Kingmakers & Fun Lovers

The internal politics of the American Legion has a curiously clinical quality: contenders for Legion power can perfect the technique of political bloodletting without having to clutter up their minds with abstruse theory, principle or policy. A Midwestern governor, one of many U.S. public officials who received Legion political training, recently recalled with a shudder: "Legion politics! That's the worst kind. They not only cut your throat the way politicians do, but they stand around and watch you gurgle."

Last week the governor's words were borne out. From the Legion's bottom-pinching, water-throwing "fun" organization, La Societe des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux, came some of the most agonized sounds in many a year: the Forty and Eight threatened to walk out on the parent organization.

As usual, most of the surface fuss was over a question that could hardly be less important: should the Forty and Eight be permitted to continue holding its convention parades separately from the rest of the Legion? But beneath this triviality there lay a no-holds-barred political struggle within the Legion. It revolved around two men: Indianapolis' Charles Ardery, full-time secretary (since 1924) of the Forty and Eight, and Chicago utility engineer James P. Ringley, a leader of the Legion's currently dominant faction, called the "Kingmakers."

For years, Ardery was one of the leaders of a Forty and Eight clique that had pretty much its own way in dictating the choice of Legion national commander. Then along came Kingmaker Ringley--and things have never been the same for Ardery.

"Sharpen Your Knife." Jim Ringley, 59, is a dedicated Legion politician. During World War I, Ringley tried 17 times to get into the service, was turned down 17 times for faulty vision. On his 18th attempt, he made the grade, spent the rest of the war at Fort Oglethorpe and Fort Meade, and was discharged as a private. Returning to his native Chicago, he joined the Legion and plunged into its politics. In moments of Legion political crisis, Ringley's favorite maxim is: "When you're hurt, you smile and sharpen your knife."

Although his big Legion job--officially --was that of chairman of the National Convention Committee (1934-39), Ringley has steadily increased his behind-the-scenes power. A persuasive lobbyist, he rates a large share of the credit for getting the G.I. Bill of Rights through Congress in 1944. With that success under his cap, he moved openly against the Ardery faction. His candidate for national commander, Illinois' ex-Governor John Stelle, lost to an Arderyman in 1944, but won the next year. Since then, the candidate publicly backed by Ringley has been elected every year but one.

The single exception gives an interesting example of Legion--and Ringley--politics in action. In 1953, Illinois State Commander Lawrence Fenlon announced that he wanted to run for national commander. Ringley publicly endorsed FenIon's candidacy. But he quietly passed the word that he really favored Connecticut's Arthur Connell. Reason: Fenlon was so popular in his own state that he was becoming a threat to Ringley's control of the Illinois Legion. Connell won easily, Fenlon dropped out of sight, and Ringley remained the master of the Legion situation.

Against Ringley's shrewd politicking, the Forty and Eight's Charles Ardery, still trying for a comeback, could offer little more than nuisance opposition. But even a nuisance was not to be tolerated. Last year the Kingmakers maneuvered Ardery's Forty and Eight men out of their Mayflower Hotel accommodations at the national convention in Washington. Then the Ringley group dug up a Washington regulation against more than one parade a week in the city's streets. The effect of this was to force the Forty and Eight to abandon its longtime custom of marching separately. Preparing for this year's Miami convention, Ringley decreed that the Forty and Eight would again parade along with the rest of the Legion.

"With Heavy Hearts." This was more than the fun-loving Forty and Eighters, who delight in romping around the streets in diapers, could stand. The funmakers' executive committee met in solemn session, announced its painful decision last week in its official magazine.

"It is common knowledge," said the Forty and Eight executive committee, "that the national organization of the American Legion is, and for more than the past seven years has been, under the domination and control of a small group of men . . . With intent only to annoy, harass and humiliate us, they denied our humble petition for leave to have our usual separate parade . . . We can bear no more. Therefore, with heavy hearts and unconcealed sorrow, appealing to the Supreme Judge of all men for the rectitude of our intentions, we renounce our association with the American Legion."

The withdrawal threat caused Kingmaker Ringley no pain. The Ardery group's action still faces ratification by the rank and file of the Forty and Eight. Jim Ringley figures that the membership will repudiate its leaders. If he is right, that will be the end of Ardery as any sort of a force in Legion politics.

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