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Show nosoa and reckon expenditures, the profound effect of the Legion on American life during its eventful 40-year history cannot be measured. meas-ured. The Legion was the recognized auihor and sponsor of the precedent-making GI Bill of Rights which smoothed the return to civilian ci-vilian life for 20,000,000 World War II and Korea veterans. This bill, which is generally credited with making the demobilization period a time of prosperity instead of confusion and demoralization, was passed by the Congress over the vocal and at times vigorous objection of other veteran organ izations. The American Legion has also stood for 40 years as an unswerving unswerv-ing foe of Communism in every form. At times when it suited the Soviet purpose to assume an a'V of friendship and sweet reasonableness, reasonable-ness, it almost seemed to Legionnaires Legion-naires that they wee, standing alone. Frosting On the Cake But, while the Legion's National Nation-al Headquarters was busy totaling up the figures from 40 years of service and readying its publicity plans for the birthday, the national . promotion was recognized as the frosting on the cake. For the : myriad activities of thousfthfla 01 posts in crossroad hamlet and teeming cities will be the core of the 40th anniversary celebration. National Headquarters has announced an-nounced plans for bringing t!3 story of The American Legion to a TV audience of 10,000,000 thru showings of the new Legion movie "We Who Serve" during March 15, 16 and 17. Announcement has also been made that a special salute sa-lute will come during a one-hour NBC-TV all color spectacular on Sunday evening, March 15, when Frances Langford, darling of the USO circuit .in World War II, stages her return to show business. 17,000 Legion Posts Planning Mammoth Birthday Celebration The American Legion, whose more than 2,700,000 members m ike it the largest organization of war veterans in history, is getting ready to celebrate its 40th birthday with all the enthusiasm of a 5-year-old, Founded by doughboys of the A E F at a caucus in Paris, France, March 15-17, 1919, The American Legion has become a household word, almost synonymous synony-mous with- the term "veterans." Each of its nearly 17,000 posts, located lo-cated in practically every community com-munity of the 49 states, and in 28 territories and foreign countries as well, will celebrate the birthday in its own way. Just as individuals are inclined to do upon passing a major mile, stone, the Legion is counting up its achievements and blessings of the past and is also looking ahead to what the future is to bring. Cause for Pride Here are some of the statistics which give Legionnaires cause for chest-popping pride in their three-war three-war organization: Over 60 of American Legion Posts now own their own club houses and post homes valued at well over a quarter 'of a billion dollars. (A survey of 12,539 posts I found 7,759 owning their own homes with a total value of $263,-375,000). $263,-375,000). Since 1925 The American Legion Le-gion and its affiliated organizations organiza-tions have spent $148,000,000 on child welfare and related youth work. Last year the Legion was sponsoring 4300 Boy Scout units. In the it.tmer of 1958 considerably consider-ably more than half of all major league players were graduates of American Legion Junior Baseball. One-third of the posts sponsor some athletic program and last year spent $1,328,525 on 'such activities ac-tivities (on the basis of reports from posts representing 80 of the total membership). Immeasurable Influence Some 2,000,000 youngsters are involved in American Legion youth activity annually Boys State, Boys Nation, High School Oratorical Orator-ical Contest, School Award Medals, Med-als, Sons of The American Legion, and other local or state-sponsored programs. While it is possible to counf. |