CHAUNCEY W. HERRICK, National Commander in Chief TOLEDO, OHIO, September 28, 1925. United Spanish-American War Veterans, St. Petersburg, Fla.: I have been directed to convey to your organization greetings and our sincere wishes for a successful convention. EDWIN T. HOWELL, Toledo Chapter, Disabled Veterans. CITY OF ST. CLOUD, FLA., September 26, 1925. Spanish-American War Veterans' National Convention assembled at St Petersburg, Fla.; You are cordially welcomed to the State of Florida and particularly invited to pay our city, a veterans' colony, a visit before leaving the State. We sincerely trust that you are enjoying yourselves and that your visit will be long remembered. Cordially, G. C. OUTLAW, City Manager. Commander in Chief HERRICK. Comrades, prior to going into the nominations of officers, I will ask the adjutant general to make a partial report of the credentials committee. Adjutant General MURPHY. Up to 9.15 o'clock this morning there had been 829 credentials issued. The credentials committee is making up at the present time a list of the members from each department, but 829 credentials had been issued to 9.15 o'clock this morning. Commander in Chief HERRICK. The first order of business on Tuesday morning is the nomination of officers. I have been told that the ladies' auxiliary would like to extend their greetings and I asked them to come the first thing this morning. However, they have not appeared and we will therefore take up the nominations of officers. The adjutant general will call the roll of the departments and the departments will present their choice for the office of commander in chief. Now, comrades, I think you all want to expedite this matter as much as possible. We want every State heard from that has a choice and we want the choice recorded. However, I wish to suggest that in the event that your State has no choice for the office of commander in chief, it is only fair to the State who is presenting a candidate that they have an opportunity to present their candidate and I would be very glad to receive from the floor the suggestions that any comrade may make, for instance, as to the limitation of the time for speeches. I do not desire to shut anyone off. I feel it is too warm, however, to have extended speeches. Comrade OTJEN (Oklahoma). I move that the speakers be limited to five minutes for the nominations and for seconds three minutes. Comrade DINEEN (New York). Comrade Commander in Chief, I rise to a point of order. The regulations of the organization specifically provide the period of time allotted to nomination speeches, and any motion contrary to those regulations would be out of order. Commander in Chief HERRICK. Comrade Dineen is in order and his point is well taken. What do the regulations provide? Comrade DINEEN (New York). The regulations provide that the nomination speeches shall be limited to 10 minutes. [Applause.] Commander in Chief HERRICK. Comrade Dineen, what is there on seconds? Comrade DINEEN (New York). I will read from page 158, part 5, subdivision C of the regulations dealing with nominating speeches for the office of commander in chief. It says that they shall not exceed 10 minutes; the exact language is: "Nominating speeches for the office of commander in chief shall not exceed 10 minutes each in duration, and for other officers they shall not exceed 5 minutes each in duration. Speeches seconding nominations for the office of commander in chief shall not exceed five minutes each in duration and for other officers they shall not exceed three minutes each in duration." [Applause.] The Provost MARSHAL. Comrade Commander in Chief, the provost marshai desires to inform you that the ladies' auxiliary have arrived. Commander in Chief HERRICK. I am informed by the provost marshal that the ladies' auxiliary have arrived. The committee is composed of the past presidents general and, with your permission, I would like to give them an opportunity to extend their greetings and for that purpose we will defer the nominations at this time. [Applause.] (The committee from the Ladies Auxiliary were escorted to the platform.) Past President General JESSE BOOTH PERRY (Illinois). Commander in chief and comrades of the United Spanish War Veterans, you see before you what our president general yesterday called the foundation of the Auxiliary of the United Spanish War Veterans. I think you will agree with me that this a sound, solid foundation. [Applause and laughter.] The president general appointed on her greetings committee every past president general of the organization in convention assembled and this morning you have with you all but one of those who were in Cleveland and all of those in the United States now belonging to the auxiliary except four. [Applause.] That is a record of which we are very proud, that our past officers so keep up their interest in the organization and come to the convention year after year to carry on the work they started. Of the four who are absent, two are on the western coast, one in Portland, Oreg., and one in California, and the other two are not so far away, but our past presidents general have certainly stood by the organization from the beginning. This is my twenty-second consecutive convention [applause], beginning in 1904 at the St. Louis convention immediately after the amalgamation and continuing to the present time. I hope I may live to be with you at many more conventions and, though a great many of the sisters have been here nearly as long, they seem not as yet to be as old as I am. We wish to present you the greetings of the national auxiliary. We also present to you the report of the president general and the secretary and treasurer general and we hope they will be added to your records. These officers are now reading their reports to the convention, immediately after which we will have the nomination of officers and, for that reason, we will not take your time. [Applause.] I will now present to you the past presidents general we have. here with us. They are Elizabeth McNamara, of Massachusetts; Anna K. Juneau, of Wisconsin; Elizabeth M. Hartung, of Ohio; Violet B. King, of Illinois; Minnie R. Lenhart, of Pennsylvania; Louise W. Williams, of New York; Lucile E. Dragon, of Missouri; and Florence M. Clark, of Ohio. Past President General McNamara we have with us for the first time since the convention in Atlantic City, and we are very proud indeed to have her. She served in 1907, 1908, and 1909 and now that she is back and in the habit of attending conventions we expect to keep her every year with us. [Applause.] Commander in Chief HERRICK. Sister Perry and sister past presidents general, I consider it a great compliment to our encampment to receive this splendid report on your past presidents general. So far as I can recall, it is the first time that the entire body of past presidents general have come over to visit us. I hope that the practice will be followed and I feel that we should cultivate not possibly closer relations, but better relations with the auxiliary. I must say that we have gone along for a long time, each of us in our own way, and it seems to me that any movement like this will bring us closer together and it will be for the good of the organization. I appreciate your coming here and I appreciate this representation, and if I can assemble enough past commanders in chief I will ask them to accompany you back. Sisters, I would be glad to have you stay with us awhile, but I know you have to get back. Comrades, how many past commanders in chief are present at this hour of the morning to accompany the ladies back? (Past Commanders in Chief Alcorn, Smith, Newton, and Carlstrom advanced to the platform and were appointed a committee to accompany the ladies.) Commander in Chief HERRICK. I will also include on the committee the Commissioner of Pensions of the United States, Winfield Scott, a past department commander, of Oklahoma, who will accompany the committee and who can tell the ladies something about pensions when he arrives. Comrades, I am going to ask you before the ladies leave to give three cheers for our sisters of the auxiliary. (This was done.) (The committee from the ladies' auxiliary then retired.) Commander in Chief HERRICK. The comrades will be in order. I want to repeat for the benefit of some comrades who were inquiring here regarding the enactment committee that it will meet in the Princess Martha Hotel at 12 o'clock. If there are any proposed enactments to be presented they should be presented to the committee before that time or at the meeting. The comrades will please be seated and I will request visitors again who are not delegates to take seats in the galleries. The adjutant general will proceed with the roll call. Adjutant General MURPHY. Alabama. Comrade BRANDON (Alabama). Commander in chief, shall I come to the stage? Commander in Chief HERRICK. I will be very glad to have you come to the stage at any time, Governor. Comrade BRANDON (Alabama). Commander in chief, comrades all, after the scene that has just been enacted on this stage it is unfortunate that Alabama is the first State, alphabetically; not only is she the first State alphabetically, but the greatest State in the American Union. [Applause.] Behind this picture that you see of the beautiful women who bring you greetings, I am disturbed in heart and mind that the commander in chief did not at least grant to the executive of Alabama the privilege of carrying on his arm one of these beautiful women. [Applause.] Commander in Chief HERRICK. I am going to take this out of your time to say that I introduced you to some ladies yesterday and the result was disastrous. Comrade BRANDON (Alabama). I feel very much like an old man in my State. He was a married man. He and his wife could not get along. One day he finally said to her, "Now, we can't get along, so I am just going to commit suicide. Everything I do is wrong.' He went out into the yard and jumped up on a barrel and tied a halter about his throat and kicked the barrel from under him and he fell on the ground, broke his hip, and his wife came out as he was hollering for help. He was about the size of the lady who brought the resolutions, and she began to laugh, and he said to her, "Why, what are you laughing at? Here I am dying and you are laughing. What are you laughing at?" She said, "John, I am sorry for you if you are hurt, but what I am laughing at, I was just thinking what a pretty looking thing in hell you would be with a blind bridle on.' Histories are things paramount to all nations: Time, tradition, men who stamp their records indelibly on the pages of history go on and lead our children to great things, yet the historic page has no more to say of the Spanish-American War veteran than that he lived and died. His name and his deeds are handed down to us in records kept only in letters; spell out his name. This would exist no longer, but in every schoolhouse and every clime of America there should be a true history of the Spanish-American War veterans. My time is limited. I could talk to you, my comrades, all day. I served as chief executive of Alabama and I sit where the old Federal Cabinet, the cradle of the Confederacy, sat. My offices are in the same building that were occupied by Jefferson Davis. I took my oath of office on the same spot, sir, that he took his, and yet I stand here to place a comrade in nomination from the dome of that capitol in the heart of the South where the Stars and Stripes of this American Government fly, and who owes more loyalty to the flag than we of the South? I take off my hat to the departed McKinley more to wipe out the boundary line between the North and the South and make us all 100 per cent Americans than anyone else. I know what my countrymen from that section gave to the Spanish-American War. Alabama's sons will live in history and their works will be commemorated and I come from that State of Alabama which is the first to report on nominations, and I have the honor to place in nomination for the first time a man from southern territory, and with a national voice, not one of the South, but a voice of the Nation, I put in nomination for commander in chief of the United Spanish War Veterans a son of the South, Harvey H. Hannah, of Tennessee. [Applause.] His matchless eloquence has been heard over the hills of the South. We want it on the floors of Congress in order to carry the true history of this great organization to the American people. [Applause.] And I come to you, friends, I come to you to-day, fellows, to ask you to think seriously of this man from the South. Now, I am from the South, but after I got into the SpanishAmerican War I mingled with the New York and the Massachusetts men and with men from Indiana and Illinois and Minnesota. After all, I came to the conclusion they were pretty good fellows. They gave me a banquet one night, and a fellow got up and said: "Here is an old rebel from the South." He said "He is so little that you have to put him on a chair in order to see him." I said, "Yes, am stunted. There is a reason down in the South. We are hospitable people, and along about the time I came along the hungriest bunch of soldiers that went through any country came through the South and took everything we had [applause] and I am stunted and you fellows performed the stunt." [Applause.] I said, "I am a good deal like an old Confederate soldier was who went to a Grand Army reunion and at the gate there was an old Federal soldier with both arms shot off, both eyes out, both limbs gone, and he had a card across his breast reading" Help a poor, blind, disabled soldier." As this fellow passed by he dropped a penny, and stopped and looked at the pennies and nickels that had been dropped in the cup that the cripple held. My old friend from Alabama couldn't stand it any longer and he ran his hands down in his breetches to the top of his boots and pulled out a five-dollar gold piece and dropped it into the cup. The boy who was standing beside the cripple turned to him and said this man has given you $5. He said "What is his name, such charity, such benevolence, is unheard of. I want to remember him. What is his name?" The old fellow walked up to him and touched him on the stump of one of his arms and he said, "My friend, it ain't charity or benevolence that prompts this action, but I just want to be blamed honest with you; you are the first damned Yankee I have seen trimmed up to suit me." [Applause.] But we have all been trimmed up together [applause], and now we are all yankees, thank God. [Applause.] And I come to you this morning, my friends, from one of the busiest cities of a great State, a State that has more waterpower than any State on the American continent, and we ask you to join us and give to the South for the first time in her history a representative as your commander in chief, and we sound the muster roll to promise you that as we were consistent with out greatest shout in the New York convention, 24 votes for Alabama, we will be in Congress with you, 24 votes strong for the Spanish-American War soldiers. It is a high privilege for me to be able to place in nomination that soldier of Tennessee, the commander, lieutenant colonel of the Fourth Tennessee in our great war with Spain, and afterwards an adjutant general-while I served as adjutant general of Alabama he served as |