TH E AM ERICAN JUNE I 940 MAGAZINE1 m It takes an eight to beat an eight Nothing less than an "eight" can match an "eight" in all-around per- formance. The Ford is the only eight-cylinder car in its price field — smoother and more fun to drive. In the things that really count, It has De Luxe two-tone instru- any other. It's the fastest and most the hig, roomy Ford is ahead of its ment panel and light, harmonizing powerful of the leading low-price field. It has the higgest hydraulic interior — the new 1940 style note. cars. Drive it and learn where your brakes. A uniquely stabilized dollars buy the most automobile! chassis. The only full torque-tube Finger-Tip Gearshift, Controlled drive. The most rugged rear axle. Ventilation, Scientific Soundproof- ing — the Ford has every important IT PAYS TO DEAL WITH THE Only in the Ford V-8 will you modern feature in addition to the FORD DEALER find the restful comfort of seats built He is ready, willing and anxious to trade its field. greatest engine in — Before you any car, with "floating-edge" and individ- any make. buy let him show you how easy it is to own ually pocketed cushion springs. It This is the all-time, unmatched a new Ford V-8. Prices are low and include equipment for which you often has many fine -car appointments value produced by the company must pay extra. included in the price. that has built more cars than Visit the new Ford Expositions at the two Fairs, New York and San Francisco, 1943. STEP UP TO THE V*8 CLASS — — — Denmark and Norway ten years of depression—correctly named, ^ CAPTAIN EDDIE WITH into spreading but grossly misunderstood. drawn the European war, which as I There are millions still unemployed RICK EN BACKER write seems also likely to billions of dollars are being paid in addi- engulf Belgium, Holland, Sweden, as well tional taxes—hospitals are still filled with as other countries, there looms before us thousands of veterans, wrecked mentally And if we could have invested the bal- Americans the greatest question we, and physically, all of them once the ance that would have been left in a way as a people, have faced since 191 7. flower of American manhood—someone's that would have brought a rate of five Shall we go in? father, brother or sweetheart, but each percent annually, there would have been Taking into account every known angle one of them some mother's son. sufficient to pay an annual salary, of one of the confused and complex situation in The cost to the world approximated thousand dollars each, to one hundred which the world finds itself today, we two hundred and fifty billion dollars. ?nd twenty-five thousand school teach- must still refuse, as we refused last Sep- With this staggering sum we could have ers, and one hundred and twenty-five tember, to be dragged into this war built homes, costing twenty-five hundred thousand nurses. unless our national safety is imperiled. dollars each, on five acre plots of ground, The cost to these United States Only twenty-three years ago, we costing one hundred dollars an acre. direct and indirect, continued up to date Americans entered the World War with We could have equipped each of those —has totaled approximately forty-seven a profound conviction that we were fight- homes with a thousand dollars worth of billion dollars. ing for the preservation of Democracy. furniture, and given such a home to If we had placed this staggering sum The close of the World War and subse- every family in Russia, Italy, France, into peacetime circulation—we would quent events during these past twenty- Belgium, Germany, Wales, Scotland, not now have millions of unemployed, three years, have brought about the disil- Ireland, England, Australia, Holland plus the direct loss of fifty thousand lusionment and realization that the win- and the United States of America. men, and approximately two hundred ner and the loser of such a conflict must In those lands we could have given to and fifty thousand casualties. suffer the consequences alike. every community of forty thousand peo- Well could we rid ourselves, with this Our penalty, the same as that of other ple or more, a two-million-dollar library, vast sum, of the slums of our great cities nations, was the complete disruption of a three-million-dollar hospital, and a ten- —the misery and poverty that go with our economic machinery, bringing about million-dollar university. them. (Continued on page 42) JUNE. 1940 1 ; iforQodandcountry , we associate ourselves togetherjor theJollowiny purposes: (Jo uphold and defend the Constitution «_/ ofthe TdnitedStates ofAmerica; to maintain law and order; tofoster andperpetuate a one hundredpercent Americanism to preserve the memories and incidents ofour association in theQreatlVar; to inculcate a sense of"individual obligation to the com- munity,siate andnation; to combat the autocracy ofboth the classes andthe masses; to make right the master ofmight; to promote peace andgood willon earth ; to safguardand transmit to posterity the principles ofjustice,_freedom and democracy ; to conse- crate and'sanciifj our comradeship by our devotion to mutual helpfulness.— Preamble to the Constitution ofThe American Legioa The Jlmerican June, 1940 Vol. 28, No. 6 LEGIONMAGAZINE Published Monthly by The American Legion, 4$; West zzd Street, Chicago, Illinois EXECUTIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES Indianapolis, Indiana 150 West 48th St., New York City CAPTAIN EDDIE RICKEN- CONTENTS brings the rating of ensign, with BACKER'S article, Let's Keep $227.50 a month. The rest is up to COVER DESIGN Out. is one of the soundest By Edw ard M. Stevenson the boy. pieces of Americanism we have seen Applications are being received by LET'S KEEP OUT 1 in many a moon. It merits the closest the Commanding Officer, Naval Avi- By Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker ation Base, at each attention of every person who loves Illustration by Paul F. Berdanier, Sr. of the following the United States, and should be thirteen Naval Reserve Aviation CAN 3 copied widely. Legionnaire WE FORGET THEM? Bases: Squantum, Massachusetts; Eddie, as By Wallgren everybody knows, was America's Ace Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New of Aces in the 1917-'18 affair. He THE GENERAL'S HAT CORD 4 York; Navy Yard, Philadelphia; By Leonard H. Nason has been for years president of East- Naval Air Station, Anacostia, District Illustrations by Herbert M. Stoops ern Air Lines. The body of the article of Columbia; Opa Locka, Miami. is taken from a speech which he de- MARS GRABS THE AIR WAVES 8 Florida; Grosse He, Detroit; Glen- By Allan" A. Michie livered before a group of advertising view, Illinois; Wold-Chamberlain men in New York City early in WHERE DO I FIT? 10 Airport, Minneapolis; Robertson, April. the editors of your mag- By James Truslow Adams Missouri Municipal Airport, Kansas When ; Cartoons by John Cassel azine asked Eddie for permission to City, Kansas; Cherry and Wardlaw use the speech the Germans were al- ONE NATION INDIVISIBLE 12 Streets, Long Beach, California; ready overrunning Denmark and By Le Roy Boyd Municipal Airport, Oakland, Cali- Illustrations by V . E. Pyles Norway, and Eddie used that circum- fornia; Naval Air Station, Seattle, stance as a new "lead" for the article, IT'S NICE TO BE A GENERAL 14 Washington. Le Bartlett which we regard as so important that By Roy Illustrations by Raymond Sislcy we are leading off with it. TAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS re- ORCHIDS AND ONIONS 16 el turns to our pages this month with By Elsie Wolcott Navy wants aviators. Here is some timely advice to the thousands THE Illustrations by J. W . Schlaikjer a grand chance for any young fel- of young men and women coming low who can qualify. Candidates must THERE SHE STANDS 18 out of our schools and colleges. Most By Stewart H. Holbrook have passed their twentieth birthday of them will be unable to make con- and be under twenty-seven, unmar- MATTRESS MEN 20 tact with a payroll, of course. That ried, never have been married and By Grant Powers circumstance does not mean that Illustrations bv the Author must agree to remain unmarried dur- these youngsters won't have their ing the first two of their four years of MINNESOTA MASTERS MARI- chance. The resources of the nation active duty. The Navy wants fellows HUANA 22 in which they live and the form of By Frederick C. Painton who have had two years of college or government under which we operate its equivalent; they must of course YOUTH SPEAKS FOR AMERICA 24 are the greatest guarantee we know pass the physical test, when they will By Boyd B. Stutler of under the sun that the problem of be enlisted in the Naval Reserve and STREAMLINED ELEPHANTS 28 unemployment which now plagues us given a preliminary or elimination By John J. Noll is going to be solved. As Mr. Adams course lasting thirty days. During this points EDITORIAL: ". and take your 64 out, the thousands of research month they will draw down approxi- OWN PART laboratories all over the nation are mately $114. If they make good they hatching the industries of tomorrow will then be sent to Pensacola as Avi- which will launch us on the road to ation Cadets, where they will be national prosperity. As Bacon said given seven months' training at the IMPORTANT more than three centuries ago: "They pay of $75 a month, with all neces- arc ill discoverers that think there is A form for your convenience if you wish sary uniforms thrown in.