Captain McDonald's statement was greeted with enthusiasm.
"Are you ready for the question?" demanded the chairman.
"Those favoring the adoption of the credentials report vote aye," he cried.
That aye could almost have been heard in Seattle itself.
That aye answered the question of what the American soldier thinks of Bolshevism or anything tainted with it. That aye answered the lying statement that our troops abroad had been inoculated with the germ of the world's greatest mental madness.
That aye marked the distinction between a grouch caused by a cootie-lined bunk and a desire to place a bomb under the Capitol at Washington.
I have intimated that the chief aim of each delegate was to see that no one "put anything over" at this caucus. I think that the only other determination which might rival that in intensity was most apparent at the mention of anything that pertained to or bordered on Bolshevism. This incident of ousting Curtin's organization was not the only manifestation of it by any means, although it was perhaps the most striking on the floor of the caucus. But, outside the caucus, in the hotel lobbies, and in the various committee rooms, whenever the subject came up these soldier and sailor men, in almost every instance, got mad--damn mad.
"The trouble with these people who talk Bolshevism is that they don't know anything about our country," I heard one of them say.
Another quickly interrupted him with, "The big thing the Legion's got to teach is Americanism and let those crack-brained fools know just what this country stands for." While still another injected, "The average 'long-beard' has been so crazed by persecution in Russia that he would mistake Peacock Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria in New York for a Siberian coal mine."
This last remark brought forth a laugh, and though it was whimsically made it illuminated the matter under discussion very well, I thought. In fact, the whole conversation made clear to me one of the fundamental missions the Legion must perform.
The seeds of Americanism which Legion members sow to-day will be reaped, not only to-day but in the generations of to-morrow. The Soldiers and Sailors Council, Seattle, was thrown out and its representative knew why. But, if Jack Sullivan and his red, white, and blue colleagues in the State of Washington preach in the future what they did at this caucus, the children of those northwestern Bolsheviki will not only salute the Stars and Stripes, but will know _why_ they do so. They will know what their fathers don't--that the constitution means Americanism and that Americanism means "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness."