeting,”
The Washington Post, December 24, 1947; “Complaints Filed Against 20 in Club Invasion Case: Men Will
Enter Not Guilty Pleas, Ask Jury Trial,” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1947; Walter Lister Jr., “Anti-
Red Hecklers Drown Out P. C. A. Independence Sq. Rally: Speakers Against Hollywood Communism
Inquiry Unheard as 1,500 Scuffle, Hurl Stench Bombs, Sing ‘God Bless America,’ Climb Platform,” New
York Herald Tribune, November 2, 1947; “Bridgeport War Veterans Break Up Eisler Meeting,” New York
Times, November 17, 1947. For an example of their media coverage, see Joseph P. Lyford, “Brass-Knuckle
Patriots,” New Republic 117, no. 26 (December 29, 1947): 21–22.
37 See for instance Walter Brooks, “Setting the Stage for Moscow,” ALM, September 1953; Louis Francis

Budenz, “How the Reds Invaded Radio,” ALM, December 1950; Felix Wittmer, “Now Hear This!,” ALM,
February 1953; Esther Julia Pels, “Art for Whose Sake?,” ALM, October 1955; William Fulton, “Let’s Look
at our Foundations,” ALM, August 1952.
197
F. O’Neil, “the long-range danger, overall,” was.38 The Legion had long feared that universities,

colleges, and schools were places where “communists are being mass-produced” and “young

minds are being softened for the red virus.”39 College professors as a whole were too critical of

American history or politics, it argued, and took refuge behind the notion of “academic freedom”

to deflect any legitimate criticism.40 More basically, there was the danger that cultural elites would

feed the public with material praising the Soviet system or attacking the “American Way of Life.”

Irene Corbally Kuhn, for instance, denounced the “strong Communist presence” in the publishing

industry and especially among the most influential book reviewers. The result, she claimed, was

that newspapers like the New York Times, the Herald Tribune, and the New Republic tended to

“go all out for the books of notorious Commies and pro-commies, while ignoring or giving the axe

to anti-communist books,” thus determining which ones would sell and which wouldn’t.41

As important as the Legion’s discourse was its place at the center of the vast anti-

communist network. The group sustained other like-minded activists financially by providing a

reliable publishing or speaking outlet. This outlet could be the Legion Magazine (then one of the

country’s most circulated magazines), whose list of authors read like a Who’s Who of the early

days of the conservative movement: “Mr. Anti-communist” J. B. Matthews, George Sokolsky,

Eugene Lyons, Albert Kohlberg, Louis F. Budenz, William F. Buckley Jr., Fulton Lewis Jr., and

others.42 Not only did the magazine publish their writing, but it also advertised their life and

38 U.S Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Un-American Propaganda

Activities in the United States, 34.
39 Eugene Lyons, “Our New Privileged Class,” ALM, September 1951.
40 See for instance Louis F. Budenz, “Do Colleges Have to Hire Red Professors?,” ALM, November 1951; E.

Merril Root, “Our Academic Hucksters,” ALM, December 1952; W. H. McComb, “The Freedom the
Professors Forgot,” ALM, May 1955.
41 Irene Corbally Kuhn, “Why You Buy Books that Sell Communism,” ALM, January 1951.
42 The ALM ranked thirteenth nationwide in terms of circulation by March 1952, see Paul W. Brown, “A

Content Analysis of the ALM from 1945 to the Present: Editorial Policy toward Americanism” (B.A.,
Princeton University, 1953), i. On Matthews, see Howard Rushmore, “‘Mr. Anti-Communist,’” The
American Mercury, May 1953. For articles by these authors, see J. B. Matthews, “The Commies Go after
the Kids,” ALM, December 1949; Fred Woltman, Victor Riesel, George E. Sokolsky, and Louis F. Budenz,
“Watch Out for these Commie Swindles,” ALM, May 1952; Eugene Lyons, “Four Men Who Made
Communism,” ALM, January 1949; Alfred Kohlberg, “Brainwashing, American Style,” ALM, January 1954;
198
work.43 Baarslag also encouraged Legionnaires to subscribe to “at least two” anti-communist

newsletters, such as Counterattack, Plain Talk, National Republic, and the New Leader.44 His

subcommittee on Un-American Activities served as its own lecturing agency, maintaining a list of

recommended speakers for anyone wanting to schedule a talk on communism.45 And of course,

the Legion regularly hired these experts itself, either to give talks at its own meetings or as regular

employees. In February 1949, for instance, Matthews, the ex-communist Elizabeth Bentley, and

Rabbi Benjamin Shultz of the American Jewish Committee Against Communism all spoke at four

different Legion seminars in New York, Indianapolis, Birmingham, and San Francisco.46 Before

he would go on to create his own radio show and play a crucial role in the formation of the

conservative movement, Clarence Manion worked as advisor to the Legion’s National

Americanism Commission.47 Not only did he speak regularly before Legion audiences, but

thousands of copies of his anti-New Deal tract The Key to Peace (1951) were distributed to all

Legion Posts and officials as “a vital segment” of the group’s Americanism program.48

William F. Buckley, Jr., “Sacco-Vanzetti, Again,” ALM, October 1960; Fulton Lewis, Jr., “Just What Hitler
Wanted,” ALM, October 1946.
43 For articles about anti-communist activists, see Norman Beasley, “His Friends Call Him ‘Sok,’” ALM,

March 1954; Clarence Woodbury, “That Man Budenz,” ALM, November 1950; Irene Corbally Kuhn, “He
Lobbies against Communists,” ALM, July 1952. For evidence of collaboration, see Secretary to George E.
Sokolsky to Al Marshall, December 9, 1953, Box 18, Folder 1, George Sokolsky Papers, Hoover Institution
Archives. A list of anti-communist books was first featured in the April 1948 issue, see “The New Books,”
ALM, April 1948.
44 National Americanism Commission, The American Legion, Addresses: Counter-Subversion Seminar,

232–33.
45 Ruth Inglis, for instance—J. B. Matthews’ third wife and staff member of the House Committee on

Internal Security—charged $100 in speaking fees through the Legion for talks on pre-arranged topics like
“Soviet Uses of United Nations,” or “Communism in Women’s Organizations.” See Allen B. Willand to Ruth
Inglis, August 7, 1951, Box 649, Folder: American Legion, General Papers, 1950, Jan. – 1958, Oct., J. B.
Matthews Papers, David Rubenstein Library, Duke University (JBMP hereafter).
46 “Counter-Subversive Conference Speakers,” January 13, 1949, Box 39, Folder 4, JBMP.
47 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, August 24 and 28, 1952, 16, ALA. On

Manion, see Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of
American Politics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
48 For an example of his speeches and the endorsement, see Proceedings of the 33rd National Convention

of the American Legion (Miami, 1951), 16-18. See also Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee
Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1951, 128, ALA; Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American
Legion, 14.
199
 Beyond individuals, the Legion also maintained close working connections with some of

the most prominent right-wing organizations of the period. Having embarked on a crusade to

purge the legal profession of its left-wing members, the American Bar Association (ABA) met with

the Legion in early 1951 and both groups agreed to coordinate their efforts in a “joint offensive

against communism on the legal front.”49 The Legion was more intimately connected with another

pillar of the anti-communist crusade, the FBI, as illustrated by Lee R. Pennington’s parallel career

in both groups. A World War I Legionnaire from Washington, D.C., Pennington started working

for the FBI in 1929 and became its liaison with the Legion’s Americanism Commission in 1939.50

He spent so much time attending Legion meetings over the next years that he reportedly joked

that “I really ought to be on the Legion payroll, I’m out here so often.”51 The Legion appointed him

Director of that same Commission after he retired from the FBI in 1953. 52 More broadly,

resolutions of support to the FBI were a perennial fixture of virtually every National Convention

of the Legion, and the FBI’s Legion Contact program was resumed after the outbreak of the Korean

War.53 Finally, the Legion was a staunch supporter of all congressional committees in charge of

investigating communism, and especially HUAC, which it urged Congress to make permanent

49 “Bar Association to Join in Anti-Commie Campaign,” ALM, February 1951. The liaison committee was
Ray Murphy’s Special Committee on the Covenant of Human Rights, see Ray Murphy, “Which Constitution
Do We Want?,” ALM, February 1954, 34. On the ABA’s effort to disbar left-wing lawyers, see Schrecker,
Many Are the Crimes, 301–5.
50 “Lee Pennington has been Assistant Director…,” n.d. (ca. May 1958), Box 676, Folder: Pennington, Lee

R., 1955, 1958, JBMP.

51 Justin Gray and Victor H. Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion (New York: Boni & Gaer, 1948), 211.
52 “Legion News: Americanism,” ALM, January 1954, p. 38; U.S. Congress, House, Committee on the

Judiciary, Subcommittee No. 1, Internal Security Legislation, Hearing, March 18, April 5, 7-8, 12, June 2,
9, 23, 25, 30, 1954 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1954), 201–2. After his
appointment at the head of the Americanism Commission, Pennington would continue to provide
intelligence to Hoover about the Legion’s internal workings; in return, the FBI provided him with content
for the Firing Line and ran name checks for potential employees, see Matthew Cecil, Branding Hoover’s
FBI: How the Boss’s PR Men Sold the Bureau to America (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas,
2016), 83–84, 90.
53 For an example of a resolution of support, see Proceedings of the 32nd National Convention of the

American Legion, 28. On the FBI’s Legion Contact Program, see Athan Theoharis, “The FBI and the
American Legion Contact Program, 1940-1966,” Political Science Quarterly 100, no. 2 (July 1985): 271–
86; Joanne M. Hepp, “Administrative Insubordination and Bureaucratic Principles: The Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s American Legion Contact Program” (M.A., Marquette University, 1985); Cecil, Branding
Hoover’s FBI, 73–94.
200
throughout World War II.54 When Mississippi Democrat John E. Rankin succeeded in doing so in

January 1945, some Congressmen later admitted that the introduction during the debate of the

Legion’s resolution of support had “counted heavily in determining the issue” in his favor. 55 Not

only did the Legion continue to issue regular pro-HUAC resolutions throughout the 1940s and

1950s, but it publicly defended the committee’s record against its many critics.56

Beyond the nation’s borders, the Legion was also actively involved in fighting communism

abroad. In December 1949, for instance, the group launched its own “Tide of Toys” program,

whose goal was to get Americans to collect and send toys to children of European countries

ravaged by the war. After its announcement on the radio, the program quickly gained traction

nationwide and received the support of some of the most famous radio and TV celebrities of the

day, such as Drew Pearson, Bob Montgomery, Kate Smith, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Amos ‘n’

Andy.57 On the Old Continent, the program was touted by the State Department and the Voice of

America, and praised by no less than the Pope himself. Overall, the Legion managed to send over

3 million toys in six months to fourteen Western European countries; the offer was initially

extended to countries east of the Iron Curtain, but it was turned down over accusations that the

program sought to undermine communist regimes.58 After the end of the Korean War, the Legion

also joined the Wooden Church Crusade, a non-denominational project created by a German

aristocrat who sought to rebuild West German churches destroyed by the war. His idea was to

“ring the Iron Curtain with a circle of churches…matching hatred with the love of God, steel with

54 See for instance Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago, 1944)
87-88.
55 Kathleen McLaughlin, “Rankin Puts Over New Dies Group: Takes House by Surprise With Move to Make

the Inquiry Committee Permanent,” New York Times, January 4, 1945. For Rankin’s mention of the Legion,
see Congressional Record, 79th Congress, 1st Session, January 3, 1945, p. 13. On the vote itself, see Robert
Kenneth Carr, The House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1945-1950 (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1952), 19–23.
56 For an example of the resolutions of support, see Proceedings of the 31 st National Convention of the

American Legion (Philadelphia, 1951), 75; Eugene Lyons, “The Men the Commies Hate Most,” ALM,
October 1950.
57 Robert Pitkin, “How You Made 3,000,000 Kids Happy,” ALM, August 1950.
58 Proceedings of the 32nd National Convention of the American Legion, 45-6, 86, 258-9.

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faith, iron with the cross…we shall help build a wall of faith as our great shield against

Communism.” With the approval of the German and U.S. governments, the program aimed to

raise enough money in the U.S. to build 49 wooden churches, one for each of the 48 states and

D.C.59 The Legion would ultimately dedicate and pay for three of them.60

As these examples suggest, the Legion always acted in close partnership with the federal

government. Not only was this true in its activities abroad, which were pre-approved by the State

Department, but for domestic ones as well, as illustrated by its longstanding cooperation with the

FBI. The Legion was but one piece of the larger “state-private network” in which the U.S. state

used private organizations (from religious to student groups to intellectuals) to buttress the

legitimacy of its camp in the Cold War. Both sides stood to benefit from such arrangements: while

the Legion satisfied its thirst for publicity, public officials could argue that the (seemingly)

spontaneous support of voluntary civic groups was evidence of the righteousness of their cause.61

Nevertheless, they did not always enter the partnership for the same reasons. In the case of the

debate over United Military Training in the second half of the 1940s, for instance, military officers

deliberately used the Legion (as well as other groups) as their unofficial mouthpiece. Both sides

agreed on the need to create a large group of military reservists ready to be mobilized in case of

another war, but officers knew that accusations of militarism would undermine their case if they

appeared to support the proposal (which was never implemented) too publicly. 62 The situation

was similar in the case of the Back to God program, launched by the Legion in February 1952 to

fight the threat of communism by encouraging a religious revival. Eisenhower participated in its

59 “Legion News: Religion,” ALM, December 1953, 41; H. Von Royk-Lewinski, “Curtain of Wooden
Churches,” The Washington Post and Times Herald, April 18, 1954.
60 Proceedings of 36th National Convention of the American Legion (Washington, D.C., 1954), 13, 141.
61 Helen Laville and Hugh Wilford, eds., The US Government, Citizen Groups and the Cold War: The State-

Private Network (New York: Routledge, 2006).

62 On UMT, see William A. Taylor, Every Citizen a Soldier: The Campaign for Universal Military Training

after World War II (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014); Matthew J. Seelinger, “Breaking
Ranks: Veterans’ Opposition to Universal Military Training, 1943-1948” (M.A., Ball State University, 1996).
202
annual Four Chaplains Day telecasts from 1953 to 1955, but instead of using the religious rhetoric

to shrink government, he sought to further solidify the expansion of the state.63

Undeniably, the Legion constituted a key node in the national and global anticommunist

network of the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was crucial in both disseminating anticommunist

ideas at the local level and serving as the glue that helped connect various groups and individuals

at the national level. Testifying to its renewed prestige, the group worked in close collaboration

with top-level public officials. As the Legion tried to solidify its position in this field, however, it

would face the same fundamental problem that had been in its way since the interwar period: how

to transform a group traditionally focused on the defense of veterans’ benefits into one devoted to

the fight against radicalism.

Anti-Communism and its Discontents

There was something supremely ironic about the Legion being at the heart of the Second

Red Scare. Though the group projected a façade of leadership through its aggressive anti-

communist rhetoric and active networking, the Legion never succeeded in eliciting the same kind

of enthusiastic response from its rank-and-file members that the First Hoover Commission had

generated. From 1945 to the early 1950s, its successive attempts by to launch ambitious counter-

subversive programs all foundered.

The first attempt by some in the Legion leadership to mobilize their group’s energy in the

fight against communism came during the war, when Randy Barnard, an influential member of

the National Association of Manufacturers, suggested the creation of a fund to expand the Legion’s

Americanism program.64 This was a perennial complaint of Chaillaux, whose cash-starved

63 Kevin Michael Kruse, One Nation under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
(New York: Basic Books, 2015).
64 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,

November 14, 15, 16, 1944, 28, ALA.

203
Commission had requested the creation of such a device seven times by 1943.65 Officially created

in May 1945, the Americanism Endowment Fund (AEF) was chaired by Alvin Owsley of Texas. A

lawyer and former National Commander of the Legion in 1921-1922, by the late 1930s Owsley had

become bitterly opposed to the New Deal, even though he officially remained a Democrat.66 Under

his leadership, the AEF had three goals: raise several million dollars, help promote the Legion’s

public image, and most importantly, carry out a conservative public relations campaign on behalf

of conservative ideas. Among the key points that the latter was to put forward were “to uphold

and defend the Constitution,” to foster appreciation of the “American way of life,” and to

“safeguard the continuance of this government under the Constitution as a representative

democracy within a republic.”67 The Indianapolis Star reported that its “primary object… will be

to slap down all radical ‘isms’ in the United States and to keep the dreamers and ideologists at a

safe distance.”68 Owsley had high hopes, announcing over a year later that “we should have 50

million dollars in this fund.”69

Yet the AEF never took off. Even before the Fund was officially started, it faced stiff

resistance from within the Legion, not only from National Commander John Stelle but

Department officials, who resisted the idea of adding yet another fund-raising campaign to the

many that they were already undertaking for the war effort (such as bond drives, community chest

drives, and so on) or for their own benefit (to finance new Post buildings for World War II

veterans, for instance). In addition, they criticized the idea of organizing an Americanism

campaign in the middle of a war, lest the “super-patriotism” would put off returning veterans tired

65 Proceedings of the 25th National Convention of the American Legion (Omaha, Nebr., 1943), 97.
66 On Owsley, see Marion S. Adams, Alvin M. Owsley of Texas: Apostle of Americanism (Waco, Tex.: Texian
Press, 1971).
67 Proceedings of the 26th National Convention of the American Legion, 190-194.
68 “‘We’ve Got To Finish the Job this Time,’ Say ‘Dead Serious’ Members of the Legion,” Indianapolis Star,

May 7, 1943, Box 10, Folder 592, Samuel Latimer Papers, South Caroliniana Library, University of South
Carolina. (SLP hereafter)
69 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,

November 14, 15, 16, 1944, 14, ALA.

204
of military parades. Since the Legion’s Americanism program had been in place for a long time

and was mostly local, they were also concerned that Posts would not be willing to relinquish

control to the national organization. Many Departments, including the most populous, asked

Owsley not to raise funds in their state.70 As a result, the only state-level campaign that Owsley

was able to run was in his home state of Texas. By October 1948, he had raised only about

$65,000, far below his initial goal and much less than what the Legion had spent to promote the

program. In recognition of this failure, the Fund’s activities were discontinued.71

At around the same time that the AEF was foundering, Karl Baarslag began his own

attempt to rally the Legion’s membership behind anti-communism by organizing a Seminar on

Counter-Subversive Activities in Washington, D.C. During this four-day meeting in November

1947, eighty hand-picked Legionnaires gathered to hear noted anti-communist experts such as

HUAC Chairman J. Parnell Thomas, ex-Communist journalist Howard Rushmore, and founder

of the CPUSA Benjamin Gitlow deliver lectures on topics ranging from the history of the Russian

revolution to the communist influence in American religious organizations.72 The idea behind this

Seminar was much the same as that behind the “Legion College” held a year earlier: to teach a

select group of Legionnaires “the facts and ‘know how’ of detecting and exposing Communists,”

or in other words “what to read, where to get the facts, where to get advice and how to go into

action.”73 The idea was that they would then go back to their Department and set up follow-up

seminars at the state and local level, thus spreading interest in subversive activities to as many

rank-and-file Legionnaires as possible. As National Commander James F. O’Neil put it, the goal

70 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,

November 14, 15, 16, 1944, 23-33; Digests of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, June 5, 6,
7, 1946, 298; Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 21-23, 1946, 93, ALA;
Alvin Owsley to Paul Griffith, July 19, 1946, Box 607, Folder 10, Alvin Mansfield Owsley Collection,
University of North Texas Archives. (AMOC hereafter)
71 Digests of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 17 and 21, 1948, 47, ALA.
72 Proceedings of the 30th National Convention of the American Legion, 161. For the comprehensive list of

speakers and the text of their lectures, see National Americanism Commission, The American Legion,
Addresses: Counter-Subversion Seminar.
73 Ibid., 3.

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was for Legion Posts to serve as anti-communist versions of Better Business Bureaus, by warning

their communities about “all manner of swindles and rackets,” such as whether a given public

speaker had alleged subversive affiliations. “With 17,000 Posts,” O’Neil boldly envisioned, “the

Legion should have at least 17,000 fairly well trained and qualified specialists on subversive

activities. At least one or two in every community over ten thousand in population.”74

His ambitious vision never came to fruition. As Legion officials themselves admitted half

a year after the first Seminar, “the response in the various Departments to date has been

disappointing.” “Few have conducted seminars,” they complained, “and few have utilized the

knowledge gained by the Legionnaire who attended the [national] Legion seminar.”75 Only 17 of

the Legion’s 59 Departments had held their own seminars by October 1948.76 A month later, the

head of the National Americanism Commission W. C. Sawyer admitted that his staff was “rather

discouraged” by these poor results.77 The program was not a complete failure, for the national

organization continued to sponsor the same type of seminars at the regional level in 1949 and

1950, inviting hundreds of Legionnaires to hear lectures from famous anti-communist experts.78

Some Posts also organized their own seminars, as with the “Hoosier Counter-Subversive Seminar”

held by Indianapolis’ Broad Ripple Post No. 312 in 1954, where Wisconsin Senator Joseph

McCarthy’s aide Roy Cohn gave a talk on “Communism in Government.”79 Yet it quickly became

obvious to the national leadership that these meetings had for the most part failed to disseminate

anti-communist “information and materials down to a post level.”80 Though Baarslag was

exaggerating, he was probably not too far off the mark when he remarked in 1955 that, of all

74 James F. O’Neil, “How You Can Fight Communism,” ALM, August 1948.
75 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 3, 4 and 5, 1948, 103, ALA.
76 Proceedings of the 30th National Convention of the American Legion, 161.
77 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,

November 21, 22, 23, 1948, 40, ALA

78 Proceedings of the 31st National Convention of the American Legion, 122; Proceedings of the 32nd

National Convention of the American Legion, 135.

79 Broad Ripple Post No. 312 and Auxiliary Unit of The American Legion, Program: Hoosier Counter-

Subversive Seminar, 1954. On Cohn, see Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes, 256–60.
80 Proceedings of the 32nd National Convention of the American Legion, 135.

206
17,000 posts in the Legion, “less than a baker’s dozen have established any consistent record of

organizing successful and well-planned counter-subversive seminars.”81

The failure of these Seminars convinced the Legion to approach the problem from another

angle. Instead of focusing only on its own members, the leadership decided to look outward and

form what Baarslag called “a grand coalition of all big national organizations opposed to the

further spread of Communism in the United States.”82 Shortly after being elected National

Commander, George Craig invited several groups to an “All-American Conference to Combat

Communism” in New York City on January 28-29, 1950.83 The list of sixty-six organizations that

sent delegates to this first meeting was clearly conservative-leaning. A disproportionate number

of patriotic and right-wing groups such as the American Heritage Foundation, the U.S. Chamber

of Commerce, the National Associations of Manufacturers, the Freedoms Foundation, the

Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Catholic War Veterans attended, as did fraternal

orders such as the Elks, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Kiwanis, the Masons, etc. The rest were

either religious groups, such as the National Catholic Welfare Conference, or organizations

representing fields more or less directly affected by the Red Scare, such as labor with the AFL and

the CIO. The roster of speakers included prominent anti-communist advocates like South Dakota

Senator Karl E. Mundt, chairman of the California Committee on Un-American Activities Jack B.

Tenney, and famous Catholic radio host Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen. As Craig himself declared upon

calling the meeting to order, the goals of the conference were three-fold: “to form a united front

against communism,” to “devise ways and means of strengthening government agencies in the

81 “Indianapolis Legion Post Seminar,” ANR Report 1, no. 15 (September 15, 1955): 66, Box 591, Folder:
Baarslag, Karl, ANR Report, 1955, JBMP.
82 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” p. 53, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
83 George N. Craig, “Legion Calls Nationwide ‘All American’ Conference to Organization for Concerted

Action against Communism,” ALM, February 1950, 29.

207
restraint and abolition of communist activities,” and to “try to find some medium to coordinate

activities of all these organizations.”84

The Legion clearly relished this opportunity to satisfy its thirst for public relations. The

Legion Magazine boasted that the meeting was “comparable in historic importance to the Boston

Tea Party,” noting that the organizations in attendance represented more than 80 million

members.85 Sawyer proclaimed that the goal was nothing less than to unite all forces hostile to

communism on a “national scale broad enough to enlist every man, woman, and child in our

counterattack.”86 The second meeting in May 1950 in Chicago saw the election as national

chairman of Dianel A. Poling, editor of the Christian Herald, and the establishment of offices and

a small staff. The statement of policy committed the group to developing “educational programs

at the grassroots level,” establishing a “national clearing house to collect, prepare and

distribute…printed material, motion pictures, radio and television scripts, speeches and articles

to portray dramatically the values and virtues of free American institutions,” and finally to

exposing and stopping “secret infiltrations into American institutions by American agents.”87

After a few more meetings, Craig announced the ambitious goal of raising “several millions of

dollars” in order to “saturate the airlanes [sic], the television, the periodicals, and the editorials

with the program of Americanism; something that we have looked forward to having an

opportunity to do in The American Legion these many years which we have been prohibited from

doing because of the cost involved.”88 More specifically, he proclaimed in August 1951 that the

84 Jack Little, “‘All-American Conference’ Welds Eighty Millions into United Front to Destroy Communism
in United States,” ALM, March 1950.
85 Little, “‘All-American Conference’ Welds Eighty Millions into United Front to Destroy Communism in

United States.”
86 Clayton Kirkpatrick, “Legion Moves to Unite Foes of Communism: Exposes Disloyal Groups in U. S.,”

Chicago Daily Tribune, November 6, 1949.

87 “All-American Conference to Combat Communism Made Permanent in Meet of 60 National Groups at

Chicago,” ALM, July 1950.

88 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 2, 3, and 4, 1951, 176, ALA.

208
goal for the fund-raising drive was 5 million dollars, of which more than 95 percent would then

be spent on advertising (“We want to reach Main Street, U.S.A,” he declared).89

Not unlike what had happened with the Seminars, however, the rhetoric did not match the

reality on the ground. The Legion wanted to make the Conference a turning point in the anti-

communist crusade, but made some embarrassing faux-pas from the start. For instance,

organizers were forced to cancel the invitation sent to Merwin K. Hart and his National Economic

Council after some of the Jewish groups on the guest list pointed to his rabidly anti-Semitic record

(which the Legion claimed not to have previously noticed).90 Even after the first couple of

meetings, many organizations remained confused about the real nature of the Conference,

especially as to whether it would be able to speak on their behalf.91 But the fundamental problem

was that the Legion never managed to reconcile moderate and conservative groups around a

common agenda. Through December 1951, both sides continued to fight each other on the issue

of whether to focus on “positive” grassroots programs like Know Your America Week or on more

“negative” counter-espionage tactics.92 The American Jewish Committee, the National Education

Association, and the Federal Council of Churches were all afraid that the Conference would turn

into “an active vigilante organization designed to ‘police’ the activities of American citizens in the

fields of religion, education, and politics” and wanted it to focus solely on educational activities.93

As a result of this factional infighting, the group was hamstrung and its function limited to a

speechmaking outlet. Months after Craig had announced his ambitious fund-raising goal, staff

89 “Citizens Group Seeks Fund to Combat Reds,” New York Times, August 14, 1951; “Legion Seeking $5
Million To Finance Fight on Reds,” The Washington Post, August 14, 1951; “Citizens Group Seeks Fund to
Combat Reds”; “$5,000,000 Fund Sought To Fight Reds in America,” New York Herald Tribune, August
14, 1951.
90 “Holtz Scores Attackers of Anti-Red Meet,” Jewish Advocate, March 2, 1950.
91 Lewis G. Hines, “The Membership Committee of the All-American Conference met in the Hotel LaSalle…,”

n.d. (ca. August 12, 1950), Box 1, Folder 4, All-American Conference to Combat Communism Records,
Wilcox Collection, Kansas Collection, RH WL MS 18, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of
Kansas Libraries (AACCCR thereafter).
92 Fred to George, December 17, 1951, Box 1, Folder 7, AACCCR.
93 “The All-American Conference to Combat Communism,” Box 1, Folder 17, Edwin Lukas Papers, Historical

Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

209
members complained in private that “his promises of raising funds have not consummated” and

“so far the results are NIL.”94 Indeed, with only a paltry $4,000 in its treasury by September 1952,

the group was nothing more than a hollow shell.95 As Baarslag later reported, forty of the initial

sixty-six organizations “quietly dropped out” within a few years, and by the time the Conference

was dissolved in 1974, even the Legion and “most of its early and ardent supporters” were no

longer on board.96

Though the Counter-Subversion Seminars and the All-American Conference were the

Legion’s two highest-profile anti-communist initiatives, they were not its only failures. Even less

ambitious programs such as the Memorial Book Plan, which was directly connected to the war

that had broken out in Korea in June 1950, failed to stimulate grassroots interest. At Baarslag’s

initiative, the Legion had launched this Plan on Memorial Day, 1952.97 The goal was to encourage

Posts to donate anti-communist books to libraries in their local communities, with each volume

bearing a “memorial bookplate” with the name of a soldier from that same community who had

died in Korea—all “in an effort to combat the same menace on the home front which cost that

serviceman his life in Korea.”98 In Baarslag’s mind, this program would accomplish three different

goals at the same time: pay tribute to the dead, be affordable enough for every Post to participate,

and last but not least, “offset [the] dearth of books on anti-Communism in our public, school, and

college libraries.”99 The volumes were to be purchased from a list of over a hundred “solid, well-

written, and unassailable books by experts,” prepared by Baarslag in collaboration with J. B.

94 JGF to Fred, December 13, 1951; J. George Fredman to Fred, December 20, 1951, Box 1, Folder 7,
AACCCR. Emphasis original.
95 Letter to Dear Fred, September 13 [1952], Box 1, Folder 10, AACCCR.
96 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” pp. 57-58, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
97 “Anti-Red Books to Be Placed in Libraries; Memorial to Servicemen Who Died in Korea,” ALM, July 1952,

p. 33; Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion, 138.
98 “Legion Starts Memorial Book Plan to Honor Men Who Died in Korea Fighting Communism,” ALM, June

1952, 31.
99 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 10, 11 and 12, 1952, 47, ALA.

210
Matthews and other “acknowledged authorities” on the topic.100 Yet even this new format, which

demanded only the bare minimum of Posts’ initiative and time, their response was less than

encouraging. Baarslag recognized that even though “Pennsylvania and a couple of other states

showed some temporary interest,” overall the program “simply fizzled out at the local level.”101 As

of May 1953, only 850 books had been purchased, and most of them by the Legion Auxiliary—

when the goal had been for the Legion’s 17,000 Posts to buy one or two tomes each.102 As a Legion

official recognized with chagrin, these low numbers clearly indicated “that our Posts have not

made this a ‘must’ program.”103 The Plan was still running as of 1955, but it had clearly fallen short

long before that.104

Finally, even more limited attempts to interest Posts in counter-subversive materials

proved inconclusive. Baarslag’s own newsletter Firing Line, for instance, never captured a large

readership within the Legion. Its monthly distribution was still limited to 2,000 four years after

its launch in 1947, not much higher than the initial 500.105 Most Posts and Departments were

unwilling to pay even the modest price of $3 a year to subscribe.106 The problem was such that the

Legion Magazine itself noted in February 1955 that the newsletter was “probably better known

outside of The American Legion than within it.”107 Baarslag agreed that its value was “[c]uriously

enough…recognized quicker by non-Legionnaires than by the Legion itself,” adding that the bulk

of subscribers was made up of “the heads of state troopers, police chiefs, and various security and

intelligence agencies and firms.”108 The same disappointing outcome was true of the Direct-Mail

100 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” n.d., pp. 36-37, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP;
Nicholas T. Nonnenmacher to Dr. J. B. Matthews, February 27, 1952, Box 40, Folder 1, JBMP.
101 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” n.d., p. 38, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
102 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, April 29-30, May 1, 1953, 44, ALA.
103 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 10, 11 and 12, 1952, 47, ALA; Digest

of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, April 29-30, May 1, 1953, 53, ALA.
104 See the last two pages of The American Legion, Counter-Subversive Manual, 1955, Box 11, Folder 3, Lee

R. Pennington Papers, Hoover Institution Archives.

105 Proceedings of the 33rd National Convention of the American Legion, 144.
106 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1951, p. 130, ALA.
107 “Legion News: The Firing Line,” ALM, February 1955, p. 36.
108 Karl Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” n.d., p. 14, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.

211
program, launched in April 1948. Here, the Legion’s initial goal was to extoll the virtues of

capitalism and free enterprise by distributing 10 million “Freedom Booklets” a month.109 Just a

few months later, the National Commander reported that “less than half of the departments

responded and participated, and sales have fallen considerably below the anticipated total.”

Likewise, the National Americanism Commission found that “the results of this campaign have

been somewhat, although by no means entirely, disappointing. Department support and

cooperation have been somewhat spotty. Instead of several millions of subscriptions for which we

had hoped, we have at present only some 500,000.”110 The project ended in the black after a

year.111 In other words, it was clear that despite all the efforts made by Baarslag and others,

counter-subversive activities and materials never found an audience within the group.

What went wrong? What were the reasons behind the failure of the Legion’s repeated efforts to

mobilize its members in the fight against communism, which contrasted so strikingly with its

public image of strong leadership? This question has two separate but complementary answers,

one that has to do with the division within the group’s national leadership and the other that

focuses on the indifference of the rank-and-file. These two sets of explanationshelp build a more

exhaustive picture of the problem at hand.

From the perspective of national Legion officials, the type of anti-communist activities

promoted by Baarslag were undeniably low on the group’s agenda. Though the passage of the 1946

resolution mandating the spending of a quarter-million dollar markedly increased funding for

Americanism activities as a whole, the Legion never actually spent that much money in any single

year. From a low of $42,000 in 1945, Americanism spending increased to an all-time high of

$151,000 in 1948, but still remained far behind the top item in the Legion budget—rehabilitation

109 “(Suggested Editorial) Legion’s Freedom Booklets,” February 20, 1948, Box 14, Folder 773, SLP.
110 Proceedings of the 30th National Convention of the American Legion, 42, 162.
111 Proceedings of the 31st National Convention of the American Legion, 122.

212
and veterans’ benefits—and accounted only for slightly more than 8 percent of total spending.

After 1948, the overall Americanism budget would steadily decline, fluctuating between 4 and 6

percent of total spending throughout the 1950s.112 But most importantly, only a very tiny fraction

of that already small appropriation went to Baarslag’s committee. In 1952, for instance, its budget

was approximately $3,000.113 Even before he was hired in 1947, Baarslag knew that the

Americanism Commission was “already over-burdened and badly under-staffed,” and the

situation never really improved.114 Of course, this situation had direct consequences on the

ground. According to Baarslag himself, for instance, the failure of the counter-subversion

seminars was the product of “typical Legion inertia and lack of funds.”115 Requests for more

funding for counter-subversive activities were a recurrent feature of nearly every national meeting

throughout the late 1940s and 1950s. In May 1951, to give only one example, the report of the

Americanism Commission noted that “our Un-American Activities Program is handicapped in

effecting use of our full strength because of an insufficient operating budget.”116 Such complaints

were filed repeatedly but never acted upon.

At the root of this neglect was a turf war within the Legion’s sprawling bureaucracy, whose

dynamics touched on the fundamental dilemma that confronted its leadership. When Baarslag

had been hired in 1947 to take charge of counter-subversive activities, he belonged merely to an

informal sub-committee of the National Americanism Commission, with no official status. The

core activities of this Commission had always been deeply local and educational, as seen earlier.117

Programs like Boys’ State or Junior Baseball were what Legionnaires traditionally called the

“positive” side of their Americanism program, by opposition to the more “negative,” sometimes

112 For figures on Americanism spending in any given year, see the Report of the National Treasurer in the
Proceedings of the following year’s National Convention. For instance, for the 1948 figures, see Proceedings
of the 31st National Convention of the American Legion, 325.
113 Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion, 136.
114 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” n.d., p. 5, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
115 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” n.d., pp. 17, 38, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
116 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1951, 127, ALA.
117 On this aspect of the Legion’s program, see William Pencak, For God & Country, 278–301.

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also called “protective,” side of counter-subversive activities. “Positive” activities, as one Legion

official put it, were “concerned with the fostering and perpetuating of the ideals, customs, and

institutions which constitute our American way of life,” whereas “protective” ones were focused

exclusively on countering potential threats to these ideals—communism, fascism, etc.118 Though

Chaillaux had promoted counter-subversive activities in the 1930s, the Legion leadership had

always allotted the lion’s share of funding to “positive” Americanism programs. After his death in

1946, they picked Justin Gray to replace him precisely because he had made clear that he wanted

to emphasize “a positive policy of building up Americanism through democracy, rather than just

trying to tear down un-Americanism.”119 After succeeding to Gray the next year, Baarslag

apparently struggled to make his colleagues take his more zealous approach seriously. “For at

least a year or more” after taking office, he later recalled bitterly, “I was often greeted in the

morning by some of my lighter-brained associates with the excruciatingly funny, ‘Catching many

Commies, Karl?’” In 1951, he learned that the Department of California “appropriated $50,000 to

send its prize drum and bugle corps to a national convention in Miami without a bit of haggling

over the cost,” but “wrangled for hours over appropriating $500 for the state’s entire counter-

subversive activities for a year,” a disparity that spoke volumes about the group’s priorities. 120

The only way out of this situation, for him and the other officials in charge of counter-

subversive activities, was to be released from the authority of the National Americanism

Commission. They took the first step toward more autonomy in November 1950, when they

obtained the status of Committee under the chairmanship of Walter E. Alessandroni, of public

housing fame.121 This new rank represented only a slight improvement, however, for as

Alessandroni complained shortly afterward, “[a]ny funds that we had to use had to be taken from

118 Digest of Minutes, Annual Conference of Department Commanders and Department Adjutants,
November 21, 22, 23, 1948, 40, ALA.
119 Gray and Bernstein, The Inside Story of the Legion, 209.
120 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” pp. 11, 59 Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
121 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 17, 18, and 19, 1950, 5-6, ALA.

214
the Americanism Commission which didn’t have enough funds to operate with anyway.”122 More

importantly, the National Executive Committee refused to give it the status of a Commission,

which would have made it completely independent: the members of the Americanism

Commission, likely eager to protect their own turf, judged the move “unwise and unsound.”123

This decision was reportedly a “tremendous disappointment” to Baarslag.124 The result was a

comically absurd situation, as described to the National Executive Committee by the then-

Chairman of this Committee J. E. Martie in early 1953, in a statement worth quoting at length:

You have set up a Committee on Un-American Activities and have given it no tools with
which to work. We have no budget at all. We have no paid officials to whom we may turn
for information and assistance. In fact, to do a job at all, we must go to the National Staff
and beg for a few dollars of the already small allotment belonging to the Americanism
Commission…Fighting Communists and Communist Infiltration is a specialized
business and should be placed in a category by itself. It should not be just a part of our
Americanism Commission. We are convinced that a separate Commission to deal
directly with Communism should be a part of our permanent organization… As presently
constituted, the Committee on Un-American Activities cannot effectively function. We
cannot continue to be responsible to two masters. We must be free to outline an effective
program and free to use money for its implementation.125

Yet his plea fell on deaf ears again. That same year, the Legion spent merely $2,500 on his

Committee and $14,000 on a single “positive” activity like high school oratorical contests,

showing how little things had changed.126

Behind this conflict was more than just bureaucratic inertia and petty infighting. The fact

that Americanism officials were protective of their own turf may help explain why they restricted

funding for counter-subversive activities, but not why the rest of the Legion hierarchy came down

122 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1951, 130, ALA.
123 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, August 24 and 28, 1952, 16, ALA.
124 “Memo from American Legion: No Letdown against Reds,” U.S News & World Report, July 24, 1953.
125 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, April 29-30, May 1, 1953, 54, ALA.
126 Proceedings of 36th National Convention of the American Legion, 436.

215
on their side. Two basic structural factors were at play here. First, the Legion’s nature as a

voluntary organization forced it to be very careful about its public image, especially in the late

1940s and early 1950s when membership was steadily shrinking.127 Its leaders were fully aware

that adverse public relations were one reason for this decline, which had dramatic consequences

not only for their bottom line—in 1950, membership dues accounted for nearly two-thirds of the

group’s general revenue—but for their ability to lobby lawmakers at all levels of government.128

Fewer Legionnaires meant fewer letters or phone calls to put pressure on representatives. This is

why even though most Legion officials embraced anti-communism as an ideology, in practice they

remained reluctant to endorse radical methods that they thought stepped outside the boundaries

of respectable public discourse and would hurt their reputation. For instance, the Legion never

endorsed or hired as speaker the controversial Joseph McCarthy, even though it shared many of

his positions and its National Conventions passed the same resolution every year expressing

support for all Congressional committees investigating communism.129 It is also noteworthy that,

starting in 1937, all of the Legion’s national publications were vetted by the leadership to avoid

“libelous matters.”130

The Legion’s concern for propriety was heightened by a second factor, namely that it was

never single-mindedly focused on fighting “radicals.” Its top priority remained veterans’ benefits,

on which it spent on average more than five times more than on its Americanism program in any

127 National Legion membership went from 3.3 million in 1946 to 2.7 million in 1952, see The American
Legion, National Membership Record, 2012, ALA.
128 For the percentage, see Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, October 13, 14 and

18, 1951, pp. 54-55, ALA.

129 McCarthy addressed the Security Commission at the 1953 Convention but never the full Convention, see

“…When Good Fellows Get Together,” ALM, October 1953, 37. The 1957 Convention did pass a resolution
to “regret” his passing and to praise his record, but stopped short of asking the Senate to lift its censure of
him, see Proceedings of 39th National Convention of the American Legion (Atlantic City, 1957), 58. For
more on McCarthy’s relationship with the Legion, see Wayne Edwin McKinley, “A Study of the American
Right: Senator Joseph McCarthy and the American Legion, 1946-1955” (M.S., University of Wisconsin,
1962); Morten Bach, “None so Consistently Right: The American Legion’s Cold War, 1945-1960” (Ph.D.
dissertation, Ohio University, 2007), 142–45.
130 “Memo from American Legion: No Letdown against Reds.”

216
single year between 1945 to 1960.131 Legion officials knew that the defense of these benefits was

much more important for current and prospective members than anti-communism, and they were

therefore reluctant to sacrifice their reputation for the latter.132 To be sure, the leadership did not

speak with one voice. Some, like Walter Alessandroni, thought that anti-communism should

replace the defense of veterans’ benefits as the Legion’s core mission. With the creation and

expansion of the New Deal welfare state, he argued in a speech, the need for separate veterans’

programs would naturally diminish since there were now “provisions made for all kinds of people

who get themselves in trouble.” The cause of veterans’ benefits may still be as great “in our hearts”

as it used to be, he said, “but practically it isn’t.” For him, the only way out of this crisis was for

the Legion to re-invent itself and adopt instead “some great and enthusiastic cause like the

fighting of Communism,” which would “inculcate a sense of fervor in our membership.” “We need

some of the zeal and some of the enthusiasm,” he concluded, “and we can transfer it…to this great

army of veterans who haven’t joined our ranks yet.”133 What Alessandroni was proposing was

certainly ambitious—nothing less than a redefinition of the Legion’s basic purpose—but it never

appealed to a majority of his colleagues in the group’s leadership.

Ultimately, this resistance proved too much for Baarslag. As early as 1950, he recalled

“being subjected to subtle, but increasing pressure on the contents of what I was writing in the

Firing Line,” and told that his work was “going too far” and might either alienate potential

members or cause the Legion to be sued for libel by the CPUSA. He then began to hear complaints

“about the danger of costly litigation” and “the allegation that ‘red-baiting’ was now passé.” This

131 The exact figure was 5.35, obtained by comparing annual spending on Americanism with that on
Rehabilitation. Between 1945 and 1950, see Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings,
October 13, 14 and 18, 1951, pp. 54-55, ALA. From 1951 to 1960, see the Report of the National Treasurer in
the Proceedings of the following year’s National Convention.
132 In the 1955 survey of Legionnaires, for instance, 31 percent of current members indicated that they joined

because of “the welfare side, rehabilitation, hospitalization, and employment assistance the American
Legion offers to its members.” This was the most popular response, while communism was never
mentioned, see American Legion Membership Survey Winter 1954-1955, Reel #96-10, pp. 28, 35, ALA.
133 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1951, pp. 130-131, ALA.

217
“growing but intangible sentiment on the part of at least a small fraction of the Legion’s brass”

against him, combined with his repeated failures to energize the Legion’s rank-and-file and to give

counter-subversive activities an independent office, led him by early 1952 to reach “a point of

almost total discouragement as far as accomplishing anything of practical importance in the

Legion against steadily advancing Communism.” Unhappy with his $7,500 Legion salary, he was

also convinced that he could “easily” make $2,500 more working on Capitol Hill. This festering

crisis came to an abrupt conclusion in March 1953, when Baarslag was denied the authorization

to re-print in the Firing Line a list initially published in the Daily Worker of 280 signers of a

petition demanding amnesty for the eleven top communist leaders jailed under the Smith Act.

After a Legion lawyer asked him if every name had been cleared individually, Baarslag protested

to National Commander Lewis K. Gough that the request was “preposterous,” but without success.

Asked to accept even stricter censorship of his newsletter, he refused and was fired. His assistant,

Nicholas Nonnenmacher, resigned a few months later.134

The events that followed Baarslag’s departure demonstrated that the internal conflict

between adepts of a “positive” Americanism focused on local programs and supporters of a more

aggressively anti-communist focus had been settled in favor of the former. While he was hired as

McCarthy’s research director, the Legion’s Un-American Activities Committee became stagnant,

a largely sluggish cog in its bureaucratic apparatus.135 In October 1953, it was returned to its

original status as a sub-committee of the National Americanism Commission.136 After the

appointment of Lee R. Pennington of the FBI to the head of this Commission the next month, the

134 For Baarslag’s version of this episode, see “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” pp.
38, 62-63, 65-68, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP. The firing was covered in the press a few months later, see “Legion’s
‘Red Chase’: Being Toned Down?,” U.S News & World Report, June 12, 1953. According to Baarslag, this
article followed a tip from his friend and Senate Internal Security Subcommittee research director Benjamin
Mandel, who sought to embarrass the Legion leadership. For the Legion’s public response, see “Memo from
American Legion: No Letdown against Reds.”
135 C. P. Trussell, “Bolters Spurn McCarthy Plea For Return to Inquiry Group: 3 Bolters Spurn McCarthy

Appeal To Return to Investigations Group,” New York Times, July 17, 1953.
136 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 15, 16 and 17, 1953, 59-60, ALA.

218
job of writing the Firing Line was reportedly outsourced to a Bureau official.137 For the rest of the

1950s, the Committee did little more than publishing this newsletter, answering mail, and writing

a Legion manual on counter-subversive activities as well as research reports on alleged subversive

threats.138 To anyone who had not read the handwriting on the wall, the 1954 report of the

Americanism Commission to the National Convention made it clear that a focus on counter-

subversive activities was no longer the order of the day, and instead that “primary emphasis has

been placed on the community service aspect of the Americanism programs.”139 The National

Commander repeated the same message in his report to the next Convention, where he stated that

his group’s “interest in Americanism is not essentially national. It is local, stemming from a post’s

pride and solicitude in its own community…Nationally, we have neither the personnel nor the

authority to function as an investigative agency. That is the role of the FBI.”140 By then, Baarslag’s

ambitions to make the Legion the aggressive leader of a nationwide counter-subversive network

had clearly been abandoned.

The events that unfolded high up in the Legion’s national offices, however, provide only

one half of the answer to the question of why the group never forcefully embraced a more radical

version of anti-communism. After all, the second chapter of this dissertation has showed that

when Legionnaires at the local and state levels mobilized spontaneously on issues that affected

them deeply, such as the postwar housing crisis, they were able to force their leaders to listen. The

problem, then, is not only that the leadership failed to support Baarslag’s initiatives, but that the

rank-and-file never followed suit either.

To be clear, the point here is not that the local Posts or state chapters of the Legion were

entirely inactive. When Baarslag argued years later that “as far as counter-subversive activities

137 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” p. 68, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
138 See the Committee’s reports to the 1955 Convention (Proceedings, 127-128), 1956 (p. 127), 1957 (p. 130),
1958 (pp. 127-128), 1959 (pp. 128-129), and 1960 (p. 148).
139 Proceedings of 36th National Convention of the American Legion, 137.
140 Proceedings of 37th National Convention of the American Legion (Miami, 1955), 13.

219
were concerned, the famed American Legion at post and department (state) level was a huge,

hollow shell,” he was exaggerating.141 Posts and Departments did perform a wide range of

anticommunist activities, often in complete independence from the national level. The Indiana

Legion, for instance, pressured the state Governor to order an investigation of Indiana University

professors after three of them had signed a petition to put the Communist party on the ballot for

the upcoming elections.142 The Maryland and New Jersey Departments both supported the

passage of “counter-subversive codes” by their respective state legislatures.143 Under pressure

from the local Legion, in March 1950 the school board in Portland, Oregon, refused to allow

sociologist Carey Williams to use an auditorium for a speech sponsored by the Citizens’

Committee on Civil Rights, on grounds that both were subversive.144 In January 1951, the

legislative conference of the New York Legion urged stricter loyalty tests for state employees as

well as the passage of a law barring members of subversive organizations from all public

employment.145 Finally, the Department of Louisiana sponsored a state-wide radio broadcast of

twenty-four five-minute talks on communism, which was aired by fourteen local stations.146 This

list is far from comprehensive, but it is enough to bring home the important point that any

generalization is bound to be difficult when dealing with a group as large as the Legion. Certainly,

the complaints about widespread grassroots apathy from some top counter-subversive officials

desperate to convince their superiors of the need for more funds and bitter at their lack of

response should be taken with a grain of salt.

141 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” p. 13, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
142 Richard M. Clutter, “The Indiana American Legion, 1919-1960” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University,
1975), 253–56.
143 “Veterans Newsletter: Counter-Subversive Legislation,” ALM, June 1949, p. 27.
144 Herbert M. Levy to Allan Hart, March 30, 1950, Subseries 3A.5, Box 760, Folder 3, American Civil

Liberties Union Records, Public Policy Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections,
Princeton University Library (ACLUR thereafter).
145 “Dewey Denounces ‘Fortress’ U.S. Idea: Answering Question at Legion Dinner, He Declares He Would

Welcome Spain as Ally,” New York Times, January 31, 1951.

146 A. B. Krueger, “Post Level,” ALM, December 1952, p. 4.

220
 Yet what most historians have failed to do until now is precisely to see the forest and not

simply the trees—in other words, to interpret these local- and state-level examples against the

backdrop of the national picture rather than in isolation from it. If we contrast these examples of

scattered anti-communist activity with National Commander O’Neil’s ambitious goal, declared in

August 1948, that “with 17,000 Posts, the Legion should have 17,000 fairly well trained and

qualified specialists on subversive activities,” then the verdict must still be that they fell far

short.147 What some in the national leadership wanted was a mass movement in which every Post

would be an active link in a nationwide counter-subversive network; instead, what happened in

most states was that only a handful of committed Legion officials devoted some of their time to

such activities. Four local studies of Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, and Kansas all found to varying

degrees that “the interest of the [Legion] national office in the anti-communist crusade was not

reciprocated at state and local levels” and that “genuinely grass-roots responses” were “few” and

“sporadic.”148

Even more significantly, this point is supported by contemporary materials produced by

the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Education Association (NEA, a

mainstream organization representing half a million school teachers). As regular targets of Legion

attacks, these groups would have been unlikely to embellish the picture of their rival’s

anticommunist activity. In May 1951, for instance, the NEA presented the results of a survey of

168 elementary- and secondary-school teachers across the country that focused on their freedom

of speech. Of all respondents, only one mentioned that a local Legion Post was “actively trying to

limit academic freedom,” while 44 percent identified “parents and church groups” as the most

147James F. O’Neil, “How You Can Fight Communism,” ALM, August 1948.
148Quoted in Gary P. Henrickson, “Minnesota in the ‘McCarthy’ Period: 1946-1954” (Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Minnesota, 1981), 159–60, 173. See also Dale R. Sorenson, “The Anti-Communist Consensus
in Indiana, 1945-1958” (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1980), 212–13, 216; Ronald W. Johnson,
“The Communist Issue in Missouri, 1946-1956” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Missouri - Columbia,
1973), 20, 144–45, 181; Richard J. Loosbrock, “The History of the Kansas Department of the American
Legion, 1919-1968” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 1968), 350–59.
221
active. When asked to name a group pressuring schools on what textbooks they should use, the

Legion was also mentioned only once, as compared with 20 percent who named “business

groups.”149 Likewise, in October 1952 national ACLU leaders asked state affiliates to send them

material on the Legion’s interference with civil liberties in their area, in the hope that the

responses would allow them to publish a scathing report on their arch-enemy. Yet they received

only three replies, of which just one, from Massachusetts, mentioned that the Legion was active.

The Kentucky ACLU reported that the Legion “has never officially interfered with any civil

liberties,” while in Nebraska, the Legion was said to limit its activity to backing “teachers’ oaths,

flag salutes and other similar legislative nonsense.”150 They tried to do the same in January 1954,

but registered only twenty violations of civil liberties by the Legion between 1951 and 1953—again,

not an insignificant number, but still small for a group with over 2.7 million members.151 Though

they were intended to do precisely the opposite, these studies demonstrated that the Legion never

actually managed to create the kind of nationwide, bottom-up wave of anticommunist activity that

it so vocally called for.

At least two factors helped account for that failure. First, communist activity tended to be

concentrated in large cities and was therefore not a direct concern for the majority of Legion Posts

located in small towns. By the late 1930s, for instance, about 40 percent of the membership of the

CPUSA was in New York City.152 By contrast, as the official Legion historian Richard Seelye Jones

noted in 1946, “American Legion membership always throve in the smaller cities and the towns

and rural sections of the US more abundantly than in the large centers of population.” 153 Legion

149 Research Division, National Education Association of the United States, The Freedom of the Public-
School Teacher (Washington, D.C.: National Education Association of the United States, 1951), 11, 53, 58.
150 See Subseries 3A.5, Box 763, Folder 25, ACLUR.
151 “Report of American Legion Contravention of Civil Liberties: 1951-1953, Submitted January 27, 1954,”

Subseries 3A.5, Box 769, Folder 14, ACLUR.

152 Quoted in Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes, 15.
153 Richard Seelye Jones, A History of the American Legion (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill company, 1946),

349. This assertion was supported by a 1955 survey of the Michigan Legion, which revealed that counties
with the highest percentage of Legionnaires in the total veteran population were also the least populated
overall, and vice versa. For instance, Legionnaires accounted for around 21 percent of the veteran
222
officials were fully aware of this divide. In response to J. B. Matthews’ request that he circulate

copies of an anticommunist newsletter among Legion Posts, Baarslag wrote that “[m]any of these

posts of course would be poor prospects, particularly those in the agricultural and far west States,”

and suggested focusing instead on those in the “densely populated and other commy-infested

cities.”154 He later recognized that “Communism was centered in the big cities and hence of no

concern” to Posts in “smaller towns and `villages.”155 A piece published in The Reporter in April

1955, which opened with the account of a meeting in suburban Chicago, provided a glimpse into

the disengaged manner in which many Posts probably treated counter-subversive programs on

the ground. After the district anti-subversive chairman “droned on” about communist subversion

and the legislative chairman began yet another report on anti-subversive bills in the state

legislature, Legionnaires “began to grow restive”: “they had been hearing the same reports for a

decade,” wrote the authors, “and tonight they were anxious to move on to beer and conviviality.”156

Despite all the talk from their leaders about the immediate danger of communist subversion, most

of the group’s rank-and-file did not feel directly concerned by this issue, which had little purchase

outside of major centers of population.157

The second factor that helps explain the lack of grassroots response was the attitudinal

change that accompanied the generational transition that took place within the Legion after 1942.

As a rule, the nearly 2 million young veterans who swelled the ranks of the Legion after 1945

tended to be less supportive of an aggressive anti-communist position than their elders were.

population in the rural Upper Peninsula but only for 6.5 percent in Detroit. See “Veteran Population and
Legion Membership - State of Michigan,” The Michigan Legionnaire 8, no. 10 (October 1955): 7, Bentley
Historical Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
154 KB to JB, June 13, 1946, Box 591, Folder: Baarslag, Karl, General Papers, 1946-1951, JBMP.
155 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” n.d., p. 13, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
156 Jean Komaiko and Charles Komaiko, “The Illinois Legion and ‘Positive Americanism,’” The Reporter,

April 7, 1955.
157 In this respect, Legionnaires were no different from the larger American population. According to Samuel

Stouffer, “the number of people who said that they were worried either about the threat of Communists in
the US or about civil liberties was…less than 1%!” (emphasis original). See Samuel A. Stouffer, Communism,
Conformity, and Civil Liberties: A Cross-Section of the Nation Speaks Its Mind (Garden City, N.Y:
Doubleday, 1955), 59.
223
Baarslag recognized this profound shift when he noted “a subtle and indefinable air or odor of

anti-anti-Communism by mainly the younger World War II Legionnaires rapidly coming to the

fore and out-numbering and steadily displacing the older World War I veterans, who were dying

off at the rate of 5,000 or more a month.”158 Two surveys carried out during this time period add

weight to his point. In Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (1955), prominent social

scientist Samuel A. Stouffer interviewed 1,500 local community leaders selected arbitrarily across

the country in cities with a population between 10,000 and 150,000; among the list of leaders

interviewed in every city was the commander of its largest Legion Post. In his conclusion, Stouffer

noted that “World War II veterans are significantly more likely to be tolerant [of radicals and non-

conformists] than World War I veterans” (43 percent versus 24 percent), a difference he

attributed to the fact that the former group was “much better educated.” 159 An internal survey

conducted by the Legion in February 1955 echoed these findings. Among 200 Legionnaires

interviewed, it found that 84.6 percent of those from World War I rated the Legion’s activity on

the “communist question” as either “excellent” or “good,” while only 71.6 percent of their World

War II counterparts did the same. Likewise, 23.1 percent of the former had no high school

education, compared with merely 3.4 percent of the latter.160 Of course, this did not mean that all

World War II veterans were necessarily more liberal: after all, it was the first World War II veteran

to be elected National Commander—George Craig—who helped launch the All-American

Conference. Regardless of how much they cared about it on a personal level, the overwhelming

majority of Legionnaires clearly disapproved of communism. Still, Baarslag was correct when he

identified generational change as one reason why rank-and-file Legionnaires were less likely to

spend time or money supporting his aggressive counter-subversive program.

158 Baarslag, “What Has Really Happened to the American Legion?,” n.d., p. 60, Box 6, Folder 1, KBP.
159 Stouffer, Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties, 235.
160 American Legion Membership Survey Winter 1954-1955, Reel #96-10, pp. 20, 60, ALA.

224
 Division within the leadership and apathy in the rank-and-file were the two main

reasons why Baarslag failed to transform the Legion into the standard bearer of the anti-radical

crusade that he hoped it would be. It is important not to overstate the extent of this defeat: the

potential of the Legion as a vehicle for anti-communism may have fallen short of the ambitions of

its most radical supporters, but its record in this field, as the first section of this chapter

demonstrated, was nevertheless impressive. Those like Walter Alessandroni who had dreamed

that anti-communism would replace the defense of veterans’ benefits as the Legion’s core mission

were disappointed—though they proved prescient in at least one respect. As we will now see, anti-

communism did generate more than its fair share of “zeal” and “enthusiasm” among a minority

of Legionnaires, but their passion would generate more harm than good.

From the Mainstream to the Margins

Baarslag’s firing in 1953 did not mark the end of the Legion’s concern with anti-

communism. While the fight between moderate advocates of a “positive” Americanism and

supporters of more aggressive counter-subversive methods unfolded at the national level,

Legionnaires at the local and state level were far from idle. With a national leadership still

committed to anti-communism and reined in by the group’s federalist structure, a radical

minority of activists was able to gain more and more influence and push the Legion to the right.

In doing so, they severely tarnished the Legion’s reputation. After briefly summarizing the first

stages of this process, I will focus on its climax, the controversy over the United Nations (UN) and

its affiliate, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In

its aftermath, the Legion’s anticommunist discourse merged more and more with the larger

backlash against civil rights.

225
 A number of controversies chipped away at the Legion’s public image in the early 1950s

by shedding light on the more extreme and less respectable side of its activities. The group’s

repeated attacks on educational institutions as bastions of subversive thought, for instance,

disturbed many observers.161 Not surprisingly, the idea that a group of military veterans would

enforce its own cultural orthodoxy carried frightening connotations in a context where the

memory of Nazi Germany’s censorship of “subversive” books was still fresh.162 In December 1951,

the Legion Magazine also published an inflammatory article by J. B. Matthews in which he gave

the names of over sixty major movie celebrities allegedly associated with communist front groups,

such as Ava Gardner and Elia Kazan.163 The article threw Hollywood in a panic, leading all the

major studios to reach out to the Legion in an attempt to prove their anti-communist credentials.

After a top-level meeting, they entered into a partnership whereby the Legion agreed to share its

list of allegedly subversive persons to help the studios remove the “red tag” from any suspected

employee.164 The next year, a local fight in which the Indianapolis chapter of the Legion had tried

to deny the ACLU the use of a war memorial for a meeting made headlines nationwide when

acclaimed journalist Edward Murrow covered it in an episode of his popular “See It Now” series

on CBS. In the show, Murrow contrasted the regimented and chauvinistic atmosphere of the

Legion with the democratic character of the ACLU.165 Finally, in 1954 the anticommunist

hardliners of the Illinois Legion attracted even more ridicule on their group when they condemned

the Girl Scouts for the “un-American influences” of their handbook.166

161 For an example of such attacks, see Irene Corbally Kuhn, “Your Child Is their Target,” ALM, June 1952.
162 President Eisenhower himself took sides in this controversy, enjoining Dartmouth graduates in 1953 not
to “join the book burners.” See Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement
Exercises, Hanover, New Hampshire,” June 14, 1953. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The
American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9606.
163 J. B. Matthews, “Did the Movies Really Clean House?,” ALM, December 1951.
164 “Legion Reported Lifting Red Tag From All But 20 or 30 H’woodites,” Variety, July 30, 1952; “Film

Industry Escapes Red Airing At Legion Powwow; Co-Op Paying Off,” Variety, August 27, 1952.
165 Rose, “The Legion & The ACLU,” Variety, December 2, 1953.
166 John Tenderson of the New Journal called it a “new low” for the Legion, writing that it had “out

‘McCarthied’ McCarthy.” See “Girl Scouts Find Ally: Amvets Post, Flouting Legion, Find Their Views Safe,”
New York Times, August 12, 1954; “Legion and Girl Scouts,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 10, 1954; John
Tenderson, “In Defense Of The Girl Scouts Of America,” New Journal and Guide, August 21, 1954.
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 These were only some of the most prominent scandals in which the Legion found itself

involved. Although they all contributed in their own way to the gradual marginalization of the

group, they paled in comparison with the major blow to its public image dealt by the controversy

over UNESCO. The roots of this debate went back to the end of World War II, when UNESCO was

created as an affiliate of the U.N. in charge of promoting mutual understanding between peoples.

During the early postwar years, its activities ranged from carrying out research about education

programs to surveying international library facilities to sponsoring an international conference

on the popularization of science. More to the point of this chapter, the group also undertook to

revise school textbooks in the U.S. and Canada to purge them of “traces of nationalist bias.” This

project was immediately controversial, prompting right-wing U.S. newspapers like the Chicago

Daily Tribune to call it “antipatriotic and tantamount to propaganda” in 1946.167 It was only in

the more feverish context of the early 1950s, however, with the Cold War now in full stride, that

the organization became the target of a concerted attack from various right-wing groups. In

October 1951, freelance writer and activist Florence Fowler Lyons accused the Los Angeles school

superintendent of endorsing “world government” and using UNESCO teaching manuals to

impress this ideology on children. For Lyons and the wide array of conservative women’s groups

behind her, these manuals represented a threat to national sovereignty because they advocated

for “world-mindedness” and racial mixing and urged teachers to combat “the poisoned air of

nationalism.” She leveled her broadsides not only at the municipal school system, but at the

federal government and the State Department, which she accused of disseminating UNESCO

“propaganda.” Her campaign received extensive media coverage and McCarthy himself flew to

Los Angeles to meet her. In 1953, the city board of education yielded under the pressure and

withdrew all UNESCO material from its schools.168

167 S. E. Graham, “The (Real)politiks of Culture: U.S. Cultural Diplomacy in Unesco, 1946–1954,”
Diplomatic History 30, no. 2 (April 2006): 238, 240.
168 On Lyons and UNESCO, see Michelle Nickerson, Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar

Right (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2012), 89–97; Glen Warren Adams, “The UNESCO
227
 That the Legion would join in spreading Lyons’ wild conspiracy theory would have seemed

unlikely, even surprising at first. Even before the U.N. was established in 1945, after all, the Legion

had strongly endorsed the “establishment and maintenance of an association of free and sovereign

nations.”169 In the years following the end of the war, it remained a staunch supporter of a

muscular U.N. that would have its own military force.170 Yet the rise of the Cold War led the group

to revise its position, due to fears that the U.N. (with its headquarters in New York) could serve

as a safe haven for Communists and their allies from which to spread subversive ideas. In 1952,

for instance, the Legion Magazine published an article by J. B. Matthews that reproduced some

of the exact same accusations made by Lyons.171 The next year, this rhetoric became official policy

when the National Executive Committee passed a resolution deploring “the use of material

furnished by the UNESCO” in public schools and called upon all educational institutions to “cease

and desist from” using such documents.172

The same meeting also ordered a special Legion committee, formed a year earlier to study

the proposed U.N. Covenant on Human Rights, to re-direct its efforts toward determining what

position the Legion should adopt vis-à-vis UNESCO.173 Composed of four distinguished

Legionnaires—two past Department Commanders, one Department Chaplain, and one past

President of the Legion Auxiliary—the Committee was chaired by one of the most authoritative

moderate voices in the Legion, Past National Commander Ray Murphy of Iowa. A Democrat and

an insurance lawyer, as head of the group in 1935-1936 Murphy had tried to steer the Legion away

Controversy in Los Angeles, 1951-1953: A Case Study of the Influence of Right-Wing Groups on Urban
Affairs” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1970).
169 Raymond Moley, The American Legion Story (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1966), 292.
170 The 1949 Convention, for instance, went on record in favor of “limitation of the use of the veto in matters

of aggression, international control of scientific weapons, and the establishment of an effective police force,”
see Proceedings of the 31st National Convention of the American Legion, 24.
171 J. B. Matthews, “The United Nations—Boon or Boondoggle?,” ALM, November 1952.
172 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, April 29-30, May 1, 1953, 123-124, ALA.
173 Ibid., pp. 47-48; “Report of Special Committee to Study the Covenant of Human Rights and to Act as

Liaison with the Standing Committee on Peace and Law through United Nations of the American Bar
Association,” n.d., Box 62, Folder 248, Harry W. Colmery Ms. Collection, Library and Archives Division,
Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka (HWCC thereafter).
228
from Homer Chaillaux’s more militant brand of anti-communism. He was also respected for his

knowledge of international affairs and had been the group’s consultant at the Dumbarton Oaks

and San Francisco conferences.174 Still, he was no liberal: not only was he on the American Bar

Association’s Committee on the Study of Communist Tactics—a group formed mainly to attack

the left-wing National Lawyers Guild—but he publicly opposed world government and supported

the Bricker amendment, which sought to restrict the scope of foreign treaties.175 By the time his

committee received its new mission, the Legion’s opposition to UNESCO had already become a

matter of serious concern in the federal government. For U.S. officials, this controversy was a

distraction that risked undermining domestic support for an international organization which

they sought to use as a vehicle for the worldwide dissemination of information favorable to their

side of the Cold War.176 Eager “to have the Legion reverse past stands and uphold UNESCO,” the

State Department allowed Murphy’s committee full access to all their files on the topic, according

to the New York Times.177

Murphy remained true to his reputation as a moderate while working on UNESCO. After

extensive research and interviews with public officials, his committee submitted its first report in

May 1954. It concluded that charges that UNESCO was subversive, atheistic, or that it advocated

“world government,” “had no basis in fact,” and recommended that the Legion join the U.S.

National Commission for UNESCO—an official consultative body made up of 100 civic groups and

public officials—since doing so “would permit a much closer observation of the work of UNESCO

than is now possible.”178 Yet the report was filed without approval or disapproval. At the National

174 Frank Miles, “The Name Is Murphy,” The American Legion Monthly, December 1935; Pencak, For God
& Country, 253; Bach, “None so Consistently Right: The American Legion’s Cold War, 1945-1960,” 214.
175 Ray Murphy, “The American Legion and UNESCO,” America, November 26, 1955; Ray Murphy, “Which

Constitution Do We Want?,” ALM, February 1954. On the ABA and the National Lawyers Guild, see
Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes, 301–2.
176 Graham, “The (Real)politiks of Culture.”
177 Allen Drury, “Legion Ranks Are Split Over the UNESCO Issue: Bitter Fight in Prospect on Report

Repudiating Criticism of Agency,” New York Times, September 18, 1955.

178 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1954, pp. 187-195, ALA.

229
Convention and the next meeting of the National Executive Committee the same year, resolutions

censuring UNESCO and rejecting the invitation to join its Commission were again adopted.179 This

confusing sequence of actions, wherein the Legion appointed a pro-UNESCO committee yet

maintained a steadfastly anti-UNESCO public stance, revealed the leadership’s inability to come

out decisively on either side of the debate.

The fact that some zealous anti-communist Legionnaires had already vented their anger

at the initial report of the Murphy committee certainly did not help. “[T]he mere filling of this

whitewashing report,” Florida Commander Joe Jenkins complained after being alerted by

Florence Lyons herself, “has already done great harm to the cause of Americanism by indicating

support of UNESCO and its objectives by the American Legion.”180 Other far-right groups, such

as the anti-Semitic American Flag Committee of Henry MacFarland, Jr., also publicized the report

in an attempt to alert Legionnaires.181 This situation came to a head at the next meeting of the

National Executive Committee in May 1955, where two reports with diametrically opposed

conclusions were submitted. One was by the Murphy Committee, which essentially repeated its

earlier finding that the charges against UNESCO were “utterly without foundations,” and the

other by the National Americanism Commission, which argued exactly the opposite, namely that

UNESCO “has consistently endeavored to bring about a climate of international mindedness in

the US and a subsequent decay in patriotism, national pride and national sovereignty.”182 With

these two reports, the Legion’s division into two warring factions was made official, and The

Christian Century asked the question on everyone’s lips with an op-ed entitled “Which Legion Is

179 Proceedings of 36th National Convention, 100-101; Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee
Meeting, October 5, 6 and 7, 1954, pp. 88-89, ALA.
180 Letter from Joe C. Jenkins, “Hi Ya,” August 12, 1954; Florence Fowler Lyons to Joe C. Jenkins, July 14,

1954, Box 605, Folder 7, AMOC. Emphasis original.

181 W. Henry MacFarland, Jr., to Dear fellow Patriot, July 15, 1954, Box 605, Folder 7, AMOC.
182 For the Murphy Committee’s report, see Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting,

May 4, 5 and 6, 1955, pp. 112-176, ALA. For the National Americanism Commission’s report, see National
Americanism Commission, Report on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, May 1, 1955, Box 541, Folder 4, JBMP.
230
the Real Legion?”183 Aware of this divide, the leadership acted very cautiously and avoided taking

sides. It was only a month and a half before the 1955 National Convention in Miami that Murphy’s

pro-UNESCO report was leaked to the press, in what was probably an attempt to build public

support in the moderates’ favor.184

If such was the intent behind the leak, then it succeeded beyond all expectations, for the

Murphy report captured the country’s attention in a way that no other Legion statement had in

years. Perhaps hoping that Legionnaires would redeem themselves after this series of scandals

and regain some of their old standing, the national press raised the stakes of the upcoming

convention. As the Atlantic later reported, “men who for years had regarded the Legion as little

more than a comic assembly for dumping grand pianos out of hotel windows took a fresh look at

the organization,” and “words of respect and hope came not only from the Legion’s friends but

from some of its severest critics of the past.”185 The New York Times, usually at the other end of

the political spectrum, was “glad to applaud the [committee’s] findings” and hoped “for the sake

of the Legion’s own prestige” that it would be adopted by the Convention.186 The Washington Post

and Times Herald also welcomed it as “a factual, documented, eyes-open study by a group of

Americans whose patriotic credentials give them full credence.”187 The Christian Science Monitor

recognized it as a sign that “the right wing and the left wing of the politically potent American

Legion have split.”188 Even Life, usually not a close follower of veterans’ affairs, saluted the

findings of the “ultrarespectable” Murphy Committee as “encouraging signs that the Legion is

183 “Which Legion Is the Real Legion?,” The Christian Century, September 28, 1955.
184 Drury, “Legion Ranks Are Split Over the UNESCO Issue.”
185 Ben H. Bagdikian, “How the Legionnaires Were Duped: The Attack on UNESCO,” The Atlantic Monthly,

July 1956.
186 “The Legion and UNESCO,” New York Times, September 13, 1955; “Unesco and the Legion,” New York

Times, September 1, 1955.

187 Roscoe Drummond, “Legion Committee Defends UNESCO,” The Washington Post and Times Herald,

September 10, 1955.

188 Richard L. Strout, “American Legion Splits on Foreign Policy: Hutchins Singled Out,” The Christian

Science Monitor, September 19, 1955.

231
mending its ways.”189 President Eisenhower himself wrote a letter to Collins in which he praised

his report as “analytic, factual, honest and fair,” adding that “[f]ew examinations into issues that

have become emotional, sometimes through misinterpretation, have resulted in such thorough

and dispassionate conclusions.” In a phone call to his Secretary of State John F. Dulles, he called

it “the most sensible analytical job he has heard of” on UNESCO. Both men debated whether they

should endorse his report, but eventually decided against it out of fear of ending up on the losing

side of what remained an uncertain battle.190

Indeed, while the country seemed to be celebrating the Murphy report and hoped it would

win the day, the far-right (both within and without the Legion) orchestrated a propaganda

campaign against it whose intensity surpassed anything the group had hitherto been through,

according to its own authors.191 The New Orleans-based right-wing paper Free Men Speak, for

instance, asked readers to let Legion officials know of their opposition to the report. 192 Likewise,

the same Merwin K. Hart who had been uninvited from the All-American Conference years earlier

denounced the report as “completely unconvincing” and called on the Legion to reject it.193

Conservative Midwestern Republicans even attacked the group on the floor of the House.194

Internal pressure was equally intense. In Los Angeles, birthplace of the anti-UNESCO movement,

the California Department formed a special committee to denounce the report as “slanted in favor

189 “Challenge for the Legion,” Life, September 12, 1955.

190 Itis unclear whether the letter was actually sent, see Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Papers of Dwight David
Eisenhower, ed. Louis Galambos and Daun Van Ee, vol. 16, The Presidency: The Middle Way (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press, 1996), 1832–1833; Telephone Call from the President, Monday, August 29, 1955 11:38
a.m., Box 10, Folder: Telephone Conv. – White House Mar. 7, 1955 to Aug. 29, 1955 (1), John Foster Dulles
Papers, Telephone Conversations Series, Eisenhower Presidential Library.
191 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 4, 5 and 6, 1955, pp. 166-168, ALA.
192 “Seeks to Upset Legion’s Anti-UNESCO Stand,” Free Men Speak, May-June 1955, Box 541, Folder 3, J.

B. Matthews Papers.
193 Merwin K. Hart, “How about It, Legionnaires!,” Economic Council Letter, no. 368 (October 1, 1955), Box

62, Folder 246, HWCC.

194 Hon. H. R. Gross (IA), “American Legion Members, Again Called Upon to Fight Endorsement of

UNESCO, Should Demand Explanation of Why Report of Legion’s National Americanism Commission Has
Been Impounded,” Congressional Record (August 2, 1955).
232
of UNESCO.”195 A local Texas Legion official wrote to his superiors that “never has there been

evidenced more intense indignation over any previous action of our national leaders” and warned

that the adoption of the Murphy report would be “disastrous for the American Legion.” 196 In the

Florida Legionnaire, Jenkins cautioned readers against the “peril” lying in UNESCO.197 The Anti-

Subversive Chairman of the Washington State Department also published a “refutation” of the

Murphy report, which not only compared it to Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto but charged

UNESCO more broadly of attempting “to create an Intellectual Dictatorship to control the minds

of men throughout the world, by means of devious methods.”198 This massive propaganda

campaign was without equivalent on the pro-UNESCO side, likely because of the leadership’s

stubborn refusal to take sides. While the National Americanism Commission distributed such

anti-UNESCO material to Legion officials throughout the country, the Murphy report was never

circulated among official Legion channels.199

While these far-right voices represented no more than a small number of vocal activists,

the zealousness and violence of their charges gave them disproportionate influence and made

them impossible to ignore. The Legion had never been so thoroughly divided, with members of

each faction unwilling to even recognize the legitimacy of the other side’s claims. Jenkins, for

instance, treated Murphy as a misguided child who “sure need[s] educating about UNESCO” and

whose committee was acting on the orders of the State Department to “sell” UNESCO to the

Legion.200 In response, Murphy argued that his critics relied mostly on “emotion and garbled

195 The evaluation is quoted in exhibit V of H. R. Gross’s remarks in the Congressional Record on August 2,
1955.
196 Loren D. Stark to Seaborn P. Collins, “Report on U.N.E.S.C.O. by Ray Murphy’s Committee,” June 8,

1955, Box 541, Folder 5, JBMP. The exact same letter can be found in Box 62, Folder 245, HWCC.
197 “Warns Peril for U.S. Lies in UNESCO,” Florida Legionnaire, August 15, 1954, Box 5, Folder 5-2,

Accession No. 1522-002, SFCP.

198 Anti-Subversive Chairman, Department of Washington, A Refutation of the Report of the American

Legion Special Committee on Covenent [sic] of Human Rights and United Nations herein referred to as
the Murphy Committee, n.d. (ca. October 1955), Box 541, Folder 5, JBMP.
199 Bagdikian, “How the Legionnaires Were Duped.”
200 Joe C. Jenkins to Ray Murphy, January 28, 1955, Box 5, Folder 5-2, Accession No. 1522-002, SFCP.

233
information,” and that their arguments “range from the scurrilous to the ridiculous, and have

been hastily put together under a false front of alleged documentation that is in essence odorously

fraudulent.”201 William G. McKinley, a longtime Legion official and member of the Murphy

Committee, echoed such feelings in a strongly worded letter. “In the colloquialism of our Post riot

rooms,” he wrote, Jenkins’ charges “could be reduced to a vulgarism pertaining to a certain equine

excretion having value in agriculture, but in the vernacular connoting the sum total of nothing.”

According to him, this crisis proved that the “power and prestige” of the Legion had been

“exploited” by right-wing “fanatics”—a position shared by former National Commander Stephen

Chadwick.202 But it was a memo written by an outside observer that provided the most lucid

summary of the divide. The controversy around UNESCO, it read, “is an issue within the old

guard” of the Legion. Moderate Legion leaders like Murphy “are no less anti-Communist than

anybody else; but to them it seems that the Legion’s future is being endangered by the increasing

commitment to extreme ‘nationalism,’ isolationism, possibly even to racism and Catholic bigotry.”

To them, “the Girl Scouts affair seemed not only ridiculous but, for that reason, dangerous for the

future of the organization.” “While the Legion rank-and-file understand little about the situation

and care much less,” it concluded, “the ruling ‘machine’ is badly worried.”203

Nor was it the only one, for the entire country was watching when the 37th National

Convention of the Legion began in Miami on October 10. Collins opened the festivities with one

last plea for caution and consensus. Though he never explicitly mentioned UNESCO, every one of

the 40,000 members of the audience understood perfectly what he meant when he said that the

201 Ray Murphy to Alvin M. Owsley, August 11, 1954, Box 605, Folder 7, AMOC; “Statement by Ray Murphy
before Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of House Committee on Foreign
Affairs, Re: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,” March 9, 1956, p. 8, Box 62,
Folder 247, HWCC.
202 William G. McKinley to Members of National Executive Committee and Members of the National

Americanism Commission, March 10, 1955, Box 62, Folder 245, HWCC; Stephen F. Chadwick to C. M.
Stanley, May 9, 1955, Box 2, Folder 2-3, Accession No. 1522-002, SFCP.
203 W. Millis to W.H. Ferry, “Memorandum on The Miami Convention of the American Legion, October 10-

13, 1955,” Box 16, Folder 6, Fund for the Republic Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton University (FFR
hereafter).
234
Legion’s name was “too often…tied to causes which may be perfectly good in themselves, but

which do not merit our sanction as a veterans’ organization” and resulted in “a loss of prestige

and impact for our major programs.” “To speak out or act without carefully considering the facts,”

he warned, “is to invite public distrust and indifference.”204 Yet his call to find a middle ground

went unheeded once again. When the sixty-five members of the joint committee tasked with

drafting a final resolution on UNESCO met to debate, it was already clear which side had the upper

hand. According to Murphy, the far-right faction had lobbied to make sure that the committee

was “heavily weighted with known opponents of UNESCO,” and to limit the distribution of his

report to delegates. During the seven-hour long committee debate, one committee member

argued against UNESCO on the grounds that it was connected to research proving that “white and

black blood types were the same,” while another argued the U.N. should simply be “tossed into

the sea.” Outnumbered, moderates were easily defeated. The final resolution reaffirmed the

Legion’s opposition to UNESCO, urged Congress to immediately investigate whether the

international organization was interfering with the U.S. educational system, and called for the

U.S. National Commission for UNESCO to be abolished. When it came to the floor of the

convention, it was immediately put to a vote without a debate, and adopted with only the

delegation from Iowa—Murphy’s home state—recorded against it.205

Since the press had framed the Convention as the last chance for the Legion to redeem

itself, the anti-UNESCO vote provoked a backlash of unprecedented proportions. As Murphy later

commented, it brought on a “tremendous volume of critical editorials and articles,” which “did

the Legion a great deal of harm.”206 Former President Truman commented dismissively that “[t]he

204 Proceedings of 37th National Convention of the American Legion, 13.

205 For the final text of the Joint Committee resolution, see Proceedings of 37th National Convention of the
American Legion, 55-56. For a description of the debate within the Committee and on the floor of the
Convention, see “News of The American Legion: Two Convention Echoes: Press Garbled UNESCO Story;
Legion to Seek Pension Gains,” ALM, December 1955; Murphy, “The American Legion and UNESCO”; “The
Legion Is Disgraced,” Life, October 24, 1955.
206 Ray Murphy to Honorable John R. Quinn, August 8, 1957, Box 63, Folder 308, HWCC.

235
Legion doesn’t know what it’s talking about. They’ve gone haywire in the last three or four

years…Most of them knew what they were fighting about. But they seem to have forgotten.”207

Newsday argued that the Legion had “acted completely irresponsibly” on UNESCO, and that it

“has done itself a disservice” by preventing an open debate “on an issue which it has been wrong

and stubborn about for years.”208 Life openly ridiculed the group, publishing pictures from the

Convention showing Legionnaires in all kinds of ridiculous positions or attires—wearing clown

noses, riding parade floats, being drunk, etc.—and making uninformed statements about

UNESCO.209 In an op-ed, the magazine declared the Legion “disgraced,” and quoted Collins’

opening statement to say that “if men who fought two wars to defend democracy cannot win it for

themselves, they will deserve nothing but ‘public distrust and indifference.’”210 Joining the fray,

the New York Times called the Legion’s stance on UNESCO “a prize example of sophomoric

xenophobia.”211 The Nation found it “reckless” and argued that it was largely the result of

backroom deals, “a reflection of old charges of ‘king-makers’ and ‘ruling cliques’ in the Legion.”212

To be sure, one should over-emphasize the effect of these editorials on public opinion: many of

these papers, after all, had been decrying the Legion for years. Nevertheless, even Legion officials

recognized that they had taken a severe hit. Acording to The Michigan Legionnaire, no less than

240 editorials were written across the country in reaction to this vote by early November 1955,

with more than half—accounting for a readership of nearly 18 million—negative.213 Never before

had an action of the Legion been condemned so overwhelmingly and in such stark terms.

207 Lawrence O’Kane, “Truman Rebukes Legion on UNESCO: Says Attack Shows Most Members Have
Forgotten What They Fought For,” New York Times, October 14, 1955.
208 “UNESCO and the Legion,” Newsday, Nassau Ed., October 14, 1955.
209 “Veterans’ Views of UNESCO,” Life, October 24, 1955.
210 “The Legion Is Disgraced.”
211 “The Legion and UNESCO,” New York Times, October 14, 1955.
212 Bert CoIlier, “The Reckless Legion: UNESCO Smeared Again,” Nation, October 22, 1955.
213 “Press Reaction to American Legion Action on UNESCO,” The Michigan Legionnaire, December 1955,

Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

236
 From the first controversy over “book-burning” in 1952 to the anti-UNESCO vote in 1955,

the Legion had gradually lost much of the prestige and popularity it had gained from its decision

to welcome World War II veterans. To the extent that it is possible to delineate such a complex

process with any clarity, the Miami Convention vote marked the moment when the group left the

mainstream of U.S. politics. It continued to be a vocal opponent of UNESCO, but few treated it

seriously anymore.214 Two years later, for instance, its charges were comprehensively dismissed

by a congressional subcommittee, which found after extended hearings that they had “no credible

evidence” to support them and in many cases were entirely invented.215 One telling measure of

this loss of status was the change in how the ACLU reacted to the demand made by every Legion

convention after 1952 that it be investigated. Though these attacks had been a major problem for

the ACLU when the Legion was still a force to be reckoned with in the early 1950s, by the second

half of the decade the assistant director admitted that the national office “pretty much ignores

[them] now,” since they received “less and less press notice” and were therefore no longer a

threat.216 “[M]ore and more people,” he added, “are getting to realize that the Legion’s activity are

[sic] pretty much a farce.”217

Instead of reversing course, over the next few years the Legion drifted increasingly to the

right, moving further and further to the margins of mainstream public debate. In the second half

of the 1950s, its anticommunist discourse would acquire increasingly obvious racist undertones,

as the group embraced a rhetoric of states’ rights to attack the Supreme Court on both civil

liberties and civil rights. The Legion complained bitterly, for instance, of the string of decisions

handed down by the liberal Court of Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1956-1957 that undid much of

214 See for instance J. Addington Warner, “Another Look at UNESCO,” ALM, August 1956.
215 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Organizations and
Movements, The United Nations Specialized Agencies (Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1957), 7, 26.
216 Alan Reitman to Martha Thomas, August 8, 1958, Box 610, Folder 4, ACLUR.
217 Intra-Office Buck Sheet: from A.R to PMM, September 8, 1958, Box 610, Folder 4, ACLUR.

237
the legal apparatus behind the Red Scare.218 At the same time, the National Convention passed

resolutions both calling for an investigation of the National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People (NAACP) and deploring “the continued usurption [sic] of States Rights by the

federal government, specifically in those matters so clearly spelled out by our founding fathers

and in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution,” which it believed “will eventually result in a

socialistic or dictatorial form of government.”219 Two years later, National Commander W. C.

“Dan” Daniel (a Virginian) directly challenged the legitimacy of the highest court of the land in a

speech where he decried “the increasing danger of centralized oppressive government…of judicial

attacks upon the sovereignty of our respective states…of arbitrary decrees which challenge the

purpose and heretofore sacred guarantees of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the

Declaration of Independence.” The speech directly referred to some of the recent decisions of the

Court regarding communism, but it was clearly an attack on the 1954 Brown decision as well.220

To be sure, the Legion leadership always steadfastly denied that these resolutions had

anything to do with racial segregation. However, a series of embarrassing public statements made

clear where their sympathies lay. In early 1955, National Commander Seaborn Collins reportedly

commented that he did not “regard Negroes as his equal,” though he claimed to have been

misquoted; this comment led several black Posts to ask for his resignation.221 The following year,

one of the Legion’s (white) National Vice-Commanders, Everett Page of Texas, said during a

speech in Mississippi that he had decided not to attend the Democratic National Convention to

protest the fact that his state delegation included what he called three “super-sunburned

218 See for instance Proceedings of 39th National Convention of the American Legion, 56-57.
219 Resolutions no. 75 and 421 in Proceedings of the 38th National Convention of the American Legion (Los
Angeles, California, 1956), 49, 51.
220 Proceedings of the 40th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago, 1958), 5-6.
221 “Legion Head on Spot: Resignation Asked by Harlemites,” The Baltimore Afro-American, April 30, 1955;

“Negro Legionnaires in 5 States Protest Commander Race Slur,” n.d., Administration & Organization,
Membership, Black Members, ALA.
238
delegates,” including an NAACP attorney.222 In response to outraged letters, the National

Commander claimed that Page’s comments had been misunderstood and dismissed them as

merely an “unfortunate incident.”223 Finally, in January 1957 Daniel himself told a cheering

Georgia House of Representatives that he would be “glad to fight to uphold the traditions of the

great state of Georgia,” adding that “the Legion, too, believes in states’ rights.”224 “Arrogation of

power by a central government was fast reducing the states to municipal dependencies,” he

claimed, and “[a]n all-powerful central government is the vehicle that the Kremlin hopes to ride

in conquering our free land, as was the case in so many of the countries in East and Central

Europe.”225 Once again, the comment provoked a series of denunciations, to which the Legion

merely replied that Daniel’s speech had never mentioned “the matter of segregation,” which had

been “inserted” into his remarks “by a zealous reporter.”226

At the local level, white Legionnaires all across the South used an anticommunist discourse

to fight civil rights activists. In 1956, the Commander of the Georgia Legion publicly endorsed the

Gray Amendment to the Virginia state Constitution, which sought to enforce school segregation

despite the Brown decision.227 In Coushatta, Louisiana, a Post censured both Congress and the

Supreme Court for their role in promoting “socialism” and “destroying basic constitutional

principles.”228 After denouncing two white Mississippi Posts for co-sponsoring a meeting with a

White Citizens’ Council (the respectable middle-class equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan), the all-

black William Walker Post 214 in Jackson saw its charter cancelled. Black Legionnaires were

threatened with expulsion by the Department Commander if they did not rid their posts of “racial

222 “Biloxi, Miss., July 10 (AP)…,” Americanism, Tolerance, Segregation, ALA (Segregation, ALA hereafter).
223 J. Addington Wagner to Honorable Charles C. Diggs, Jr., July 18, 1956; J. Addington Wagner to Frank
P. Lynch, Jr., July 18, 1956, Segregation, ALA.
224 “Legion Head Lauds Stand of Georgia,” The Washington Post, January 26, 1957.
225 Charles W. Geile to David C. Leach, n.d. (ca. February 1957), Segregation, ALA.
226 Robert E. Lyngh to George H. Simmons, February 19, 1957, Segregation, ALA.
227 Irving Breakstone to Robert Maynard Hutchins, March 16, 1956, Box 16, Folder 5, FFR.
228 Quoted in George Lewis, The White South and the Red Menace: Segregationists, Anticommunism, and

Massive Resistance, 1945-1965 (Gainesville, Fl.: University Press of Florida, 2004), 53.
239
agitators” and stopped “dabbling in partisan politics.” Surely, the fact that the William Walker

Post had ties to the civil rights movement—its service officer was NAACP Field Secretary Medgar

Evers—and that it tried to register black voters to vote was not a coincidence. Post members

appealed the decision, but without success.229 Finally, when Eisenhower used the National Guard

to force the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the early fall of 1957,

his move was met with the intense opposition of many Legion Posts across the South. In New

Orleans, for instance, white Legionnaires invited Governor Orval Faubus to speak at their

Veterans’ Day ceremony that year. The Arkansas Legion later presented him with its Americanism

Award in the presence of a slew of top Legion officials from the South.230

Conclusion

The presentation of this award to a leader to a leader of the racist backslash against the

civil rights movement showed how far the Legion’s anti-communism program had come since

1945. In the early postwar years, men like Baarslag, Alessandroni, and Craig had embraced an

aggressive anti-communist line in order to cement the prestige and influence that their group had

gained since its decision to welcome World War II veterans. Their ambitions were never fully

realized: not only did a majority of the leadership refuse to turn the Legion away from its primary

focus on veterans’ benefits, but the rank-and-file never cared deeply enough about the fight

against subversives to devote a substantial portion of their time and energy to it. Though the

Legion did in fact play a leading role in the anti-communist crusade that swept the nation in the

late 1940s and early 1950s, this project thus remained largely a top-down endeavor. It did have,

however, a largely unexpected effect: by drawing so much attention to anti-communism, it gave

229 Peter D. Hoefer, “A David against Goliath: The American Veteran Committee’s Challenge to the
American Legion in the 1950s” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2010), 180–91.
230 Ibid., 196–211.

240
an opening to a committed minority of far-right activists within the group. Taking advantage of

the indecision of the national leadership, they succeeded in making the Legion endorse a

conspiracy theory about UNESCO. Far from enhancing its prestige, this move marked the

alienation of the Legion from respectable mainstream politics and its growing alignment with

conservative and sometimes racist politics. By the late 1950s, anti-communism was no longer an

asset for the group’s public image but a liability. It was largely (though not solely, as the following

chapters make clear) responsible for having brought the Legion back to the same unpopular and

marginalized public position in which it had entered World War II.

The Legion had certainly come a long way from George Craig’s grandiose homecoming

celebration in 1949 to being seen as nothing more than “a farce” nine years later. It had become

nothing more than what its liberal critics had long thought it to be, namely “a fraternity of aging

hell-raisers who pause each year to make wild statements on national affairs.”231 In 1957, the

Nation remarked that the Legion was “dying as an important social force.”232 As one of its officials

from Michigan noted clear-sightedly in 1958, it was indeed getting clear that “we [Legionnaires]

are slipping our anchor which has held us in the forefront of the American scene for the last forty

years.”233 Anti-communism contributed greatly to this slippage.

231 Bagdikian, “How the Legionnaires Were Duped.”

232 Harvey Glickman, “The Legion Dies Laughing,” Nation, September 7, 1957.
233 Lisle H. Alexander, “Department Adjutant and Welfare Committee,” Michigan Legionnaire, July 1958,

Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

241
 CHAPTER FIVE
“A Nation of Veterans”: The American Legion and the Debate
over Korean War Veterans’ Benefits

“…we are rapidly becoming a nation of veterans. If we were all

to claim a special reward for our service, beyond that to which
specific disability or sacrifice has created a just claim, who
would be left to pay? After all, we are Americans first and
veterans second, and the best maxim for any administration is
still Jefferson’s: ‘Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.’”
- Adlai Stevenson, August 19521

When Americans opened their daily newspapers on the morning of January 13, 1951, they were

treated to front-page news of a major scandal. Nearly 200 veterans of the last world war had just

been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York City on charges of defrauding the Veterans’

Administration (VA) of almost a quarter million dollars. According to the chief assistant U.S.

Attorney for the district, this was “the largest [indictment] of its kind ever handed up in U.S.

District Court and one of the largest in any Federal court in the country.” Run by Ora Grow and

his wife Dassie of the Grow System School of Beauty Culture near Times Square, the scam was

simple. To take advantage of Title II of the 1944 G.I. Bill, under which the federal government

paid for the education of World War II veterans who decided to return to school, the couple

enrolled a large number of ex-soldiers with the explicit understanding that they would not have

to attend classes. According to another assistant U.S. Attorney, 90 percent of all the veterans who

had been indicted “never knew where the school was.” Under this “silent student scheme,” both

sides made a handsome profit. Individual veterans received from the government a subsistence

allowance averaging $1,000 a year without actually studying, while the school received $300 in

tuition and $30 in supplies from the VA for each individual veteran, in addition to kickbacks.

Because oversight of the program was so weak, the fraud ran for more than two years before it

was uncovered by the FBI. The Grows were ultimately found guilty and sentenced to several years

1 Proceedings of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion (New York, 1952), 59.
242
of imprisonment as well as several thousand dollars in fines, and 165 of the 198 veteran students

pleaded guilty.2

The Grow School scandal may have been unusual in the number of persons involved, but

it was far from unique. Ever since 1945, the press had been full of similar cases of G.I. bill fraud,

and they would play a decisive role in framing the debate over which benefits to grant the next

generation of veterans from Korea. The outcome of this discussion, as this chapter shows,

represented the first setback to the Legion’s ideal of martial citizenship in the postwar period.

Even though Korean War veterans did obtain their own G.I. Bill in 1952, it was markedly less

generous than the original, providing its recipients with lower payments, stricter penalties, and

less freedom of choice than the 1944 law. Far from an accident, this was the result of two broader

developments. First and most basically, the Legion’s strident criticism of the Truman

administration over its handling of the so-called “police action” in the Far East caused the group

to become increasingly identified with the conservative end of the political spectrum and thereby

to lose its stature as a mainstream, bipartisan organization—along with the influence it wielded.

On a deeper level, this failure represented a backlash against the excesses of martial citizenship

as embodied by the multiple scandals connected to the 1944 G.I. Bill, which were the products of

the law’s relative generosity and lack of oversight. By the late 1940s, it was clear to most

lawmakers that treating veterans as a separate and elite group of citizens entitled to more

generous benefits carried its own risks. As the Grow School scandal and many others like it

demonstrated, veterans were not immune to cheating and taking advantage of their government,

and the VA did not always administer their benefits as efficiently as it should have. Such cases

2“F.B.I. Seizes Two in $300,000 Fraud: Beauty School Employes Are Accused of Using Ex-G.I.’s In Filing
of False Claims,” New York Times, December 3, 1950; Edward Ranzal, “199 Veterans Among 205 Indicted
In $250,000 Beauty School Fraud,” New York Times, January 13, 1951; “$300,000 Fraud In GI Education
Gets Fines, Jail,” The Washington Post, June 7, 1951; House Select Committee to Investigate Educational,
Training, and Loan Guaranty Programs under GI Bill, 82 H. Rpt. 1375, 1952, 94; “4 Ex-G.I.’S Get Jail for
Tuition Fraud: Veterans Admitted Conspiracy With School—50 Have Made Complete Restitution,” New
York Times, May 30, 1952.
243
brought home the fact that, just like for other groups of the population, there needed to be limits

to the state’s debt toward those who had served under its banners.

These developments may seem counter-intuitive. After all, historians have long

demonstrated how the Korean War marked the beginning of the “national security state” by

causing the permanent expansion of the military, the rise of intelligence agencies, the emergence

of the military-industrial-academic complex, and so on. More than any other foreign policy crises,

it was this conflict that signaled the entry of the U.S. into the Cold War.3 In this new environment,

one might reasonably have expected that the share of resources devoted to veterans’ benefits

would also have grown. Yet far from shoring up veterans’ welfare state, the Cold War directly

undermined the rationale behind it. The return of the peacetime draft and the prospect of a long-

term conflict with the Soviet bloc meant that the proportion of former soldiers in the total

population, already at an all-time high, would only keep increasing for the foreseeable future. So

would the already significant share of the federal budget devoted to their benefits, thereby raising

fundamental questions about the financial sustainability of martial citizenship. As Democratic

presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson asked in a speech before the National Convention of the

Legion in 1952, in “a nation of veterans,” “who would be left to pay” for their benefits? More

profoundly, how could military service be considered a privilege if it its reach came to include

almost all the male population? By exploring the far-reaching implications of this debate, the

chapter replaces at the center of postwar U.S. politics a war that has too often been “forgotten” by

3Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State,
1945-1954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Aaron L. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the
Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000); Mary Ann Heiss and Michael J. Hogan, eds., Origins of the National Security State and the
Legacy of Harry S. Truman (Kirksville, Miss.: Truman State University Press, 2015); Hajimu Masuda, Cold
War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2015).
244
both historians and the general public.4 It shows how the Korean War was a pivotal moment in

the broader trajectory of veterans’ welfare state in the twentieth century.

This chapter begins with a brief survey of the landscape of veterans’ benefits in the late

1940s. The lively public debate about G.I. Bill fraud, combined with the mounting backlash

provoked by repeated attempts to pass a general veterans’ pension bill as well as rumors of a

federal bonus for World War II veterans, all contributed to create a much more skeptical political

climate. Part two then examines the Legion’s ambivalent and increasingly partisan support for

the war effort. While the group enthusiastically supported the troops at the local, state, and

national level, its leaders grew more and more critical of the strategy of the Truman

administration in the Far East. The third section then pivots to the discussion over Korean War

veterans’ benefits. At stake during this debate were not only the needs of a new cohort of former

soldiers, but the legacy of World War II and the future of the veterans’ welfare state in general.

Veterans’ Benefits Before the Korean War: Growth, Fraud, And Backlash

Long before hostilities on the Korean peninsula even began, the issue of veterans’ proper

place in American society was at the center of an animated national debate. The benefits inherited

4 Most historians of the Korean War (with the notable exceptions of Melinda Pash and John Wiltz) have
focused on the treatment of P.O.W.’s or on the memory of the war, see H. H. Wubben, “American Prisoners
of War in Korea: A Second Look at the ‘Something New in History’ Theme,” American Quarterly 22, no. 1
(1970): 3–19; John E. Wiltz, “The Korean War and American Society,” The Wilson Quarterly 2, no. 3 (1978):
127–34; Richard Severo and Lewis Milford, The Wages of War: When America’s Soldiers Came Home-
From Valley Forge to Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), chaps. 21–22; Adam J. Zweiback,
“The 21 ‘Turncoat GIs’: Nonrepatriations and the Political Culture of the Korean War,” The Historian 60,
no. 2 (December 1998): 345–62; Paul M. Edwards, To Acknowledge a War: The Korean War in American
Memory (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000); Judith Keene, “Lost to Public Commemoration:
American Veterans of the ‘Forgotten’ Korean War,” Journal of Social History 44, no. 4 (Summer 2011):
1095–1113; Melinda L. Pash, In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation: The Americans Who Fought the
Korean War (New York: New York University Press, 2012); Monica Kim, “Empire’s Babel: US Military
Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War,” History of the Present 3, no. 1 (2013): 1–28. For the only
treatment of the debate over Korean War veterans’ benefits, see Melinda Pash, “‘A Veteran Does Not Have
to Stay a Veteran Forever’: Congress and the Korean G.I. Bill,” in Veterans’ Policies, Veterans’ Politics: New
Perspectives on Veterans in the Modern United States, ed. Stephen R. Ortiz (Gainesville, Fl.: University
Press of Florida, 2012), 222–40.
245
from the last war grew to such proportions and caused so much controversy that Congress had

already been forced to intervene. In addition to the ever-expanding list of scandals surrounding

the administration of the G.I. Bill, the mounting pressure in favor of passage of veterans’ pensions

and the bonus threatened to put an even more severe strain on the country’s finances. As a result,

a growing body of public opinion was beginning to question whether veterans really ought to be

treated so much more generously than other citizens.

By the time the Grow School scam was exposed in the early 1950s, news of G.I. Bill fraud

had become so widespread as to almost appear banal—so much so that one Congressman

remarked in 1952 that “it has become a national pastime to milk Uncle Sam” under this law.5 The

first provisions of the bill to attract nationwide attention after the war were readjustment

allowances—a provision of the bill under which unemployed veterans were entitled to receive $20

per week for a maximum of fifty-two weeks while looking for a job. On paper, eligible veterans

were required to be looking for work and forbidden from refusing a job offer deemed “suitable” to

their qualifications.6 However, with state unemployment boards overwhelmed by the massive

influx of returning veterans, rigorous standards were impossible to maintain and rumors of

widespread fraud began to mount. As early as 1946, the Herald Tribune feared that allowance

recipients would “gravitate to a corps of grumblers demanding more and more as veterans’

‘rights,’” and called for stricter “job tests.”7 Likewise, the right-wing Chicago Tribune called on

Congress to abolish this “dole,” which it argued “encourages young men in habits of dependency

when they ought to be acquiring habits of industry, self-support, and self-respect.”8 In the Ladies

Home Journal, the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Henry F. Pringle expressed such concerns

5 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Education and Training and Other Benefits for
Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, Hearing, February 6-7, 13-14, 19-21, 26-28, March 4-6, 11, 1952
(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1952), 1327.
6 Sec. 800 (a) (2) of Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, Pub. L. No. 78-346, 58 Stat. 284.
7 “Veterans and Unemployment Pay,” New York Herald Tribune, September 26, 1946.
8 “Veterans on the Dole,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 12, 1947.

246
more provocatively, claiming that the G.I. Bill was “making a bum out of G.I. Joe.” 9 By the late

1940s, the terms “52-20 club” or “rocking-chair money” were widely used to deride the abuses of

this program, even though fraud was in fact relatively limited.10 More warranted were concerns

about fraud in another title of the bill, which provided veterans with government-guaranteed

loans to buy a home, business, or farm.11 As noted in Chapter 2, the postwar housing shortage

proved a godsend for swindlers of all stripes, who were able to exploit World War II veterans’

desperate desire to find any kind of shelter for them and their families. They proved resilient: as

late as 1952, the VA still had to issue a warning to veterans that “many [mortgage] offers that

sound like heaven-sent opportunities are actually the work of shysters and gyp artists.”12

But it was the bill’s educational and on-the-job training benefits that aroused the largest

amount of controversy. Employers often abused the latter by recruiting veterans who were already

proficient in their trade and deducing their G.I. Bill living allowance from their total pay, thereby

turning the program into a de facto labor subsidy.13 Educational institutions were also quick to

recognize the unique opportunity for quick profit presented by the bill. Barely a year after it was

passed, the New York Times was already deploring the “immediate and pressing” problem “that

fake colleges and fly-by-night vocational schools are springing up on a nation-wide scale to mulct

war veterans.”14 The phenomenon was indeed remarkable. Whereas only 35 vocational schools

had been approved for participation in the program in 1944, 1,898 were in 1946 and 1,812 in

9 Henry F. Pringle, “Are We Making a Bum Out of G.I. Joe?,” Ladies Home Journal, September 1946.
10 Quoted in U.S. Congress, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Subcommittee on Veterans’ Affairs,
Amend Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, Hearing, June 23, 1949 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1949), 28. According to historians Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin,
“only one of every nine veterans who had received at least one [G.I. Bill] unemployment payment went on
to exhaust this benefit, and only 2.5 percent used it up by receiving benefits continuously for an entire year,”
see Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009), 154.
11 Under the initial structure of the bill—later amended—the VA guaranteed up to 50 percent of a loan

contracted by a veteran from a private institution. The total loan was not to exceed $4,000 and interest 4
percent. See Title III of Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, Pub. L. No. 78-346, 58 Stat. 284.
12 “LI Vets Warned on Home Frauds,” Newsday, May 19, 1952.
13 R. K. McNickle, “Benefits for Korean Veterans,” Editorial Research Reports 1952 (Vol. 1) (Washington,

D.C.: CQ Press, 1952).

14 “A Service to Veterans,” New York Times, June 17, 1945.

247
1947.15 In the postwar years, schools of all kinds routinely charged veterans inflated rates for

tuition and supplies, falsified their cost data and attendance records, billed the government for

unenrolled students, attempted to bribe VA officials, or offered courses in fields seen as

“frivolous”—such as chicken-sexing and cocktail mixing. An advertisement run in northern papers

by one Florida flight training school illustrated how the bill was often more attractive for its

generous payments than for the actual content of the courses: “Veterans, come to Florida. Enjoy

the sunshine. Enjoy the breezes. Bathe in the ocean while you learn to fly. Exercise your rights

under the GI Bill and we will refund $30 of your travel expenses after one week of training.”16 By

1948, the extent of the abuse was such that Albert Maisel called the G.I. Bill’s educational benefits

“the greatest boondoggle of all time” in Collier’s.17

While daily press coverage typically reported only on the more sensational details of this

phenomenon, Maisel and other knowledgeable observers understood that the core of the problem

“[was] to be found in the curious structure of our veterans’ laws,” and specifically of the G.I. Bill. 18

Indeed, while this law undeniably represented a massive expansion of federal power and was thus

commonly seen as an exemplar of progressive New Deal policy—educational benefits alone cost

more than the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild postwar Europe—its design was in fact

fundamentally conservative, as we saw in Chapter 1. The bill was funded by the federal

government, following the rationale that veterans had fought for the nation as a whole, but its

implementation was controlled by individual states and private local institutions. Typical of the

New Deal, this mixed private-state-federal structure was designed to be palatable to the coalition

of Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans that dominated Congress during those

15 House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty Programs under GI
Bill, 29.
16 Homer A. Ramey, “Let’s Stop Abuses in Veterans’ Schools,” Collier’s, May 8, 1948.
17 Albert Q. Maisel, “What’s Wrong with Veterans’ Schools?,” Collier’s, May 1, 1948. For a reprint, see Albert

Q. Maisel, “Veterans’ Training: The $500,000,000 Boondoggle,” Reader’s Digest, June 1948.
18 Maisel, “What’s Wrong with Veterans’ Schools?”

248
years.19 In practice, however, such division of authority resulted in a confusing patchwork of

administrative responses. Some states rose to the challenge of handling the sudden return of

millions of ex-soldiers, while others utterly failed due of a lack of funds, experience, or political

initiative. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the state Department of Public Instruction only had two

or three poorly-qualified inspectors to certify hundreds of schools. It was later revealed that these

agents were routinely bribed by their clients with cars, trips to Atlantic City, or donations to their

wives’ church organ funds in return for a speedy approval.20 In other words, G.I. Bill fraud was

rampant in the postwar years not only because there was plenty of money to be made, but because

government oversight had intentionally been reduced to a minimum to please conservatives in

Congress. Maisel captured the essence of the problem when he wrote that the VA, with “its hands

tied by a bonehead law,” found “itself in the position of extending an open invitation to flight-

school operators and airplane salesmen to indulge in a fast shuffle at the government’s expense.”21

As this situation became increasingly clear, pressure mounted on Congress to do

something, including from veterans themselves. After eight hundred of them marched on the

House Office Building in Washington, D.C., in January 1948, a subcommittee chaired by Ohio

Republican Homer A. Ramey was formed to investigate the issue.22 Like Maisel, Ramsey

concluded that fraud stemmed principally from “the extremely limited power of the VA to

maintain forcibly anything like a decent standard among the thousands of schools offering

training to veterans.” The VA, he argued in Collier’s, “was in the position of a mere paying teller,

19 On the ambivalent design of the G.I. Bill, see Kathleen Frydl, The GI Bill (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009); Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial
Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005).
20 House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty Programs under GI

Bill, 105–9.
21 Maisel, “What’s Wrong with Veterans’ Schools?”
22 For the hearings, see U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Education,

Training, and Rehabilitation, Veterans’ Education and Training Program in Private Schools. Part 1:
Relating to Education and Training Program at Columbia Technical Institute, Washington, D.C., Hearing,
January 23, 1948 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1948); U.S. Congress,
House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Education, Training, and Rehabilitation,
Veterans’ Education and Training Program in Private Schools. Part 2, Hearing, January 30, February 6,
1948 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1948).
249
with virtually nothing to say about the quality of the education offered and very little to say about

its cost.”23 As a result, Congress strove to improve the law by enhancing oversight and restricting

benefits. State approval agencies were given funds to improve their oversight capabilities, first for

on-the-job training in 1946 then for private schools in 1950. Standards were established for the

approval of on-the-job training programs and vocational schools, and veterans were barred from

enrolling in courses deemed “avocational and recreational,” such as dancing, photography, public

speaking, etc. Income ceilings for veteran students and trainees were set. The VA Administrator

was allowed to determine fair and reasonable tuition rates, restrict course changes, and deny

approval to a school which had not been in operation for one year—again, all in an effort to

eliminate fly-by-night schools interested only in robbing gullible veterans of their G.I. Bill

benefits.24

But this law was not the only source of controversy in the larger field of veterans’

benefits. In the late 1940s, the old specters of veterans’ pensions and the bonus, which had proved

such divisive topics in the interwar period, reared their head once again. By 1946, financially

needy and disabled World War I and World War II veterans were entitled to monthly pensions of

$60 ($72 if aged 65 and older).25 In 1949, the Legion and the VFW came together to urge that

these rates be revised upward.26 Endorsing their proposals, John E. Rankin introduced a general

pension bill to give veterans of both World Wars aged 65 and older monthly $90 payments

regardless of need or disability, and $120 to all those so disabled as to require an attendant. 27

23 Ramey, “Let’s Stop Abuses in Veterans’ Schools.”

24 There were eight major amendments to the 1944 G.I. Bill between 1945 and 1950: Pub. L. No. 79-268, 59
Stat. 623; Pub. L. No. 79-679, 60 Stat. 934; Pub. L. No. 80-377, 61 Stat. 791; Pub. L. No. 80-411, 62 Stat. 19;
Pub. L. No. 80-512, 62 Stat. 208; Supplemental Independent Offices Appropriation Act of 1949, Pub. L. No.
80-862, 62 Stat. 1196; Independent Offices Appropriation Act of 1950, Pub. L. No. 81-266, 63 Stat. 631;
Veterans' Education and Training Amendments of 1950, Pub. L. No. 81-610, 64 Stat. 336.
25 Pub. L. 79-662, 60 Stat. 908.
26 Charles Hurd, “Legion, VFW Seek Pensions for All: Latter Organization Asks House Group Also to

Consider World War II Bonus,” New York Times, January 28, 1949.
27 Congress and the Nation, 1945-1964, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964),

1345.
250
With 19 million potential recipients, the bill’s estimated future impact was colossal. According to

VA Administrator Carl Gray, Jr., it would cost a minimum of $1.8 billion the first year—a quarter

of the VA’s budget—and upwards of $100 billion over the next fifty.28 Unsurprisingly, it ran into

fierce opposition from both Congress and the Truman administration.29 Most Representatives,

however, feared being portrayed as “anti-veteran” and were reluctant to openly come out against

a bill that had the support of the two largest veterans’ groups.30 Thus when it finally came to a roll

call vote on the floor of the House in late March 1949, its opponents managed to have it

recommitted it to committee only by the smallest of margins, 208 to 207. Rankin later drafted a

watered-down compromise bill that passed the House in June, but it died in the Senate.31

In the meantime, the idea of a bonus for World War II veterans was making headway.

As Sam Stavisky wrote in Collier’s in July 1949, “[t]hroughout the debate on the pension for

veterans of both World Wars, the irrepressible shadow of the World War II bonus has been lurking

in the background.”32 An unlikely coalition of groups including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the

AMVETS, the Communist Party, and trade unions like the United Auto Workers had begun

pressing for an “adjusted compensation” bill similar to the one granted veterans of the Great War

in 1924. Such a measure, they argued, was needed out of fairness to the millions of older World

War II veterans who, because they already had a job and a home before enlisting, had had no use

for the G.I. Bill.33 Sixteen states had already passed a similar measure by mid-1949 for a total cost

28 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Pensions for Veterans of World Wars I and II—
Legislative Programs of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans,
and American Veterans of World War II, Hearing, January 27, February 1-3, 8-9, 1949 (Washington, D.C.:
United States Government Printing Office, 1949), 46; John D. Moriss, “Veteran Pensions Opposed by
Truman: Gray, VA Head, Says Bill of the Legion Would Cost Billions Each Year,” New York Times, February
2, 1949; “100 Billion Pension Seen: Veterans Administration Makes New Estimate of Bill’s Cost,” New York
Times, February 27, 1949.
29 Robert C. Albright, “Uproar Reigns as House Group Reports Veteran Pension Bill: Pension Action Brings

Uproar,” The Washington Post, February 16, 1949.

30 “$90 Veterans’ Pensions Under Attack in House: Representative Byrnes Calls Rankin Bill ‘Dishonest,’ Is

Applauded for Stand,” New York Herald Tribune, February 17, 1949.
31 Congress and the Nation, I:1345.
32 Sam Stavisky, “After Pensions - The Bonus?,” Collier’s, July 23, 1949.
33 Ibid.

251
of nearly $3 billion, and most observers assumed it was only a matter of time before the federal

government would follow suit.34 While veterans’ pensions already threatened to cripple the

federal budget, the perspective of a bonus was even more sinister. Estimates of the total cost of

one proposal put forward by the VFW and AMVETS ranged from $15 to $67.5 billion (by way of

comparison, total federal spending for that year was $39.5 billion).35 Rankin enthusiastically

endorsed this measure, which the New York Times called “the most fantastic of all post-war

veterans bills.”36 The mere mention of rumors that his Committee was about to report a bonus bill

to the House was enough to make the headlines of major newspapers.37 In the end, however, such

news never materialized.

In much the same way as for the debate over the First Hoover Commission, the position

of public opinion concerning veterans’ pensions and the bonus was ambivalent. When asked in

1947 whether they thought that “veterans’ benefits are adequate at present,” 53 percent of

respondents to a Gallup poll replied by the affirmative, seemingly indicating that they saw no need

for new programs or major reform efforts.38 When it came to specific benefits, however, the

picture was more varied. Only 48 percent of respondents to another survey that same year

supported the idea of a federal bonus.39 52 percent approved without qualifications of a bill

34 “Bay State Among 16 to Approve Veterans’ Bonus,” Daily Boston Globe, March 13, 1949; “Taxpayers,
Including Veterans, Survey High Cost of Bonuses,” Saturday Evening Post, July 2, 1949.
35 “Payment of Bonus Urged by Amvets: Members Support Immediate Grant—Will Ask Congress to Vote

$40,000,000,000,” New York Times, January 17, 1949; “Vets Groups Ask Billions for Pensions, Adjusted
Pay (Bonus),” Daily Boston Globe, January 28, 1949. For federal spending, see table Ea636-643 in Susan
B. Carter et al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present, Millennial ed.
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
36 “Mr. Rankin’s ‘Bonus,’” New York Times, July 31, 1949.
37 “Veterans’ Bonus May Become Hot Congress Issue,” Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1950; “Bonus for Vets

Likely to Form Hot 1950 Issue: House Group Will Hear Spokesmen’s Views,” Chicago Daily Tribune,
January 9, 1950.
38 Gallup Organization. Gallup Poll (AIPO), Feb. 1947, “Do you think that veterans’ benefits are adequate at

present?” USGALLUP.47-390.QKT15A. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion
Research, iPOLL, accessed May 29, 2017.
39 45 percent of respondents were against it, and 7 percent had no opinion, see Gallup Organization. Gallup

Poll (AIPO), Feb. 1947, “Do you think the Government in Washington should provide a Federal bonus this
year for veterans of World War II?” USGALLUP.47-390.QK14A, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper
Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL, accessed May 29, 2017.
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providing $90 pensions to all veterans of World War I and II when they reached 65.40 These

results certainly showed that a significant proportion of the population was supportive of

veterans’ benefits, though it was by no means an overwhelming majority. Indeed, they also

revealed that many Americans were unwilling to write former soldiers a blank check.

The national press was more critical. To the question of whether military veterans were

entitled to uniquely generous benefits on the sole basis of their service, the response was almost

uniformly negative. In general, most papers rejected the idea of establishing “war veterans as a

specially favored class in the American community.”41 The New York Times, for instance, argued

that demanding a bonus or a pension amounted to saying “that service in the armed forces in

wartime is not a simple duty of citizenship but an action that merits a special handout from the

state.” “It is the duty of the citizen to defend his country,” it went on, and “he should expect no

special reward for carrying out his duty…Nothing is too good for the veteran who suffered

disability in line of duty; but veterans are not and should not form a privileged class apart from

other citizens. To encourage such distinction is to invite the eventual destruction of democracy.”42

Readers likewise agreed that military service should remain one of the “duties and obligations” of

citizenship, and that veterans should not become “mercenary soldiers.”43 Collier’s made the same

argument in a special editorial on veterans’ benefits, in which it stated plainly that it “does not

believe that our millions of veterans should be set apart as a separate class and treated like

mercenaries.”44 Using the same vocabulary, the Christian Science Monitor declared itself

“convinced” that “demands for benefits for the completely able-bodied, which would tend to set

40 Gallup Organization. Gallup Poll (AIPO), March 1949 “A bill has been introduced in Congress to pay a
pension of $90 a month--or about a $1,000 a year--to all U.S. (United States) veterans of World Wars I and
II when they reach 65. Do you approve or disapprove of this?” USGALLUP.49-438.QKT12. Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL, both accessed May 29, 2017.
41 “Danger Ahead,” New York Times, February 17, 1949.
42 “A New Bonus Plan,” New York Times, September 7, 1949.
43 James W. McGill, “Against the Veterans’ Pension,” New York Times, March 7, 1949.
44 Stavisky, “After Pensions - The Bonus?”

253
veterans apart as a privileged class, are not supported by every man who served his country in

uniform,” but were instead the product of the “grab philosophy” of “professional veterans.”45

These various statements reflected the extent to which veterans and their benefits had

come to occupy a central place in postwar American life. Prior to World War II, veterans had never

accounted for more than 5 percent of the total population. By 1949, however, they reached a peak

of 12.5 percent.46 The shadow cast by their benefits loomed even larger: from 1947 to 1950, the

federal government spent more on these than on any other single welfare program—be it social

insurance, public aid, health and medical programs, education, or housing.47 And they were not

expected to fade away anytime soon. To the contrary, the passage of the second peacetime draft

in 1948 made it clear that a growing share of the population would be entitled to veteran benefits

in the future, as the nation would need to remain on constant war footing to fight the Cold War

against world communism. As a 1950 study from the Brookings Institution noted before the

conflict in Korea began, “even if there are no more wars,” the proportion of veterans in the total

population will continue to increase. “If we maintain a standing army of 1.5 million men and

continue the draft, there will be an annual increment of about 400,000 new veterans,” its authors

argued, with “marriages and births” producing “an increase in veterans’ families to an estimated

62.5 million persons by 1957.”48 Truman himself recognized that “[b]efore many years, nearly all

the population may be veterans or the dependents of veterans. This means a profound change in

the social and economic import of Government programs which affect veterans.”49 The inclusion

45 “Allies Against Grab,” The Christian Science Monitor, August 22, 1949.
46 In 1870, there were 1.8 million veterans in the U.S. for a total population of 38.5 million; in 1920, 5.1
million veterans for a total population of 106 million; in 1949, 18.9 million for a total population of 149
million, see Series Ed245-261 in Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States. These numbers did
not include Confederate Civil War veterans.
47 See Series Bf188-195 in Ibid.
48 Lewis Meriam and Karl T. Schlotterbeck, The Cost and Financing of Social Security (Washington:

Brookings Institution, 1950), 97.

49 Harry S. Truman: “Annual Budget Message to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1952,” January 15, 1951. Online

by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13810
254
of veterans’ relatives mattered, for they were also eligible for a number of benefits such as civil

service preference or survivors’ pensions. Put simply, veterans’ welfare state had grown to such

gargantuan proportions that its long-term impact on the rest of the country could no longer be

ignored.

From widespread G.I. Bill fraud to the controversial push for veterans’ pensions and the

bonus, the late 1940s witnessed a remarkable turn in the public discussion about veterans’

benefits. 1949 was also the year when the First Hoover Commission released its final report, which

as we saw previously constituted a direct assault on the separate structure of veterans’ welfare

state. Combined with the growing realization that veterans and their benefits not only were there

to stay but would likely consume a preponderant share of public resources in the years to come,

these developments contributed to the same underlying phenomenon. The enthusiastic desire of

a grateful nation to reward those who fought on its behalf had turned over the span of just a few

years into intense criticism of these same benefits and generated a soul-searching discussion

about the future of the U.S. welfare state as a whole. The profound transformations that war in

the Far East would bring about were the products of this more skeptical climate.

The Legion in the War: Behind the Troops, Against the Administration

On June 25, 1950, the North Korean military crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea.

Within days, the long-simmering civil war between the Soviet-backed North and the U.S.-backed

South escalated into global warfare. With the backing of the United Nations Security Council, the

U.S. responded by leading a coalition of twenty-one countries to defend the South. The American

Legion threw itself behind the war effort, playing as it had in the previous world war the role of

broker between individual Americans and the state. This time, however, the group grew more and

255
more critical of the Truman administration, until it broke openly with it during the controversy

over MacArthur’s dismissal. In so doing, the Legion increasingly abandoned the position that it

had (however briefly) occupied as a mainstream group, and aligned itself more and more with the

right end of the political spectrum.

Unlike World War II, which had received the support of an overwhelming majority of

Americans, the Korean War quickly became unpopular. In June 1951, a year after it had begun,

only 44 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll thought the U.S. had done the right thing by

intervening; four months later, 56 percent agreed with a U.S. Senator that the Korean War was an

“utterly useless war.”50 This widespread disapproval and disengagement stemmed from the very

top of the nation’s leadership. President Truman himself, in a press conference four days after the

outbreak of hostilities, repeated twice that “We are not at war,” and that U.S involvement should

be seen as merely “a police action under the United Nations” to rescue a country “unlawfully

attacked by a bunch of bandits.”51 Precisely because the U.S. was acting under the umbrella of the

U.N., Congress never passed a formal declaration of war. The consequences of this official denial

were far-reaching. If both the executive and the legislative denied that the country was at war,

some Americans reasoned, then why should they care? Especially once the conflict turned into a

stalemate in mid-1951, press coverage became limited.52 Complaints of widespread “public

apathy” became a constant refrain in Legion statements. In August 1952, for instance, a Legion

Auxiliary official argued that her fellow citizens were “acting as though they were living in

50 Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, Minor American Election Study 1951, June 1951, “Do
you think we did the right thing in getting into the fighting in Korea last summer (1950) or
should we have stayed out?” USCPS.51PRE.Q38; Gallup Organization, Gallup Poll, October 1951 “A
United States senator says that the Korean war is an utterly ‘useless war’. Do you agree or
disagree with this?” USGALLUP.110551.RK05, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public
Opinion Research, iPOLL, accessed April 7, 2016.
51 Harry S. Truman: “The President's News Conference,” June 29, 1950. Online by Gerhard Peters and John

T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13544

52 Andrew J. Huebner, The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to

the Vietnam Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), chap. 4.
256
peacetime” and called on them to realize that “this is definitely a war.”53 But the most demoralizing

effect of this denial was on the soldiers stationed in Korea, who were fighting, getting injured, and

dying by the tens of thousands in a war that their commander-in-chief refused to acknowledge as

such. As a Marine veteran complained angrily in February 1952, “Americans in Korea have been

doublecrossed [sic] by Americans in the United States,” fighting “for a nation which gives every

indication of not caring, which appears to prefer looking the other way, which concerns itself

virtually not at all with the fearful casualties, and which has dedicated itself almost exclusively to

the betterment of its individual backyards.”54

It was against this backdrop that the Legion took on its traditional mission of assisting

the U.S. government in times of crisis. A few days after conflict started in Korea, National

Commander George N. Craig called for a special meeting of all forty-nine continental

Departments “to discuss plans for immediate mobilization of the entire Legion.” The session

ended with the adoption of a statement of policy listing the various goals that the group would

pursue in wartime, including among others Universal Military Service, the adoption of a strong

civil defense, the reinforcement of the Merchant Marine, and “Protection from sabotage by

termite subversives.” In a televised speech on CBS, Craig declared that “[t]here can no longer be

any doubt of the gravity of the crisis facing America and the world today” and pledged that

Legionnaires “stand ready to perform what tasks the Government may assign to us.”55 In making

this dramatic announcement, the National Commander was only perpetuating the same role that

his organization had played during World War II (and was playing during the Second Red Scare),

as one of the many private groups that acted as the right arm of the state. The foremost example

of this continuing and mutually beneficial relationship was the Legion’s FBI Contact program.

53 “U. S. Urged to Take Wartime Attitude: Incoming President of Legion Auxiliary Sees Americans Apathetic
Toward Korea,” New York Times, August 25, 1952.
54 James C. Jones, Jr., “All’s Quiet on the Home Front,” ALM, February 1952.
55 “Universal Military Training Made First Objective in New Policy Formed by National Exec. Committee,”

American Legion Magazine, September 1950, p. 29. (ALM hereafter)

257
Started in 1940, it had been suspended after the armistice with Japan, but was immediately and

secretly resumed in July 1950.56

The federalist structure of the Legion was particularly well-suited for this role of

middleman between the state and the general public. The national organization, state

Departments, and local Posts all took a myriad of initiatives, sometimes in coordination with each

other but more often on their own, in order to support the war effort. Both National Commanders

Erle Cocke, Jr., and Lewis K. Gough, for instance, visited the Korean battlefront in person to

express their support for the troops.57 According to the American Legion Magazine, hundreds of

Posts followed the National Executive Committee’s encouragement to either cooperate with

recognized blood donor banks such as the Red Cross or establish their own. 58 On Armistice Day,

1950, for instance, the Frank W. Sidler Post No. 40 in Danville, Pennsylvania, made a record blood

donation of 146 pints.59 A Post in Minot, North Dakota, collected some 25,000 pounds of clothes

and $1,000 in cash for the relief of Korean civilians, which were shipped to Korea free of charge

by railroad companies and Navy ships (see image below).60

56 Joanne M. Hepp, “Administrative Insubordination and Bureaucratic Principles: The Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s American Legion Contact Program” (M.A., Marquette University, 1985); Athan Theoharis,
“The FBI and the American Legion Contact Program, 1940-1966,” Political Science Quarterly 100, no. 2
(July 1985): 271–86.
57 “Legion Commander in Korea,” New York Times, March 10, 1951; “National Commander Gough Makes

Trip to Far East; Gets First Hand View of Korean Front,” ALM, December 1952, p. 33
58 “Veteran Newsletter: Legion Called On to Step Up Blood Program,” ALM, March 1951, p. 38.
59 “Legionitems,” ALM, February 1951, p. 33.
60 “North Dakota Post Collects Clothes for Korea,” ALM, January 1952, p. 31.

258
 This
photograph
shows how civic
associations
(the Legion
Department
Commander,
right), private
businesses (the
Seattle
Terminal
manager, left),
and the state
(the Rear
Admiral,
center)
collaborated on
behalf of the
war effort.
Source:
American
Legion
Magazine,
January 1952,
p. 31.

In Davenport, Iowa, the Post No. 26 collected “nearly 1,000 pound of magazines in a drive to

supply reading material for hospitalized Korean veterans.”61 In the port of New York City, through

which the bodies of thousands of war dead transited, Legionnaires conducted the reception

ceremonies, helped relatives make the trip, and offered to help with the burial rites.62 In December

1952, the Keith Powell Legion Post in Claremont, California, sent every soldier from the city a

Christmas-greeting message; those stationed in Korea received an additional gift parcel.63 That

same month, twenty-six Posts and sixteen units of the Washington, D.C., Legion and Auxiliary

61 “Legionitems,” ALM, July 1951, p. 33.

62 “Korean War Dead Returned through Port of New York,” ALM, March 1952, p. 36.
63 “Legion Post to Send Gifts to GIs in Korea,” Los Angeles Times, December 7, 1952.

259
sent their millionth cigarette to soldiers in Korea, with the help of the Department of Defense.64

Legionnaires everywhere were eager to do their share.

The group also took more systematic initiatives to raise the morale of the troops. In

November 1950, for instance, the Legion reinstated its “morale-building team” for war

amputees.65 The plan was to have amputees “who have succeeded in rehabilitating themselves

visit the new amputees from the Korean hostilities.”66 Initially made up of two amputees, the team

visited several military and VA hospitals throughout the war and also met with the President, the

Armed Forces Medical Policy Council, and the Surgeons General of the Army, Navy and Air

Force.67 Two years later, the Legion adopted another program, this time to support “public

ceremonies for the presentation of Certificates of Honor and Appreciation” to returning

veterans.68 In Chicago, these Certificates, called “Scrolls of Honor,” were written in solemn gothic

script, and signed by the Mayor, the Illinois Legion Commander, and a Colonel.69 By May 1953, at

least twenty Departments and “hundreds of communities” had adopted the program.70

But by far the single most successful project of this kind was “Hometown, U.S.A.”

Officially launched at the 1952 National Convention, it sought to connect active-duty personnel

with civilians through a tape exchange program.71 Anyone with a relative serving overseas could

go to their local Legion Post and record a short message on tape, accompanied with a request to

play a certain musical tune (see image below). Provided at a discount rate by a private company,

the tapes were then turned over to the Department of Defense and shipped overseas. Upon receipt,

64 “Million Smokes Sent to Korea by D.C. Legion,” ALM, December 1952, p. 33.
65 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, November 17, 18, and 19, 1950, ALA, p. 71.
66 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1951, ALA p. 84.
67 Proceedings of the 33rd National Convention of the American Legion (Miami, 1951), 61, 311; Proceedings

of the 34th National Convention of the American Legion, 331.

68 “National Executive Committee Sets Schedule for 1952 at October Meeting; Names Must Legislative

Program,” ALM, December 1952, p. 31.

69 “Chicago City and Legion Has Honor for New Vets,” ALM, November 1952, p. 36.
70 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, April 29-30, May 1, 1953, ALA, p. 118.
71 Ibid., p. 118. It was inspired from a program called “Stateside Calling,” introduced on August 28, 1948 on

WTVM, the Armed Forces station in the Philippines, see Eugene N. Houck to Post Commanders,
“‘Hometown USA Week’ in Michigan, Monday, March 9 through 15, 1953,” Box 31, Folder: Public Relations
File: January-April, 1953, Wisconsin American Legion Records, Wisconsin Historical Society.
260
soldiers could either listen to their greeting privately or forward it to an Armed Forces radio

station for broadcast, and then use the tape to record their own voice message and send their tune

request back to their folks at home.72 This simple formula proved astoundingly popular. By mid-

1953, the program received an average of 200 requests per day, with over 2,000 radio stations

having signed on across the country.73 As the summer began, in fact, the demand for tape

recorders overseas overran the military’s supply.74 Tune requests came not only from Korea but

from the vast network of U.S. bases across the globe, including Anchorage, Saudi Arabia, Tokyo,

Berlin, Pearl Harbor, Tripoli, Trieste, and Seoul.75 This program was so successful that Defense

Secretary Wilson gave the Legion an award for exceptional and outstanding service.76

A Legionnaire is seen here helping a mother and her baby record a message to be sent overseas under
the Legion’s “Hometown USA” program in Flint, Michigan (ca. 1953).

72 “‘Hometown, U.S.A.’ Details Simple: Program Provides Post with Commu’ty-Benefit Project,” The
Michigan Legionnaire, December 1952, p. 5, ALA.
73 “‘Hometown USA’ Gets Big Mail,” ALM, June 1953, p. 32.
74 Robert B. Pitkin, “They Talk with their Boys Overseas,” ALM, September 1953.
75 Proceedings of 35th National Convention of the American Legion (St. Louis, 1953), 227.
76 Proceedings of 35th National Convention of the American Legion, pp. 81-83.

261
 Source: Hometown USA, Project Scrapbook, 1953, oversize volume 3, American Legion, Dept. of
Michigan Records, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.

By helping the state, the Legion was of course also helping itself. Just as in World War

II, the group never lost track of the fact that active-duty soldiers were potential future members.

As one internal memorandum on “Hometown, U.S.A.,” commented, for instance, the program

“spotlights the American Legion in the community very effectively. By so doing, it cannot help but

stimulate membership…Each of these men participating in ‘Hometown USA’ is delighted with and

thankful to The American Legion. Each of these men is being subtly made to think very seriously

about joining our organization upon discharge.”77 Likewise, the Michigan Legion Commander

noted in a letter to all of his state’s Posts that “in addition to human interest, we cannot lose sight

of the fact that the American Legion has a very practical interest in the four million potential

Legionnaires who are serving the nation’s Armed Forces. ‘Hometown USA’…is an effective and

relatively inexpensive means of keeping the name and purpose of the American Legion before

these potential members at a personal level.”78 Beyond its own membership, the Legion also

sought to enhance its broader public profile. A report from its Public Relations Commission, for

instance, recognized that encouraging communities to provide Certificates of Honor to their

returning veterans was “originally intended as a much needed public service and as an aid to

membership, [and] has in addition furnished the Legion with many columns of favorable press

publicity.”79 Likewise, the visits of its National Commanders to the Korean frontlines were not

merely about raising the troops’ morale; as Erle Cocke himself admitted, his trip also “[lent] itself

to publicity en route.”80 These examples demonstrated, the partnership between the state and

77 National Public Relations Commission, “Hometown USA Memorandum,” undated (ca. September 3,
1953), Box 61, Folder 232, Harry W. Colmery Ms. Collection, Library and Archives Division, Kansas State
Historical Society, Topeka.
78 Eugene N. Houck to Post Commanders, “‘Hometown USA Week’ in Michigan, Monday, March 9 through

15, 1953,” Box 31, Folder: Public Relations File: January-April, 1953, Wisconsin American Legion Records,
Wisconsin Historical Society.
79 Proceedings of 35th National Convention of the American Legion, p. 229.
80 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 10, 11 and 12, p. 9, ALA.

262
private groups was always a two-way street, with each side motivated as much by the public good

as by private interests.

Though the Legion supported the troops faithfully throughout the conflict, the same

could not be said of its relationship with the Truman administration. In this respect, wartime

dynamics served to amplify a phenomenon already discussed in the previous chapter, whereby

the Legion grew increasingly critical of the President and his cabinet as a result of mounting

anxiety over the threat of domestic and global communism. As long as U.N. forces seemed to have

the upper hand in Korea, Legion officials remained silent. After the unexpected intervention of

Chinese troops in October 1950 forced the Supreme Commander of the U.N. Coalition Douglas

MacArthur to pull back, however, they grew more and more critical of the administration’s

strategy. For them, Truman’s refusal to escalate the conflict lest the U.S. would be drawn into a

global war with the Soviets was pussyfooting at best, and treasonous at worst. In early December,

for instance, Cocke and the leaders of the DAV, VFW, and AMVETS sent the President a scathing

joint letter. “No one knows how many GIs have died because of imposed limitations which have

prevented them from fighting on equal terms with the Communist aggressors,” the letter read.

Our fighting men “must not be curbed by restrictions and delays which will lead to unnecessary

casualties…They must not be sacrificed to delusions of appeasement.” Specifically, the letter urged

Truman to authorize the bombing of “vital military targets” across the Manchurian border, and

to give MacArthur “full authority to employ such means as may be necessary to save our troops

from disaster.”81 In May 1951, the Legion officially called for the U.S. government to assist Chiang

Kai-Shek’s Nationalist forces in invading the Chinese mainland, to bomb enemy bases in

Manchuria, to blockade Chinese ports, and to defend Formosa.82

81 Erle Cocke, Jr., to the President of the United States, December 6, 1950, International Affairs, Korea,
War, 1950, A-Z, ALA.
82 “Affairs of Legion Reviewed in Meeting of National Executive Committee; Strong Foreign Policy Stated,”

ALM, June 1951, p. 30.

263
 The growing alienation between the Democratic administration and the Legion came to

a head with the dismissal of MacArthur in April 1951. Truman took this decision out of concern

that the five-star General was growing increasingly insubordinate. For the Legion as for most

Americans, however, MacArthur was a widely popular hero of World War II. In October 1950,

when the National Convention of the Legion passed a resolution citing him “for his outstanding

leadership and loyalty,” the mere mention of his name “brought cheers and roars of approval”

from the audience.83 Upon return from his visit to Korea where he had met with the General,

Cocke declared to newsmen on April 9, 1951 that MacArthur had to fight “with both hands tied

behind his back,” and that he should be allowed to bomb enemy positions in Manchuria. “There

is no excuse to play a football game where you cannot score a touchdown,” he claimed. 84 As a

result, the President abruptly canceled a meeting with Cocke scheduled for the next day.85 When

MacArthur’s relief was made official the day after, the National Commander commented that he

was “shocked by this news” and that this was a “dark…hour.”86 Later, he argued in typical red-

baiting language that managing the war was “no job for swivel-chair politicians or striped-pants

diplomats. This is a job for soldiers.”87 Such statements reflected the opinion of an overwhelming

majority of Legionnaires, who made their feelings known through a deluge of phone calls, letters,

and telegrams to the group’s national office in the days after MacArthur’s relief. 88 Almost all their

messages were sharply critical of the President. MacArthur later gave a speech to the group’s 1951

National Convention, in which he charged the administration with having a “secret plan” to sell

83 Proceedings of the 32nd National Convention of the American Legion (Los Angeles, 1950), 78; “What the
Convention Did,” ALM, November 1950, p. 41.
84 Ansel E. Talbert, “Cocke Terms U. M. T. a Must For Survival: Legion Head, After World Tour, Calls Korea

G. I.s Overworked, Battle-Tired,” New York Herald Tribune, April 10, 1951; “Legion Chief Says MacArthur
Has to Fight With Hands Tied,” The Christian Science Monitor, April 9, 1951.
85 Edward T. Folliard, “Truman Cancels Date With Legion Head,” The Washington Post, April 11, 1951.
86 “Following statement was released by Commander Cocke to wire services and Washington papers at 5

A.M. EST this morning (April 11),” International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, Dismissal of MacArthur, ALA.
87 “Cocke Asks Soldiers Make War Decisions,” New York Times, April 23, 1951.
88 Jack Cejnar to McGinnis, April 11, 1951; Henry H. Dudley to Erle Cocke Jr., April 11, 1951, International

Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, Dismissal of MacArthur, ALA. This section of the microfilms contains hundreds
of similar pro-MacArthur messages.
264
Formosa to Communist China in exchange for peace in Korea and argued that some of the

country’s leaders were animated more by “Marxian philosophy” than “a desire to preserve

freedom.”89 In response to these wild accusations, Legionnaires burst into applause forty-nine

times and gave him three standing ovations.90 When he was finished, Alvin Owsley, who was

present on the speakers’ platform that day, saw “the immense auditorium rose to its feet with

thunderous applause.”91

By coming to MacArthur’s defense in such a high-profile dispute with Truman, the

Legion was clearly taking sides in a highly partisan debate. Ever since the “loss” of China in 1949,

the politics of the Cold War and national security had grown increasingly polarized, with

conservatives in the Republican and Democratic parties taking advantage of this event to attack

Truman for being “soft” on Communism.92 There was very little daylight indeed between Cocke’s

blistering attacks and the position of conservative Republicans such as Ohio Senator Robert Taft,

who was also considering whether to impeach Truman in response to his dismissal of

MacArthur.93 Though Legion officials never explicitly backed the GOP (the group’s Constitution

prohibited political endorsements), the similarities were obvious. After Cocke observed in May

1951 that “This is the first time in American history that we have gone into a war afraid that we

might make our enemy mad,” the Democratic Mayor of St. Louis Joseph M. Darst decided to

boycott a luncheon at which the National Commander was scheduled to speak.94 Likewise, one

longtime Legionnaire complained that he had “noticed with increasing dissatisfaction that the top

89 Proceedings of the 33rd National Convention of the American Legion, p. 47.

90 “What Was Done, What Is Planned,” ALM, November 1951.
91 Alvin M. Owsley, “Broadcast for Sunday, October 28, 1951: Truman Administration Has Lost Face,” Box

643, Folder 8, Alvin M. Owsley Collection, University of North Texas Archives.

92 Joyce Mao, Asia First: China and the Making of Modern American Conservatism (Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 2015).

93 William S. White, “G.O.P. Hits Ouster: Republican Leaders Discuss M’arthur’s Dismissal,” New York

Times, April 12, 1951.

94 “Head of Legion Demands All-Out Effort in Korea,” New York Times, May 13, 1951; “St. Louis Mayor

Boycotts Talk By Legion Head: Avoids Luncheon Where Cocke Attacks Policies of Truman in Korea War,”
New York Herald Tribune, May 13, 1951.
265
brass in the Legion has been attempting to make the Legion a branch of the Republican party.”95

In May 1952, 26 percent of respondents in a Roper survey identified the leaders of the Legion (and

the VFW) as a Republican-leaning group, while only 11 percent identified it as Democratic.96

If Cocke was concerned by these findings, he certainly did not show it. Continuing to

employ red-baiting tactics, he publicly condemned “our present-day Benedict Arnolds” in the

administration, those “poor, deluded people who fancy themselves as intellectuals, liberals or

what have you,” and who “by their confused thinking and acting…serve as the communists’ best

friends.”97 In a private letter, he indirectly compared the government’s “definition of victory in the

Far East” to “that of the Communists,” arguing that they could be seen as virtually

“synonymous.”98 His successors as National Commander would largely follow in his footsteps. In

1952, the Legion Convention passed a resolution calling for Truman to give the military complete

authority in the conduct of the war and to abandon “political control.”99 In a speech to the AFL,

National Commander Lewis K. Gough argued that the U.N. should authorize the use of atomic

weapons if necessary—a position he repeated several times over the next months.100 Clearly meant

to attack the administration, such statements marked the increasing alignment of the Legion with

conservative groups.

95 William V. Frazier, Jr., to National Headquarters, May 14, 1951, International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950,
Dismissal of MacArthur, ALA.
96 National Broadcasting Company. Roper Commercial Survey, May, 1952 “Which do you think most leaders

of the American Legion/Veterans of Foreign Wars/etc. will probably favor for the president this year
(1952)—the Republicans or the Democrats?” USROPER.RCOM52-059.Q21E. Cornell University, Ithaca,
NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL, accessed May 29, 2017.
97 Erle Cocke, Jr., “Who Is Letting Our GIs Down?” ALM, May 1951.
98 “Suggested Reply Re: Clarkson Letter,” October 26, 1951; Donald R. Wilson to W. R. Clarkson, December

12, 1951, International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, A-Z, ALA.

99 Richard H. Parke, “Legionnaires Ask That War in Korea Be Left to Military: In Attack on Truman Policies,

They Urge Abandonment of ‘Political Control’ Abroad,” New York Times, August 29, 1952.
100 Robert A. Bedolis, “Legion’s Head For Bombing Of Manchuria: Gough Tells Delegates of A. F. L. Atomic

Weapons Should Be Used in Korea,” New York Herald Tribune, September 18, 1952; “Legion Chief Urges
Ultimatum on Korea,” New York Times, October 26, 1952; “Full-Scale War in Korea Urged by Legion Chief,”
Los Angeles Times, November 10, 1952.
266
 The growing alienation between the Truman administration and the American Legion

certainly did not prevent the group from staunchly backing the war effort. At all levels—local,

state, and national—the Legion channeled its energy into supporting the troops. Nevertheless, the

Korean War did not witness the same top-level coordination between Legion and administration

that had taken place during World War II, largely because the veterans’ organization was moving

further and further to the right of the political spectrum. This development would have crucial

consequences when the Legion began to lobby Congress and the White House to pass new benefits

for the next generation of veterans.

The Legion and the Debate over Korean War Veterans’ Benefits

The outbreak of war in the Korean peninsula immediately set into motion a wide-ranging

debate in the U.S. over which benefits its future ex-soldiers should be entitled to. This discussion

gradually progressed from the more traditional and undisputed benefits for veterans injured in

combat to the more recent and controversial G.I. Bill-style readjustment provisions. Throughout,

it was clear that what was at stake was not only the fate of one new generation of veterans, but the

legacy of World War II’s postwar, the Legion’s ideal of martial citizenship, and the future of

veterans’ welfare state.

The peculiar situation that existed at the dawn of the conflict is worth explaining. Because

of the absence of an official declaration of war by Congress, former soldiers who had enlisted after

June 27, 1950 were initially treated as “peacetime veterans.” In practice, this status meant that

individual veterans and their dependents had access to significantly less benefits than their World

War II counterparts (who were treated as wartime veterans) unless they had been disabled or died

as a direct result of combat. In addition, because so much of veterans’ legislation was war-specific,

267
they at first did not enjoy many of the benefits available to their predecessors. As of August 1950,

for example, most Korean War veterans did not have access to vocational rehabilitation, G.I. Bill

benefits, mustering-out pay, and homestead preference. Neither could they extend their National

Service Life Insurance after separation. Access to VA hospitals was likewise restricted to those

who had suffered service-connected disabilities.101 The basic issue facing lawmakers at the dawn

of the Korean War was therefore the following: should the same benefits granted to veterans of

previous wars be extended to this new generation, or should they receive new ones?

Since the attention of most Americans was initially focused on the course of hostilities,

such discussions began out of the spotlight. Less than two weeks after the U.S. decided to

intervene, the staff of the Legion’s National Rehabilitation Commission was already working to

prepare drafts of appropriate legislation.102 In mid-July, John Rankin sent a letter to all veterans’

groups asking for their input concerning the extension of G.I. Bill benefits to Korean War

veterans.103 At the Legion’s emergency meeting that month, Craig announced that his group would

“not advocate any new veterans’ pension or bonus legislation for the duration of the war” (“It is a

case today of powder or pensions,” he proclaimed, “bullets or bonuses!”), and would instead focus

on making more benefits available to veterans of the current conflict.104 As Craig spoke, a

consensus was already emerging in favor of the blanket continuation of all existing benefits.

Several days earlier, Senator Harry P. Cain (R-Wash.) argued that since he could not see “any

difference at all” between the Korean War and World War II, he had introduced a bill to extend

the same benefits to both cohorts of veterans.105 When Cocke met with Truman later in the year,

101 Rehabilitation Memorandum, no. 35 (August 4, 1950), International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950,
Manpower, Benefits, ALA.
102 Robert McCurdy to George N. Craig, July 7, 1950, International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, Manpower,

Benefits, ALA.
103 J. E. Rankin to Miles D. Kennedy, July 13, 1950, International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, Manpower,

Benefits, ALA.
104 Quoted in Proceedings of the 32nd National Convention of the American Legion, p. 239.
105 Hon. Harry P. Cain (WA), “Extension of Certain Benefits to American Forces in Korea,” Congressional

Record 96, no. 7 (July 10, 1950): 9790–91.

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he reported that the President agreed that “GI benefits for the veterans of Korea would be most in

order.”106 By early September, there was already over a dozen bills introduced in Congress to

extend to Korean War veterans the same G.I. Bill benefits as their predecessors.107 Following the

strategy that had worked so well six years earlier, the Legion tried to consolidate all these different

initiatives into a single omnibus bill, which Rankin introduced on its behalf that same month. Not

only did the bill recognize Korean War veterans as wartime veterans, it gave them access to VA

hospital care, vocational rehabilitation, and the G.I Bill’s educational, loan guaranty, and

unemployment compensation benefits.108

It is at this point that the long shadow of World War II intersected with the politics of the

Korean War. Had the 1944 G.I. Bill not been the source of so much controversy, the vote to extend

it to veterans of the ongoing conflict would probably have reached a speedy, consensual, and

positive conclusion. But precisely because this bill continued to cause so much fraud and wasteful

spending, it was far from obvious that it should simply be extended without revisions. In 1949, in

fact, observers had begun to notice that the number of veteran students enrolled in trade and

vocational schools under this bill was not following the natural downward trend that was taking

place in colleges and on-farm and on-the-job training. Instead of declining, as was expected,

enrollment in these schools was growing fast, and estimated to average 936,000 in 1951—41

percent higher than in 1949. In his budget message to Congress in January 1950, the President

raised concerns about this program.109 At his demand, the Bureau of the Budget and the VA

investigated the situation. Submitted a month later, their report confirmed his fears. As Truman

put it, the agencies found that “the recent rapid increase…has included training of less than

acceptable quality.” In many cases, veterans either received instruction that was below

106 “Truman Quoted In Favor Of Veterans’ Benefits,” The Sun, November 15, 1950.
107 “Sponsors Abandon G.I. Rights in Korea,” New York Times, September 5, 1950.
108 “Veterans Newsletter: Proposed Benefits for Korean Vets,” ALM, November 1950, p. 25.
109 Harry S. Truman: “Annual Budget Message to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1951,” January 9, 1950. Online

by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13765
269
“reasonable standards” or were trained “for occupations for which they are not suited or…in which

they will be unable to find jobs.” “Such failure,” he added gravely, “is costly to the veteran, to his

family, and to the Nation.”110 The reports found that it was more profitable for a veteran in some

low-wage areas to enroll in classes under the bill, regardless of their quality, than to be employed.

In short, the allowance had become “an end in itself.”111

When war broke out in Korea in late June, then, the nation was already in the middle of a

renewed debate over the value of the most important piece of veterans’ legislation passed during

the previous world war. At Truman’s demand, the House voted unanimously to create a Select

Committee in late August to further investigate the administration of the different provisions of

the G.I. Bill.112 Its chairman was Texas Democrat Olin E. Teague, a junior member of Rankin’s

Veterans’ Affairs Committee. A veteran of World War II who had received nine decorations and

was severely injured during the fighting in Europe, Teague had grown up in relative poverty, had

worked his way through college, and had been elected in 1946.113 He very much belonged to the

same Southern conservative wing of the Democratic Party as Rankin—a fiscal conservative, he

opposed most of Truman’s Fair Deal platform—and had previously been a reliable ally of the

Legion on topics such as public housing or the First Hoover Commission, as we have seen.

However, his views on veterans’ benefits were worlds apart from Rankin’s. Whereas the latter was

an unabashed supporter of pensions and bonuses, his younger colleague rejected the idea that

veterans “should get the world with a fence around it,” “just because they represent that patriotic

portion of our society.”114 Unlike the Legion, he saw military service as a duty, not a privilege, and

110 Harry S. Truman: “Special Message to the Congress Transmitting Report on the Training of Veterans
Under the Servicemen's Readjustment Act.,” February 13, 1950. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T.
Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13706
111 H.R. Doc. No. 466, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., 1950, 11–12.
112 U.S. Congress, House, Report of the House Select Committee to Investigate Educational and Training

Program under G.I. Bill, 81 H. Rpt. 3253, 1951, 13.

113 Alec Philmore Pearson Jr., “Olin E. Teague and the Veterans’ Administration” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas

A&M University, 1977), 3–5, 8–10; Mark Boulton, Failing Our Veterans: The G.I. Bill and the Vietnam
Generation (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 35.
114 Quoted in Boulton, Failing Our Veterans, 37.

270
thus rejected the idea that it put veterans in a special class. In a letter to a Korean War veteran, he

stressed that “nowhere in the Constitution does it state that those who do [take up arms in defense

of our country] will be recompensed for it in the form of a G.I. Bill.” 115 Because of his opposition

to Rankin’s 1949 pension bill, he was attacked by the Legion in his home district as

“antiveteran.”116 An independent-minded, disabled war hero who did not buy into the idea of

martial citizenship, Teague would prove a tremendous thorn in the side of the group for years to

come. More immediately, the consequence of the creation of this Select Committee was to forestall

the passage of any immediate extension of the G.I. Bill, as Congress decided to wait until its final

report. From its very beginning, the debate over Korean War veterans’ benefits was therefore

shaped by the experience of World War II and its postwar.

Two other major developments took place before the close of 1950. First, the Legion voted

to open its ranks to Korean War veterans. Compared to the lengthy and animated debate over

whether to admit World War II veterans, this time the whole process took place without raising

barely an eyebrow. Since the idea of accepting more than a single generation of ex-soldiers had

already been approved eight years earlier, Legionnaires seemed to have taken it for granted that

Korean War veterans would come in too, as suggested by the fact that Legion officials began

working to extend benefits to this new generation immediately after the war broke out. Rank-and-

file members quickly began discussing the issue, and the national organization had already

received a “good many Post resolutions” urging their acceptance by mid-August 1950.117 When the

32nd National Convention convened in mid-October in Los Angeles, a resolution to accept the new

generation of ex-soldiers was passed without debate.118 After Congress approved the change to the

115 Quoted in Ibid., 38.

116 Stavisky, “After Pensions - The Bonus?,” 51.
117 Henry H. Dudley to Wright Darbell, August 4, 1950; George Huddleston, Jr., to Henry H. Dudley, August

10, 1950; Henry H. Dudley to George Huddleston, Jr., August 15, 1950, Administration and Organization,
Membership, Eligibility, Korean War, ALA.
118 Proceedings of the 32nd National Convention of the American Legion, pp. 63-64.

271
group’s charter, the President signed it into law in late December.119 On the very same day,

Truman also signed a second and far more influential bill extending vocational rehabilitation

benefits to all disabled Korean War veterans.120 The fact that disabled veterans were the first ex-

soldiers of this war to receive benefits and that Congress had passed the law without any

dissenting voice was not a coincidence. The idea that the state owed something to those citizens

who had been injured while fighting on its behalf had always been widely accepted, in contrast

with more controversial types of benefits such as pensions or the G.I. Bill, whose recipients were

mostly able-bodied. Truman himself had long recognized the “fundamental fact” that the nation’s

“primary long-run obligation” should be “to dependents of veterans deceased from service causes

and to veterans disabled in the service.”121

At the dawn of the new year, then, the outlook for the Legion was mixed. On the one hand,

it had just gotten another lease on life by agreeing to open its doors to a cohort that would

ultimately number around six million. On the other hand, the broader political climate seemed

increasingly unreceptive to demands for more generous veterans’ benefits. Indeed, all this was

happening against the backdrop of its all-out effort to defeat the recommendations of the First

Hoover Commission. As we saw in Chapter 3, the Legion’s Operation Survival had provoked a

severe backlash in many quarters of public opinion. As a result, top Legion officials decided that

their push for a new G.I. Bill needed to be low-profile. National Adjutant Henry Dudley, for

instance, preferred not to issue a press release to announce the introduction of his group’s

omnibus bill in early September, for fear that journalists would use it to “blast” the Legion. 122 At

119 Pub. L. No. 81-895, 64 Stat. 1122.

120 Pub. L. No. 81-894, 64 Stat. 1121. Technically, the Act was an amendment to extend eligibility to Public
Law 16—the original vocational rehabilitation law passed in 1943 for World War II veterans—to those
serving on or after June 27, 1950.
121 Harry S. Truman: “Annual Budget Message to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1950,” January 10, 1949.

Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13434
122 Jack Cejnar to George Kelly, September 12, 1950, International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, Manpower,

Benefits, ALA.
272
a time when Legionnaires were being accused by conservatives and liberals alike of threatening

the country’s financial stability, demanding the blanket extension of a controversial bill was

clearly bad press. But Teague’s congressional investigation into the administration of the G.I. Bill

was also beginning to produce its first results, and they did not bode well. In early December, the

Texan commented to the press that “there are an almost infinite number of abuses that exist and

still do exist,” which have cost the government “huge sums.”123 After holding extensive hearings

in Washington, D.C., and Dallas throughout the month, evidence of corruption and waste was

found to be so plentiful that Congress voted to extend the Committee’s mission beyond the G.I.

Bill’s educational benefits to include its loan guaranty program as well.124 The twin and mutually-

reinforcing threats of the Hoover Commission and the Teague Committee contributed to the

general climate of defiance regarding veterans’ benefits.125

In January 1951, the Legion reintroduced the same omnibus bill in the new session of

Congress.126 When he presented his group’s agenda for the year before the House Veterans’ Affairs

Committee in April, National Commander Cocke insisted that the nation’s obligation to Korean

War veterans was “every bit as compelling and just” as that toward veterans of previous conflicts,

and that they should therefore be provided with comparable pension, compensation,

hospitalization, and G.I. Bill benefits. “Our fighting men in Korea have reason enough to feel that

their sacrifices are being made in vain,” he pleaded, and “that impression can only grow if the

Congress fails to establish their rights under law.”127 All of the other major veterans’ groups—the

123 “GI Course Costs To Be Investigated,” The Washington Post, December 10, 1950.
124 House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty Programs under GI
Bill, 13.
125 The Director of Public Relations for the Citizens’ Committee for the Hoover Report (CCHR), Charles

Coates, argued in a letter that Teague’s hearings were providing “fresh grist for our mill” by bringing up
evidence that “graft, petty and otherwise, is rife in VA throughout the country...Long range these revelations
should give us new ammunition for pot-shots” by CCHR leaders and allies, he wrote. See Coates to
McCormick, December 26, 1951, Citizens Committee for Reorganization of the Executive Branch of the
Government records, Box 72, Folder 2, Hoover Institution Archives.
126 The Legion bills in the House and the Senate were H.R. 1217 and S. 714, see National Executive

Committee Meeting, May 2, 3 and 4, 1951, pp. 66-67, ALA.

127 “Legion Rehab Program Includes Full Rights for Korea Veterans, Cocke Tells Committee,” ALM, June

1951, p. 34.
273
VFW, the DAV, and the AMVETS—also endorsed the extension of most veterans’ benefits to

Korean War veterans on an equal basis.128 But they did not see eye to eye on every topic. On the

issue of service insurance, for instance, debate was more heated. After several months of

negotiations in Congress, the President signed into law the Servicemen’s Indemnity and

Insurance Act on April 25, which provided every active-duty soldier after June 27, 1950 with an

automatic $10,000 life insurance policy.129

Just a few days later, an unexpected contingency pushed Congress to move one step

further. On May 9, 1951, the story of David R. Arellano, Jr., made the headlines nationwide. A 21-

year old ex-Marine who had served in Korea, Arellano had tried to get treatment at a VA hospital

in Tucson, Ariz., for a throat cancer contracted after discharge. Due to his status as a peacetime

veteran, however, he was ineligible to receive hospital care for a non-service connected disability

and was therefore denied access. The VA hospital manager Col. J. E. Gaines expressed regrets,

saying that “We at the veterans’ hospital are completely sympathetic with the plight of these men.

Under the present status we are not at war in Korea so these men are not eligible for treatment. If

it isn’t a war, I’d like to know what the hell it is.”130 Though Arellano was not the first ex-soldier in

this situation, his case captured unprecedented attention largely because veterans’ groups

understood the political value of his story.131 The morning after it broke, Erle Cocke sent telegrams

to all Congressmen, using it to highlight the “need for immediate change of law to make veterans

of Korean hostilities eligible to hospitalization on same basis as war veterans,” and urging action

on the Legion bills introduced in January.132 Korean War veterans, he wrote, “are certainly

128 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 1951 Legislative Programs of the American
Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and American Veterans of World War
II, Hearing, April 25, 1951 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1951), 104, 110,
114, 117.
129 Pub. L. No. 82-23, 65 Stat. 33. See also Edwin B. Patterson, “Free’ Insurance’,” The Washington Post,

March 11, 1951; Rufus H. Wilson, “Insurance For GIs,” The Washington Post, March 15, 1951.
130 “Korean Vet Denied Treatment—It’s Not Right War,” Newsday, Nassau Ed., May 10, 1951.
131 “Loophole in the Law,” Newsweek, May 21, 1951.
132 “Congress Says It’s a War in Korea; Veteran Rights Granted to Men Who Do the Fighting,” ALM, July

1951, pp. 29-30.

274
conducting a fighting and shooting war and should be entitled to the same status as other war

veterans.”133 Truman himself wrote to congressional leaders soon after, and Congress reacted with

rare speed. In less than two hours, both Houses passed a joint resolution providing equal

compensation, pension, hospitalization, medical and domiciliary care, as well as burial benefits

for veterans of the Korean War. The President signed it on May 11. 134 With this law, the benefits

for Korean War and World War II veterans had almost been fully equalized. Only the question of

the extension of the G.I. Bill remained to be decided.

As news of this law percolated to the frontlines of the war in Korea, G.I.’s began to pressure

Congress for further action. In doing so, they spontaneously adopted the same language that the

Legion had been using for months and argued that there was no substantial difference between

their fight and the last world war. Three Sergeants stationed in Korea, for instance, expressed

their thoughts after reading in the Stars and Stripes that the G.I Bill had not yet been extended.

“They may call this a police action,” they wrote to Ohio Senator Robert Taft, “but men are losing

there lives [sic] the same as in the last war. We are fighting here for freedom of the peoples, the

same as in World War II. Why are we any different from the ‘G.I.’ of the last war?”135 Corporal

Henry Orphal agreed that “the best and the most important benefits are missing namely the G.I.

Bill of Rights…granted it is a so call [sic] police action, but we are still U.S. Army Personnel, and

if you will, please explain to me and to our families back home why we are not treated to the full

benefits of Army personnel as those in World War II.”136 Echoing his concern, Pfc. Sal Pultro

argued that “myself and quite a large number of other men here in Korea are praying very hard

for just that [extension of the GI bill of rights to them]. Besides praying for my safe return home

133 Quoted in The American Legion Department of California, Special Bulletin, May 17, 1951, International
Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, Manpower, Benefits, ALA.
134 “Congress Says It’s a War in Korea.”
135 Sgt. Edward W. Mollett, S.F.C. William H. Bloss, Sgt. Wade H. Beans to Sir, May 15, 1951, Box 1077,

Folder: Veterans, Legislation (1951), Robert A. Taft Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C. (RATP hereafter)
136 Cpl. Henry Orphal, May 14, 1951, Box 1077, Folder: Veterans, Legislation (1951), RATP.

275
to my wife, I want the GI bill of rights as well.”137 As it turned out, relatives of active-duty soldiers

were uttering the same prayers. The father of two sons who served in Korea, R. C. Kash wrote to

Taft that he could not “understand why the Senate and House have not taken action on this long

ago. Surely the men undergoing suffering, privation and danger in our present war are just as

much entitled to consideration as those of World War II.”138 Reflecting this mounting pressure,

around fifty bills to extend some form of G.I. Bill benefits to the new generation were introduced

in Congress by mid-1951.139

Yet progress on that front remained excruciatingly slow. In the fall of that year, the Senate

held hearings on a bill to extend to ex-soldiers of the current conflict a watered-down version of

the G.I. Bill that included only its educational and training benefits. They soon revealed that the

prevailing consensus was still to defer action until the Teague Committee submitted its final

report.140 Why did lawmakers advance with so much caution despite virtually unanimous popular

demand? Simply put, it was clear to them that whereas the 1944 G.I. Bill had been a bold policy

experiment meant to answer the specific situation of World War II, its successor would set the

pattern of readjustment benefits for decades to come. This much was obvious from the way in

which the administration was approaching the war effort: unlike with World War II, this time

there would be no going back to the status quo ante once the war in the Far East would be over.

As historians have demonstrated, the Korean War acted as a catalyst for the permanent expansion

of the national security state. It left a deep imprint on U.S. policy both at home and abroad,

causing Truman to send more troops to Europe, to expand NATO, and to increase military aid to

137 Hon. Edith Nourse Rogers (MA), “Veterans’ Benefits,” Congressional Record 97, no. 13 (June 6, 1951):
3333.
138 R. C. Kash to Robert A. Taft, May 4, 1951, Box 1077, Folder: Veterans, Legislation (1951), RATP.
139 Benjamin Fine, “14 Billions Spent in 7 Years To Educate 8,000,000 G.I.’s: Tuition and Subsistence Given

by Nation in Progam Now Ending—Educators See Outlay Wisely Made, Poperly Used,” New York Times,
July 22, 1951.
140 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Certain Educational and Training

Benefits to Veterans, Hearing, September 17-19, 1951 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1951), 24–25.
276
allies such as Japan, among other major policy changes. Most importantly, it convinced him to

adopt the recommendations of National Security Document number 68, thus paving the way for

massive long-term increases in defense spending and military personnel.141 In his testimony,

Philip S. Hughes of the Bureau of the Budget explained the “unprecedented” implications that the

entry into this “long period of partial mobilization” would have for veterans’ benefits. A continuing

draft would make an increasing portion of the population entitled to the latter, he argued. “It

seems to us inevitable,” he said, “that extension of benefits of a new [G.I. Bill] to all members of

the Armed Forces during the period of the United Nations campaign in Korea will mean extension

of similar benefits to all members of the Armed Forces during the entire future period of the use

of the draft and involuntary call to active duty of the Reserves.”142 Teague agreed. When asked

whether he planned to present his report to Congress before the end of the year, he replied that

he refused “to rush it,” for he intended to draft a law that would “cover all servicemen in the

future,” not just the current generation.143

Indeed, Teague had already made it clear that he planned to use his investigation as a

platform to drastically revamp the original bill. Though he had supported a blanket extension of

all G.I. Bill benefits at the beginning of the war, the evidence of corruption and waste unearthed

by his Committee’s hearings seems to have changed his mind.144 Throughout the spring and

summer of 1951, he carried out additional hearings in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and

Tennessee. With the help of its own staff, the Committee heard nearly 140 witnesses. Taken as a

141 George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008), 635–47.
142 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Certain Educational and Training

Benefits to Veterans, 23–24.

143 Ibid., 58, 63.
144 On July 11, 1950, the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee had shelved a bill sponsored by Teague to

extend all benefits of the G.I. Bill to Korean veterans. Chairman Rankin opposed the move, saying that it
was “too soon to start work on such legislation,” since “the men in Korea are too busy fighting to worry
much about benefits such as free schooling which they may get in the future.” See “GI Bill for Korea Veterans
Shelved,” July 11, 1950, International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, Manpower, Benefits, ALA; “Korea G.I. Bill
Put Off: House Group Thinks It Too Soon to Start Work on Benefits,” New York Times, July 12, 1950.
277
whole, the more than 1,100 pages of testimonies that it collected constituted a damning

indictment of the failures of the original law. “We do find…wherever we have gone in this

committee,” Teague commented earlier in the year, “that every group involved…has done

everything possible to get every dollar possible out of the Federal Government.”145 In November

1951, he declared publicly that he intended to fight for “drastic changes” in the law. “It was a

wonderful dream,” he said of the educational and training provisions of the 1944 G.I. Bill, “but it

just hasn’t worked.”146 By late 1951, then, it was clear that his final recommendations were likely

to run “head-on” into the Legion’s proposal to extend the bill without revisions.147

When his report was finally made public in mid-February 1952, it found fault with nearly

all aspects of the administration of G.I. Bill educational benefits.148 Though it was only the latest

episode in the long-running discussion of G.I. Bill fraud that had riveted public opinion since

1945, the Committee’s thorough investigation shed more light on its details than ever before. The

root of the problem, it found, lay in the lack of efficient state supervision. Not only were many

state approval agencies underfunded, but the VA itself suffered from “cumbersome, lengthy, and

in many instances, ineffective” procedures, and its regulations were often “arbitrary, ill-advised,

ambiguous, and tending to have retroactive effect.” The VA personnel in charge of educational

benefits were often unqualified, inexperienced, or worse: a third of all cases inspected between

1944 and 1950 revealed “maladministration, negligence, acceptance of gifts or outright criminal

activity” on their part. As a result of this disorganization, abuse and waste proliferated. “[T]here

145 U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty
Programs Under GI Bill, Investigation of Veterans’ Educational Program, Hearing, June 4-6, 18-19, July
12-13, 18-19, 24, August 7, 9-10, 20-22, September 25-26, 1951 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1951), 704.
146 “Revamped GI Training Bill Sought: Texan Maps Fight in Congress to End Abuses of Program,” Los

Angeles Times, November 25, 1951.

147 “Weaker G.I. Bill For Veterans Of Korea Urged: Teague Committee to Give Views to Congress Soon;

Abuse of Old Bill Charged,” New York Herald Tribune, December 31, 1951.
148 For the Select Committee’s separate report on the G.I. Bill’s loan guaranty benefits published in August

1952, see House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty programs
under GI bill, Veterans’ Loan Guaranty Program, 82 H. Rpt. 2501, 1952.
278
[was] no doubt,” the report admitted frankly, “that hundreds of millions of dollars have been

frittered away on worthless training.” Most of the abuse came from vocational and trade schools,

though many colleges and universities profited as well. Charging excessively high rates for veteran

students, falsifying attendance records, and offering expensive but mediocre “night schools” or

extension courses were only a few of the many creative ways in which educational institutions

cheated the government. As the Comptroller General of the U.S. later said, the report helped show

“conclusively that many of the educational and training institutions of this country considered the

GI bill as an open invitation to raid the Treasury.”149 Finally, the report also condemned the

“minority of veteran trainees who have intentionally and willfully exploited the program and

misused their entitlement,” noting that “there have been literally thousands of cases where the

veterans’ acts and intent were highly questionable, yet no action was taken.”150 Everyone received

their share of the blame, from the administrators of the law to its beneficiaries.

Building upon these findings, the Select Committee made three major sets of

recommendations. First, it called for “an entirely new act, rather than amendment to existing

law.” This simple but fundamental proposition illustrated the Committee’s realization that the

initial law was flawed beyond repair and that it was better to write another one from scratch. “A

new group of veterans,” the report argued, “should not be exposed to the exploitation which has

plagued the World War II program.” Second, it called for a radical change in the philosophy of

veterans’ educational benefits. Under the 1944 G.I. Bill’s Title II, the government had to write

three separate checks to two recipients: one for tuition and one for supplies to the school, and one

for living allowances to the veteran. Instead of this complicated system, the report recommended

lumping all three checks into one and sending it directly to the veteran. Dubbed “direct payment,”

149 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcommittee on Veterans
Education and Rehabilitation Benefits, Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952, Hearing, June 10-
13, 17, 1952 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1952), 132.
150 House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty Programs under GI

Bill, 6–8, 12, 93, 101.

279
the idea behind this method was to shift the burden of supervision from the government’s

shoulders to the veteran’s. Making individual veterans responsible for spending all of their

government checks as they saw fit, the report argued, would create an incentive for them to seek

quality education. “[U]ndoubtedly those students who have a stake in their own education,” it

claimed, “will most zealously guard against unwise use of the allowance provided by the

Government.”151 This method, akin to a “scholarship grant between the veteran and the federal

government,” had the additional benefit of diminishing the VA’s workload by eliminating the need

for it to interact with schools directly.152 In the same spirit of eliminating abuse, the report also

recommended that payments themselves be made less generous, so that veterans would have to

make “a small contribution on [their] own part to insure [their] interest in the program primarily

for education, rather than money.”153 As one newspaper summarized it, the idea was to create a

system “giving a modest amount of help to veterans who want to help themselves.”154 Lastly, the

report called for a series of new safeguards to combat fraud, such as protections against conflicts

of interest in the VA. As the report concluded, “[t]he principle of helping a veteran help himself

remains unchallenged, but we as a nation cannot continue to tolerate the graft and waste which

has plagued the World War II program.”155

Teague’s views were at odds with the Legion’s ideal of martial citizenship in three ways.

Though they might be dismissed as insignificant when taken separately, together these three

differences indicated a clear shift in the tenor of the political debate about veterans’ benefits away

from the Legion’s ideas. First, by arguing with incontrovertible evidence that veterans themselves

151 House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty programs under GI
bill, Veterans’ Loan Guaranty Program, 1, 10.
152 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Education and Training and Other Benefits for

Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, 82 H. Rpt. 1943, 1952, 25.
153 House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty programs under GI

bill, Veterans’ Loan Guaranty Program, 80.

154 “Revamped GI Training Bill Sought.”
155 House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty Programs under GI

Bill, 12.
280
were at least partly to blame for the corruption and fraud that had rigged the administration of

the 1944 G.I. Bill, Teague’s Committee was undermining the idea that former soldiers were a select

group of the population entitled to privileged treatment from the state. If veterans had proven

undeserving of the public’s consideration, then their moral claim to superior status was directly

undercut and, by extension, so were the foundations of the Legion’s case for a separate welfare

state. Knowing this, Legion leaders responded by acknowledging the existence of scandals

perpetrated by veterans but by placing the burden of responsibility elsewhere. Cecil Munson, chief

of vocational training and education for the Legion, testified for instance that his group

“challenged any person…to prove that any phase of the veterans’ training program has been a

failure because of the veteran, or that the veteran is directly at fault for many irregularities or

abuses.” “Every abuse which can be traced directly to the veteran,” he continued, “has been made

possible because some person in the VA, a school or State agency, was negligent…True, the veteran

was a party to some of these irregularities; but at no time did he bring them about.”156 Yet this was

an interpretation that few outside of the Legion were willing to take seriously. Teague dismissed

it out of hand: as his Committee’s February 1952 report noted bluntly, “the contention that all

veteran trainees are without fault in all instances…is a hallucination and a failure to face facts.”157

He responded directly to Munson’s comment on veterans not being responsible for their frauds

that he “cannot agree with [him] on that.”158

By arguing that the original G.I. Bill was too flawed to be fixed, Teague was also directly

challenging the legitimacy of the piece of legislation that best epitomized the Legion’s philosophy.

The 1944 G.I. Bill was both the Legion’s crowning achievement and its key selling point to

prospective members. Actively invested in crafting a popular narrative of this bill as a highly

156 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Education and Training and Other Benefits for
Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, 1952, 1469.
157 House Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty Programs under GI

Bill, 101.
158 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Education and Training and Other Benefits for

Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, 1952, 1484.

281
successful piece of legislation, the group saw the results of Teague’s investigation as an explicit

threat to its effort.159 Again, the Legion responded by shifting the narrative. While it recognized

isolated instances of abuse and waste, the group argued that they were far outweighed by the

achievements of what its National Commander insisted on calling “a thoroughly sound and

constructive law.”160 Cecil Munson argued that the Select Committee had emphasized “the abuses

and illegal operations” too much and given too little publicity to “the good that has been

accomplished.”161 That “good,” National Commander Erle Cocke argued, “which will show itself

more clearly in each succeeding year and in succeeding generations is incalculable.” G.I. Bill

educational benefits cost nearly $12 billion, but he estimated that they would “easily” bring in an

added revenue of $500 billion through the higher taxes, production, and spending generated by

a better-trained veteran cohort.162 But again, this interpretation of history found few sympathetic

ears outside of the Legion itself. As a representative of the General Accounting Office put it, there

was “overwhelming evidence” that the initial bill “was defective in many respects and contained

many loopholes providing for abuses to creep into the program.”163

Lastly, the conclusions of Teague’s Select Committee questioned the legitimacy of the

institution that best symbolized martial citizenship: the VA itself. Not only did its investigation

prove beyond doubt that the agency was to blame for the scandals of the G.I. Bill, but it

recommended a number of curbs on its authority, including making its decisions open to judicial

review. For the Legion, the VA was the institutional embodiment of the idea that veterans

deserved special treatment, and any move to share its authority over veterans’ benefits with

159 See for instance the three-part series “I Saw the GI Bill Written” by David Camelon in the American
Legion Magazine September, October, and November 1949 issues.
160 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 1952 Legislative Programs of the American

Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and American Veterans of World War
II, Hearing, February 5, 1952 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1952), 904–5.
161 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Education and Training and Other Benefits for

Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, 1952, 1468.

162 Erle Cocke, Jr., “Those Incredible GI Students,” ALM, August 1951.
163 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Education and Training and Other Benefits for

Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, 1952, 1382.

282
another entity represented an attack on this principle. Trying again to place the blame elsewhere,

Munson argued that the source of all the problems with the bill’s educational benefits was not the

VA, but the fact that it had to share authority with state approval agencies. The solution, he

argued, thus lay not in curtailing benefits, but rather in “vesting final authority in the

Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs.” Munson went so far as to support giving him “veto power on

the approval of schools in the various States” and to deny that any claim of “States’ rights” applied

in this situation.164 Yet this argument for an expansion of the federal government’s role in the

realm of education was bound to be met with strong resistance from the Legion’s allies in

Congress. Southern conservatives like Rankin generally opposed the idea of expanding the federal

bureaucracy. As he put it in a veiled reference to Truman’s civil rights program, he saw “the

Federal Government…[as] waging a cold war” against white Southerners, and was therefore

“strongly in favor of retaining the State’s rights so far as the government of our schools are

concerned without Federal interference.”165 Simply put, the Legion’s defense of the VA’s undivided

authority over veterans’ benefits was politically unpalatable.

Forced to back down on these three points, the Legion saw the national press give the

results of Teague’s investigation widespread and positive coverage. To be sure, some of this

attention derived from the fact that its detailed analysis of a massive scandal provided excellent

material for journalists in search of sensationalistic headlines. As one newspaper editor wrote,

“these hearings were better reading than Gone With the Wind.”166 But more generally, the press

tended to approve of the general direction of Teague’s recommendations. For the Los Angeles

Times, for instance, the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars illustrated “the rule that nobody

is very careful with somebody else’s money,” and that with “the present regime in Washington,”

“grafters and chiselers” had a field day.167 In the economy-minded Saturday Evening Post, Sidney

164 Ibid., 1469, 1474, 1478.

165 A few sentences later, Rankin mentioned “this communist FEPC,” see Ibid., 1511–12.
166 Ibid., 1622.
167 “GI Bill Graft,” Los Angeles Times, February 12, 1952.

283
Shalett enthusiastically publicized Teague’s findings and commented that the passage of the 1944

GI Bill had been “the signal for a mass ganging up on the public till by dishonest institutions, with

the connivance, unfortunately, of some veterans who didn’t seem to mind looting the Treasury of

the country which they risked their lives to defend.”168 The Herald Tribune likewise approved of

the Committee’s recommendations and especially the direct-payment method, which “will

eliminate a great deal of bureaucratic machinery, will go a long way toward preventing the money-

gouging and boondoggling evils that developed under the old law, and will tend to make each

veteran who receives the benefits more personally diligent in insisting that he gets his money’s

worth of government education.”169 Finally, the Boston Globe believed that the safeguards against

abuses and the direct-payment method provided by the Teague bill “should command wide

support.”170

With the report of the Teague Committee submitted, the debate over the Korean War G.I.

Bill finally started in earnest when Rankin’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee began to hold hearings

in February 1952. Though a number of measures had already been introduced in Congress by

then, three stood out: the bill endorsed by the Truman administration, Teague’s bill, and the

Legion’s.171 The first two shared strong similarities. Both proposed to write an entirely new bill,

both included only education and training benefits, and both favored making payments less

generous. An interagency memorandum circulated by the Bureau of the Budget indicated that the

consensus within the administration was in favor of smaller benefits, for “the veteran should have

a financial stake of his own in the training.” The memo also explained why neither the loan

guaranties nor the readjustment allowances provided by the 1944 G.I. Bill were included in this

new version. “The circumstances surrounding the discharge of future veterans,” it argued, “will

168 Sidney Shalett, “How Our Tax Dollars Are Wasted,” Saturday Evening Post, May 24, 1952.
169 “The New Veterans Education Bill,” New York Herald Tribune, March 12, 1952.
170 “The New G.I. Bill,” Daily Boston Globe, March 18, 1952.
171 These bills were, respectively, H.R. 5040, H.R. 6425, and H.R. 6377. See Benjamin Fine, “Education in

Review: G I. Bill for Korea Veterans Is Being Drafted With a View to Avoiding Abuses of Old Law,” New
York Times, March 16, 1952.
284
be very different from those under which World War II veterans were discharged”: “[t]he number

released at any one time will be much less,” and “housing needs are less acute” in 1952 than they

were seven years earlier. In addition, improved economic prospects—the unemployment rate was

just over 3 percent that year—not only made readjustment allowances “unnecessary,” but the

latter risked interfering with “manpower utilization, both civilian and military” by diverting

veterans from the workforce.172 The only major difference between the administration’s bill and

Teague’s was the Texan’s introduction of direct payment. Even then, however, an administration

official recognized during the hearings that their bill was not perfect, and that Teague’s innovative

approach was “the most feasible and economical method.”173

If the administration’s bill converged with Teague’s, both dramatically diverged from the

Legion’s, which remained what it had been since the outbreak of the war: a straightforward

extension of all the provisions of the 1944 G.I. Bill. Yet as we saw, Legionnaires were isolated.

Most other major veterans’ groups, including the VFW, the DAV, and the AMVETS, supported

Teague’s proposal with more or less enthusiasm.174 Their only support came from a few private

universities and colleges afraid that reducing veterans’ educational benefits would cause veteran-

students to flock to lower-tuition institutions. Under the leadership of F. D. Fagg Jr., President of

the University of Southern California, they formed a small group that included Stanford, New

York University, and Boston University.175 Most groups representing higher education, however,

supported Teague’s proposal.176 With their support, he refused to back down. Arguing that direct

172 The memorandum, from June 22, 1951, is reproduced in U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’
Affairs, Education and Training and Other Benefits for Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, 1952,
926.
173 Ibid., 1387.
174 The VFW openly endorsed Teague’s bill; the DAV had no mandate to endorse it but said they “would

certainly do nothing to oppose it”; the AMVETS approved of it with qualifications (they were in favor of
including readjustment allowances, for instance); a statement from the AVC was read during the hearings
which endorsed neither bill but called for the inclusion of loan guaranties and readjustment allowances in
addition to educational and training benefits. See Ibid., 1497–1519, 1529, 1530–49, 1845–48.
175 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcommittee on Veterans

Education and Rehabilitation Benefits, Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952, 156.
176 Ibid., 159.

285
payment was “the heart of my bill,” he derided the private schools’ plan as “a proposal to provide

extra Federal aid to a favored group of private schools.177 “We are not attempting to establish a

Federal-aid program for schools or colleges through the guise of a veterans’ program,” he later

explained, “[t]his bill is for the purpose of aiding veterans and not schools.”178 House members

found that “in the absence of an organized drive” to block Teague’s bill, it stood “a good chance

for passage.”179 And they were right: on June 5, 1952, the House approved the Korean G.I. Bill by

a nearly unanimous roll call vote of 361 to 1.180

The fact that House members could observe the “absence of an organized drive” against

Teague’s bill testified not only to the weakness of Fagg’s group but to the beleaguered situation of

the Legion itself. As noted earlier, the group had strong objections both to the bill’s underlying

philosophy and its potential effect. The Legion presented the same critique as Fagg, though out of

concern for veterans and not private schools. In his testimony before the Veterans’ Affairs

Committee, Munson argued that any legislation forcing veterans to pay from their own pocket

would only end up “favoring the privileged and eliminating the underprivileged with equal or

greater ability” and that “[t]he veteran who cannot pay for all of his training usually cannot pay

for any of it.”181 And yet the Legion never really tried to stop Teague, despite conclusive evidence

that most veterans seemed to disapprove of direct payment.182 Its apathy was particularly

177 John D. Morris, “Dispute on Tuition Snags New G. I. Bill: Colleges Press for Retention of Payments to
Them—’Unfair’ Attacks on Measure Cited,” New York Times, May 28, 1952.
178 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcommittee on Veterans

Education and Rehabilitation Benefits, Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952, 44–45, 162.
179 “New G.I. Bill Set for Debate, Early Passage,” Daily Boston Globe, June 1, 1952.
180 C. P. Trussell, “New G.I. Rights Bill Is Passed by House: Vote 361-1 for Measure Aiding Korea Veterans

and Those Serving After June 27, ’50,” New York Times, June 6, 1952.
181 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Education and Training and Other Benefits for

Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, 1952, 1467.

182 Though there seems to have been no surveys of Korean War veterans or soldiers on this issue, three

surveys of World War II veterans indicate clearly that they were generally content with the provisions of the
original G.I. Bill and disapproved of Teague’s changes, see House Select Committee to Investigate
Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty Programs under GI Bill, 27; Roy N. Chelgren, “An Attitude
Survey Concerning the Provision of Educational Benefits for Korean Veterans,” School and Society 76, no.
1969 (September 13, 1952): 169–71; U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Education and
Training and Other Benefits for Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950, 1952, 1179.
286
remarkable when compared to the massive, nation-wide lobbying campaign that the group had

undertaken eight years earlier to ensure passage of the original G.I. Bill. This lethargy partly

reflected the fact that the group was already heavily invested in Operation Victory, its last-ditch

effort to defeat the recommendations of the First Hoover Commission. But just as importantly, it

spoke to the Legion leadership’s realization that their position at the bargaining table was too

weak not to compromise. As noted earlier, by 1952 the group had come into open conflict with the

Truman administration over the conduct of the war, and could thus expect no favors from

government officials. Time was also running against them, as an internal bulletin circulated in

mid-May admitted. It read, “Even though [the Teague Bill] is not as liberal as the [1944 G.I. Bill],

it would be of immense value to the new veterans who will seek higher education. There are

features in the bill, as well as omissions to which we object but we believe, in fairness to the

800,000 Korean emergency service personnel already discharged, that a bill should be enacted in

this Congress. Otherwise another year will go by without such beneficial legislation.” The Legion

intended to keep trying to amend the bill in the future, it concluded, “but we will not stand in the

way of its passage at this time.”183

The Senate, however, proved friendlier to the Legion’s arguments. On June 10, 1952, the

its Committee on Labor and Public Welfare began its own weeklong hearings. When Teague

testified, his support for direct payment and lower benefits was subjected to sustained criticism.

Senator John Pastore (D-R.I.), in particular, pushed him hard on whether “there is going to be an

inclination to shop for a cheaper school,” and worried that his measure would “flock everybody to

a State college.” “We do not want to end up with State-supported and municipal-supported

institutions,” he argued, “being identified as the veterans schools as against private institutions.”

In addition, more and more schools were joining Fagg’s group: the Vice-President of the

University of Southern California now claimed to have signed statements of support from 429

Legislative Bulletin, no. 9 (May 17, 1952), International Affairs, Korea, War, 1950, Manpower, Benefits,
183

ALA.
287
private schools, including Brown, Georgetown, Columbia, and the University of Chicago.184 After

deliberations, the Senate Committee approved the restoration of payment to schools, splitting

government checks in two.185 Feeling that the upper House was not as hostile to their philosophy

as the lower one, the Director of the Legion’s National Legislative Commission Miles D. Kennedy

then wrote to every Senator to push for the re-inclusion of readjustment allowances. In his letter,

he stressed the results of a survey showing that almost three-fourths of current soldiers had no

employment experience and thus were likely “to encounter certain difficulties in obtaining jobs

upon their discharge from the Armed Forces.”186 His prayers were answered when, on the floor of

the Senate, Homer Ferguson (R-Mich.) passed an amendment restoring these allowances to the

bill—though under a more meager form, and with tighter limits on the duration and generosity of

the benefit.187

After the Senate passed the bill in late June, a conference committee met to craft a

compromise version, whose final draft eventually re-adopted Teague’s direct-payment method.

Both Houses of Congress then voted to pass it almost unanimously, and Truman signed the

Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act into law on July 16, 1952.188 Because the final version of

the bill followed the general framework of the 1944 G.I. Bill, many observers believed that its

changes were merely technical improvements with little implication on the broader trajectory of

veterans’ benefits. To be sure, the eligibility, loan guaranty, and job counseling provisions of both

bills were essentially similar. But the revisions that had been made to the other clauses betrayed

184 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcommittee on Veterans
Education and Rehabilitation Benefits, Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952, 25, 28, 154.
185 “G. I. Korea Bill Gains: Senate Committee Approves It—Early Passage Pushed,” New York Times, June

25, 1952.
186 “Congress Passes Korea Vet GI Bill,” ALM, August 1952, p. 29.
187 Congressional Record 98, no. 7 (June 28, 1952): 8421.
188 The Senate passed the final bill by voice vote, and the House passed it 322-1 (the only vote against was

John Taber, a Republican from New York, who wanted all unemployment benefits dropped from the bill),
see Harold B. Hinton, “New G.I. Bill Voted as Congress Works to Adjourn Today: Defense Housing Measure
Also Sped to Truman in Holiday Rush to Clear Calendar,” New York Times, July 5, 1952; “Korea G. I. Bill
Of Rights Sent To White House: Billion-a-Year Measure to Cover All With 90-Day Service Since War
Began,” New York Herald Tribune, July 5, 1952; “New Veteran Bill Signed by Truman: Benefits Extended
to Troops in Service Since Korea—Tuition Policy Changed,” New York Times, July 17, 1952.
288
the declining appeal of the Legion’s ideal of martial citizenship. The notion that the government

should help veterans readjust to civilian society was still the cornerstone of the law, but it now

came with significant safeguards and less generous assistance. Instead of readjustment

allowances of $20 per week for a maximum of 52 weeks, for instance, the Korean G.I. Bill provided

its recipients with $26 for up to 26 weeks.189 Most importantly, educational and training benefits

were profoundly overhauled. The maximum period of entitlement, for instance, was reduced from

48 to 36 months. Under Teague’s direct-payment method, Korean War veterans were now entitled

to receive only $100 per month if they were single, $135 if they had one dependent, and $160 if

they had two or more—as opposed to $500 or more for tuition per year and between $75 and $120

as living allowances per month depending on the marital situation for their World War II

counterparts. Their ability to freely pick courses and programs was also limited. Not only were

Korean War veterans barred from taking stand-alone courses that the VA considered “avocational

or recreational”—such as bartending, dancing, or photography—but they were prohibited from

changing their course of study more than once and from enrolling in schools that had been in

operation for less than two years or with more than 85 percent of veteran students. Finally,

maximum penalties for fraudulent claims were raised from a $50 fine and a 6-month

imprisonment to a $5,000 fine and 3 years in jail.190

The one issue on which the Korean G.I. Bill did not depart from the legacy of its

predecessor but rather reinforced it was race. The administration of both bills relied on the same

local and state institutions, which were free to discriminate on the basis of color. But by restricting

enrollment to schools with no more than 85 percent of veterans, the 1952 law threatened to inflict

additional harm on African-American veterans, especially in the South. Because of the relative

poverty of the black community in this region and the more limited range of educational

189 Hon. Alvin E. O’Konski (WI), “Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952,” Congressional Record
98, no. 7 (July 4, 1952): 9401.
190 For full details on the features of the law, see “The New GI Bill: Who Gets What?,” Changing Times 7,

no. 5 (May 1953): 21.

289
institutions available to them under a racially segregated system, black veterans tended more

often than their white counterparts to be the overwhelming majority in any school where they

were enrolled, even perfectly reputable ones, and this provision therefore threatened to severely

discriminate against them. It was to highlight this danger that the two black members of the

House, Adam C. Powell (D-NY) and William L. Dawson (D-Ill.), both voted only “present” when

their chamber passed the bill.191 Their complaints were rejected by Teague, a Southern Democrat

committed to defending white supremacy. When the issue was discussed in the Senate hearings,

he dismissively claimed that “not too many” black schools only had veteran students, even while

admitting that his Select Committee had never done any research on the specific situation in the

South. As Senator Lister Hill of Alabama told him, “your committee may have been thinking too

much of States like Pennsylvania, which are much more advanced in the matter of vocational

schools than a State like my State and your State [Texas]…as much as we deplore the conditions

with reference to some of these fly-by-night schools, it is only by the creation of new schools that

these veterans were able to go to school and get these courses.” Yet Teague refused to accept that

these reservations were well-founded, and later insisted that he could not “see that there is any

way [this restriction] has any greater effect on a colored private school than it has on any other

private school.”192 The Legion never even brought up the issue.

Though peace talks in Korea would reach their conclusion only a year later, the passage of

the Korean G.I. Bill in July 1952 largely ended the debate about which benefits should be extended

to veterans of this war. Over the course of the previous two years, it had become clear that while

the country agreed that the basic outline of the veterans’ separate welfare state inherited from

World War II should remain the same, the political climate had become increasingly critical of

Trussell, “New G.I. Rights Bill Is Passed by House,” 361.

191

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcommittee on Veterans
192

Education and Rehabilitation Benefits, Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952, 36–38, 150.
290
the American Legion and its ideal of martial citizenship. The new features of the Korean G.I. Bill—

direct payment, lower benefits, a curb on the VA’s authority, and a more punitive approach to

veteran fraud—testified to this new approach. Olin Teague and his more skeptical attitude had

carried the day.

Conclusion

To be sure, this defeat was partly the result of the Legion’s own failures. By moving further

and further to the right during the war, the group lost the kind of privileged access to state actors

that it had enjoyed for many years, with all the opportunities for behind-the-scenes lobbying that

it entailed. On a basic level, the Legion also discovered that mobilizing its troops on behalf of a

new law like the Korean War G.I. Bill was more difficult than merely defending existing programs,

as it had done with success in its response to the First Hoover Commission. But the real seeds of

this setback had in fact been planted eight years earlier. It was precisely because the 1944 G.I. Bill

embodied so well the Legion’s ideal of martial citizenship, by providing World War II veterans

with generous benefits and a great degree of freedom over how they could use it, that this law

proved so vulnerable to widespread misuse and corruption in the postwar years. Thoroughly

investigated by the press and Congress, these scandals provoked a political backlash that directly

undermined the Legion’s traditional arguments. The Korean War thus witnessed the center of

gravity in veterans’ affairs begin to shift away from the Legion and toward Congress—more

precisely to Teague’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee in the House.

In turn, this situation pointed to a larger paradox. Most observers at the time assumed

that the political influence of veterans would grow in tandem with their share of the general

population: larger numbers meant better chances to vote any politician who opposed their

interests out of office, they reasoned. Yet this chapter showed that the opposite was in fact true.

291
Veterans in 1952 constituted a much higher share not only of the population but of Congress

itself—58 percent of its members, as opposed to 39 percent in 1944—and yet the Korean G.I. Bill

passed that year provided less lavish benefits than its World War II predecessor.193 The reason

behind this counter-intuitive development was simple. It was far easier for groups like the Legion

to push for more generous veterans’ benefits when the ranks of Congress were dominated by non-

veterans who were receptive to the idea that they owed a moral debt to those who served. As

veterans themselves began to occupy positions of power, however, swaying lawmakers by

sentimental or patriotic appeals became much harder. A decorated and disabled ex-soldier like

Teague was a much more formidable obstacle in the Legion’s path than ex-President Herbert

Hoover, as he could hardly be portrayed as “anti-veteran.” This helps explain why veterans’

benefits would continue to be under siege for the rest of the decade. In the summer of 1953, for

instance, Legion National Commander Lewis Gough commented that “anti-veteran sentiment”

had been particularly strong over the past year. “Those who choose to decry the system of veterans’

benefits have been quite vociferous and extensively publicized during the past year,” he argued,

“The road ahead may be rough.”194 A nation of veterans, Legionnaires were beginning to

understand, was not the environment most conducive to martial citizenship.

193 For the 1944 percentage, see Swift, Elaine K., Robert G. Brookshire, David T. Canon, Evelyn C. Fink,
John R. Hibbing, Brian D. Humes, Michael J. Malbin, and Kenneth C. Martis. Database of [United States]
Congressional Historical Statistics, 1789-1989. ICPSR03371-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university
Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2009-02-03: http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03371.v2. For
the 1952 percentage, see Member Profiles Results. Washington: CQ Press. Dynamically generated March
30, 2016, from CQ Press Electronic Library, CQ Congress Collection:
http://library.cqpress.com/congress/memberanalysisresults.php?congress2=202&yearlimit=0&milservic
e=Did not serve
194 Proceedings of 35th National Convention of the American Legion, pp. 9-10.

292
 CHAPTER SIX
“Forgotten Men”: The American Legion and the Problem of
Security for Aging Veterans after the Korean War

“The theme that there are so many war veterans…and that soon
[they] and their families will constitute a big percentage of the
general population seems to have neutralized the interest and
support of the general public in veterans programs. Instead of a
spirit of understanding and sympathy, which characterized public
reaction in the early years after World War I and for a brief period
after World War II, there now appears to be one of indifference or
even antipathy.”
- American Legion National Rehabilitation Commission, 19541

“Instead of conquering heroes, many people now regard [veterans]

as tax burdens.”
- New York Herald Tribune, 19532

The letters kept pouring in. As one American Legion official wrote in 1950, his office was receiving

anxious missives from veterans of the Great War “[a]lmost every day now.”3 Each in their own

way, they expressed the same problem. “We simply can not make it on the small pension he

draws,” one veteran’s wife explained, calling their situation nothing less than “starvation.”4 Like

them, many of the nearly 3,300,000 World War I veterans still alive in 1953 were left out of the

decade’s so-called “affluent society,” unable to find work because they were either disabled or too

old.5 That year, more than one in every ten former soldiers of that generation received a veteran’s

pension.6 For those who were single and over 65, this meant that they could claim a maximum of

1 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 5, 6 and 7, 1954, 174, American Legion
Archives, Indianapolis, Indiana. [ALA thereafter]
2 “VA’s New Boss Is in the Middle,” New York Herald Tribune, August 30, 1953.
3 Miles D. Kennedy to Henry H. Dudley, April 14, 1950, Veteran Welfare, Pensions, A-Z, ALA. [A-Z, ALA

hereafter]
4 Florence Field to Erle Cocke Jr., April 11, 1951, A-Z, ALA.
5 “Veterans’ Newsletter: Vet Population in these United States,” American Legion Magazine [ALM

hereafter], October 1953, 26; John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1958).
6 See table 36 in Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Annual Report for Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1953

(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1954), 200.

293
$75 a month, placing them below the poverty line.7 Many faced a precarious economic situation

as a result of their limited earning capacity. “Those who are so handicapped that they can do no

work to earn money to bolster [their pension],” one former soldier wrote, “Must beg on street

corners. Stand in bread lines. Sell his blood at four dollars per pint every six weeks. Salvage

vegetables from garbage cans at the larger markets. And other very humiliating practices to get

enough money for a bed in some crummy flop joint. This sort of life is hell…” 8 Adding to their

misery was the widespread feeling of having been let down by the country they had served. “Have

the ill, aged and disabled veterans of W.W.I.,” another wife asked, “been betrayed by their own

comrades, in the Legion, Congress, the Press, and other positions of influence?” 9 “Everything is

done for the War Veterans of World War II,” they resented, “but the Veterans of World War I are

forgotten and have to fight for everything we get and the other veterans get everything on a silver

platter.”10 In all these letters, the same term came back again and again: “The veterans of World

War I are forgotten men.”11

With such forceful complaints streaming into the headquarters of the Legion daily, one

might reasonably have expected the group to respond by aggressively pushing for a liberalization

of their benefits. Had the Legion not been created, after all, by and for veterans of the Great War

in 1919? And yet their demands were steadfastly denied throughout the 1950s, as the group

refused to push for the kind of radical reform that they thought they deserved. In particular, it

steered clear from endorsing a general service pension, which would have been applicable to all

veterans after a certain age regardless of disability or income. In this sense, this chapter shows

the ultimate and unanticipated consequences of the decision to open the group to more than one

7 For a summary of pension rates between 1945 and 1964, see Congress and the Nation, 1945-1964, vol. I
(Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964), 1354. For the historical poverty threshold
($1,101 in 1953), see table Be85-94 in Susan B. Carter et al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States:
Earliest Times to the Present, Millennial ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), vol. 2.
8 Jacob H. Coggins to Lewis Goff, June 14, 1953, A-Z, ALA.
9 Laura C. Temple to Geo. Craig, March 9, 1950, A-Z, ALA.
10 Harry E. Schevon to Dear Commander, August 8, 1952, A-Z, ALA.
11 Fred G. Carlson to Dear Sir, January 21, 1950, A-Z, ALA.

294
generation in 1942. In the long run, this move resulted not in uniting veterans of all wars into a

solid bloc, as Legionnaires had hoped at the time and as had been the case in the fight against the

First Hoover Commission, but instead in silencing the interests of the generation in the minority.

Because World War I Legionnaires now accounted for only a third of the total membership, and

because other generations of veterans—from World War II and the Korean War—were largely

unsympathetic to their claims of mistreatment or neglect, they were unable to convince the group

to endorse their call for more generous pension benefits. As a result, many of them decided to put

an end to what had often been a lifelong commitment by dropping out of the Legion and instead

joining other groups that took their interests more at heart. This was not a development that

Legion officials welcomed: as older Legionnaires were typically also the most active, their

departure dealt a serious blow to the group’s social cohesion and political influence. When

combined with the concurrent marginalization of the group’s anticommunist discourse described

in Chapter 3, the hemorrhage of older members caused by the debate over pensions helps explain

the diminished stature with which the American Legion entered the 1960s. By the end of this

chapter, the center of gravity in veterans’ affairs had clearly shifted from veterans’ groups to

Congress—and more specifically, to Olin Teague’s Veterans’ Affairs Committee in the House.

This dual struggle over the economic security of aging veterans, which took place both

within the ranks of the Legion and in the larger realm of national politics, has indeed been largely

forgotten. Accounts of World War I veterans’ activity are typically limited to the interwar period

and World War II, while studies of the period from 1945 to the 1960s generally focus on former

soldiers of the Second World War and Korea, as though the two generations never crossed paths

again after V-J Day.12 By shifting our emphasis away from the stereotypical white, male, and

12On World War I veterans, see for instance Jennifer D. Keene, Doughboys, the Great War, and the
Remaking of America (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Stephen R. Ortiz, Beyond
the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (New York: New York
University Press, 2010); William Pencak, For God & Country: The American Legion, 1919-1941 (Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 1989). On the post-1945 period, see for instance Robert Francis Saxe,
295
straight World War II veterans that are often seen as the poster children of postwar affluence, this

chapter presents a different picture of the 1950s. In this account, the decade is defined more by

economic precarity and political discord than by prosperity and conformity, as it so often is.

Indeed, it shows not only how the economic situation of older veterans was far from stable, but

how the pressure to downsize veterans’ welfare state peaked in the mid- to late-1950s (as the

epigraphs suggested). The divisive issue of non-service-connected veterans’ benefits returned to

the fore in these years, causing the tone of public discussion to become almost as hostile as it had

been at the height of the Civil War pension debate during the Progressive Era. Unlike in previous

chapters, this time the attacks came directly from both Congress and the White House (as one

Legion official exclaimed in 1953, “We are now facing the government of the United States!”).13

Many groups tried to curtail veterans’ spending, including the Second Hoover Commission, the

American Medical Association, and most importantly, the Bradley Commission on Veterans’

Pensions. Yet another blue-ribbon group, the latter was created by Eisenhower in 1955 and tasked

with elaborating—for the first time in U.S. history—a comprehensive, long-term philosophy to

guide the future development of veterans’ policy. Though the Legion was able to defeat all these

reform efforts, it did so at a great cost for its reputation.

Focusing on the controversy around the Bradley commission, this chapter starts with a

brief survey of the public debate on veterans’ affairs in the first few years following the Korean

War. After the conflict drew to a close, attention quickly shifted from the 1952 G.I. Bill to the more

contentious issue of benefits, both medical and pecuniary, that were not directly tied to military

service. Part two then focuses more specifically on 1956, examining the parallel efforts to reform

veterans’ pensions that collided in Congress that year: the Bradley Commission on the one hand

and the Legion’s War Veterans Security Bill on the other. The last section then takes a broader

Settling Down: World War II Veterans’ Challenge to the Postwar Consensus (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2007).
13 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, April 29-30, May 1, 1953, 144, ALA.

296
look at the late 1950s and early 1960s, during which the Eisenhower administration used the

Commission’s report to justify its own efforts to cut non-military spending. At the same time, the

Legion was facing the mounting unrest of some of its oldest members, who had at last grown tired

of the group’s middle-of-the-road approach.

As should be clear by now, when it came to veterans’ benefits the 1950s were anything but

the quiet decade that we often remember. The guns had barely fallen silent in Korea, in fact, that

the volume of the long-running debate over the extent of the country’s debt to its former soldiers

increased once again back home.

The Politics of Non-Service-Connected Veterans’ Benefits

After a short lull during the Korean War, it did not take long for the public debate over

veterans’ benefits to resume its traditionally adversarial tone. As non-service-connected benefits

assumed center stage in this discussion, veterans’ groups once again faced an onslaught of

bipartisan criticism. Though the Legion was able to beat back its opponents, it did so at the cost

of alienating some of its erstwhile allies on the right.

The years following the end of the Korean War witnessed a development that concerned

many observers of veterans’ affairs. On the one hand, the readjustment benefits provided by the

1944 G.I. Bill, which had been responsible for the unprecedented increase in the VA budget after

World War II, shrank markedly. On the other hand, overall veterans’ spending kept climbing

steadily from $5 billion in 1953 to over $6.2 billion in 1960. This increase came from the growth

of two different types of benefits. First and foremost were monthly disability and death payments,

which represented roughly half of the VA budget during this time period. Such payments were

called “compensation” if the veteran’s injury or death was incurred during military service, and

297
“pension” if it was not.14 Second came medical and hospital benefits, to which a smaller yet

substantial share of the budget was devoted.15 Crucially, the growth in both these benefits was

fueled primarily by non-service-connected recipients. Not only did spending on disability

pensions skyrocket from almost $300 million in 1950 to $1.1 billion in 1961, but VA hospitals were

used primarily to treat veterans for non-service-connected disabilities (they accounted for over

two-thirds of patients from 1950 to 1960). What is more, a disproportionate number of these

patients were World War I veterans: 44.5 percent in 1950 and 36.5 percent in 1960, between two-

and-a-half and three times more than their share of the total veteran population.16 The

overwhelming majority of those on the pension rolls were likewise Great War veterans or their

survivors.17 Simply put, then, the rise in veterans’ spending that took place after the end of the

Korean War was largely the product of growing numbers of older and sicker World War I veterans

(and their dependents) taking advantage of VA healthcare and pensions to cover disabilities

incurred after 1918.

Let us pause here for a moment to briefly outline the background of these two types of

benefits, which were notoriously complex and technical.18 Direct monthly payments for death or

14 Prior to 1946, when the distinction between these two benefits was made official, the term “pension” was
commonly used to refer to both service-connected and non-service connected payments. See Congress and
the Nation, 1945-1964, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964), 1336.
15 They represented between 12 and 16 percent of the budget. See table Ed297-310 in Susan B. Carter et al.,

eds., Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present, Millennial ed. (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006).
16 For pension figures, see Table Ed 337-350 in Ibid.; for a breakdown of VA hospital patient figures in 1950,

1955, and 1960, see Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Annual Report For Fiscal Year Ending June 30,
1950 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1951), 147; Administrator of Veterans
Affairs, Annual Report For Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1956 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1957), 194; Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Annual Report, 1961
(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1957), 207, 210; for figures on the veteran
population, see table Ed 245-261 in Carter et al., eds, Historical Statistics of the United States.
17 For instance, they represented 80 percent of those on the rolls in 1957. See table no. 38 in Administrator

of Veterans Affairs, Annual Report for Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1957 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Printing Office, 1957), 218-9.
18 The Bradley Commission report, for instance, described the pension system as a “Victorian mansion of

gingerbread, gables, and mansards, with balconies added everywhere, the cupola replaced by a dome, and
modern wings attached at random.” See Veterans in Our Society: Data on the Conditions of Military
Service and on the Status of the Veteran, 84 H. Prt. 261 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1956), 91.
298
disability were the oldest type of veterans’ benefit in U.S. history, going back to the colonial era

and English tradition. The debt owed by the state to those disabled or killed in military service

had always been recognized. Over time, however, veterans of each successive conflict from the

Revolution to the Spanish-American War had successfully lobbied to expand this principle to

include disabilities incurred outside of service. World War I veterans obtained their own pensions

in 1930, which were later extended to World War II and Korean War veterans.19 Recipients—either

veterans themselves or their surviving spouse and/or children—had to be unable to work and in

need to be eligible.20 By contrast, veterans’ medical benefits were a more recent addition. Only

after the Civil War did the federal government establish soldiers’ homes to provide shelter and

care for poor, elderly Union veterans. After World War I, this system expanded with the creation

of veterans’ hospitals under the responsibility of the VA. These institutions were initially reserved

for the treatment of service-connected ailments, always provided free of charge regardless of the

patient’s income. They began to treat patients for non-service connected illnesses in 1924,

although their admission depended on bed availability and (at least theoretically) on need. In

order to be admitted, non-service-connected patients had to sign a form which included a

statement that they were unable to pay for private care (known as a “pauper’s oath”).21 Crucially,

the VA was prohibited by law from challenging the veracity of that statement or requiring proof. 22

At stake behind the expansion of medical and disability or death benefits in the mid- to late-1950s,

then, was a simple yet vexing question: were military veterans entitled to lifelong state assistance

on the basis or their service alone, or should they be treated like all other citizens?

19 Congress and the Nation, I:1341.

20 Ibid., I:1336.
21 For a copy of this form (VA Form 10-P-10), see for instance U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’

Affairs, Subcommittee on Hospitals, Entitlement and Eligibility of Veterans for Hospital Care and
Outpatient Dental Treatment, Hearing, July 8-10, 13-17, 20-21, 1953 (Washington, D.C.: U.S Government
Printing Office, 1953), 1810–11.
22 For an overview of the legal background of medical and hospital benefits for non-service connected

veterans after World War I, see U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Veterans’
Administration Hospitals, Hearing, July 8, 15-18, 22-24, 29-30, August 6, 1958 (Washington, D.C.: United
States Government Printing Office, 1958), 4020–25.
299
 The debate over this question had always been highly contentious, but it grew even more

heated after the emergence of a robust national welfare state. It was one thing to defend special

benefits for veterans when few other means of support were available, as had been the case in the

U.S. until the early twentieth century; it was another to do so when similar benefits were available

for the general population, as was now the case. Indeed, by the 1950s veterans’ benefits existed

alongside a variety of public and private programs that often fulfilled the same goals. Though

there was no national healthcare insurance, for instance, by the middle of that decade almost two-

thirds of Americans enjoyed hospital and surgical benefits—up from less than 10 percent in

1940.23 Veterans’ disability compensation essentially served the same purpose as workmen’s

compensation laws, which were in effect in virtually every state by the late 1940s.24 Likewise,

veterans’ pensions were basically similar in function to the Old Age and Survivors Insurance

program created in 1935 (OASI, better known as Social Security). Both aimed at protecting their

recipient against a loss of income due to old age or loss of the family provider (disability payments

were added in 1956). In many cases, in fact, veterans of recent wars who had been insured under

Social Security were able to draw on both systems at the same time.25 Not unlike private benefits,

veterans’ benefits therefore existed as an addition to the basic (and often still relatively meager)

system of support provided by public programs.26 Given the size of the veteran population—22.3

million in 1956—and the fact that the peacetime draft produced more veterans every year, this

duplication was not a negligible phenomenon.27 A 1956 study of the progressive think tank

23 See table Bd294-305 in Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States.
24 Gregory P Guyton, “A Brief History of Workers’ Compensation,” The Iowa Orthopaedic Journal 19
(1999): 106–10.
25 A 1954 VA survey found that “nearly one-half of the aged veterans of the ‘new wars’ who were on the

pension roll were also receiving OASI benefits,” a result of average OASI payments being still relatively low,
and of income limits for veterans’ pensions being high enough “so that even the maximum OASI payment
falls below them.” See U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Findings and
Recommendations of the President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions (Bradley Commission), Hearing,
April 23, May 8-11, 16-18, 22, 1956 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1956),
364.
26 Jennifer Klein, For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America’s Public-Private

Welfare State (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2003), esp. chap. 6.
27 See table Ed245-261 in Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States.

300
Twentieth Century Fund, for example, warned that a failure to integrate veterans’ pensions and

Social Security would result in the “profligate waste of social resources.”28 The extent to which

these two separate welfare states—one reserved for veterans and the other for civilians—should

be allowed to exist in parallel to each other was at the center of public debate throughout this

decade.

The answer of many different segments of society was virtually unanimous. Liberal,

mainstream, and conservative segments of the press alike agreed that benefits for non-service

connected disabilities should be curtailed. The New York Times insisted, for instance, that

“[v]eterans who have suffered no injury or illness as a result of their military life are not a class

apart, nor should they be treated as such. Our nineteen million veterans are citizens—and

taxpayers, too.”29 In the Saturday Evening Post, one of the most widely circulated middle-class

magazines of the era, freelance writer Stanley Frank argued that the debt owed veterans “must…be

controlled by how much we can afford to pay,” and that the time was fast approaching “when the

mounting cost of veterans’ benefits will impose an impossible strain on the budget.” He

specifically called for “pensions and regulations for free medical service” to be “revised

dramatically.”30 Local papers such as the Daily Journal Gazette of Mattoon, Illinois, echoed that

message. In a scathing editorial, it argued that the very principle of pensions “borders on the

ridiculous.” “It is time the veteran stopped deluding himself that he is the savior of this nation.

He only did what he was supposed to do, and what he did was pre-ordained by a [draft] number

in a capsule…The veteran is no more, and no less, than a citizen whose duty it is to protect this

country in one fashion or another.”31 Likewise, the Daily News of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, saw

28 John Jay Corson and John W. McConnell, Economic Needs of Older People (New York: Twentieth
Century Fund, 1956), 260.
29 “Veterans Are Citizens,” New York Times, April 14, 1953. See also “A Nation of Veterans,” New York

Times, June 9, 1953; “Veterans as Citizens,” New York Times, September 4, 1954.
30 Stanley Frank, “We Licked the Veteran Problem,” Saturday Evening Post, November 5, 1955. On Frank,

see “Stanley Frank, a Writer and Consultant, at 70,” New York Times, January 8, 1979.
31 “Veterans Pensions,” The Mattoon (IL) Daily Journal-Gazette, February 3, 1956, Veteran Welfare,

Pensions, War Veterans Security Bill, 1956, ALA. [WVSB, ALA thereafter]
301
no reason why military service “warrant[ed] red carpet treatment for the rest of [a veteran’s]

life.”32 Perhaps most forceful, however, were conservative voices.33 For the Chicago Tribune, free

medical care for all veterans was “a mistaken and wasteful policy,” “a long step toward socialized

medicine,” and would ultimately “bankrupt the country.”34 Marjorie Shearon’s far-right

newsletter Challenges to Socialism argued that the opening of VA hospitals to non-service

connected patients was an attempt by “social planners” to woo this powerful constituency in order

to ultimately establish “communist domination of the U.S.” and to implement “nationalized

medicine.”35

Though under a less radical form, essentially the same opposition to the growth of non-

service-connected benefits prevailed among experts and the general public. In an overview of the

U.S. welfare state published by the Brookings Institution in 1950, for instance, the authors

contended that “[e]xcept…when the disablement is the result of service,” “the claim of veterans to

special treatment over and above the claim of ordinary citizens is emotional, often specious, in its

nature.”36 The Committee on Federal Tax Policy likewise emphasized the need to focus on those

veterans disabled in service, and stressed that “every expenditure must be justified—even those

labeled Veterans cannot be passed as ‘sacred’ without examination.”37 Finally, Eveline Burns, a

British-American economist who helped design the 1935 Social Security Act and was President of

the American Economic Association in 1953-1954, recognized “a need for clear thinking as to the

limits of obligation in regard to non-service-connected disabilities and deaths,” calling this

obligation “questionable.”38 As for public opinion, there seemed to be no appetite for lavish

32 Bob Pitkin to William Hauck, March 7, 1956, WVSB, ALA.

33 See e.g. Tom Anderson, “Straight Talk,” March 1956, WVSB, ALA. The op-ed was reprinted in Tom
Anderson, Straight Talk: The Wit and Wisdom of Tom Anderson (Boston: Western Islands, 1967), 39–42.
34 “Veterans Hospital Abuses,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 29, 1953.
35 Challenges to Socialism V, no. 18 (August 16, 1951). See also Challenges to Socialism V, no. 19 (August

23, 1951).
36 Lewis Meriam and Karl T. Schlotterbeck, The Cost and Financing of Social Security (Washington:

Brookings Institution, 1950), 118–19.

37 Committee on Federal Tax Policy, Financing Defense: Can Expenditures Be Reduced?, 1951, 20–21.
38 Eveline M. Burns, The American Social Security System (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1949), 419–20.

302
spending on former soldiers’ benefits. A poll taken in September 1952, for instance, found less

than half of respondents agreeing that the next administration should “do more” for veterans.39

More specifically, a Gallup poll conducted nearly a year later found that only 45 percent of

Americans thought that the government should give a war veteran “free care and treatment at a

veterans’ hospital” for injuries unrelated to service.40 Veterans themselves were divided on the

issue: though almost two-thirds agreed in 1954 that veterans deserved favored treatment

whenever possible, pensions and medical care for the non-service connected also ranked among

their least favorite benefits.41

The same consensus also existed within the executive and legislative branches of the

federal government itself, for the positions of Democrats and Republicans were very similar when

it came to veterans’ benefits. Truman’s philosophy was straightforward: in FDR’s vein, he believed

that veterans with non-service-connected disabilities should be covered under the same public

programs available to the rest of the population. “We should provide through the veterans’

programs only for the special and unique needs of veterans arising directly from military service,”

he said in a message to Congress, while the rest should be covered “under the general social

security, health, and education programs available to all the people, including veterans.”42

Eisenhower’s arrival in the White House the next year changed little. Though his military

background led many former soldiers to hope that he would be their advocate, his thinking on

veterans’ benefits turned out to be essentially the same as his predecessor’s. He believed that while

39 Opinion Research Corporation, ORC Public Opinion Index, Sep, 1952, “How about benefits for veterans—
should they (the next administration) do more for veterans, or less?” USORC.52NOV.R23. Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL, accessed 2/6/2017.
40 Gallup Organization. Gallup Poll (AIPO), Aug, 1953 “Do you think the government should or should not

be required to give a war veteran free care and treatment at a veterans' hospital if his injury or illness was
not caused by being in the service?” USGALLUP.53-519.Q15A. Gallup Organization. Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL, accessed 2/6/2017.
41 This is based on a survey of 2,922 male veterans conducted by Elmo Roper’s firm in October 1954 on

behalf of the Bradley Commission. See Veterans in Our Society: Data on the Conditions of Military Service
and on the Status of the Veteran, 119–28.
42 Harry S. Truman: “Annual Budget Message to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1951,” January 9, 1950. Online

by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13765
303
the government had a “firm obligation” toward war-disabled veterans, its obligations toward the

vast majority of former soldiers who were not disabled in service could best be met by providing

them with “adequate job opportunities” and equal access to “the broad social-security programs

that is provided for nonveterans.”43 Under his administration, the General Accounting Office

found conclusive evidence not only that many VA hospitals regarded the pauper’s oath as a mere

formality, but that some veterans were receiving their pension checks while in prison for major

crimes.44

The political outlook for veterans’ benefits was therefore rather grim at the end of the

Korean War. As Legion leaders remarked in the mid-1950s, “The interest of those who are

opposed to some of the veterans programs is growing…Just what is in store for the war veterans

of this country?”45 In response to these attacks, the group offered different answers. First and

foremost, it continued to aggressively deny that veterans constituted just another group of the

population. As the former head of the Illinois Legion stated, “[w]e believe that military service is

extraordinary service which transcends the normal duties of citizenship and, consequently,

entitles veterans with honorable service to special consideration.” Pensions as well as other

veterans’ benefits, he argued, “were a matter of right and not a gratuity.” 46 Perhaps recognizing

that public opinion was growing increasingly hostile, the Legion passed a formal resolution in

1953 to reaffirm that “the man or woman called into the active service of the US armed forces has

been placed in a very special class by our Government.”47 But Legionnaires also pointed out the

43 Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Annual Budget Message to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1955,” January 21, 1954.
Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9919
44 For the GAO report on VA hospitals, see U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs,

Subcommittee on Hospitals, Entitlement and Eligibility of Veterans for Hospital Care and Outpatient
Dental Treatment, 1646–58. For the report on pensions, see “GI Pension Abuses Outlined,” The
Washington Post and Times Herald, April 17, 1956.
45 T. O. Kraabel and Robert McCurdy, “Outline of the 1955 National Rehabilitation Program,” n.d. (ca.

October 1954), A-Z, ALA.

46 Irving Breakstone, “Payments to Veterans? Right or Gratuity?,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 2, 1959.
47 Proceedings of 36th National Convention of the American Legion (Washington, D.C., 1954), 313.

304
very real difficulties involved in determining whether a disability was service-connected. It could

be hard to find the relevant witnesses and service records were often missing—not to mention the

delays in adjudicating claims. Besides, many veterans being treated for non-service-connected

disabilities in VA hospitals either had other service-connected disabilities or were receiving

treatment for chronic conditions like tuberculosis or mental problems (which meant that they

would need to be taken care of in one way or another).48 Finally, Legion publications emphasized

the “humanitarian side” of the debate, as opposed to focusing merely on the “dollar cost” of the

programs.49 When the American Legion Magazine pushed back against attacks on VA hospital

patients, for instance, it published a series of short descriptions of over 90 “tragic” individual

cases, with the background of the patient, the nature of the disability, the cost of treatment, and

so on, as a “reminder that there were more than cold numbers involved in the fight.”50

These arguments took on added urgency when, under congressional pressure, Eisenhower

was forced to create the Second Hoover Commission in July 1953. With a much broader mandate

than its predecessor, the group released its reports two years later.51 Echoing a now-familiar

chorus of concerns, the Commission found that “[t]he greatest of all problems in the

administration of medical care for veterans are the non-service-connected cases.” It not only

called for VA hospitals to be given the authority to verify pauper’s oaths, but also argued that the

veterans who signed them should be liable to reimburse their treatment in the future, in order to

eliminate what it called “gold bricking” (swindling).52 Going further, it recommended the closure

of several “surplus” VA hospitals, the suspension of the hospital construction program, the

48 Lewis K. Gough, “Who Is Being Treated in the VA Hospitals?” ALM, February 1953.
49 “Legion Hits Veteran Aid Cut Plan: Assails Hoover Group’s Proposal to Limit Benefits,” New York Herald
Tribune, January 30, 1956.
50 “Legion Reveals Tragic Cases AMA Would Deprive of VA Care,” ALM, January 1954; “More Veterans

Whose Removal from VA Hospitals Is Sought,” ALM, February, April, and May 1954.
51 Timothy Walch, ed., Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower: A Documentary History (New York,

NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Ronald C. Moe, The Hoover Commissions Revisited (Boulder, Col.:
Westview Press, 1982), chap. 3.
52 Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of Government, Hoover Commission Report on

Federal Medical Services, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., H. Doc. 99, 1955, 36–38.
305
tightening of the disability ranking system, and the restriction of civil service preference rules. 53

This agenda received immediate support from conservative press organs like the Wall Street

Journal as well as from a broad segment of the mainstream and liberal press.54 Yet as the First

Hoover Commission had already learned to its detriment, public support was not tantamount to

political success. Almost every major stakeholder in veterans’ affairs immediately denounced the

proposals. The Legion condemned them as “incompetent and unrealistic,” while VA

Administrator Harvey Higley and Olin Teague (now Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs

Committee after the 1954 midterm elections had restored Democratic control of the House) both

came out against them.55 Sharing little of Hoover’s more radical agenda, Eisenhower was also

reticent to expend his own political capital on his behalf.56 As a result, the Commission’s major

recommendations quickly receded from the spotlight. In 1957, the Legion noted that little action

had been taken on the proposals that the group had opposed.57 A year later, the group in charge

of lobbying for these proposals disbanded, effectively ending all prospects of implementation.58

A more serious threat to non-service connected benefits came not from a longstanding

enemy such as Herbert Hoover but an erstwhile ally, the American Medical Association (AMA,

the prominent advocacy group for professional physicians). In the early 1950s, that group stood

at the apex of its power, having just defeated Truman’s proposal for national health insurance.59

53 On VA hospitals and the disability ranking system, see recommendations no. 5, 6, and 13 in Ibid., 33–34,
41–43. On civil service, see recommendations no. 12 and 13 in U.S Congress, House, Committee on Post
Office and Civil Service, Hoover Commission Report on Personnel and Civil Service, 84th Cong., 1st Sess.
(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1955), 36–39.
54 “Reforms in Civil Service,” New York Times, February 15, 1955; “Veterans’ Medical Care,” New York

Times, March 2, 1955; “Hoover Savings,” Newsday, Nassau Ed., March 1, 1955; “Federal Health Service,”
The Washington Post and Times Herald, February 28, 1955; “Gypping the Government,” Wall Street
Journal, February 15, 1956.
55 “Hoover Medical Report Released,” ALM, April 1955, 29; “Rehabilitation: Questions and Reports,” ALM,

February 1956, 43; “Hoover Report: A Public Service?” ALM, May 1955, 34-35.
56 The President remarked in his diary that Hoover’s ideas were seen by moderate Republicans like himself

as “a trifle on the moth-eaten side.” See Walch, Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower, 133–34.
57 Proceedings of the 39th National Convention (Atlantic City, N.J., 1957), 320.
58 Moe, The Hoover Commissions Revisited, 109.
59 On this fight, see Monte M. Poen, Harry S. Truman versus the Medical Lobby: The Genesis of Medicare

(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1979); Frank D. Campion, The AMA and U.S. Health Policy since
1940 (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1984), chaps. 10–11.
306
The Legion had been a partner in this fight, passing an official resolution against the President’s

proposal as early as 1945.60 But their coalition was purely circumstantial, a short respite from

their longstanding feud over the issue of medical services to veterans without service-connected

disabilities.61 Because they recognized the value of such a powerful ally in the more pressing fight

against Truman, AMA leaders decided to temporarily play down their differences with the

Legion.62 Eisenhower’s election in 1952, however, meant that the two groups no longer enjoyed a

common enemy. As a result, their truce gradually broke down.63 A year later, the AMA approved

a report opposing VA hospitalization for all non-service-connected patients except tuberculosis

and neuropsychiatric cases. The postwar growth of VA hospitals, it argued, was not only making

it impossible for civilian hospitals to operate “at a reasonable cost” by “producing a wasteful

duplication of hospital facilities and an unwarranted dispersion of health personnel,” but was

unsustainable in the long run due to the constant growth in the veteran population produced by

the draft.64 An article later published in the group’s official journal made the same case in more

overtly political terms, calling the VA medical program “a Trojan horse of ominous dimensions”

that, if left unchecked, could nudge the entire population into “socialized medicine and

socialism.”65

60 See resolution no. 196 in Proceedings of the 27th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago,
1945), 88.
61 The AMA House of Delegates passed a resolution in 1925 to “do away with free federal medical and

surgical services and care for all veterans except those whose disabilities have been caused by war service
for our country,” except for those unable to pay for it. Quoted in American Medical Association, Medical
and Hospital Care of Veterans with Non-Service-Connected Disabilities: A Review of American Medical
Association Policy (Chicago, 1953), 61.
62 “The American Medical Association: Power, Purpose, and Politics in Organized Medicine,” The Yale Law

Journal 63, no. 7 (1954): 1006. There is no evidence that the AMA-Legion alliance was formalized: when
pressed to comment publicly on the matter in April 1953, Legion National Commander Lewis Gough called
claims that his group had made a deal with the AMA to oppose Truman’s health insurance program in
exchange for the AMA refraining from criticizing veterans’ hospitalization “categorically false.” See “Legion
Chief Denies Any AMA ‘Deal,’” Houston Post, April 9, 1953.
63 For a good account of this breakdown, see Wallace Croatman, “That Veterans’ Lobby,” Medical

Economics, November 1953.

64 For the text of the decision and its background, see American Medical Association, Medical and Hospital

Care of Veterans with Non-Service-Connected Disabilities, 7–12.

65 Louis M. Orr, “To Socialized Medicine and Socialism by Way of the Veterans Administration,” Journal of

the American Medical Association 162, no. 9 (October 27, 1956): 860–65.
307
 VA Hospitals as the back
door to “socialized
medicine”: using the same
argument later made by
the AMA, this cartoon
showed Congress failing
to notice the threat of
“free medical care
available indiscriminately
to 18 ½ million veterans.”
Source: “Guarding the
Gate,” Medical
Economics, September
1952.

Reprising many of the same public relations tools that had made its success against

Truman, the AMA immediately embarked on a state-by-state campaign, distributing press

308
releases, speeches, pamphlets, and radio scripts.66 According to noted columnist Drew Pearson,

the association even formed its own front group, the National Medical Veterans Society, whose

members were both veterans and doctors so as to give them added legitimacy.67 The campaign

also received support in the press. The Reader’s Digest, for instance—by far the most widely

circulated magazine in the United States, reaching one out of every four families—ran an article

calling the VA pauper’s oath “one of the most scintillating frauds ever perpetrated on the

American people.”68 Likewise, the Chicago Tribune and Long Island’s Newsday both cheered the

attacks, the latter arguing that “simply because a man has been in uniform is no reason why he

should be pampered and cajoled for the rest of his days.”69 Needless to say, those on the receiving

end of the criticism had a very different reaction. A service officer of the Veterans of Foreign Wars

(VFW), for instance, called the AMA “a bunch of reactionary old dodos.”70 The VA Administrator

also promised that his agency would fight the idea that “the veteran is just another citizen.”71 But

the Legion hit back the hardest, calling the AMA’s campaign “entirely false in premise and…in

direct contradiction to the will of the American people” and a “breach of contract” with the

nation’s service members.72 The situation deteriorated even further when, in 1954, the AMA went

on record opposing the presumption of service-connection for some disabilities developed after

service.73 This move set off a violent reaction. During the National Convention in late August, a

66 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meeting, October 15, 16 and 17, 1953, 107, ALA.
67 Drew Pearson, “Legion, AMA Gird for Battle,” The Washington Post, January 5, 1954. On the NMVS
membership consisting of “physician veterans,” see U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs,
Subcommittee on Hospitals, Entitlement and Eligibility of Veterans for Hospital Care and Outpatient
Dental Treatment, 2459.
68 Holman Harvey, “Must We Follow the VA Route to Socialized Medicine?,” Reader’s Digest, March 1954.

Circulation number quoted in James Playsted Wood, Magazines in the United States (New York: The
Ronald Press Company, 1956), 221.
69 “End Something-for-Nothing,” Newsday, Nassau Ed., June 5, 1953; “Too Much VA,” Chicago Daily

Tribune, September 15, 1953; “The Road to Socialism Thru War,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 8, 1954.
70 “VFW Attacks ‘Old Dodos’ of AMA on Vets,” The Washington Post, August 3, 1953.
71 Nate Haseltine, “AMA Claims Legion Aids Socialism,” The Washington Post and Times Herald, August

31, 1954.
72 “Rehabilitation: AMA Plays a Lone Hand,” ALM, December 1953.
73 “Something Old, Something New,” ALM, August 1954, 34-35.

309
top official called the AMA “the greatest autocratic organization in the world,” adding that the

Legion “should kick them in the teeth.”74

It quickly became clear that the AMA had gone too far. “If the doctors do not know that

the American people have a special regard for veterans,” one physician said in a closed-door

meeting, “the Congress does know it.”75 Indeed, a skeptical member of the House remarked to the

head of the AMA’s front group that the idea that his body would simply discontinue treatment of

non-service-connected cases was quixotic, especially with veterans’ groups so opposed to it.

“[T]he Congress is dead-bent on treatment,” he remarked, “There is no use in you and I arguing

that question. They are going to treat them.”76 The AMA was also out of step with other

representatives of the medical profession. The partnership between medical schools and the VA,

created after World War II, had proved so successful that the interests of the former had become

deeply intertwined with the latter’s. Recognizing that they needed “the non-service-connected

patient in the veterans’ hospital in order to make a balanced program which is any good for

teaching,” their umbrella association pressed Congress to push back against the AMA’s attacks. 77

Finally, the AMA simply failed to back up its charges of widespread abuse of the pauper’s oath

with hard facts.78 A member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee remarked that an

“exhaustive survey” of the system had revealed “no appreciable number of irregular or illegal or

improper admissions…We just do not find them.”79 The only concrete concession that the AMA

obtained was a new VA form requiring veterans to give more detailed information about their

74 Morrie Dunnie, “‘Kick AMA in Teeth,’ Says Legion Aide,” The Washington Post and Times Herald, August
29, 1954.
75 Pearson, “Legion, AMA Gird for Battle.”
76 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Hospitals, Entitlement and

Eligibility of Veterans for Hospital Care and Outpatient Dental Treatment, 2481.
77 Quoted in Colin D. Moore, “Innovation without Reputation: How Bureaucrats Saved the Veterans’ Health

Care System,” Perspectives on Politics 13, no. 2 (June 2015): 333.

78 “60 Listed as Abusers of V. A. Hospitalization,” New York Herald Tribune, July 14, 1953.
79 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 1954 Legislative Programs of the American

Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and American Veterans of World War
II, Hearing, January 28, February 16, 1954 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office,
1954), 3590.
310
income and assets. Yet this was largely a toothless measure, as the agency was still prohibited

from denying hospitalization to any veteran signing the oath.80

By the mid-1950s, then, successive attempts to curb VA medical benefits for non-service-

connected patients had been routed. In particular, the defeat of the AMA—the same group that

just a few years earlier had brought down the efforts of the entire Truman administration to pass

national healthcare insurance—seemed to speak volumes about the continuing political strength

of veterans’ groups. Nevertheless, their most serious challenge was yet to come.

The Bradley Commission and the War Veterans Security Bill

After the Legion-AMA feud receded from public view, attention shifted from medical

benefits to disability and death payments, though the focus remained on non-service-connected

veterans and their survivors. One of the oldest and most divisive topics in U.S. politics—veterans’

pensions—thus took center stage once again. 1956 would witness the collision of two separate

attempts to reform this program, one inspired by the Legion and another it vehemently opposed.

Pensions had always divided not only the general public but veterans’ groups themselves.

Back in 1930, the Legion’s conservative leadership had initially opposed the passage of the bill

backed by the VFW to provide pensions for World War I veterans, on the ground that benefits

80 “V. A. Tightens Rule for Hospital Care: Acts to Curtail Free Treatment for Ex-G.I.’s Who Can Pay–
Requests Prosecutions,” New York Times, November 6, 1953. A 1956 GAO report found no cases “in which
a veteran was denied hospitalization because of his financial status…if he had sworn that he was unable to
pay for hospitalization.” See Abuses of Veterans Administration Outpatient Program (Part 1); Report of
the General Accounting Office on the Ability of Veterans to Pay for Hospitalization Involving Non-Service-
Connected Disabilities (Part 2), 84 H. Prt. 232 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing
Office, 1956), 166.
311
should go first to the war-disabled.81 While the Legion had long supported cost-of-living increases

and occasional improvements in the overall structure of pension laws, it had always steered clear

from advocating for a general service pension—the term applied to pensions available to all

veterans on the mere basis of old age (typically after 65) regardless of income and disability, of

the type that had been granted to veterans of the Civil War and Spanish-American War. Well

aware that public opinion was decidedly hostile to such legislation, the Legion leadership feared,

as a top administrative officer put it in 1940, that “the enactment of general pension laws might

possibly result in the destruction of all of the fine legislation which we have accomplished.”82 They

were afraid that it would trigger a devastating political backlash that would jeopardize existing

veterans’ benefits, as had been the case with the passage of the Economy Act of 1933. As we saw

briefly in the previous chapter, only in 1949 did the group endorse such a measure for World War

I veterans. Yet even this was a hard-fought concession to the pressure of its rank-and-file. After

the outbreak of the Korean War, National Commander George Craig vowed to suspend their drive

for the duration.83 Though the official announcement was made in the spirit of supporting the war

effort, Craig was also eager to sidestep an issue that had caused serious damage to his group’s

image. A few months after the Legion had endorsed general pensions, for instance, one official in

the group’s Public Relations Division wrote that he already had on his desk “a shoe box full

of…editorials from all parts of the nation,” which were “100 percent against” their group.84

Understandably, then, the leadership refused to re-endorse such a bill once the hostilities in Korea

were over. Pointing to the “anti-veteran” political climate that they argued prevailed in Congress,

Legion leaders typically responded to queries from their members by arguing that now was not

81 The Legion later rallied behind after it passed the House, realizing that it simply could not oppose a bill
that would benefit so many of its members. See William Pencak, For God & Country: The American Legion,
1919-1941 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989), chap. 7.
82 Frank E. Samuel to R. L. Randall, March 28, 1940, A-Z, ALA.
83 See previous chapter for more details.
84 Jack Cejnar to Albert G. Bane, December 15, 1948, A-Z, ALA.

312
the time to be pushing for general pensions and that the Legion was focused instead on “defending

and retaining…those benefits that are already a matter of law.”85

But perhaps the major reason why the leadership refused to support general pensions was

their fear that it would open a serious rift between older and younger Legionnaires. The divide

was already apparent in 1949, when anecdotal evidence indicated that while the group’s general

pension bill seemed to be popular among “our older Legionnaires,” those from World War II

tended to oppose it.86 The correspondence received throughout the 1950s at the Legion’s national

headquarters revealed that the gap was not going away. For rank-and-file World War I

Legionnaires, it was only fair that their own generation be granted the same general pension as

Civil War and Spanish-American War veterans had received—and were still receiving.87 Had their

war not been as bloody, traumatic, and momentous? As one veteran asked the Legion’s National

Commander: “Why is it that, of all American wars of the past, the soldiers of World War 1 are the

only ones to be denied a pension?...Unless it is intended that WW 1 veterans go down in history

as the only American soldiers to be discriminated against in the matter of pensions, the Legion

ought to take some action soon.”88 Such a measure, they further argued, was a mere trifle in

comparison with the benefits already lavished on their younger counterparts with the G.I. Bills,

and would only begin to make up for the lack of consideration that they felt their own generation

had suffered from. As one Legionnaire from Peoria, Illinois, put it, “it seems everything, and I

mean EVERYTHING under the sun has been done for WW2 veterans, but the WW1 boys have had,

and, still are taking it in the neck when anything is proposed for them.”89 World War I veterans

85 Nicholas Lyngh, Jr. to Sam H. Cobb, February 17, 1955, A-Z, ALA.
86 Tom Jay Goss II to the American Legion, March 9, 1949; William C. Brooker to Henry H. Dudley, March
11, 1949, A-Z, ALA.
87 As of June 30, 1955, one veteran of the Civil War and 60,125 veterans of the Spanish-American War were

still on the federal pension rolls, see Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Annual Report for Fiscal Year
Ending June 30, 1955, 203.
88 Walter Cronenwett to Donald R. Wilson, June 24, 1952, A-Z, ALA.
89 Eugene Ahrends to National Commander, April 3, 1957, A-Z, ALA. Emphasis original.

313
were “apparently…the forgotten men,” another wrote in echo, for “World War Two and the Korean

Conflict veterans have been given every consideration.”90

To be sure, the divide between World War I and younger veterans on the issue of general

pensions was relative. According to a 1954 survey, only a minority in both groups favored such

measures. Nevertheless, the difference in approval rates between generations remained

substantial: a quarter of all World War I veterans compared to only 10 percent of World War II

veterans and 14 percent of Korean War veterans.91 So what explained this differential? Perhaps

most obviously, World War I veterans were simply older and therefore more likely to use such

benefits (the average age of the World War I cohort was 61 in 1955, compared to 36 for their World

War II counterparts).92 A congressional report found that while about 15 percent of all Great War

veterans were receiving a pension in 1958, less than 0.5 percent of their Second World War

counterparts did.93 A second key reason why pensions appealed more to the older cohort is simply

because their economic situation tended to be much more precarious: as late as 1959, over a third

of persons over 65 were below the poverty level.94 Those who had retired under Social Security

often found that this program, whose payments averaged only about $61 a month in mid-1955,

was not enough to live on. For those without any other source of income, old age public assistance

programs were even more stingy, at $52 a month.95 It was therefore not a stretch to view this

debate, as some did, as a fight between the “haves” in the group’s leadership and the “have-nots”

90 Walter G. Grunning to Seaborn Collins, July 19, 1955, A-Z, ALA.

91 Veterans in Our Society: Data on the Conditions of Military Service and on the Status of the Veteran,
84 H. Prt. 261 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1956), 125.
92 For the average age of World War I, World War II, and Korean War veterans, see Veterans’ Benefits in

the U.S.: A Report to the President by the President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions: Part I & II,
Findings and Recommendations, 84 H. Prt. 236 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing
Office, 1956), 64.
93 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Non-Service-Connected Pensions for Veterans of

World Wars I, II, Korean Conflict and Their Widows and Children, 86 H. Rpt. 537 (Washington, D.C.:
United States Government Printing Office, 1959), 13, 17.
94 Sheryl R. Tynes, Turning Points in Social Security: From “Cruel Hoax” to “Sacred Entitlement”

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 151.

95 For the average OASI and public assistance payment in August 1955, see “Social Security in Review,”

Social Security Bulletin 18, no. 2 (December 1955): 1. For complaints from Legionnaires, see for instance
M. Pick to the American Legion, June 15, 1952, A-Z, ALA.
314
in the rank-and-file. One Legionnaire, for instance, thought that the main reason why the group

had not endorsed general pensions was that many deprived World War I veterans “can not afford

a trip to National Conventions,” where official policy resolutions were voted on. 96 At a convention

of the New York Legion, the speeches of two top officials against general pensions also drew a

sharp rebuke. After remarking that they surely had “a very comfortable income,” one veteran in

the audience asked, “how about the poor guy who doesn’t have the income nor the mean?” “Our

interest should be in the man who can’t take care of himself,” he added, “and damn the speakers

who have incomes of more than the guy who doesn’t have enough to live on.”97

Many Legionnaires turned their resentment into action, either inside or outside of the

group. Though World War I veterans represented a minority (approximately 30 percent) of the

Legion’s nearly 2.8 million members in 1955, their influence in some of the largest state chapters

such as Illinois or New York was stronger.98 In the former, for instance, the conservative Chicago-

based old guard led by Charles V. Falkenberg was responsible for adopting a resolution in favor

of a general World War I pension every year between 1945 and 1956.99 Other Legionnaires

decided to work outside the system. Starting in 1949, more and more joined the new Veterans of

World War I of the U.S.A., a group open only to former soldiers of the Great War and dedicated

almost single-mindedly to passing a general pension for them. Its members were nicknamed

“Wonnies.”100 Reprising a familiar theme, its official newsletter was titled The Forgotten Men.101

96 C. L. (Bob) Miller to Dear Comrade Commander, June 29, 1955, A-Z, ALA.
97 Extract from Verbatim Minutes, The American Legion, 34th Annual National Convention, New York City,
August 25-28, 1952 (Volume II), A-Z, ALA.
98 For an estimate of the proportion of each generation in the Legion membership, see American Legion

Membership Survey Winter 1954-1955 (Reel #96-10), 14, ALA. For evidence that these two Departments
were hotbeds of pro-general pension activism, see Nicholas Lyngh, Jr., to Walter J. Grunning, July 27, 1955,
A-Z, ALA. Throughout the 1950s, New York and Illinois were typically (and respectively) the second and
third most populated Departments in the Legion (behind Pennsylvania), each with slightly more than
200,000 members. See The American Legion, National Membership Record (2012), ALA.
99 “Legion Urges 1918 Vet Pensions: Seen as Old Guard Test in State,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 4,

1956. On the Illinois Department and anti-communism, see the third chapter of the dissertation.
100 Congress and the Nation, 1945-1964, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1964),

1347, 1353.
101 Albert L. Weber to Hon. Robert H. Taft, n.d. (ca. February 1951), Box 1077, Folder: Veterans, Legislation

(1951), Robert A. Taft Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
315
As a knowledgeable observer of veterans’ affairs noted, the new group was mostly “made up of

those who feel that the Legion and the VFW waited too long, and did too little, to close in on the

pension objective.”102 By appealing specifically to World War I veterans, this organization was

filling the gap left by the Legion when it voted to open its ranks to the World War II generation in

1942. Speakers at its first national convention in 1953 argued that since younger veterans were

now dominant in the Legion and the VFW, “veterans of the earlier war need a separate

organization to represent their interests.”103

While dissent simmered, the Legion continued to push only for minor improvements to

the current pension program. It was the passage of a Legion-supported bill providing for moderate

cost-of-living increases in pension rates for veterans of all wars, in fact, that led Eisenhower to

take action.104 In the broader context of his “New Look” military strategy, whereby the President

was actively trying to find ways to cut spending across the board, veterans’ pensions must have

seemed like an obvious target.105 Though he agreed to sign the Legion’s bill in August 1954 in

order to provide relief to those veterans “living under circumstances of extreme hardship,” he

pointed to the many “inequities and anomalies” that existed in the program as a whole (in

particular the fact that it duplicated Social Security payments) as evidence of the need “to examine

the entire structure, scope and philosophy of our veterans benefit laws in relation to each other

and to other government programs.”106 He signed the executive order formally establishing a

Commission on Veterans’ Pensions a few months later.107 Importantly, none of the seven members

of this blue-ribbon group were taken from within the VA bureaucracy—though several had

102 Sam Stavisky, “Vets Demand Pensions for All,” Nation’s Business, April 1956.
103 “War I Veterans Choose 1st Chief,” clipping, n.d. (ca. November 14, 1953), A-Z, ALA.
104 “Veterans Newsletter: Pensions, Compensation Get Cost-of-Living Hike,” ALM, November 1954, p. 27.
105 Richard H. Immerman and Robert R. Bowie, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring

Cold War Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

106 Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Statement by the President Upon Signing Bills Increasing Payments to Veterans

or Their Dependents.,” August 28, 1954. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American
Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=10009
107 “Veterans’ Pension Study Unit Named,” New York Herald Tribune, January 15, 1955.

316
extensive experience of it. Its chairman Omar Bradley, after whom the Commission quickly

became known, was a five-star general and former Director of the VA from 1945 to 1947. Over the

next year and a half, his Commission conducted an almost comprehensive investigation of

veterans’ programs. Because the White House felt that “the area of medical benefits [was] quite

controversial”—the still-recent fight between the AMA and the Legion had clearly left its mark—

and that “to bite that off too in addition to all the other things would cause too much trouble,”

they specifically excluded medical benefits from the Commission’s purview.108 Even within this

reduced perimeter, the task at hand was enormous: the final published work of the group

consisted of 17 volumes for a total of over 4,200 pages.109 This was by far the most comprehensive

and ambitious attempt to reform veterans’ welfare state to date.

As its main report made clear, the overall goal of the Commission’s work was to

“modernize” the structure of veterans’ benefits, especially the “old backward-looking pension

philosophy,” by bringing it in line with the “fundamental changes in our society” that had

happened since World War II.110 Some of the changes that it highlighted were familiar. When the

main report of the Commission noted that “we are rapidly becoming a Nation of veterans” and

that mass conscription would only accelerate this change, or that the readjustment assistance

provided to veterans of the last two wars with the 1944 and 1952 G.I. Bills had generally been

successful, anyone who followed veterans’ affairs was unlikely to be surprised.111 Likewise, its

remarks that veterans’ needs were increasingly met through general welfare programs like Social

108 “MINUTES OF FIRST MEETING OF THE PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION ON VETERANS’ PENSIONS , Monday,
28 March 1955 – 10:45 a.m.,” Box 17, Folder: Meeting of March 28, 1955 Minutes (1), Records of the U.S
President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library. [PCVP, DDEPL
thereafter]
109 For a complete list of all the staff reports, see the finding aid for the records of the Bradley Commission

at the Eisenhower Presidential Library, available online at (accessed on February 15, 2017):
https://eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Finding_Aids/pdf/US_Presidents_Commission_on_Veteran
s_Pensions.pdf
110 Veterans’ Benefits in the U.S., 3, 9. For “backward-looking,” see the Letter of Transmittal in the preface.
111 Ibid., 128.

317
Security and that a projected general pension bill was likely to impose “staggering” costs on the

nation were hardly unheard of, as noted earlier.112

But the Commission did add to the debate in three ways. First, it stressed the new nature

of military service. With military and civilian pay now comparable, the greater specialization of

military training that could transfer to private industry jobs, and lower service mortality rates, the

report claimed that “the disparity between the economic and general situation of servicemen and

that of civilians has narrowed greatly since the Spanish-American War,” becoming virtually

“inconsequential.”113 If serving was no longer such a handicap, then veterans’ benefits were less

warranted. Indeed, the report went on to argue that “the economic condition of veterans as a

group is better than that of nonveterans” in their respective age cohorts. Veterans tended to have

higher incomes, to be over-represented in professional and technical occupations, and to be more

highly educated than their civilian counterparts (the difference was especially marked for the

World War II generation).114 Finally, the Commission made a more general observation on how

atomic warfare would change who counted as a “veteran.” While it had been relatively easy to

distinguish in recent wars between “wartime serviceman and civilian noncombatant,” as almost

all of the fighting had taken place overseas, this would no longer apply if an A- or H-bomb was

used against the United States. As the Commission noted,

In the event of an all-out thermonuclear war every city, every industrial center, may
become a target. Battlegrounds will then have no valid geographical connotation. All
occupations will be military; every citizen will be on a potential battleline. That is the
ultimate change, and the trend is inescapable. Atomic warfare may be fought on every
civilian’s doorstep. It could make of every citizen a combat veteran.115

112 Ibid., 107.

113 Ibid., 79.
114 Ibid., 92–97.
115 Veterans in Our Society: Data on the Conditions of Military Service and on the Status of the Veteran,

98–99.
318
For all these reasons, the Commission’s first formal recommendation was that “military service

in time of war or peace should be treated as discharging an obligation of citizenship and not of

itself as a basis for future Government benefits.” Those disabled in service should be cared for,

but the idea that “anyone who has served in the Armed Forces in wartime…has a right to special

privileges from the Government for the rest of his life, and thereafter for his survivor,” was “clearly

outmoded.”116

From this general recommendation flowed the other, more specific sixty-nine. Though it

is impossible to do them all justice here, a few key points stood out. Most importantly, the

Commission recommended that benefits should only cover service-connected needs and that the

rest “should be minimized and gradually eliminated.” It recognized, however, that this was

unlikely to happen immediately, and that in the near future non-service connected benefits

“should be limited to a minimum level and retained only as a reserve line of honorable protection

for veterans whose means are shown to be inadequate and who fail to qualify for basic protection

under the general OASI system”—in other words, pensions were to fill in the gaps left in Social

Security coverage.117 The Commission recommended, however, that the two be coordinated more

efficiently by eliminating loopholes and making pensions more reflective of need.118 It also argued

that most veterans discharged without a service-connected disability should only have access to

readjustment benefits similar to those provided by the G.I. Bills.119 Civil service preference should

likewise be provided only for a limited time after discharge, as opposed to for life. 120 To be sure,

many of these ideas had been circulating under one form or another in policy circles for years. 121

116 Veterans’ Benefits in the U.S., 134–36.

117 Ibid., 137–38.
118 Veterans’ Benefits in the U.S., 375–76.
119 Ibid., 139. The Commission recommended that peacetime veterans not be eligible for mustering-out pay,

educational benefits, loan guaranties, and pensions, see Ibid., chap. X.

120 This recommendation excluded veterans with a service-connected disability rated 30 percent or more.

See Veterans’ Benefits in the U.S., 319.

121 See for instance U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Independent

Offices Appropriations, Second Independent Offices Appropriations for 1954. Part 1, Hearing, March 3, 12,
319
Nevertheless, the Bradley Commission represented the first attempt to bring them all together for

public consumption under a coherent philosophical framework.

When Bradley submitted his final report to Eisenhower on April 22, 1956, the event drew

the attention of most of the major daily news outlets. Virtually all headlines presented the

proposed gradual elimination of veterans’ pensions as the single most important recommendation

of the Commission.122 The reaction of the press was generally favorable, which was hardly

surprising, for the Bradley Commission’s recommendations adopted the same line that many

national outlets had long been pushing.123 After extensively quoting the report, for instance, The

Christian Science Monitor simply added “Hear! Hear!”124 The Washington Post and Times

Herald likewise argued that notwithstanding the “self-serving protests from professional

veterans,” the proposals of the reports made “enormous good sense,” for “[s]ocially, economically

and morally it would be wrong to regard veterans as a privileged class apart from the general

population.”125 For the New York Herald Tribune, the repudiation of “the idea that just because a

man has worn the uniform, he is entitled to a living from the government,” was a “sound and able

assessment.”126 Howard A. Rusk, a prominent expert in rehabilitation medicine, wrote in the New

York Times that the report constituted “extremely sound advice,” and the philosophy it put

forward “a sound and equitable system to replace our current patchwork of piecemeal

18-19, April 2, May 6, 14-15, 18-20, 25, 27-28, 1953 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing
Office, 1953), 785–88.
122 See for instance Darrell Garwood, “Bradley Study Urges Elimination Of Non-Service Veterans’

Pensions,” The Washington Post and Times Herald, April 23, 1956; Edwin L. Dale Jr., “General Pension
for U.S. Veterans Opposed by Panel: Bradley Commission Asserts Social Security Covers Almost All
Citizens,” New York Times, April 23, 1956; Joseph Hearst, “Board Report Urges Cut in Vet Pensions: Asks
Tie-up with Social Security,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 23, 1956; William H. Stringer, “Bradley
Commission Asks Brake on Vet Pensions: Change Is Philosophy,” The Christian Science Monitor, April 23,
1956; “U.S. Group Urges Deep Cut in Vets’ Pension Benefits,” Newsday, Nassau Ed., April 23, 1956.
123 Technical Adviser to Members of the President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions, May 10, 1956,

Folder: Office Memoranda (1), Box 2, PCVP, DDEPL.

124 “For Sacrifice, Not Just Service,” The Christian Science Monitor, April 24, 1956.
125 “Veterans Everywhere,” The Washington Post and Times Herald, April 24, 1956.
126 “Toward a Veterans’ Policy,” New York Herald Tribune, April 25, 1956.

320
legislation.”127 The editorial writers of the Times themselves argued that the conclusions of the

Bradley Commission reflected what their own position had been “for years,” and in fact argued

that the group “should have gone further” by including proposals for veterans’ medical benefits.128

Needless to say, the reaction was less enthusiastic among most veterans’ organizations.

The exception to the norm was the liberal AVC, which described the recommendations as “a

magnificent contribution in bringing sanity and realism to the nation’s program of veterans

benefits and pensions.”129 The Disabled American Veterans (DAV), however, argued that things

would “border on the catastrophic” for many veterans if Congress adopted the recommendations

of the Bradley Commission.130 The head of the VFW likewise condemned the Commissioners for

“talking through their hats.”131 Even the typically moderate AMVETS made it clear that they

opposed the idea that veterans were not a “select group” entitled to special benefits.132 The Legion

certainly agreed with that assessment. Back in March 1955, the National Commander had

appointed a special three-man committee to follow the Commission’s work and prepare their own

response, anticipating the hostile direction that its conclusions would take. 133 The final report of

this team found the Bradley Commission’s recommendations to be “filled with clichés, self-

contradictions, inaccuracies, looseness of expression, non sequiturs, statistical monstrosities, and

thrilling discoveries of the obvious.” The Bradley report was “discouraging because it belittles the

contribution of the veteran to his country,” it argued, and “dangerous because, by stealth cloaked

in compliments, it exalts the welfare state and denies to the veteran a special dignity because of

127 Howard A. Rusk, “U.S. Debt to Veterans: An Analysis of the Report on the Benefits Appropriate for Those
Not Hurt on Duty,” New York Times, April 29, 1956.
128 “A Nation of Veterans,” New York Times, April 24, 1956.
129 “U.S. Group Urges Deep Cut in Vets’ Pension Benefits.”
130 “Veterans’ Benefit Cuts Attacked,” New York Herald Tribune, May 9, 1956.
131 “Some Assorted Eggheads,” New Republic 134, no. 20 (May 14, 1956): 5.
132 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Findings and Recommendations of the

President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions (Bradley Commission), Hearing, April 23, May 8-11, 16-18,
22, 1956 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1956), 3685.
133 Proceedings of 37th National Convention of the American Legion (Miami, 1955), 177.

321
service to country.”134 Legion officials saw Bradley’s as only the latest in a long list of groups, going

back to the First Hoover Commission, that had attempted “to submerge the identification of the

war veteran as an entity” in the broader population.135

But Legionnaires had something else on their mind as they contemplated the Bradley

report. For several months already, their own group had been deeply involved in the preparation

of its own landmark pension bill. At the previous year’s National Convention, delegates had

decisively defeated yet another attempt by Illinois, New York, and a few other Department to pass

a resolution in favor of a general monthly pension of $100 for all veterans above the age of 60. 136

The Convention adopted instead a plan calling for a broad revision of disability pension

legislation, by increasing pension payments, raising income limitations, and making every veteran

over 65 automatically eligible.137 The rationale behind the latter feature was that, under current

regulations, veterans had to be declared unemployable on a case-by-case basis by the VA before

they could receive a pension—a process that the Legion saw as unnecessarily arbitrary and sought

to make automatic “because of the growing acceptance of age 65 as the age of retirement.”138

Legion officials described their larger plan as “a compromise measure designed to placate those

who raised a clamor for a ‘General Pension Law.’”139 They saw it as the “most moderate” option

available, one that would allow Congress and the White House to sufficiently improve the

situation so that the advocates of a potentially much costlier general pension plan would have the

ground cut from under them.140 The fact that the plan would be introduced in Congress during a

134 “Bradley Report, 40&8 Troubles Highlight Legion NEC Meetings,” ALM, June 1956.
135 T. O. Kraabel to Fred A. Clough, Jr., September 8, 1955, A-Z, ALA.
136 The vote was 2,110 to 808 against the resolution, see National Public Relations Division, “ FOR

IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” December 16, 1955. For excerpts of the floor debate on this resolution, seen Verna
Grimm to Edw. McGrail, December 1, 1955, A-Z, ALA.
137 National Public Relations Division, “ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” November 1955, A-Z, ALA.
138 J. Addington Wagner to Richard Treadwell, May 7, 1956, WVSB, ALA.
139 Bertram G. Davis to Donald R. Wilson, November 1, 1955, A-Z, ALA.
140 “Veterans Newsletter: Legion Pushes Ahead in Drive for War Veterans Security Bill to Aid Aging or

Disabled Veterans,” ALM, April 1956, 31-32.

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presidential election campaign was surely not a coincidence. As a Congressman later admitted,

“[1956] is an election year and it’s hard to vote against the veterans.”141

“Election politics” reminds both major

parties of the political benefits (and
risks) of a “giant veterans pension
bill.”
Source: “Better Remember the Big
Federal Debt, Too,” The Christian
Science Monitor, June 12, 1956.

Yet however moderate they considered their own plan to be, Legion officials had burned

themselves enough times in the past to know that the public was unlikely to readily agree with

that view. In their propaganda effort, they chose not to portray the bill as another “veterans’

pension” measure, for they knew that the term continued to carry a heavy political stigma (one

Wisconsin Legion official advised a local Auxiliary member to “[s]tay away as far as you can from

the word ‘Pension’”).142 Rather, they presented it as an attempt to extend to older veterans the

141 “Defeat of Veterans’ Benefit Bill Forecast: Measure Approved by Committee Because of Pressure by
Legion, Says Rep. Teague,” Los Angeles Times, June 10, 1956.
142 Bradley R. Taylor to Harriet M. Hass, February 18, 1956, Box 6, Folder: Correspondence, 1956, Jan.-

Aug., Bradley R. Taylor Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.

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same economic security available to other categories of the population. Pointing to the presence

of income limitations as ensuring that only “needy” veterans would be eligible, for instance, they

insisted that theirs was not a “so-called general pension based on age alone” (though the $1,800

ceiling that they were proposing was still higher than the median income of all World War I

veterans aged 65 and over).143 Instead, the Legion borrowed heavily from the rhetoric of the New

Deal. The name that its leaders eventually picked for their plan was the War Veterans Security

Bill, an echo of the 1935 Social Security Act.144 Similarly, the Legion material describing the bill to

their rank-and-file argued that it provided “a measure of freedom from want,” a direct reference

to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous 1941 Four Freedoms speech.145 It is worth stressing how

surprising this discursive appropriation must have seemed at the time. Not only had the Legion

long been one of the most vocal right-wing critics of the New Deal welfare state, but Roosevelt

himself had been a steadfast opponent of granting special benefits to veterans. The fact that

Legion leaders decided to push for a pension bill by disguising it (however thinly) as a general

welfare measure spoke volumes about the increasing unpopularity of veterans’ benefits in the

1950s.

Aware that they were entering a political minefield, Legion leaders threw all their weight

behind the War Veterans Security Bill. Introduced in Congress as H.R. 7886 in early January 1956,

they presented it as their group’s “greatest legislative campaign since the days of [the] G.I. Bill in

1944.”146 The comparison was meant to inspire younger members into action, by portraying the

143 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 1956 Legislative Programs of the American
Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, American Veterans of World War II, Veterans of Foreign Wars,
and Veterans of World War I, Hearing, January 12, 17, February 7, 1956 (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1956), 2193. The median income of World War I veterans was $1,715 in 1954,
see Veterans in Our Society: Data on the Conditions of Military Service and on the Status of the Veteran,
116.
144 The initial name of the bill was the far less catchier “Age and Need Bill,” see “Veterans Newsletter: Legion

Pension Bill for Older Veterans Introduced,” ALM, February 1956, 29-30.
145 The Committee for the War Veterans Security Bill, “How about ‘Freedom from Want’ for America’s

Disabled Veterans?,” n.d., WVSB, ALA.

146 National Public Relations Division, “ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” January 12, 1956, A-Z, ALA.

324
War Veterans Security Bill as a repayment of the debt they owed to the older generation

responsible for passing the original G.I. Bill. The head of the Legion, for example, asked all

Legionnaires “and especially ALL WORLD WAR II and Korea veterans” to support the new bill.

“The veterans of World War I had no GI Bill of Rights,” he wrote,

no housing benefits, no educational benefits, no unemployment benefits, no mustering-

out pay worthy of the name. Yet they procured all of those advantages and more for us
younger veterans…Now we…are put to the test of proving that our understanding of the
needs of our older comrades is as great as their understanding of our needs was…in short,
the test of proving that we were worthy of the GI Bill of Rights.147

The analogy was not just rhetorical: the special Legion committee appointed to steer the bill

through Congress, for instance, was explicitly modeled after the handpicked Legion team

responsible for the passage of the G.I. Bill over a decade earlier. 148 Both groups were chaired by

the same Legion notable, John Stelle of Illinois.149 His committee immediately began to plan a

“national coordinated drive,” directing efforts at the local and the state level both in the Legion

and the Auxiliary. The strategy was the same that the Legion always employed when trying to

lobby Congress: rank-and-file members were urged to give “all-out support” to the bill by writing

“a barrage of letters” to their Representatives to help support the efforts of national officials.150

As the new year got underway, in fact, Congress was already flooded with bills related to

veterans’ pensions: over 70 came before Olin Teague’s committee.151 While the VFW was pushing

a more generous pension increase for World War I veterans that favored those having served

overseas, the “Wonnies” continued to lobby for a simple $100 per month at age 60, “no strings

147 J. Addington Wagner to My Fellow War Veterans, January 23, 1956, WVSB, ALA. Emphasis original.
148 National Public Relations Division, “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” November 1955, A-Z, ALA.
149 “Legion Opens Drive to Pass War Veterans Security Bill,” ALM, March 1956, 31.
150 “Rehabilitation: To Get a Fair Shake,” ALM, April 1956.
151 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Legislation Relating to Non-Service-Connected

Pensions for Veterans and Their Dependents (All Wars), Hearing, February 27 - March 1, 1956
(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1956), 2433.
325
attached.”152 Legion National Commander J. Addington Wagner tried to make a case in favor of

his bill, but his plea fell on deaf ears. Though generally a reliable ally of the Legion, the VA rejected

the bill, predicting that its total cost would reach $77 billion by the year 2000—an estimate

Wagner called “outrageous nonsense.”153 Eisenhower later backed the agency by publishing a

letter against the bill.154 Most importantly—given the considerable power concentrated in his

position as committee chairman—Teague was not receptive to the Legion’s arguments. Himself

the recipient of three Purple Hearts from his service in World War II, he was a fiscal conservative

who believed that veterans’ benefits should go first to war-disabled veterans and their widows and

orphans. He also thought that pension payments ought to depend less on age than on whether the

recipient had served in combat.155 And as a veteran of the Second World War, he saw the claim

that World War I veterans had received less than their fair share of benefits with skepticism. In a

private letter, he wrote that “it certainly does not appear” to him “that World War I veterans have

been ‘forgotten,’” pointing to the fact that this older generation was under the same pension

system as World War II and Korean veterans, that they had received a Bonus during the interwar

period, and that they enjoyed certain minor legal advantages over younger generations.156

This is where the trajectories of the War Veterans Security Bill and the Bradley

Commission report finally collided. Teague was determined to bottle up H.R. 7886 in his

committee, for he knew that it was unlikely that a majority of his colleagues would be willing to

go on record against it if it reached the floor of the House for a vote. He therefore used all kinds

152 Stavisky, “Vets Demand Pensions for All.”

153 Ibid., 2711; “Legion Head Scores V.A.: Wagner Terms Estimate on Aged Benefits ‘Nonsense,’” New York
Times, February 17, 1956.
154 “House Votes Next Week On Bill to Aid Veterans,” New York Herald Tribune, June 19, 1956. The letter

was later read on the floor of the House, see Congressional Record 102, 8 (June 26, 1956), H11027-8.
155 Alec Philmore Pearson Jr., “Olin E. Teague and the Veterans’ Administration” (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas

A&M University, 1977), 151–55; Mark Boulton, Failing Our Veterans: The G.I. Bill and the Vietnam
Generation (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 35.
156 In particular, he mentioned the fact that World War I veterans had a 7-year period of presumption of

service-connection for tuberculosis and mental disability, while veterans of World War II and Korea had a
much shorter period, and that World War I veterans’ widows received a pension regardless of whether their
spouse died of a service-connected cause, unlike widows of World War II and Korean War veterans. See
Olin Teague to Dear Sir, n.d. (ca. May 1955), A-Z, ALA.
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of stalling tactics after the hearings on pension bills concluded in early March, such as leaking

cost estimates to the press or insisting on examining reports of VA investigations before making

a final decision.157 Once the submission of Bradley’s report to Eisenhower was announced in late

April, Teague seized the opportunity and claimed that he needed to hold more hearings on the

subject before reaching a final decision. As the Legion well understood, this was a transparent

move to postpone action even further and possibly prevent passage of the War Veterans Security

Bill before Congress would adjourn in July.158 Wagner even called Teague in person to accuse him

of stonewalling, though this move only strengthened the chairman’s resolve.159 His position was

precarious: according to a survey conducted by the special Legion committee, a majority of the

twenty-four members of his committee supported the bill.160 But while Teague stalled, negative

press editorials piled on. One after the other, national and local papers alike denounced the

Legion’s bill, calling it “financial suicide” and “special-interest legislation” pushed by

“professional veterans.”161 The most provocative of these columns was published by the

conservative Chicago Tribune. The paper called on the “Greedy Legion” to stop pushing for

increases in the already “staggering costs of veterans’ benefits,” noting that otherwise “[i]t may

become necessary for patriotic veterans to form a new organization with one objective: Stop the

American Legion from Wrecking America.”162 According to the assistant director of the Legion’s

public relations division, this was the “most stinging editorial attack on the Legion in many

years.”163 Coming as it did from a paper that had long been an ally in the group’s fight against

157 Pearson Jr., “Olin E. Teague and the Veterans’ Administration,” 154; “Drive for Easy-to-Get Pensions
Draws Volley of Counter Fire,” BusinessWeek, July 14, 1956; “Find Veterans’ Free Care Abuse,” New York
Herald Tribune, April 9, 1956; “GI Pension Abuses Outlined,” The Washington Post and Times Herald,
April 17, 1956.
158 “Vets Security Bill: Pull All Stops,” ALM, June 1956.
159 Teague later dismissed Wagner’s charges as “insults” made in “a very wishy-washy way.” See U.S.

Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Findings and Recommendations of the President’s
Commission on Veterans’ Pensions (Bradley Commission), 3634.
160 William F. Hauck to John Stelle, March 27, 1956, WVSB, ALA.
161 Irving Leibowitz, “Legion Has Its Hand Out,” The Indianapolis Times, March 5, 1956, A-Z, ALA; “One-

Eighth of a Nation,” New York Times, March 7, 1956.

162 “The Greedy Legion,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 1, 1956.
163 Jack Cejnar to George Kelly, February 2, 1956, WVSB, ALA.

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communism, this op-ed put the Legion leadership on notice that a growing number of their right-

wing supporters were turning against them.164

This cartoon is one of many that mocked the

alleged hypocrisy of well-off veterans
criticizing the general welfare state while at
the same time demanding benefits for
themselves and their relatives.
Source: Washington Post, April 26, 1956

When hearings on the final report of the Bradley Commission did begin in late April, then,

they took place in a politically charged atmosphere. As was clear to everyone involved, under

debate were not merely the merits of the document itself but what it meant for the other pieces of

pension legislation already before Congress. After Omar Bradley made his own testimony, for

instance, he was asked to comment on the bills currently under consideration. He agreed with

Teague that though his report made no specific mention of the War Veterans Security Bill, it was

164According to a past Commander of the Illinois Legion, some Chicago Legionnaires were “baffled at the
loss of their former ally, and are now passing resolutions of censure against it of the same character as that
against the Girl Scouts.” See Irving Breakstone to Robert Maynard Hutchins, March 8, 1956, Box 16, Folder
5, Fund for the Republic Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton. National Commander Wagner immediately sent
a small flyer to all members, whose cover page asked “Are you going to take this lying down??” See “An
Open Letter to All American Legionnaires Everywhere,” undated (ca. February 1956), Box 40, Folder 5, J.B.
Matthews Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
328
impossible not to conclude that it “almost completely and 100 percent oppose[d] the Legion bill,”

given that the latter provided for a liberalization, not a reduction, of veterans’ pensions. 165

Speaking on behalf of the Legion, Past National Commander Donald R. Wilson reiterated his

group’s basic position that the report was a “tremendously damaging document that struck at the

basic philosophy of veterans’ affairs,” as it denied that former soldiers were entitled to “special

status.”166 On the central question of whether Social Security could be a substitute for veterans’

pensions, he pointed out that the report was “tragically preoccupied with extolling the virtue” of

the former and in so doing omitted to mention not only that its scope was still far from

comprehensive (not all types of employments were covered) but that the level of its payments

remained inferior. “To accept a dovetailing of these two programs,” an internal Legion document

made clear, “would reduce the permanently and totally disabled veteran to the status of a

pauper.”167 More fundamentally, Wilson contended that the nature of these two plans was too

different for them to be merged. Social Security was essentially a contractual relationship whereby

the federal government agreed to pay an individual after a certain age based upon past

employment earnings, whereas pensions were “based upon the performance of duty in defense of

one’s country in times of war.” As a result, veterans should always be entitled to receive both.

Instead of replacing veterans’ pensions, he argued, Social Security “must continue to occupy the

role originally intended for it…of providing a base upon which can be erected other benefits.”168

While these heated exchanges were taking place on Capitol Hill, Legionnaires and veterans

around the country were getting involved as well. Within a few weeks of the launch of the Legion’s

letter-writing campaign, it became clear that the subject of pension reform aroused passionate

165 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Findings and Recommendations of the
President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions (Bradley Commission), 3607.
166 Ibid., 3636, 3646.
167 “The American Legion Comments on Recommendations of the President’s Commission on Veterans’

Pensions,” n.d. (ca. December 1956), A-Z, ALA.

168 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Findings and Recommendations of the

President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions (Bradley Commission), 3649–50.

329
interest. According to National Legislative Director Miles Kennedy, the members of Teague’s

committee received so much mail on this issue that many “had abandoned personal answers and

were sending out form letters in reply.”169 In mid-March, the executive secretary of the special

Legion committee in charge of the War Veterans Security Bill noted with satisfaction that “there

is every indication that [our letter-writing drive] is developing rapidly into an effective campaign,”

with updates about the positions of individual members of Congress being received daily. 170 By

late May, the committee could state that no less than 217 of them had “committed themselves in

favor of H.R. 7886,” with some having received “thousands of personal letters” urging support.171

Of course, not all Legionnaires were behind the proposal. Some thought it went too far (one called

it the “pensions for slackers” bill), while others, like Falkenberg of Illinois, argued it did not go far

enough.172 Nevertheless, it seems clear that the majority of the membership either did not strongly

object to or approved of H.R. 7886. The managing editor of the American Legion Magazine, for

instance, wrote that “[n]early all” of the letters received after the publication of an article on the

subject were “in hearty support.”173

Looking more closely at the actual content of these letters, it becomes clear that they

almost always combined a rejection of the Bradley Commission’s proposals with support for the

Legion’s plan. “Should my veterans’ pension be cut off,” one married, 70-year-old and disabled

World War I Legionnaire from Wisconsin explained, “the result would be disastrous to me, I

would lose home, in 30 days we would be public charges, every shred of dignity and self respect

would be torn from us, it would be a sorry reward to our ageing veterans.”174 Another Legionnaire

169 “Vets Security Bill Delayed; All-Out Mail Support Urged,” ALM, May 1956.
170 Lawrence M. Fornia, Memorandum to: Department Chairmen, Committee for the War Veterans Security
Bill, March 16, 1956, WVSB, ALA.
171 Lawrence H. Fornia, Memorandum to: Department Chairmen, War Veterans Security Bill Committee,

May 23, 1956, WVSB, ALA.

172 J. E. Jacobs to Dear Cmdr. Wagner, August 2, 1956; Charles V. Falkenberg, “An Open Letter To All

National Officers, To All Past National Commanders, To All Members Of The National Executive
Committee, And To All Department Commanders Of The American Legion,” May 1956, A-Z, ALA.
173 Robert B. Pitkin to John Stelle, March 27 1956, WVSB, ALA.
174 Andrew H. Nelson to J. Addington Wagner, May 3, 1956, A-Z, ALA.

330
from Fresno, California, called the proposal to merge pensions and Social Security “a plain

betrayal of the proud heroic stalwart American Veteran,” adding that “[y]ou know and I know,

that even with the little Social Security and Pensions now permitted a person can not live decently,

if he has any dependents.”175 Such fears were sometimes compounded by resentment at the elite

background of the Commissioners, who were seen as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary

veterans. “All who sat on the Com[mission] are in the $100,000 class who enjoy fabulous pensions

and lucrative jobs,” one elderly World War I Legionnaire from Poughkeepsie, New York, argued.

“I think the panel is too high brow and as for Bradley he never cared too much for the buck rear

rank private.”176 But perhaps the most creative complaint came from Bert Van Dyke in

Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, who borrowed liberally from Ernie Ford’s 1947 country hit “Sixteen

Tons” about life as a coal miner to write “Pensioner’s Plaint,” his own musical take on the plight

of a poor retired veteran of the Great War:

I loaded 65 years and what did I get?

Seventy-eight a month for World One vet.
Old rheumatiz’ got me—cain’t work no mo’,
Cain’t even get trust from the company sto’.

Loaded 66 years and what did I get?

God made me a widower so I’m wuss off yet.
Only 30 bucks I’m allowed to make
If my social security I would take.

Loaded 67 years and what do I get?

Pension cut off—still deeper in debt.
Living on nothin’—life is a bust;
But praised be our motto: ‘In God We Trust.’

…Each year a year older and what will I get?

Just a kick in the pants and deeper in debt?
Old soldiers don’t die…or so they say—
Hell, they cain’t afford to on an old vet’s pay!177

175 Arthur J. K. De Pew to J. Addington Wagner, April 23, 1956, A-Z, ALA. Emphasis original.
176 Syd Finlay to Commander Wagner, n.d. (ca. April 25, 1956), A-Z, ALA.
177 Bert M. Van Dyke, “Pensioner’s Plaint,” n.d. (ca. April 10, 1956), WVSB, ALA.

331
 Yet Teague continued to stand firm in his refusal to allow the War Veterans Security Bill a

speedy passage. Even after the end of the hearings on the Bradley Commission in late May, he

rejected a motion offered by a committee member to vote on the bill immediately and instead flew

out of town for a week.178 Only after the Legion intensified its barrage of letters (to the point that

Teague himself eventually received over 2,000 per day) did his committee overrule him and force

a vote in early June, which they won 10-8. Despite his bitter declarations to the press that the vote

was the result of unfair “pressure” exerted by the Legion, in reality it made little difference. 179 As

Legion leaders well knew, Teague had already achieved his main goal by postponing the vote for

five months, with the result that it would now take a “miracle” for the bill to make it through

Congress before it adjourned in July.180 In addition, he and other members of the committee

ensured it would be even less palatable by adding a series of unrelated, costly amendments.181

Still, the Legion pushed back: after Wagner urged all Departments in a nationwide conference call

to intensify their lobbying efforts, officials reported an “almost instantaneous avalanche of mail

to members of the House,” which led them to believe that their chances of passage were

“excellent.”182 Indeed, after a few arcane parliamentary maneuvers, the House finally passed a

watered-down version of the Legion bill on June 27 by a vote of 365 to 51.183 Yet as the New York

Times pointed out, it was likely that many members of the House who voted in favor of H.R. 7886

did so fully anticipating that it would either die in the Senate or be vetoed by the President—

thereby allowing them to shirk responsibility for its demise.184 And they were right. When the bill

178 “Belated Action Gives HR7886 Chance of Approval in House,” ALM, July 1956.
179 “Drive for Easy-to-Get Pensions Draws Volley of Counter Fire”; “Defeat of Veterans’ Benefit Bill
Forecast.”
180 “Belated Action Gives HR7886 Chance of Approval in House.”
181 “Legion Lobby Wins Showdown, Then Critics Top Its Lavishness,” BusinessWeek, no. 1398 (June 16,

1956): 145.
182 Lawrence M. Fornia, “Memorandum to: Committee Members, Department Chairmen, War Veterans

Security Bill Committee,” June 15, 1956; Lawrence M. Fornia, “Memorandum to: Special Committee
Members, Department Chairmen, War Veterans Security Bill Committee,” June 18, 1956, WVSB, ALA.
183 “Ayres and Teague Rebuked by House Passage of War Vet Security Bill,” ALM, August 1956.
184 “Pension Increase,” New York Times, June 29, 1956.

332
came before Virginia Senator Harry Byrd’s Finance Committee, he dismissed repeated pleas by

the Legion to act quickly and instead requested the input of several federal agencies before making

any move.185 Not surprisingly, he had yet to receive all of their reports when Congress went home

for the year on July 27, thereby effectively killing the War Veterans Security Bill.186

This bitter, prolonged fight left a mark. In Teague’s home state of Texas, Legion officers

made plans to organize a write-in campaign portraying him as an “enemy of the veteran,” though

they found no proper candidate to run against him.187 At the Legion’s National Convention in L.A.

in September, Wagner placed the blame for the bill’s defeat squarely on his shoulders, arguing

that he had “played a leading role” in the effort.188 The War Veterans Security Bill had certainly

run into headwinds from the very beginning, arousing the joint opposition of the VA, the White

House, and the press, and failing to rally the support of other veterans’ groups. But it was clearly

“Tiger” Teague himself who had dealt the fatal blow: by withstanding the considerable pressure

brought to bear on him by rank-and-file Legionnaires and refusing to act until it was too late, he

single-handedly defeated a bill that the group’s leaders had hoped would be their greatest

achievement since the 1944 G.I. Bill. This was no small feat.

The Veterans’ Pension Act of 1959

The events of 1956 were a tribute to Teague’s resolve, but they did nothing to bring the

problem of economic security for older veterans closer to a resolution. To the contrary, the

185 T. O. Kraabel to K. L. Sherling, August 15, 1956, WVSB, ALA.

186 “Pension, Compensation Bills Stranded as Congress Quits,” ALM, September 1956. Though the Legion
“strove desperately” to have the agencies submit their report in time, the Director of the group’s National
Field Service felt that “[b]ecause the President and certain leaders of both political parties were opposed to
this legislation they did not hurry too much,” see Nicholas Lynch, Jr., to George H. Gillis, August 8, 1956,
WVSB, ALA.
187 Pearson Jr., “Olin E. Teague and the Veterans’ Administration,” 169.
188 Proceedings of 38th National Convention of the American Legion (Los Angeles, 1956), 20.

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situation continued to worsen as the years went by, the World War I generation grew older, and

the administration faced renewed pressure to cut spending. Once again, the Legion found itself

stuck in the middle. With the resentment between its younger and older members now impossible

to contain, the group was crippled by a rising number of defections in the ranks of the latter.

The defeat of the War Veterans Security Bill did not stop growing numbers of veterans of

the Great War from joining the pension rolls. They were already over 535,000 in 1956—slightly

more than a sixth of all veterans of this generation alive then. Their ranks continued to grow at a

steady rate over the next few years, reaching 851,000 by 1960 (almost a third). With benefits for

survivors included, the overall cost of their pension payments swelled from $680 million per year

in 1956 to over $1 billion in 1960, more than what the VA was spending on its entire medical

program that year.189 As the pension rolls inflated, the pressure on veterans’ groups to pass a

general pension bill increased as well. At the National Convention of the Legion in September

1956, seven Departments submitted resolutions to that effect, including once again Illinois and

New York, but they were all defeated.190 Correspondence between top Legion officials revealed

that the leadership had no appetite for another full-scale confrontation with Teague, especially

after he had driven back a more moderate compromise. A general pension, assistant legislative

director of the Legion Clarence Olson argued, “would have little chance of passage” and therefore

“[w]e might just as well be realistic and continue our effort in behalf of some plan that may be

considered reasonable.”191 As the Director of the Rehabilitation Commission argued, “there is

everything to lose and nothing to gain by passing a general service pension resolution,” since it

189 For the number and the total cost of World War I veterans and their survivors receiving pensions as of
June 30, 1956, and June 20, 1960, see Table 34 in Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Annual Report for
Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1956, 228, and Table 30 in Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Annual Report
1960 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1961), 212. For the total World War I
veteran population and the VA expenditures, see Tables Ed 245-261 and Ed297-310 in Carter et al., eds,
Historical Statistics of the United States.
190 E. A. Blackmore to Charles V. Falkenberg, February 8, 1957, A-Z, ALA.
191 Clarence H. Olson to James A. Logan, May 7, 1957, A-Z, ALA.

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would only serve to further alienate not just public opinion but allies in Congress and maybe even

prospective members.192 Instead, early in 1957 the Legion reintroduced a bill that was almost

identical to the one that had passed the House the previous year.193 But Teague had other

priorities, and he sidetracked the measure: in the spring, the American Legion Magazine reported

that it “slept as soundly as a hibernating bear…with no indication that the Committee intended to

hold hearings on it.”194

While the Legion was fighting its own battles, the Eisenhower administration continued

to grapple with the unresolved problem of what to do with the final report of the Bradley

Commission. After the dust produced by the bitter fight over the War Veterans Security Bill had

settled and Eisenhower won a second term, the White House had to find a way to somehow build

a consensus behind the recommendations of this blue-ribbon group despite the barrage of

criticism that it had received from veterans’ organizations and influential figures in Congress at

the time of its release. According to Legion reports, in the first half of 1957 a small team of experts

from the Bureau of the Budget worked in tandem with VA bureaucrats to explore ways to

implement these proposals. The group initially acted independently from VA Administrator

Harvey Higley; known as a “Legion man” for having occupied leadership positions in the

Department of Wisconsin, Higley had shown little enthusiasm for the Commission’s work and

tried to slow it down from the beginning by having his agency cooperate as little as possible. 195

192 John J. Corcoran to Adolph Bremer, September 18, 1958, A-Z, ALA. Legion officials repeated the same
arguments a few years later. According to the Acting Adjutant of the Virginia Legion in 1962, general World
War I pensions were a “lost cause”: not only did such a bill face “an insurmountable barrier” in Congress,
but it would only result in having the Legion “branded as a Treasury raider.” See Clarence H. Olson to
Wilbur Walker, July 16, 1962, A-Z, ALA.
193 “Legion Drafts WW1 Pension Bill Again,” ALM, March 1957, 27.
194 “Programs, Lawmakers Keep Legion Busy on Many Fronts,” ALM, May 1957.
195 “Veterans Benefits: Here We Go Again,” ALM, September 1957; “Legion Busy on Many Fronts:

Commander Re-enters Hospital,” ALM, March 1958. In an October 1955 memo, the director of the
Commission noted that “recently the VA has been holding up our work by token cooperation which borders
on refusal to give information or to gather data which are absolutely necessary.” See E. M. Brannon,
Memorandum for General Wilton B. Persons, October 10, 1955., Box 6, Folder: White House, PCVP,
DDEPL. On Harvey Higley, see “Legion Man Picked as New V. A. Chief: Higley of Wisconsin Long Active in
Veterans Affairs—Others Named by Eisenhower,” New York Times, July 18, 1953; “Legion News: VA Gets
a New Boss,” ALM, September 1953, 32.
335
When he eventually submitted his resignation in November, it was widely rumored that the cause

was his reluctance to go along with the recommendations.196 Just a few days before, Eisenhower

had announced in a major televised address that cuts in non-defense spending would soon be

necessary in order to respond to the threat of Soviet military dominance, suddenly made more

pressing by the successful launch of two Sputnik satellites in the previous weeks. The President

announced that the development of an efficient missile program and of satellite projects would

require “a very considerable [dollar] figure.” There would need to be “tough choices” as to where

the axe should fall, he added, predicting that “pressure groups will wail in anguish.”197 The

administration later clarified what he had in mind, explaining that it was planning to cut veterans’

pensions—among other programs—by proposing their merger with Social Security.198

Eisenhower’s plans for wide-ranging cuts, however, ran into headwinds almost

immediately from two directions. On the one hand, his fellow Republicans were worried about

more than just Soviet satellites. Starting in mid-1957, the country had entered a “sharp, but short”

recession caused by a marked decline in automobile production. Unemployment rose to new

heights until April 1958, especially in densely populated industrial areas.199 When the GOP

registered losses at the state and local level in November 1957, many party leaders blamed the

economic downturn and the Soviets’ scientific feat. Even top administration officials came to

recognize the need to mitigate non-defense spending cuts lest the recession would worsen.200 In

this context, as a well-informed New York Times journalist reported, veterans’ spending would

196 “V. A. Post Resigned by Higley: Administrator Since July, 1953,” New York Herald Tribune, November
14, 1957; “Cuts to Be Asked in Veterans’ Aid: Administration Would Pare Benefits Not Connected With
Military Service,” New York Times, December 15, 1957.
197 “Text of President’s Talk in Oklahoma City Citing Need for Rise in Funds for Science,” New York Times,

November 14, 1957.

198 “Cuts to Be Asked in Veterans’ Aid.”
199 William H. Becker and William M. McClenahan, Eisenhower and the Cold War Economy (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 85.

200 Alan J. Otten and Ted Lewis Jr., “Back to the Capitol: Recession, Re-Election Jitters May Spur Hike In

Non-Defense Outlay,” Wall Street Journal, January 6, 1958.

336
be a difficult target.201 On the other hand, Eisenhower’s announcement was met with a volley of

hostile letters from fearful older veterans (not all of which were spontaneous: the “Wonnies” sent

hundreds of form letters).202 The Legion also immediately promised to fight back.203 Testifying

before Teague’s Committee, the Chairman of the group’s Rehabilitation Commission Robert

McCurdy argued that all these rumors about what the government would do to implement the

report of the Bradley Commission amounted to “nothing more than what I would call a cold war

on veterans.” If only the White House would make its exact plans public, he added, then “we

[Legionnaires]…will do our best to start a cold war back.” Responding to this explicit threat,

Teague assured him that “you have nothing to fear from this committee” as well as from Congress,

of which he claimed “[n]ot a single Member…has sponsored any bill that would take one dime

away from any veteran.”204 His assertion was a faithful reflection of the weary mood of his fellow

legislators. Though Eisenhower had planned to ask for a reform of veterans’ benefits in 1958,

Republican congressmen persuaded him at the last minute “not to pick a fight with the tough

veterans lobby in this election year,” and instead to “put off the controversy until next year.” 205

They vetoed a second, watered-down version of the plan again a little later, forcing the White

House into a “quiet but clear-cut retreat” from its initial budget-cutting ambitions.206

Inside the Legion, the pressure for a general service pension continued unabated. At the

1957 National Convention in Atlantic City, the issue was successfully bottled up in committee.207

201 Edwin L. Dale Jr., “Budget Cutters Foresee No Chance of Big Saving: Administration Fears Farm and
Veterans Funds Cannot Be Slashed—Hopes to Trim Minor Nondefense Items,” New York Times, December
2, 1957.
202 For these letters, see Correspondence re: Cutting Veterans’ Benefits, Box 1, Bulk Mail Files, White House

Central Files, DDEPL. The box contains between 500 and 600 of these letters, including some from local
Posts of the American Legion, DAV, and VFW, all dated from between December 1957 and March 1958.
203 “Legion to Fight Benefit Cuts,” New York Times, January 12, 1958.
204 U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 1958 Legislative Programs of the Veterans of

Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion, and AMVETS, Hearing, February 4-5,
25, 1958 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1958), 2433–34.
205 “Washington Outlook,” BusinessWeek, August 2, 1958, 34.
206 Lester Tanzer, “Administration Maps Retreat from Plan for Veterans’ Benefit Cut: Recession, Election

Weaken Plan’s Chances; Veterans’ Groups Push for Added Aid,” Wall Street Journal, March 25, 1958.
207 Digest of Minutes, National Executive Committee Meetings, September 15 and 19, 1957, 9, ALA.

337
The following year, Teague announced that he would not hold any hearings on pensions at all,

thereby shutting down any possibility of progress.208 At the 1958 National Convention in Chicago,

however, a minority of committed Legionnaires managed to bring a general pension resolution to

the floor for a roll call vote, which they lost 414 to 2,597.209 Instead, the Convention again passed

a resolution to liberalize the existing disability pension legislation along the exact same lines as

the version of the War Veterans Security Bill that had passed the House two years earlier.210

Yet while the Legion held fast to its refusal to endorse general pensions, other groups took

advantage of the growing demand. The membership of the Veterans of World War I of the U.S.A.,

for instance, skyrocketed from around “4,000 or 5,000 members” in 1953 to 80,000 three years

later and 140,000 in 1959, with members in all fifty states as well as D.C., the Philippines, France,

and Ireland.211 In recognition of its growing legitimacy, the group obtained a federal charter in

July 1958.212 The Legion saw the rise of this upstart with concern. Though the “Wonnies” never

accounted for more than a small fraction of their own membership, Legion leaders were worried

that their vocal and unrelenting advocacy of general pensions created “an atmosphere of fear in

the minds of some Members of Congress” which led them to deny “all liberalizations in this field”

no matter how moderate.213

As 1958 was drawing to a close, there were signs that the next year would witness a

renewed pension fight. In an interview to the New York Times, the Director of the Bureau of the

Budget indicated that the administration would seek budget cuts in three areas, including

208 Pearson Jr., “Olin E. Teague and the Veterans’ Administration,” 172–73.
209 For a tally of the vote, see Proceedings of 40th National Convention of the American Legion (Chicago,
1958), 56. The entire delegations of Illinois (222 votes), Indiana (116), and Kentucky (40) voted in favor of
the general pension. The delegation from South Dakota was split 20 pro – 16 against. Together, they made
up over 96 percent of the pro-general pension vote.
210 See resolution no. 331 in Ibid., 51-52.
211 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance, Veterans Pensions, Hearing, July 28-29, 1959

(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1959), 79; Charles V. Falkenberg, “An Open
Letter To All National Officers, To All Past National Commanders, To All Members Of The National
Executive Committee, And To All Department Commanders Of The American Legion,” May 1956, A-Z, ALA.
212 Congress and the Nation, I:1353.
213 Edward McGrail to Billy Anderson, November 7, 1958, A-Z, ALA.

338
veterans’ benefits.214 In the end, though, the plan that the White House put forward was only a

compromise measure. In January 1959, Eisenhower announced that he accepted the principle

that pensions should continue to exist, but also that he wanted to reform the program to make it

more reflective of need.215 In practice, this meant that the administration’s bill had two key

features, the most important of which was the introduction of a so-called “sliding scale”

mechanism, whereby the poorer veterans would receive more and the better-off less.216 The

second was the inclusion of more sources of income in the calculation of whether a veteran fell

under the required income ceiling, including Social Security.217 Both these measures went in the

direction of reducing long-term costs, but they were nevertheless a far cry from the wide-ranging

overhaul of veterans’ benefits prescribed by the Bradley Commission a few years earlier. The Wall

Street Journal, for instance, welcomed the bill as “a step in the right direction, but a small one,”

arguing that it illustrated “[t]he political reluctance to tangle with veterans’ groups.”218 Indeed,

Eisenhower even included a grandfather clause allowing those already on the pension rolls to

choose to remain under the current system.219 An earlier inter-agency meeting made the reasons

for this retreat from the Commission’s goals clear. Among the three major obstacles outlined by

214 Bernard Stengren, “‘Significant’ Cuts in ’60 U.S. Budget Seen by Director: Stans, Speaking Here, Says
Non-Defense Items Can Be Trimmed in Next Year,” New York Times, December 6, 1958.
215 Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Annual Budget Message to the Congress: Fiscal Year 1960,” January 19, 1959.

Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=11379
216 In the existing system, pensions were disbursed on a “all-or-nothing” principle: all veterans under a

certain income ceiling ($1,400 if single, $2,700 if with dependents) and with the same disability rating
received the same amount. This principle discriminated against recipients who either made much less than
the ceiling or slightly more. For example, a single veteran making $500 would receive the same pension as
another making $1,399, while someone making $1,401 would receive nothing. The introduction of a sliding
scale, by contrast, would have limited pension payments to the difference between a certain income ceiling
and the amount of income already received from other sources, thereby giving more to poorer veterans and
less to better-off ones.
217 The bill proposed to include the spouse’s income, previously excluded, as well as the veterans’ estate

(hitherto taken into account only through the annual income test). See “Administration Offers Bill to
Overhaul Veterans’ Pensions: Plan Would Boost Outlays in First Year, Cut Them Later; Some Opposition
Expected,” Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1959.
218 “Politicians and Veterans,” Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1959.
219 “Drastic Government Bill to Restyle Pensions Pushed in the Congress,” ALM, June 1959.

339
its participants, “Veterans group opposition” came first, then the fact that “Democrats would label

us anti-veteran and without heart,” and lastly the sheer “difficulty of enactment.”220

The administration certainly had reasons to worry. Before Eisenhower even announced

his new plan, the “Wonnies” were already said to be gearing up for yet another general pension

drive.221 Anticipating their onslaught, Teague announced that he would support the President’s

bill in Congress only if Eisenhower was willing to back him up in person.222 The Legion National

Commander also announced that 1959 was the year when its group would be “taking to the

offensive.”223 It introduced a series of bills in Congress along the same lines as the program it had

lobbied for in 1956, with the only novelty being a plank to liberalize pension eligibility criteria for

widows of World War II and Korean War veterans.224 When hearings began in the House, both

organizations rejected the administration’s bill and pushed for their own instead.225 The Legion

agreed with the principle of a sliding scale, but argued that payments should nevertheless remain

high enough that pensions would not turn into “a ‘welfare’ type program,” stripped of “their

traditional honorable status.”226 Presented with widely different proposals, Teague’s Veterans

Affairs Committee tried to please as many sides as possible by including all of the major planks of

the Legion and the administration into a single omnibus bill.227 Far from achieving the

administration’s goal of economy, Teague had been forced to make a series of costly concessions

220 Jack Z. Anderson, Memorandum for Mrs. Whitman, November 7, 1958, Box 37, Folder: Staff Notes Nov.
1958, D.D.E. Diary Series, Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President, 1953-61, DDEPL.
221 “Washington Outlook,” BusinessWeek, December 6, 1958, 34.
222 Alan L. Otten, “Brake on Benefits? Ike Aims to Slow Rise In Vets’ Pensions But Faces Stiff Opposition,”

Wall Street Journal, January 20, 1959.

223 “Legion Will Fight to Get Older Vets Better Pensions, Moore Tells Georgians,” ALM, January 1959.
224 Under the existing system, widows of veterans from these two wars could receive a pension only if the

deceased veteran had a service-connected disability, whereas this condition didn’t apply to World War I
veterans’ widows. The Legion sought to eliminate this restriction. See “Legion Drafts Bills for its Three-
Point Pension Program,” ALM, February 1959.
225 For the testimonies of the Veterans of World War I, U.S.A., and the Legion, see U.S. Congress, House,

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Operation of Pension Program, May 9, June 4-5, 9-10, 1959 (Washington,
D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1959), 325–27, 479–87.
226 “National Executive Committee Rejects Proposed Pension Bill,” ALM, June 1959, 27.
227 For a detailed list of the bill’s provisions, see “First Major Pension Chance in Decade Passes House,”

ALM, August 1959.

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so that the bill would be palatable to veterans’ groups. Not only did he exclude Social Security

from the sources of external income counted toward determining eligibility for pensions, but the

inclusion of the clause to liberalize access for World War II and Korean War widows more than

wiped out the other savings in the bill, producing an overall increase in spending of $10 billion.228

Though the Legion was not “particularly crazy about” some of the bill’s provisions, it found that

its advantages outweighed its problems and endorsed it.229 The House passed the bill after a short

debate in mid-June, but some Members later claimed Teague had deceived them by keeping its

real cost “camouflaged” (an accusation he denied, arguing that he had failed to mention it during

the debate on the House floor due only to “lack of time”).230

Echoing these charges, the national press immediately denounced Teague for having

“played stooge to the more selfish elements of the veterans’ lobby” and called on the Senate to

further tighten the bill.231 Likewise, the Bureau of the Budget testified that the administration was

opposed to the bill due to its being “too costly to the American taxpayer” and “depart[ing]

significantly” from Eisenhower’s original proposal.232 After discussions, the Senate Finance

Committee approved a revised version of the bill, which scaled down its benefits significantly.233

During the debate on the Senate floor in mid-August, however, Democratic Senator from

Oklahoma and longstanding ally of the Legion Robert Kerr led a successful effort to erase these

cuts.234 As a result, the bill that the Senate approved by a vote of 86 to 6 was essentially the same

228 For a detailed estimate of the bill’s future cost produced by Teague’s committee, see U.S. Congress,
House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Non-Service-Connected Pensions for Veterans of World Wars I,
II, Korean Conflict and Their Widows and Children, 9–10.
229 “Veterans Newsletter: A Look at the New Pension Bill,” ALM, August 1959.
230 “Revised Pensions Would Cost More: Veterans’ Plan Will Increase Outlay 10 Billion, Not Cut It, Sponsor

Concedes,” New York Times, June 18, 1959.

231 “Veterans’ Pensions,” New York Times, June 17, 1959; “The Insult to Veterans,” Wall Street Journal,

June 18, 1959; “The Results of Hasty Debate,” Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1959; “The Catch in the Veterans’
Bill,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 27, 1959.
232 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance, Veterans Pensions, Hearing, July 28-29, 1959

(Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1959), 13, 16.
233 “Senate Unit Votes Veterans Pension Bill, Puts Cost Below House-Passed Measure,” Wall Street Journal,

August 11, 1959.

234 “New Veterans Pension Law and What To Do About It,” ALM, November 1959.

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as that passed by the House.235 Eisenhower eventually signed it into law, though with great

reluctance.236 According to the Wall Street Journal, the President realized that it was “extremely

likely” that Congress would have overridden his veto anyway, and that this law was “less expensive

than anything Congress might put together in the Presidential election year of 1960.”237

Yet for all the White House’s efforts to save face, there was no denying that the Veterans’

Pension Act of 1959, as it was officially called, bore only the slightest resemblance with the

sweeping reforms outlined by the Bradley Commission more than three years prior. The fact that

the Legion called the Act an “impressive accomplishment” when it had defiantly opposed the

Bradley report was in itself a measure of the difference between the initial plan and the final

product.238 To be sure, the law did introduce new restrictions: the sliding scale mechanism meant

that many veterans with incomes near the ceiling would see their payments decrease significantly,

while the inclusion of a spouse’s income and of net worth meant that some recipients would now

be ineligible. But the grandfather clause allowed all those already receiving a pension to opt to

remain under the previous system, while many veterans closer to the bottom of the income ladder

saw the size of their checks grow. On top of this, the law added over 200,000 new widows of World

War II and Korean War veterans to the rolls.239

The fact that the Veterans’ Pension Act fell far short of the downsizing ambitions of the

White House, however, provided little solace to a growing number of Legionnaires who saw it as

not generous enough. As more and more World War I veterans joined the pension rolls—1 million

by 1963, or over two-fifths of all former soldiers of the Great War alive—they continued to demand

235 “Senate Approves War Pension Rise: In Accord With House on 10 Billion Step-Up for Those With Non-
Service Ills,” New York Times, August 14, 1959.
236 “President Gets Bill to Raise G. I. Pensions,” New York Herald Tribune, August 19, 1959.
237 “Eisenhower Signs Veterans Pension Bill, Averts Rebuff on a Veto,” Wall Street Journal, August 31, 1959.
238 Proceedings of 41st National Convention of the American Legion (Minneapolis, 1959), 19.
239 Congress and the Nation, I:1355.

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better treatment.240 Though it is impossible to know exactly how many among the Legion’s rank-

and-file felt that way, it seems that a substantial minority of World War I members were sorely

disappointed by the new law. Some, for instance, groused that the higher income ceilings were

not nearly high enough. “[H]ow can the Legion possibly think that $1800.00 for single and

$3000.00 for married,” one Legionnaire complained, “can carry the aging veterans under the

present financial conditions? Frankly, it is beyond my understanding.”241 For others, the sliding

scale mechanism perverted the honorable nature of veterans’ pensions. It meant that “a veteran

must be a pauper, or close to it, to receive any pension whatever,” one argued, thereby making it

“a dole instead of a pension.”242 But the most common grievance was simply that the Act fell short

of a general service pension, which many veterans of World War I continued to feel they deserved.

The view that they were the “forgotten men of our country,” who had failed to received pensions

as generous as their predecessors when they “fought just as heard and deserve the same as [Civil

War and Spanish American War veterans] received,” was widespread.243 The continuing

popularity of general pensions among the older generation was attested by the membership of the

“Wonnies,” which continued to expand rapidly. By 1962, the group boasted 215,000 members as

well as a full-time staff in D.C. and officials in every state but Hawaii.244 It persisted in its single-

minded push for a $100 monthly pension for several years, though its efforts were consistently

defeated by Teague (when asked in 1961, he said he never supported a pension bill, and “I don’t

think I ever will.”).245

240 Administrator of Veterans Affairs, Annual Report 1963 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1963), 242; for a breakdown of the veteran population by generation, see table Ed245-261
in Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States.
241 C. G. Thacker to W. H. McDonald, May 31, 1961, A-Z, ALA.
242 A. E. Kockler to National Adjutant, October 23, 1959, A-Z, ALA.
243 W. J. Wilhelm to Hon. Martin B. McKneally, March 16, 1960, A-Z, ALA.
244 Paul Duke, “World War I Veteran’s Drive for a Special Pension Gains Ground: Bill Calls for Payments of

$102 Monthly: House Petition for Floor Vote Backed by Many,” Wall Street Journal, June 26, 1962.
245 “Where U.S. Debt to Veterans Ends,” Nation’s Business, May 1961.

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 The growing ranks of the “Wonnies” were in no small part the result of the exodus of World

War I Legionnaires, itself generated by the continued refusal of their national leadership to

endorse a general pension. Feeling marginalized, many older members simply decided to stop

paying their dues and drop out of the group altogether. Even before the passage of the Veterans’

Pension Act of 1959, Legion officials were aware that “the feeling that older veterans are unwanted

by our organization…was growing throughout the country,” because they felt “[let] down” by the

group.246 Nevertheless, the decision by the Legion to endorse this law instead of a general service

pension greatly amplified the phenomenon. In its wake, several Legionnaires wrote to the group’s

national headquarters to report that they and many of their friends were openly debating whether

to remain.247 “I predict that if the powers that be in [the Legion] Keep this up,” one Past

Commander of a Legion Post in Yorba Linda, California, wrote, “The W.W.I. Veteran and sons of

W.W.I. are going to start leaving the Legion like rats leaving a sinking ship…”248 “I have joined the

Veterans of World War I of the U.S.A. and a lot of my buddies have dropped their membership in

the Legion,” a Legionnaire of forty years wrote to the National Commander, “Tell me one good

reason I should still stay in the Legion.”249 In July 1962, a top official of the Virginia Legion

reported that his Department had lost around 1,000 members to the “Wonnies.”250 It was perhaps

not a coincidence that as more and more older Legionnaires (who tended to be the most active

members) dropped out, the national leadership began to notice that their rank-and-file were

increasingly harder to mobilize on behalf of veterans’ legislation, with dramatic consequences for

246 Robert E. Gates to Preston J. Moore, March 25, 1959, A-Z, ALA.
247 See for instance Harry A. Suffron to National Commander Martin B. McKneally, November 2, 1959; F.
O. Ross to Honorable William J. Randall, August 8, 1960; Travis Gafford to Martin B. McKneally, August
18, 1960; C. G. Thacker to W. H. McDonald, May 31, 1961; Denton V. Opp to Charles L. Bacon, August 11,
1962, A-Z, ALA.
248 H. A. (Jack) Casparie to National Commander of the American Legion, October 22, 1959, A-Z, ALA.
249 Robert Reveal to William R. Burke, February 28, 1961, A-Z, ALA.
250 Wilbur Walker to Clarence Olson, July 9, 1962, A-Z, ALA.

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the group’s effectiveness as a lobby.251 “Considering the apathy of our membership,” Olson wrote

in 1964, “the time is long past when we can browbeat Congress into submission.”252

Indeed, it is worth stressing that the dropouts were not fresh recruits but experienced,

often lifelong Legionnaires who had occupied key leadership positions in the group. Leaving was

not a decision they were taking lightly; it represented the abrupt termination of a lifetime of

engagement in veterans’ affairs. As a former Post Commander and a self-described “real

Legionnaire” wrote, his “loyalty to the American Legion had proved strong enough” that he had

refrained from joining other veterans’ groups for the past forty-one years, but no longer.253 A letter

written by “devoted and loyal Legion members” also commented that “It will indeed be a sad day

for us when we feel that we must remove from our lapels that [Legion] symbol that we wear so

proudly and have worked so hard to hand down the tradition, honor and respect to you younger

men who will carry on, as our steps begin to falter.”254 Clearly, the issue of general pensions was

so important in the eyes of many members that they were willing to sacrifice their membership

over it.

More broadly, these letters indicate that the disappointment felt by many World War I

Legionnaires after the passage of the Veterans’ Pension Act of 1959 was not merely the product of

their precarious economic situation. It also reflected their deep-seated resentment that the group

created by their own generation four decades earlier and to which they had grown personally

attached was no longer standing up for their interests. “Why has the Legion completely bypassed

the WW1 veterans?” asked a letter in 1960. “After all, we organized the Legion in the first place.”255

“[I]t seems to me,” another remarked a few weeks earlier, “that someone with high authority [in

the national leadership] has overlooked the fact that World War I veterans founded the Legion

251 Miles D. Kennedy to George D. Miller, March 17, 1962, A-Z, ALA.
252 Clarence H. Olson to James E. Bullen, Jr., June 9, 1964, A-Z, ALA.
253 Eugene Ahrends to the Chairman of the Resolution Committee for the National Convention of the

American Legion, August 30, 1960, A-Z, ALA.

254 James Rice to Martin B. McKneally, March 22, 1960, A-Z, ALA.
255 E. Y. Strong to National Commander, March 19, 1960, A-Z, ALA.

345
and got it started on the success it has enjoyed throughout the years.”256 Feelings of bitterness

toward the younger generations of Legionnaires now at the group’s helm abounded. “My personal

opinion,” one member wrote, “is that World War II Veterans have taken control over the Legion,

they like the public, have forgotten the first war and those who fought in it.”257 Many older

Legionnaires, who had seen the group play a central role in the passage of generous benefits for

their younger counterparts, viewed the latter’s lack of support for a general pension drive as a

failure to repay the debt they had incurred. “The WW2 veteran has gained from the leadership of

the World War One veteran,” a lifelong Legionnaire from West Frankfort, Illinois, wrote, “Why

does he not help us now that we need help from his strength.”258

The Legion continued to lobby for improvements in disability pensions for the next few

years. Not before 1964, however, would Congress pass another major pension bill.259 By that time,

the problem of economic security for older veterans had lost most of its urgency: as death was

beginning to thin the ranks of the World War I generation at an accelerated rate, the pension rolls

started to shrink.260 Once can only imagine the mixed feelings that this development must have

caused among Legion leaders, allowing them to finally move past an issue that had long poisoned

the relationship between younger and older members while at the same time leading to the

disappearance of some of their most devoted and active comrades.

Conclusion

256 Robert C. Benson to R. W. Rulon, February 20, 1960, A-Z, ALA.

257 W. J. Wilhelm to Honorable Martin B. McKneally, April 14, 1960, A-Z, ALA.
258 Ed Bennett to William R. Burke, May 4, 1961, A-Z, ALA.
259 Congress and the Nation, I:1361–63.
260 Disability pension rolls peaked at 1.2 million in 1964 and would remain on a course of steady decline

thereafter. Death pension rolls, however (which represented not veterans but their survivors), would peak
at 1.2 million slightly later, in 1973, and then also keep shrinking. See Table Ed337-350 in Carter et al.,
Historical Statistics of the United States.
346
 From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, the problem of security for aging former soldiers

was at the center of the debate over veterans’ benefits. For a vocal minority of World War I

Legionnaires, nothing short of the passage of a general service pension could have been

satisfactory. The group’s national leadership as well as most of its members from World War II

and the Korean War, however, preferred instead to call for only marginal changes in the overall

pension framework. The gap between these two positions kept widening over the decade, until by

1959 it was no longer bridgeable and more and more older veterans decided to drop out. The result

was a greatly diminished Legion. To be sure, the group was able to prevent the implementation of

the agendas of the Second Hoover Commission and the AMA. That the ambitions of the Bradley

Commission were also largely frustrated is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that Omar Bradley

himself, in his 750-page autobiography published in 1983, failed to mention his role in it even

once.261 Nevertheless, close observers also knew that the Legion’s once-fierce reputation had

begun to ring hollow. Undeniably, Legionnaires were still able to prevent a reform they

disapproved of from being enacted, but getting Congress to approve their own program was a

different matter. The defeat of the Legion’s 1956 War Veterans Security Bill at the hands of Teague

illustrated this well, showing how the center of gravity in veterans’ affairs had shifted decisively

from veterans’ groups to Congress. The Legion later managed to influence the Veterans’ Pension

Act of 1959, but only because both Teague and the administration already supported some of its

provisions. Even then, some of its members continued to push for a more sweeping reform.

Beyond the divisions within the Legion’s membership, the outcome of the debate over the

economic security of aging veterans also speaks to the larger arc traced by this dissertation. Since

the 1942 decision to open the group to more than one generation of former soldiers, Legion

leaders had strived to create an organization that, for the first time in U.S. history, could

legitimately claim to be the voice of all veterans, as opposed to restricting eligibility to a specific

261Omar Nelson Bradley and Clay Blair, A General’s Life: An Autobiography (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1983).
347
war (as for the AMVETS, for instance), location of service (VFW), ethnicity (Jewish War Vets or

Catholic War Vets), or disability (DAV). This chapter showed the unexpected consequences of that

unprecedented effort. Arguably, the chief reason why World War I veterans were the first

generation of former soldiers in U.S. history not to obtain a general service pension was that after

1942, they no longer had a powerful, well-established interest group whose sole mission was to

defend their own interests. Had the Legion decided to keep its ranks closed, it is difficult to

imagine that its leadership could have resisted the rank-and-file’s unrelenting pressure and not

endorsed their demand some two decades later (as it had in 1930, for instance). In that sense, the

decision of many Great War Legionnaires to drop out and instead join a generation-specific group

like the Veterans of World War I of the U.S.A. was revealing. In so doing, they were disavowing

not just their leadership’s tactics but the broader rationale that had underpinned the Legion for

the past two decades. Instead of believing that all veterans were stronger together, they embraced

the view that their own cohort needed to be independent if it were to be heard. This was a

challenge to the core of the American Legion.

348
 CONCLUSION

By the early 1960s, the political situation of veterans’ groups had shifted decisively from

two decades earlier. As this dissertation has shown, during a few years between the end of World

War II and the early 1950s organizations like the Legion and the VFW had been among the civic

groups most central to American life, their every move commented on by the press and their

prestige and influence almost unrivaled. Yet things had changed dramatically by the time that the

United States was beginning to ramp up its military involvement in Vietnam. To be sure, veterans’

groups would continue to be an important social presence in local community life as well as a

political force in veterans’ affairs throughout the following decades. Nevertheless, they would

never again enjoy the same degree of mainstream influence. Increasingly, their public image

reverted to what it had been prior to Pearl Harbor: that of self-interested pressure groups

representing the needs of a specific portion of the population, as opposed to institutions having a

claim to speaking on behalf of the whole nation. This subtle yet critical shift was illustrated by a

small detail of an interview given in 1959 by the decorated World War II veteran and Democratic

presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. In the magazine Look, he sought to portray himself as

all presidential hopefuls do, a champion of the public good against powerful special interests. To

this end, he gave the example of his having “baited” the leadership of the American Legion in the

late 1940s, when he had said that their inactivity on the issue of housing proved that they had “not

had a constructive thought since 1918.” For Look, this charge was evidence of his “gumption” and

of his having “a more daring voting record than anybody in Congress.”1 That a major presidential

candidate dared to publicize his opposition to the Legion spoke volumes about how far things had

come since the days when this group emerged triumphant from the Second World War.

1Joe McCarthy, “Jack Kennedy: His Religion May Elect Him,” Look, November 10, 1959. For the original
remark, see Congressional Record 95: 3 (March 22, 1949), H2950.
349
 To be sure, the Legion was hardly in a position to return Kennedy’s fire. By the turn of the

1960s, the group had been experiencing years of moribund if not inexistent growth. Having

shrunk steadily for years, the proportion of Legionnaires in the total veteran population would

never again return to the heyday of the interwar period, when over a quarter of all former soldiers

belonged to the group.2 Even though the Vietnam War produced over 7 million new veterans, the

membership of the Legion remained more or less static between 2.5 million and 2.7 million from

1960 to the early 1980s, an indirect reflection of its failure to attract the new generation. As an

article in the Nation explained in the late 1950s, while the Legion might retain some influence on

the local level, “as for exerting any significant influence on most Americans, or even on the

country’s 28,000,000 ex-servicemen, it is well-nigh finished…membership in the Legion today is

decidedly déclassé.”3 Admittedly, many other civic groups suffered the same kind of decline

during these years, as Theda Skocpol has shown. Beginning in the 1960s, the country experienced

a turn from “membership to management” with mass-membership civic organizations being

replaced by professionally and centrally managed top-down advocacy groups. For a variety of

reasons such as changes in racial and gender relationships, innovative technologies, and the rise

of a new and highly educated upper-middle class, civic groups like the Legion, the Grange, the

Odd Fellows, and the Rotary simply no longer appealed to younger Americans in the same way

that they had to their parents.4

While its decline was therefore part of a larger cultural turn and cannot be blamed solely

on the Legion, the actions that its members took over the course of the two decades covered here

nevertheless had a clear impact on the group’s fate. As the previous chapters have shown, the

2 27 percent of all U.S. veterans were Legionnaires in 1941, an all-time high for the group. This percentage
remained stable throughout World War II, but kept decreasing thereafter to reach a plateau of 10 percent
in the mid-1960s. See The American Legion, National Membership Record, 2012, ALA; Series Ed245-261
in Susan B. Carter et al., eds., Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present,
Millennial ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
3 Harvey Glickman, “The Legion Dies Laughing,” Nation, September 7, 1957.
4 Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life

(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003).

350
same factors that allowed the Legion to rise to prominence were also the ones that eventually

caused its downfall. Three of them seem paramount. First was the group’s decision to open itself

to veterans of more than one war in 1942, which certainly gave it added legitimacy and influence

in the short term. In longer run, however, this decision ended up causing a profound generational

rift within its ranks when issues that were particularly salient to the older cohort (such as

pensions) came to the fore. This bitter division cost the group many of its most experienced and

motivated members, thereby severely diminishing its effectiveness as a lobby. Second, the

Legion’s success in embedding martial citizenship into public policy via pieces of legislation such

as the 1944 G.I. Bill was so complete that it had some unanticipated, and less welcome

consequences. On the one hand, the generous character of such laws (which many contemporaries

saw as permissive) resulted in a backlash that made later G.I. Bills for Korean War as well as

Vietnam War veterans stingier and also helped reinforce the general climate of defiance towards

veterans’ benefits. On the other hand, these bountiful benefits meant that former soldiers

discharged after World War II would on average be more affluent than their World War I

predecessors, and therefore less likely to join veterans’ groups to demand additional advantages.

Ironically, then, part of the reason why fewer veterans joined the Legion after 1945 was simply

because they no longer needed to—thanks largely to the diligent work of the Legion itself. Third

and last, the group’s emphasis on a militant brand of anti-communism proved counterproductive.

Though it allowed the Legion to ride a groundswell of popular support in the late 1940s and early

1950s when fears of left-wing radicalism hit a feverish peak, it later led to its marginalization when

the general public turned away from an increasingly outdated and stigmatized cause. As the years

passed by, the Legion became known for its extremist and even absurd positions. For all these

reasons—inter-generational strife, a backlash against veterans’ benefits, and its own conservative

politics—the Legion ultimately fell out of step with mainstream American society.

351
 Seen from another perspective, of course, the decline of groups like the Legion mattered

less than what they had been able to accomplish while at the height of their power. Indeed, by the

early 1960s they had largely succeeded in solidly entrenching the separate structure of veterans’

welfare state in public policy and more broadly in political culture. With the size of the programs

under the responsibility of the VA having increased tremendously since 1940, any attempt to

transfer them to another executive agency was now much harder, if not unrealistic. In 1959, for

instance, a presidential committee on government reorganization briefly considered whether to

integrate the VA with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (an old dream of

progressives since Franklin Delano Roosevelt), but concluded that the move would be a bad idea

since the two were “utterly different organizations planned, organized, and financed in large

measure on different concepts.” What is more, the committee noted that by now it was “well

established by legislation, political attitudes and group pressures that veterans and their

dependents are regarded as a particular group requiring particular services,” and that “any

proposal to change this situation would be most strongly opposed by veterans groups and, in all

likelihood, the majority of Congress.”5 As the personal finance magazine Changing Times argued

in 1960, the fading strength of the veterans’ lobby was still significant enough that despite the

many dysfunctions it cataloged, “the chances that veterans’ benefits will be trimmed down to size

any time soon are quite dim.”6 Indeed, the future seemed assured: that same year, the American

Legion Magazine declared itself satisfied with the platforms of both major parties on veterans’

affairs for the upcoming election.7

5 “Considerations With Respect to the Proposed Transfer of Veterans Administration to Department of

Health, Education, and Welfare,” n.d. (ca. September 28, 1959), Box 23, Folder: Veterans’ Affairs (1),
Records of the U.S President’s Advisory Committee on Government Organization, Dwight D. Eisenhower
Presidential Library. Emphasis original.
6 “Do We Spend Too Much on Veterans? A Hard Look at Benefits, Costs and Loopholes,” Changing Times

14, no. 9 (September 1960): 25.

7 “Veterans Newsletter: Party Platforms on Vets Affairs Stronger in Principle than Detail,” ALM, September

1960.
352
 In other words, this dissertation closes as it opened: on a paradox. Contrary to what one

might think, the decline of veterans’ groups in the late 1950s was less a sign of their defeat than

of their complete success. Having managed to embed martial citizenship into American policy,

politics, and culture, they could recede from public view with the knowledge that their chief

objective had been accomplished.

***

With the benefit of hindsight, however, it is possible to ponder whether the path taken

during these two decades—of firmly separating veterans’ and civilians’ welfare states—did not

generate its own set of problems. To put it differently, one might ask whether the story told in

these pages is necessarily one of triumph (as Legion leaders would probably have it) rather than

farce or even tragedy. Already at the time, a few astute observers questioned the wisdom of

concentrating the vast and diversified array of veterans’ programs in the VA. In 1945, for instance,

Charles Bolté wrote that “[i]t is at best highly questionable whether a single agency, under a single

head, can effectively administer the largest hospital system in the world; an enormous apparatus

of pensions and allowances; a vast insurance business; the operations of home-loan, business-

investment and farm-loan; scholarships in education; a vocational training system; and an

unemployment compensation system.”8 The chronic dysfunction of the VA since then seems to

suggest that Bolté’s concern was not completely unwarranted. In the wake of virtually every major

conflict that the U.S. has waged since World War II—Vietnam, the First Gulf War, and most

recently the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—this agency was rocked by a major public scandal, the

causes of which varied but could always be traced in one way or another to its slow, unresponsive,

or unaccountable bureaucracy. To be sure, the picture is not all negative: the VA hospital system

8 Charles G. Bolté, The New Veteran (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945), 132.
353
remains, for instance, one of the most efficient and well-run in the nation.9 Nevertheless, the

almost monotonous regularity of these controversies, which have recurred despite repeated

bipartisan efforts to reform the agency, indicates that the root of the problem may have less to do

with contingent factors such as poor leadership than with the very nature of its mission. It may be

that concentrating so many different programs for such a large constituency in the same agency

inherently creates an insuperable amount of red tape, inefficiencies, and delays. Such a policy

option, however, is sure to be met with fierce resistance from veterans’ groups, which continue to

see any transfer of veterans’ programs out of the VA as a direct attack on the separate and

privileged status of their constituency.

One might also point to a larger problem with the idea of setting veterans apart from the

rest of the population. This approach seems fundamentally sound in areas like medicine, where

former soldiers tend to incur specific kinds of disabilities (such as multiple amputations or mental

health problems) that are different from those of civilians and require special treatment. However,

this attitude has spread to American society as a whole since the end of the draft and the shift to

an all-volunteer army in 1973, to the point where all veterans are now commonly put on a moral

pedestal and treated as unassailable heroes regardless of their actual wartime experience. It has

now almost become a taboo for civilians to criticize veterans or their benefits lest they be tagged

as unpatriotic or ungrateful—indeed, to a much greater extent than in the middle decades of the

twentieth century. While this is certainly a better alternative than the neglect encountered by

many Vietnam veterans upon their return in the 1970s, this attitude of uncritical (and often

disengaged) worship may not be entirely positive either. As post-9/11 veterans themselves have

pointed out, there is a risk in “over-thanking our veterans”: by considering them incapable of

fraud and always making their benefits more generous, one might encourage the likelihood of a

9Phillip Longman, Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care Would Work Better for Everyone, 3rd ed.
(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012).
354
major public backlash in the future.10 Likewise, there is a case to be made that the experience of

veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress is not necessarily that different from that of civilians

having endured child trauma, for instance.11 The larger point is that to treat veterans as

fundamentally distinct from the rest of society can only result in making their readjustment to

civilian life even more difficult than it already is.12 The path forward is surely open to debate, but

the striking feature of our own era is precisely the absence of any serious public discussion about

the place of former soldiers. If we have anything to learn from the mid-twentieth century, it is the

value of a sustained and honest debate about veterans’ status as citizens.

10 Ken Harbaugh, “The Risk of Over-Thanking Our Veterans,” The New York Times, June 1, 2015.
11 Phil Klay, “After War, a Failure of the Imagination,” The New York Times, February 8, 2014.
12 Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2016).

355
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AMVETS. Hearing, February 4-5, 25, 1958. Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1958.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. 1958 Legislative Programs of the
Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion, and
AMVETS. Hearing, February 4-5, 25, 1958. Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1958.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Education and Training and Other
Benefits for Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950. Hearing, February 6-7, 13-14, 19-
21, 26-28, March 4-6, 11, 1952. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing
Office, 1952.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Education and Training and Other
Benefits for Veterans Serving on or After June 27, 1950. 82 H. Rpt. 1943, 1952.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Findings and Recommendations of the
President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions (Bradley Commission). Hearing, April 23,
May 8-11, 16-18, 22, 1956. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office,
1956.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Legislation Relating to Non-Service-

Connected Pensions for Veterans and Their Dependents (All Wars). Hearing, February 27
- March 1, 1956. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1956.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Non-Service-Connected Pensions for

Veterans of World Wars I, II, Korean Conflict and Their Widows and Children. 86 H.
Rpt. 537. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1959.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Operation of Pension Program. May 9,
June 4-5, 9-10, 1959. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1959.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Pensions for Veterans of World Wars I
and II—Legislative Programs of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars,
Disabled American Veterans, and American Veterans of World War II. Hearing, January
27, February 1-3, 8-9, 1949. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office,
1949.

361
U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Veterans’ Administration Hospitals.
Hearing, July 8, 15-18, 22-24, 29-30, August 6, 1958. Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1958.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on World War Veterans Legislation. World War Veterans’
Legislation. Hearing, January 11-13, 17-18, February 24, March 9-10, 27-31, 1944.
Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1944.

U.S. Congress, House, Select Committee to Investigate Educational, Training, and Loan Guaranty
Programs Under GI Bill. Investigation of Veterans’ Educational Program. Hearing, June
4-6, 18-19, July 12-13, 18-19, 24, August 7, 9-10, 20-22, September 25-26, 1951.
Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1951.

U.S. Congress, House. Report of the House Select Committee to Investigate Educational and
Training Program under G.I. Bill. 81 H. Rpt. 3253, 1951.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Banking and Currency, Subcommittee on Housing and
Rents. Report on Domestic Cooperative Housing. Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1950.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance, Subcommittee on Veterans Legislation. Increased

Benefits for World War Veterans and Their Dependents; Miscellaneous Legislation
Relating to Administration of the Veterans’ Administration. Hearing, November 27, 1941.
Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1941.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance. Veterans Pensions. Hearing, July 28-29, 1959.
Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1959.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Finance. Veterans’ Legislation. Hearing, February 25,
March 1, 1943. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1943.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Special Subcommittee on
Veterans Education and Rehabilitation Benefits. Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act
of 1952. Hearing, June 10-13, 17, 1952. Washington, D.C.: United States Government
Printing Office, 1952.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. Certain Educational and
Training Benefits to Veterans. Hearing, September 17-19, 1951. Washington, D.C.: United
States Government Printing Office, 1951.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Military Affairs. Mustering-Out Payments. Hearing,

December 1, 1943. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1943.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on S. 1194 and S. 1196. Control
of Subversive Activities. Hearing, April 29, May 4, 6, 18-20, June 10, 1949. Washington,
D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1949.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee To Investigate the

Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws. Subversive
Infiltration in the Telegraph Industry. Hearing, May 14-16, June 5-6, 12, 14, 1951.
Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1951.
362
Veterans in Our Society: Data on the Conditions of Military Service and on the Status of the
Veteran. 84 H. Prt. 261. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office,
1956.

Veterans’ Benefits in the U.S.: A Report to the President by the President’s Commission on
Veterans’ Pensions: Part I & II, Findings and Recommendations. 84 H. Prt. 236.
Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1956.

Veterans’ Benefits in the U.S.: A Report to the President by the President’s Commission on
Veterans’ Pensions: Part I & II, Findings and Recommendations. 84 H. Prt. 236.
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War Department, and Navy Department. Going Back to Civilian Life. [Washington, D.C.]: War
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“How Veterans Organizations Stand on Housing Issues.” Journal of Housing 3, no. 12 (December
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“Kelly Editorials Show Working of Free Press.” Public Housing 10, no. 5 (May 1944): 3.

“News Notes.” Journal of Housing 6, no. 5 (May 1950): 165.

“Photo of Kelly’s House Jolts Press.” Public Housing 10, no. 4 (April 1944): 1.

“Social Security in Review.” Social Security Bulletin 18, no. 2 (December 1955).

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“T-E-W Bill Principles Get Congressional, Vet Support.” Journal of Housing 5, no. 3 (March
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Bennett, Michael J. When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America.
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