One could not ask for a more beautiful ironical study in 100 per cent Americanism than the spectacle of the merchants of Boston solemnly boarding up their plate-glass show windows in preparation for the American Legion convention, while hotel proprietors stripped, their establishments of vases, pictures and other destructible things of value and put them into storage. And accompanying picture is that of boosters from a score of cities, including Baltimore, earnestly beseeching the Legion to come to their respective home towns next year.

Twelve years ago many of the good people of Boston were speculating on the means by which they would get themselves to Worcester in the event that the Germans landed on the Massachusetts coast and settled down to a celebration in Boston. They told themselves with some apprehension that the Germans would smash up automobiles, break the windows of hotels and residences, put the police to route and make the town a noisy, disorderly shambles. Had the Boston Chamber of Commerce sent emissaries to Kaiser Wilhelm II to urge him to make Boston his headquarters, such a zealot would have been hanged in front of Symphony Hall. The war has taught us Americans not only how to take punishment but how to go after it.

Next year Detroit is to have the Legion as its guest and it is none too soon to begin planning the earthworks, barricades and other defenses necessary to the full enjoyment of a modern convention. With Canada so handy and the river full of speedboats, the 1931 event should set a record for all time. And Detroit, never having had a police strike to practice on, can't begin too soon to insure its plate glass and anticipate a magnificent patriotic occasion. It is comforting to know, however, that if Detroit is razed to its foundations. Baltimore, Seattle, etc., will be lobbying for the American Legion convention of 1932!