The American Legion Magazine [Volume 28, No. 2 (February 1940)]

FEBRUARY 1940 "THE BEST GREAT MEN AND THE GREATEST GOOD MEN WHOM HISTORY CAN SHOW The guy who thought Co/. "Jf/W /?<//" \ he could lick a regi- as ment single handed. Father Duffy IT'S THE GREAT MOTION PICTURE YOU'D EXPECT IT TO BE! The Glorious Story of the Rainbow Division's Fighting 69th" JAMES PAT GEORGE CAGNEY • O'BRIEN • BRENT JEFFREY LYNN • ALAN HALE • FRANK McHUGH DENNIS MORGAN • DICK FORAN WILLIAM LUNDIGAN • GUINN "BIG BOY" WILLIAMS HENRY O'NEILL • JOHN LITEL • Directed by WM. KEIGHLEY Original Screen Play by Norman Reilly Raine, Fred Niblo, Jr., & Dean Franklin A Warner Bros. -First National Picture Filmed the way the American Legion wants it, by WARNER BROS. Producers of those other outstanding stories of the Service SUBMARINE D-l' • DEVIL DOGS of the AIR' • WINGS of the NAVY' SHOWINGS HAVE ALREADY BEGUN Ask the theatre manager for your local date! EDITORIAL * TWO MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE THE American people entered the year 1940 the very beginning. The Legion has also insisted upon ASthere were two developments on the home the Government deportation-proceeding against Bridges. front that merited the attention of those con- We emphatically dissent from the Landis findings, and cerned with keeping the United States free of for this reason: The hearings of the Dies Committee totalitarian influence. One of these was the cancelation proved beyond cavil that it is a practice among com- of deportation proceedings by the United States Depart- munists to deny membership in the party whenever the ment of Labor against the notorious alien red, Harry heat is turned on, and the hearings also showed that rec- Bridges, after Dean James M. Landis of the Harvard ords are conveniently lost when investigators delve into Law School, special examiner for the Labor Department, the matter of party affiliation. "By their fruits ye shall had held that evidence presented by agents of the Gov- know them," and anyone who has followed the slimy trail ernment and interested citizens, failed to prove that of Bridges in his dealings on the Pacific Coast cannot Bridges was a member of the communist party. The sec- but conclude that this alien is a high priest of com- ond was the report to Congress of the Dies Committee, munism. He hates the American system of government which for some two years has been investigating sub- with all his heart and is trying to overturn it. versive activities in the United States. The Legion doesn't propose to allow the Bridges de- The Dies Committee report, a few of whose highlights portation case to die, even though the Labor Depart- are reproduced at the bottom of this page, asked the cur- ment head continues the coddling which he has had from rent session of Congress to provide funds so that the her throughout the years. In her Department is a hefty committee might continue its work. Congress can hardly file of evidence which, quite aside from the communist refuse to give its enthusiastic endorsement and support angle, is sufficient to brand Bridges as an undesirable. On to this highly important body, and it is to be hoped that a pages 48-49 of this issue we reproduce part of an article generous amount of money will be appropriated so that printed in Capitol Daily at Washington, D. C, nearly a the work of further ferreting out un-American activities, year ago which establishes that this alien swore falsely in whether communist or nazi or fascist, may be prosecuted naturalization proceedings and that he was not in any vigorously. Thanks to this committee we know of the sense "a person of good moral character." twistings and turnings of the "party line" of the com- Bridges must go; the Dies Committee must be con- munists in this country, but there remain many details of tinued. Common sense demands that the nation guard the boring-from-within tactics of the reds which ought itself against the preaching of hate and violence by an to be brought into the full light of day. alien who has no right to its protection. And the job The Dies Committee report and the Landis whitewash of completing the rout of the American communists of Bridges show parts of the jig-saw picture of commu- which the Soviet-German agreements started can be ac- nism at work in this country. The American Legion has complished through continuance in all its vigor of the given the Dies Committee unstinted cooperation from Dies Committee, hated foe of the "fellow travelers." A FEW DIES COMMITTEE FINDINGS The committee finds that the following organizations are United Electrical, Radio and Mechanical Workers of properly classified as "front organizations" of the communist America. party: United Furniture Workers of America. American League for Peace and Democracy. American labor has borne the brunt of the communist ef- International Workers Order. forts to pursue the policy of penetration of mass organiza- American Student Union. tions in the past four years and to the degree that that ef- Friends of the Soviet Union. fort has been successful American labor has a task of great National Negro Congress. seriousness and importance on its hands. Southern Negro Youth Congress. The serious factor in the situation from the standpoint of League of American Writers. the nation as a whole lies, not so much in the purely economic Workers Alliance. views which the members of labor organizations may hold, as Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign. in the foreign control over communist party members, which North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. might in time of stress lead to sabotage and to espionage, Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. and in the communist rule-or-ruin policy so disruptive to the On the basis of the evidence submitted, we find communist labor organizations themselves. leadership entrenched in the following organizations: The committee believes that the American labor movement National Maritime Union. must, and will, as speedily as possible, free itself of com- United Cannery, Packing and Allied Workers. munist leadership and control wherever it exists. Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists and Techni- The committee is emphatic in its belief that a strong and cians. vigorous labor movement is an element of strength in the life Fur Workers International Union. of our democracy. But the communist asserts that the com- International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union. munist party is interested in trade unions primarily for the Transport Workers Union. purpose of attempting to utilize those labor organizations United Office and Professional Workers Union. for the benefit of the Russian dictatorship and its foreign American Communications Association. policies. FEBRUARY, 1940 1 — ; (fforfgodandcountry , we associate ourselves togetherjor thefollowing purposes: (Jo uphold and defend the Constitution- «_y oftheTdnitedStates ofAmerica; to maintain law and order; tofoster andperpetuate a one hundredpercent (Americanism to preserve the memories and incidents ofour association in theQreat'~War; to inculcate asense ofindiindual obligation to the com- both classes the to munity, state andnation; to comhat the autocracy of the and masses; make right the master ofmight; to promote peace andgood willon earth ; to safeguard and transmit to posterity the principles ofjustice.greedom and democracy ; to conse~ crate and sanctify our comradeship by our devotion to mutual'help/ulness.— Preamble to the Constitution, ofTTie American Legion. v n~he Jim eric an Februarv, 1940 Vol. 28, No. 2 LegionMAGAZINE Published Monthly by The American Legion, 455 West 22d Street, Chicago, Illinois BXBCUTIVB AND ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICBS EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES Indianapolis, Indiana 15 West 48th St., New York City THE quotation on the cover of CONTENTS duct of our wars would certainly this issue is from an address COVER DESIGN lead to its avoidance in the future. by the late United States Sena- I am firmly convinced that most of BY J. W. SCHLAIKJER troubles this have their tor Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachu- EDITORIAL: two matters 1 our of nature setts before the Legislature of his OF IMPORTANCE foundation in the inaccuracies and State on the hundredth anniversary BEDROCK AMERICAN 3 inadequacies of our school histories. of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. By Walter Travis Until this is corrected neither those The full quotation reads: "That na- Mckinley to rowan to who exercise the right of suffrage tion has not lived in vain which has GARCIA 4 nor their representatives in Congress By A. C. M. Azoy given the world Washington and will ever take the necessary correc- CODE DISHONOR 6 Lincoln, the best great men and the OF tive measures and maintain a policy By Hugh Wiley greatest history which will insure the prestige and good men whom can Illustrations by L. R. Gustavson show." There is today another WHEN MURMANSK WENT dignity of our country and lessen United States Senator Henry Cabot YANK 10 the possibility of war in the future." Lodge of Massachusetts, grandson of By John E. Wilson the orator of that 1909 Lincoln's TONY EARNS HIS VOTE 12 A FLASHBACK to those days Birthday Address and a statesman in By Karl Detzer we'll never forget is given in his own right. THE PASSENGER 14 the new Warner picture, The Fight- By M. M. Moodey ing Sixty-Ninth, which takes that Illustrations by J. W . Schlaikjcr GENERAL GEORGE C. MAR- regiment (the 165th Infantry, 42d DEMOCRACY'S CHAMPIONS 18 SHALL, Chief of Staff of the Division) through its training period By J. Edgar Hoover United States Army, told American Cartoon by John Cassel and to the thrilling action of the historians recently that our army Western Front. The Fighting Sixty- FATHER ABRAHAM'S MEN 20 machine is probably less than twenty- By Emanuel Hertz Ninth gives its actors the job of por- five percent ready for immediate ac- TO HOLD IT HIGH 22 traying persons who are still living, tion, also that school histories in these By Fletcher Pratt which is something brand new.

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