Exit Elmer

At 9 a.m. the clear quick bugle notes of the "Alert!" cut through the hubbub of the fidgety crowd. Field guns pounded. In the pale blue sky three huge Army bombers droned, floating swiftly over the old town, high above miles of narrow, cobbly, people-packed streets.

The crowds had come to Boston at dawn, lugging soapboxes, peach baskets, camp chairs, pillows, even armchairs. Schools, stores, factories were closed; suburbs were deserted; boards went up on downtown windows. In the waiting crowd stood, sat or perched the thousand who would faint, the 400 who would be injured (broken toes, arms, ribs), the one man who would die of heart strain before the long, long day was over.

The parade started: the Boston police, in blue uniforms, on brown horses that pranced and skittered sidewise to the music; Major General James A. Woodruff, commander, Army First Corps area; on foot, in overseas cap, Massachusetts' Governor Leverett Saltonstall. The crowd clapped, shouted: "Good old Salty!"

Then silence fell, as down the twisted, historic streets came 1940, its look and sound. Rumbling, clanking, chugging, or moving deadly silent on huge rubber tires, rolled a mechanized cavalcade of the U. S. Regulars and the erstwhile National Guard: 100 heavy anti-aircraft guns, fresh from the plant; anti-tank guns; mounted searchlights, range-finding batteries, 4-inch sky-rifles neatly folded in their olive-green carriages; 50mm. machine guns.

The parade streamed on--past the Common where the old Elm Tree used to stand; up Beacon Hill by the State House (Paul Revere got his riding orders near by); down School Street, within hail of the scene of the Boston Massacre; in sight of Faneuil Hall, where the Boston Tea Party began--past the landmarks of a simpler time, when men knew beyond argument that democracy was worth fighting for.

A Negro band jigged past, stepping high & handsome, swinging out martial music. The crowd relaxed. On came floats, decked with damsels; band after band after band; stunts, leaping cars, clowns, flags, hundreds of booted, satin-clad drum majorettes, strutting, cartwheeling, trucking to the swing of ever more bands--400 of them. There were Indians, Zouaves, a four-year-old and a 60-year-old drum majorette; a blind veteran with a Seeing Eye dog; Rudy Vallee, "Bojangles" Robinson, a sign reading "America--Love It or Leave It"; a Brooklyn contingent bawling "To hell with the guys who brought their wives! We have no wives with us!'' The American Legion was on parade.

It was a mightier parade than ever before--100,000 Legionnaires marching through Boston for twelve hours before a crowd estimated at from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000. But this time there was something different about the Legion. It was not that they behaved any better than they used to. The 125,000 visiting Legion men engulfed Boston, held up traffic, misdirected traffic, stopped traffic. They drank, sang, played practical jokes dear to middle-aged men on a tear. They squirted water pistols on girls' dresses, stockings (one fiend used 10-c- perfume in his pistol). They used electric shockers (disguised as brief cases, as canes) to electrify feminine rumps (some fiends used rubber bands, which stung). With canes they impartially h'isted the skirts of women, young or old, who entered cabs, climbed steps, or boarded streetcars. For unwary females, the corner of Tremont and Boylston Street became "Hell's Corner." Any girl uninsulated with a stout rubber girdle was likely to be shocked into hysterics.

Still there was something different about the Legion. The 3,000 Legionnaires who attended the convention sessions as delegates and alternates showed the changes. For 16 years the Legion had automatically adopted and re-adopted resolutions demanding U. S. neutrality, not to say isolation. Now, in 1940, the men who had faced the front in 1917 faced front again. California's Warren Atherton, the Legion's defense committee, brought out a resolution urging every practicable aid to Great Britain and China, and saying, "If we have to fight, let's fight beyond our shores before any foe can effect invasion."

To objectors who wanted to substitute more neutral words, up spoke Alfred P. Kelley, Oregon State Commander: "The people don't want some mealymouth stand of appeasement from us. They want straightforward leadership. . . . We are not really neutral. We know that Great Britain must win if we are to preserve our way of living. They are fighting our battle for us. It is up to us to help in every way we can. I have two sons of war age. It is the greatest testimonial of my sincerity that I can offer when I say that I believe the well-being of all that I hold dearest will best be served by adoption of this plain, strong resolution." The Legion men cheered.

The rest was routine: shrewd Milo J. Warner, Toledo attorney, was elected National Commander to succeed Detroit's Raymond Kelly; 600 men worked overtime in the rain, cleaning 210 tons of assorted parade debris off the streets; the last drunk was put on the last train. . . . All week no one had asked: "Where's Elmer?" Elmer, symbol of what the Legion was, even a year ago, had gone the way of all flesh.

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