American Legion
The Oxford Companion to American Military History
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2000
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© The Oxford Companion to American Military History 2000, originally published by Oxford University Press 2000. (Hide copyright information)
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American Legion. The American Legion was founded in 1919 by World War I veterans seeking to preserve comradeship fostered in service, to obtain medical care and compensation for the disabled, and to combat postwar radicalism during the Red Scare. It immediately became the largest veterans' organization in U.S. history: membership varied between 600,000 and 1.1 million from 1919 to 1941, and has remained over 2.5 million since 1945. Unlike
the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Legion admits all veterans of periods of conflict, regardless of whether they served in a theater of combat. More than 10,000 local posts elect delegates to state and national conventions. The Legion lobbied to create the precursor of
the Veterans Administration in 1921 to pay adjusted compensation of the veteran “bonus” ahead of schedule in 1936, and later to provide a
G.I. Bill of benefits for World War II veterans.
Domestically, the Legion has been a major force for national defense and against radicalism. A number of posts resorted to vigilante tactics during the Red Scare of 1919 and against industrial unionization in the 1930s. The Legion is known for community service and disaster relief, Legion baseball, and for an interest in patriotic school curricula. Although politically conservative, the organization has always supported representative democracy, welcoming a diverse ethnic and religious membership and embracing no economic programs besides veterans benefits. Its aging members disagreed initially with many of the younger veterans of the
Vietnam War.
[See also
Veterans: Vietnam War;
Veterans: World War I;
Veterans: World War II.]
Bibliography
William Pencak , For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919–1941, 1989.
Thomas A. Rumer , The American Legion, 1991.
William Pencak
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Newspaper article from: The Pantagraph Bloomington, IL; 7/24/2004; ; 700+ words
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 "Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, MO)")
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Newspaper article from: Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, MO); 1/18/2007; 700+ words
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American Legion
Dictionary entry from: Dictionary of American History
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French Foreign Legion
Encyclopedia entry from: Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa
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legion
Book article from: The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English
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Royal British Legion
Book article from: The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military
Royal British Legion British veterans' organization formed in 1921 to aid ex-servicemen and servicewomen and their dependents. Compare American Legion .
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Book article from: American Decades
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