members of the regular army and navy from the Legion; that is, to limit eligibility in the organization to those who could show discharge papers from either the army, navy, or marine corps.  This measure was voted down and it was given as the sense of the advanced committee meeting that those who served in the Great War would have perfect liberty to join regardless of whether their service continued in the military establishment after the armistice or after peace was formally declared.

The advanced committee outlined the order of business upon which the caucus could proceed, named the various committees to be organized, and discussed the resolutions which were deemed wise and expedient topics for discussion.

On Wednesday afternoon, delegates from every district in the country began to arrive, almost one thousand new Bills, husky of frame, some still in uniform with the red discharge chevron on their left sleeves; others who had manifestly tried to get the new Bill into the old Bill’s 1916 suit of clothes, and still others in new bib and tucker, looking exceedingly comfortable after almost two years in putties, heavy shoes, and tight blouses.

Every man came with one deep-rooted determination and that was to see that no one “put anything over” which might make an organization so embryonically useful take a fatal or selfish step.  Each came, perhaps imbued to a certain extent with his own particular ideas on how everything should be conducted; but the radicalism, sectionalism, and partisanship which would have marked a gathering of these same men three years before was not present.  The men who had thought that nothing good could come except from south of the Mason and Dixon line had fought side by side with woodsmen from Maine.  The man who had thought the East effete had done duty on a destroyer with a boy from Harlem.  Everybody realized full well that sectionalism must be abandoned whenever it clashed with nationalism; and abandoned it was, with right good will.

The meeting of the advance committeemen justified itself as a very wise and judicious action on the part of the temporary committee.  Any suspicion of a particular delegation that anything was “framed” was quickly allayed after a conference with its advance committeemen.  If a man from Pennsylvania suspected that anything was on foot not to the liking of the Keystone State he had only to ask his advance committeeman, Colonel D’Olier, about it.  Incidentally the personnel of the advance committee was not so numerous that everybody couldn’t know what everybody else was doing.  As a matter of fact, everybody did know what everybody else was doing.  One of the most peculiar facts of this most interesting caucus was that when it came to “pussy footing” pussy seemed to foot it on piano keys so far as secrecy was concerned and in such a fashion that usually the Star Spangled Banner was played.  I know that the night and the morning before the caucus met that there were many and various powwows and conferences, a great many of which I attended, but there wasn’t a one that I knew of or ever heard about, the full details of which could not have been printed in bold-faced type on the front page of every St. Louis newspaper and have reflected credit on the powwowers as well as on the American Legion.