October 15: Tributes from Red Cross and American Legion

             Tributes to Don Martin continued to be written long after his death. A particularly touching one published on page one of the New York Herald Magazine on Sunday, March 16, 1919, reprinted the tribute Don Martin had written to the Salvation Army.

End of the Salvation Army Lass 

with a Tambourine

Great Organization That Has At Last Come Into Its Own

And Is Honored and Revered and 

Adored by All American Soldiers

Don Martin’s Tribute

              It was Don Martin, who died in France while serving there as correspondent with the American armies for the Herald, who paid one of the finest of tributes to the work of the tambourine girl as he found her on the battlefield, and thereby probably did as much as any one else in directing the American public’s confidence to the organization. He wrote:

              “Whenever you see the whiskered old Santa Claus with kettle and bell, who stamps his feet to keep warm as he watches the human currents swirl around him in Herald Square, or wherever else it may be, give him something. When the Salvation lassie comes around with her modest appeal to help the boys at the front, don’t turn her away, for the Salvation Army is a ministering angel to the boys in the fighting ranks.

              “It takes human nature as it finds it and asks no questions. There is not a soldier in France who does not tip his hat to it. It is right there under fire, selling at bare cost chocolate, coffee, gum, cigarettes; giving away when the boys are without money; sending everything it can spare to the trenches and accepting not a penny for this invaluable service; writing letters for such as do not take readily to penmanship, but have heartstrings just the same; doing a thousand and one things to offset the brutalizing influences of war, and getting nothing for it except the satisfaction that comes from having done good and asking nothing except that its workers be permitted to share with the soldiers all the hardships and hazards of the front line.”

             None could read a tribute such as Don Martin’s and fail to realize that the Salvation Army must have been doing great things.

                From H. D. Gibson, commissioner in Europe for the American Red Cross Society, who wrote the following:

                   In the death of Don Martin I feel that the Red Cross has lost a firm friend. In all his despatches home he never failed to speak of the work of the Red Cross at the front, and always he spoke of this work in a manner that showed clearly his appreciation of our efforts, as well as his eagerness to further the work.

Honors by The American Legion

         The American Legion was chartered by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization. On March 15-17, 1919, members of the American Expeditionary Force convened in Paris for the first American Legion caucus. At the St. Louis Caucus on May 8-10, 1919, "The American Legion" was adopted as the organization's official name.  On Sept. 16, 1919, Congress chartered The American Legion. The first Legion convention was held in Minneapolis on November 10-12, 1919. Focusing on service to veterans, service members and communities, the Legion evolved from a group of war-weary veterans of World War I into one of the most influential nonprofit groups in the United States. Membership swiftly grew to over 1 million, as local posts sprang up across the country.

          Service men in Don Martin’s hometown, Silver Creek, N. Y., formed an American Legion “Don Martin Post of Silver Creek,” Post No. 148 named in his honor in Fall 1919. Several months later, the world war veterans on the staff of the New York Herald and Evening Telegram organized the “Don Martin Post of New York,” Post No. 666 of the American Legion [The Fourth Estate, November 22, 1919].    In only one other instance had the American Legion permitted the use of the same name by two posts. That was the “Quentin Roosevelt Post of Oyster Bay,” New York and the “Quentin Roosevelt Post of the Bronx,” New York.