SOLDIER BONUS: Struggles and an Election

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Struggles and an Election

The Fifth Annual Convention of the American Legion (TIME, Oct. 22) closed at San Francisco. Before it closed there were several hot fights and a number of weighty speeches. One of the most vigorous struggles was over the bonus.

The anti-bonus faction was not large in numbers but it was strongly persuaded of its case. It was backed up in the midst of the controversy by a letter from the Ex-Servicemen's Anti-Bonus League suggesting that the Legion coöperate with it in a poll of the great bulk of veterans to see whether they really favored a bonus. The final defeat of the anti-bonus faction was as inevitable as complete. The National Commander announced his intention of plunging immediately into the Legion's fight for a bonus.

Another leading contest was over the Ku Klux Klan, which was finally condemned, but not by name.

Speakers at the convention included Secretary of Labor Davis (for restriction of immigration), Director Frank T. Hines of the Veterans' Bureau (on care of ex-service men), Samuel Gompers, Admiral R. E. Coontz, and General Josef Haller, Commander of the Polish Army.

The contest for a National Commander to succeed Alvin W. Owsley (retiring) was decided on the eleventh ballot by the election of John R. Quinn, 34, of California, formerly a Captain in the 348th Field Artillery. When Quinn's election was announced, Owsley took him by the hand and said: "I turn you over to the mercies of the newspaper men, the photographers and the public."