"Comrades in Service" Membership Card--A Rare World War 1 Souvenir

Members of Simeon L. Nickerson Post 64 have formulated plans to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the American Legion, which was incorporated by an act of Congress and signed by President Woodrow Wilson on September 16, 1919.

John D. Rockwell, Jr., publicist for the Post released this interesting article about Frank E. Minott.

Paris, France, March 1919 :-Corporal Frank E. Minott, a 32 year old artilleryman is on a furlough from Camp de Soige, near Bordeaux. The “Great War” has been over for four months and Corporal Minott; along with thousands of other “doughboys” of the AEF, is strolling the boulevards of that ancient capitol city, taking in the sights.

Suddenly he is attracted to a crowd of French and American soldiers on s sidewalk fronting a big building. He pauses to ask what is going on, and is urged to go inside and sign up with “Comrades in Service”, a new organization for veterans.

The big building is the Cirque de Paris, an amusement hall taken over by the YMCA a few days earlier. Inside the hall, he finds tables set up and registers as a member. Fifty years later he will count among his souvenirs of the war a creed and faded card identifying the bearer as a member of the “Comrade in Service.”

Among the aims of the organization, stated on the back of the card, are "to stimulate interest in helpful mental and social activities, looking to creation, development, and conservation of a high morale. As well as mainly sports”, and, “to bind Americans together as Comrades to work for a better America upon their return home.”

Corporal Minott returned home with his crisp new membership card and later returned to job in Middleboro as a street car conductor. He had unknowingly, on that Spring day in Paris, became a member of what may have been shortest lived veterans organization on record.

“Comrades in Service” had been conceived by AEF Chief of Chaplains Bishop Charles Brent, who even as Corporal Minott signed up as a “Comrade” was eyeing with suspicion a rival group which was holding a caucus in the Cirque de Paris. However, when the caucus, a group of ranking officers and enlisted men, approved a suitable preamble, Bishop Brent relented and threw “Comrades in Service” into the ranks of an organization to be known as “The American Legion.”
So it was that Corporal Minott, upon his return to Batter B, of the 302nd Field Artillery, carried the membership of an already non-existent organization. He later, however, discovered that he shared that brief allegiance to “Comrades in Service” with at least two distinguished public figures.

It was at a gathering of Legionnaires at the Middleboro Town Hall in the 1940’s that Leverett Saltonstall produced his “Comrades in Service” membership card. When the late representative William Nickerson identified himself as a former member of that almost forgotten group. Mr. Minott stood up and declared “here’s another.”

0the American Legion. He takes pride in his long association with the Legion and its forerunner; which he joined quite, by chance while strolling the boulevards of Paris one Spring day many years ago.
( Compiled by Bob Lessard Post historian 2014)