Greeting to the American Legion.

My dear Commander Colmery:

I EXTEND to you and through you to my fellow Legionnaires, and the members of the American Legion Auxiliary, greetings on the occasion of the Nineteenth Annual Convention.

It is now nearly twenty years since you rendered that splendid service in the defense of our country and for the ideals of democracy which earned you the right to membership in the American Legion and first rank in American citizenship.

There are few more exalted sentiments than those embodied in the preamble to our Legion Constitution: For God and Country; to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States; to foster and perpetuate Americanism; to maintain law and order; to inculcate a sense of individual obligation to the Community, State and Nation; to combat the autocracy of both the classes and the masses; to make right the master of might; to promote peace and good will on earth; to safeguard and transmit to posterity the principles of justice, freedom and democracy.

These are your words and mine. What more is there to be said to stress the importance of American citizenship of the broadest, truest and highest type? Let us hold fast to these ideals and carry them forward in the future welfare of our united Nation.

Were I to solicit the aid of the Legion in the solution of any one of the many pressing problems which confront us, it would perhaps be that of unemployment. The Legion is in a position, with its extended membership of all classes-a veritable cross-section of our citizenship—to contribute materially to the success of the movement now well under way to absorb the unemployed into commerce and industry; and in the future development of a national prosperity, which has all but arrived.

In sending my hearty greetings I have firm faith that the entire membership of our organization will labor without ceasing to perpetuate in time of peace the fundamental institutions which they defended so valiantly in time of war.

Very sincerely yours,

Harry W. Colmery,

National Commander,

The American Legion,

Indianapolis, Indiana.