Talk:American Legion

Bias

There is a significant amount of criticism targeting the American Legion, not least of which being their overtly conservative political views not pertaining to the military. Many would say this is inappropriate for a congressionally chartered organization like the American Legion. There should at least be some mention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wils4581 (talk • contribs) 03:21, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

It can be included if you can find some reliable sourcing for the claims. QueenofBattle (talk) 03:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely true. The American Legion is largely a right-wing pressure group masquerading as a veterans' organization. As one should expect given its openly-fascist early years. 24.214.230.66 (talk) 17:32, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Wow - talk about your own bias, why don't you? 155.84.57.253 (talk) 20:25, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

As is now quoted in this very article, the head of American Legion said in 1923 that "the Fascisti are to Italy what the American Legion is to the United States." Mussolini was a guest speaker at American Legion conventions throughout the 20s. And the American Legion was at the heart of the Business Plot to overthrow FDR and establish a fascist dictatorship. This isn't bias, it's facts. 24.214.230.66 (talk) 00:58, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Many liberals and progressives supported Benny the Moose, seeing him as a rather heavy-handed force for progress. Not for here, but Ida Tarbell was typical. FDR saw value in some ideas of the Fascisti, and the National Recovery Act was organised in direct imitation of Musso’s corporatist policies.

But, FDR, like Tarbell, and most Legionnaires, were democrats. For a contemporary look at the Legion’s image in popular culture in the Thirties, see the Warner Bros. 1939/40 flick, “Confessions of a Nazi Spy”. There is a dramatisation of a real incident at a meeting of the fascist German-American Bund. Some Legionnaires are disturbed by the Bund’s plan to streamline the US government by getting rid of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and one shouts “We don’t want any isms in this country except Americanism!”. Bundists try to beat them up, S.A.-style; another shouts “You guys are worse than gangsters!”. Some discussion of this incident would improve the article (I think the vets involved were Jewish). Smedley Butler and his supposed exposure of a Fascist plot are for another place. But where on earth did you get that information about Mussolini addressing Legion posts in the USA?? His son, Vittorio did visit in 1937, but don’t know of any interest in the Legion. 2A00:23C3:E284:900:D149:6219:5F19:2E4B (talk) 22:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The sentence about the Legion being a voice in current Conservative politics has been deleted. It wasn't supported with sourcing at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.162.124.66 (talk) 12:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Additionally no mention is made of their agreement to inform for the FBI on those who were seen as left leaning. (Potential sources: Original, JSTOR)--2602:306:326F:9C50:221:6AFF:FE53:D3EA (talk) 20:31, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

‘Left leaning’ is a polite way of putting it. They weren’t interested in Norman Thomas or Bob La Follette, you know. 2A00:23C3:E284:900:D149:6219:5F19:2E4B (talk) 22:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Centralia Massacre

The article's section about the Centralia Massacre is flagrantly biased to the IWW's side, ignoring evidence contrary to what it says that can be found in Wikipedia's page on the Centralia Massacre itself. The author used a single, very biased source ("The Centralia Tragedy of 1919") to cite his section. I have added a POV dispute tag to the section.

Probably because the American Legion were so overtly the aggressors and the IWW the victims. It's not that the article is biased, it's that the historical facts show the Legion in a negative light. — Red XIV ^(talk) 03:21, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

How about a link to the Legion’s own account? All their magazines are available on their website, from issue one; quite a resource.

The article you are looking for is “Unwept, Unhonored, and Unhung”. 2A00:23C3:E284:900:D149:6219:5F19:2E4B (talk) 22:50, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

That article is available here: https://archive.legion.org/node/1354 Polygnotus (talk) 04:03, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

What *is* the first Legion post?

Besides the above there is Post 01 in London, and Post 01 in Paris, each with its own webpage. Does each jurisdiction have its own numbering system, or what? Some clarity needed. 2A00:23C3:E284:900:C9A3:49FB:A4AE:D68D (talk) 21:00, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Massive amount of article deleted in 2019 called "clean up" with no disussion

What the heck happened here, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Legion&diff=910429207&oldid=910416562 this removed all historical context from the article under the guise of "clean up". Including the centralia massacre. Seems really biased.97.83.133.136 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:40, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

It got buried in the History of the American Legion sub-article so that the main article no longer includes any mention of the Legion's violent, fascist history. — Red XIV ^(talk) 01:16, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

It hasn’t got a fascist history, so that is only right.

Still at it? The war is over, and you people lost. 213.205.240.149 (talk) 17:57, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

That said, this article really should have a summary of the history, important given some of the controversial elements of it. Magic♪piano 21:20, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

List of past National Commanders by vote of National Conventions

What on earth does this mean? No explanation in the article. 2A00:23C7:E287:1900:E15F:41AB:CF33:BC27 (talk) 01:21, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Reordering the first paragraph

I saw the comment in the lead saying "don't change without prior consensus" so I'm proposing it here: to a non-American reader the lead is a disorganised jumble of statements of fact. I propose reordering it to three paragraphs on purpose, history, and activity as follows:

---

The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is a nonprofit organization of U.S. war veterans headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Its primary political activity is lobbying on behalf of interests of veterans and service members, including support for benefits such as pensions and the Veterans Health Administration, and is active in issue-oriented U.S. politics.

The organization was formed on March 15, 1919, in Paris, France, by a thousand officers and men of the American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.), and it was chartered on September 16, 1919, by the United States Congress. The Legion played the leading role in the drafting and passing of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the "G.I. Bill".

The American Legion is made up of state, U.S. territory, and overseas departments, and these are in turn made up of local posts. In addition to organizing commemorative events, members provide assistance at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals and clinics. It has also historically promoted Americanism, individual obligation to the community, state, and nation; peace and good will.

---

--Deryck C. 08:43, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

References

Updating the Commander for Florida

I will be updating the Commander for Florida from Clarence E. Hill, Florida, 2009–2010 Also, I would like to start a Florida Legion page and a section on this page for links to state pages possibly. I'm just throwing this out now for a talking point.

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• American Legion Seal SVG.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:07, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

→== Incredibly biased in favor of the legion, neglects to mention any of their horrific massacres, plots, and violence. ==

No mention of the Centralia Massacre, no mention of the Business Plot, no mention of the rampant fascism, violence, and intimidation. Was this written by the American legion? Joke of an article. GonzoTribune (talk) 18:50, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @GonzoTribune I unironically urge you to create Draft:History of the American Legion as a right-wing fascist organization. You'll need credible sources and decent looking citations but based on the talk page of this article it's a deficit in our coverage that needs to be addressed. Please consider adding your insight and knowledge in this area to Wikipedia. Respectfully, jengod (talk) 20:44, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

See discussion above. An editor moved the history (which has these controversial bits described at great length) to History of the American Legion without leaving a summary here, effectively whitewashing this page. Magic♪piano 01:03, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

So editors are just allowed to completely obfuscate the history of an organization to serve that organizations goals? That seems ridiculous. The page should be reverted. GonzoTribune (talk) 06:09, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I have undone the move, but there are still POV problems present. Polygnotus (talk) 02:48, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Name

According to the Legion's website, "The American Legion" was adopted as the organization's official name.^[1] The website uses the name "The American Legion", with all three words capitalized, throughout (with "the Legion" as a short alternative). I therefore propose to change the first sentence to, "The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is a non-profit organization of U.S. war veterans."  --Lambiam 16:27, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

NPOV

The Legion has criticized the ACLU for using the threat of attorney fees to pressure locally elected bodies into removing religion from the public square.

is pretty POV. If you are pro-constitution; does that not include the first amendment which includes the separation of church and state? Also its not that "religion" was removed as a whole; the ACLU objected to the government not following its own rules. Its also kinda weird to use a cross as a memorial for people of other faiths and of no faith. Polygnotus (talk) 00:59, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

"separation of church and state" -- that's not in the text of the Constitution --it's a commentary invented decades later by Jefferson (who was not at the Constitutional Convention) Rjensen (talk) 17:29, 19 December 2024 (UTC).

Comments copied from Talk:History of the American Legion

Citations Broken

Whoever broke this out of the American Legion article didn't bother to make sure that the short-citation scheme in that article was brought over to this article. It's left a huge number of citations such as "Heale 1990, p. 82" which no longer link to anything anyone can identify as a source. (In the original article, clicking on the short citation took you to the full citation; short citations are valuable because each can give a different page number in the source without having to repeate the complete citation.) Cleaning it up is more work than I care to engage in at the moment, but it needs to be done since large sections of the article are now effectively unsourced. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:38, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

 Fixed Polygnotus (talk) 02:47, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Not comprehensive enough

The article does not mention the American legion's opposition against Harold Rugg's social studies textbooks at all(cf.[2]), which is imperative because it reflected the Legion's educational philosophy.--RekishiEJ (talk) 10:59, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I've added it to the Refideas template. Polygnotus (talk) 03:00, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Centralia Massacre

The section about the Centralia Massacre is highly biased toward the IWW and contains information that is not proven to be true and contradicts Wikipedia's own page about the event. The entire section uses a single source written by a biased author as its only citation. It uses the weasel words "according to some witnesses," to state that Parade Marshal Adrian Cormier gave a signal to attack the IWW hall, omitting who these witnesses were. 2601:14F:4501:8340:C1AD:6BE2:2310:B628 (talk) 23:20, 8 July 2023 (UTC)