1926 American Legion Nationals
By George Fennell
Copyright - This article appeared in the April, 2004 issue of Drum Corps World.
The 1926 National American Legion Convention was held in Philadelphia, PA, from October 11th through the
15th. This national championship was probably best remembered for its poor judging and as the catalyst for
uniform judging standards and qualified, trained judges.
This article will chronicle the journeys of the three national championship contending drum corps from
Wisconsin; Beloit, Fond du Lac and Racine, to this national American Legion convention.
A special train, consisting of three Pullmans, a club car, two dining cars, and a baggage car which also
contained a piano and a specially constructed floor for dancing, pulled out of the Chicago and North Western
station in Beloit, WI, on Sunday morning, Oct. 10th, at 8:55 a.m. taking the Beloit American Legion Myron C.
West Post No. 48 drum and bugle corps and about 50 other local Legionnaires to Philadelphia, PA, to the
American Legion’s National Convention. The Beloit drum and bugle corps consisted of two drum majors, five
color guard, five base drummers, nineteen snare drummers, seventeen fifers, and seventeen buglers. Also
accompanying the drum corps to Philadelphia was its business manager and its corps director.
The Beloit Legionnaires reached Philadelphia at 3:45 Monday afternoon, Oct. 11th. The longest stop was at
Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, where the men of the Beloit American Legion drum and bugle corps paraded to
get the train fatigue out of their joints.
Determined to win first place at a national American Legion convention for the fifth consecutive time the Racine
Boys of 76 drum and bugle corps and other local Legionnaires, about 125 total, left the St. Paul Rail Road’s
train station in Racine for Philadelphia at 8 p.m. Saturday night, Oct. 9th . Their special train consisted of two
baggage cars, four Pullmans and a diner car. Prior to leaving, however, the members of the drum and bugle
corps met at Memorial Hall in downtown Racine at 7 p.m. and in olive drab uniforms the drum corps paraded to
the train station.
Gladys Christenson, “Miss ‘76,” accompanied the Boys of 76 drum and bugle corps.
The Racine Legionnaires special train arrived in Philadelphia on Sunday night where they stayed at the Elks’
Club.
The Major A. M. Trier Post 75 of Fond du Lac, WI, also left for Philadelphia with high hopes for winning first
place at the national American Legion convention too. At St. Paul in 1924, in the first year of its existence, the
corps won third place and at Omaha in 1925, where more corps competed, the corps won fourth place. The
members of the Fond du Lac American Legion drum corps worked very hard over the last year in preparation
for this competition, rehearsing two and three times a week. All efforts of this organization were directed toward
winning first place at Philadelphia in the national convention drum corps contest.
The forty-five members of the Fond du Lac American Legion corps, accompanied by their wives and members
of the Legion Auxiliary, left for Philadelphia on a special train early Sunday morning, October 10, 1926. Along
the way the special train stopped in Beaver Dam, WI, to pick up the Beaver Dam American Legion Post band
which then accompanied the Fond du Lac drum corps to Philadelphia. These two organizations had a very
close relationship, often traveling together and regularly performing at each other’s events.
$2,000 was raised by the Fond du Lac American Legion Post to pay for the expenses of the corps trip to
Philadelphia. The Fond du Lac corps consisted of 4 bass drummers; 8 fifes; 16 buglers; 10 snare
drummers; 4 color guard; one drill sergeant, one assistant drill sergeant and one drum major.
The Special train carrying the Fond du Lac American Legion drum corps stopped Monday in Washington, D.C.,
where members of the drum corps were greeted by President Coolidge at the White House. During the rest of
the day in Washington, D.C., the drum corps members made sightseeing trips around the city and to Mt.
Vernon. Their special train left Washington, D.C., at midnight Monday for Philadelphia.
Special trains carrying Legionnaires and auxiliary women from all parts of the country were arriving in
Philadelphia so close to each other, many times only 10 minutes apart, that it was like a great caravan of train
cars crowded with Veterans on their way to the greatest American Legion national convention in the
organization’s history.
Monday, October 11th, was the busiest day the Racine drum corps ever had at a national American Legion
convention.
At 8 a.m. the Boys of 76 marched from the Elks’ Club to the convention hall at the Sesquicentennial Exposition,
3 ½ miles, where they played at the opening session. Pictures were taken of the corps by newspapers from
many eastern cities and also by motion picture men.
A drill practice was then held in the stadium where the competition was to be held.
After their day’s work the Racine corps members went sight seeing followed by a concert which was given from
10:30 to 11:30 p.m. by the Racine corps in the Wanamaker broadcasting studio.
The American Legion’s big national convention parade was staged on Tuesday, October 12th. From this
parade the 15 best drum corps were selected by judges to appear in a second elimination, or semi-finals,
competition at 11 a.m. on Wednesday morning, October 13th.
The 15 drum corps that were selected from the parade to compete in the semi-finals and listed in no particular
order were: Racine, Wis.; Shelby, Ohio; Fort Dodge, Iowa; Redoak, Iowa; Rockford, Ill.; Spartanburg, S.C.;
Oneida, N.Y.; Washington, D.C.; Fond du Lac, Wis.; Easton, Pa.; Tulsa, Okla.; Miami, Fla.; St. Paul, Minn.;
Philadelphia, Pa. And Frankfort, Pa.
Five drum corps were then selected from the 15 semi-finalists to compete for the American Legion national
championship at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, October 13th. The competition was held in the gigantic
stadium erected for the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
The announcer said before giving the results of the finals, “Prepare yourselves for a surprise” and many
spectators in addition to the members of the Boys of 76 were indeed surprised.
The results of this competition were announced as follows: Fort Dodge, Iowa, Post 130, first; Kankakee, Ill.,
Post 85, second; Racine, Wis., Post 76, third; St. Paul, Minn., Post 80, fourth, and Shelby, Ohio, Post 326, fifth.
Thus ended the Racine Boys of 76’s four-year reign as the American Legion national champions. Although the
members of Racine’s Boy’s of 76 and many in the audience felt that they were the best of the five finalists, the
corps members reportedly took the defeat like good sports and said they would stick together and try again.
The Boys of 76’s bugle quartet composed of Al Slater, George Rybacek, Ed Hahn and Wally Draeger received
second prize. Boys of 76’s snare drummer Norbert Zinnen placed fourth in that competition.
The Beaver Dam, Wis., American Legion Band took third place in the finals of the band competition.
Criticism of the judging by the members of the various competing corps began immediately after the
announcement of the 15 semi-finalists. Judges reviewed the drum corps in the big American Legion national
convention parade from when it started at 1:30 p.m. in the afternoon until the parade ended at nearly 8 p.m.
that night and there was no judging system used to select the 15 semi-finalists. It was reported by the Beloit
Daily News that the judges marked every drum corps in the parade either “good” or “very good.” It was said
that only three drum corps were rated as “very good” and all the rest as “good.”
When the great parade was finished the judges very naturally found it impossible to differentiate accurately
between the drum corps that had been graded “good” in order to come up with the 15 best to compete in the
semi-finals. So, admittedly, among the 15 drum corps chosen were several that were vastly inferior to drum
corps that were not chosen. The chairman of the committee which named the judges said that the judges had
admitted there were some “terrible mistakes” in the selections that were made.
Charles Tiede, a member of Racine’s Boy’s of 76 and in charge of publicity for the corps, telegraphed the
Racine Times-Call newspaper after the contest stating that “the judging of the whole contest was so
incompetent that the wonderful drum corps from Omaha, Neb., and Beloit, Wis., were not selected for the semi-
finals” and both of these corps in addition to the Rockford, Ill., drum corps should have been included in the top
five to compete in finals.
Charles Tiede also stated in this telegram that “at every other competition the judges gave a detailed report
immediately after the contest on these points: uniform, marching appearance, rhythm, cadence and
maneuvers. Two days after the contest and we have not been able to get a report or even learn the names of
the judges.”
It was later learned that two judges were sailors and another a sergeant in the Marines.
Five of the drum corps selected among the 15 did not compete in the semi-finals at all according to the Beloit
Daily News. One of these drum corps actually asked the Beloit, Wis., drum corps to don its uniforms and
compete in its place.
In spite of this the Beloit drum corps was selected by the Wanamaker broadcasting station to give a concert on
the air. They were selected because of their varied repertoire. Ray Hackett, also of the Beloit drum corps,
blew the taps solo that concluded the program at WOO.
The Beloit Daily News also reported that the Beloit drum corps was the only drum corps to make page one of
any Philadelphia newspaper during the convention. A staff photographer who has covered great parades for
20 years selected only two drum corps in the parade to take pictures of. These were Beloit and Racine. When
the photographer learned that Beloit was not selected among the 15 semi-finalists he stated, “It’s ridiculous that
Beloit wasn’t selected. I’ve been following parades for 20 years and it’s my business to pick ‘em right.”
Because of the great dissatisfaction expressed by the drum corps over the manner in which the judging was
done this year the Minnesota delegation introduced on Friday afternoon, October 15th, a resolution providing
that the leaders of the five highest drum corps this year should make the rules for judging at future contests
and it was passed. It was hoped that in the future there will be military judges for drill, recognized musicians as
judges of playing and that there will be a definite point system in which each drum corps will be judged on the
same basis.
Both the Racine and the Beloit drum corps left Philadelphia early Saturday morning, October 16th via separate
trains and stopped that morning in Washington, D.C. The Racine, Beloit and St. Paul drum corps paraded
before President Coolidge and other federal officials later that morning. Then in the afternoon, the Beloit drum
corps went to Arlington National Cemetery where in a fine and impressive ceremony, Bob Moses, acting for the
corps, placed a wreath on the grave of the unknown soldier while the military guard at the grave stood at
parade rest.
Disappointed, but not despondent, Beloit’s drum corps arrived home Sunday night, October 17th, where they
were greeted by a great crowd at the Chicago and Northwestern train station.
The Racine drum corps arrived at 5:00 p.m. Sunday night at the Junction Station in Racine. The corps then
detrained and marched from the Junction Station down Washington Ave. to Memorial Hall in downtown Racine
where the drum corps was greeted by the mayor, civic leaders, family and friends.
G. V. Cannon, captain of the St. Paul drum corps, the fifth place corps in the finals at Philadelphia, expressed
his regrets at the outcome of the drum corps contest at Philadelphia in the following letter to the Racine Journal-
News:
“Kindly allow me the privilege of expressing our regrets at the outcome of the drum and bugle corps contest at
the Philadelphia national American Legion convention last week.
“Having been participants of the contest with your organization and knowing the grave injustice brought onto
several of our corps, I write this letter that you may know that the professional judges in the contest were, to say
the least, dumbfounded that any committee in charge of a contest of such a plan as the one held in
Philadelphia, should ever permit a group of judges to be used who were thoroughly unfamiliar with their work
and who were the least concerned over the points of judgment of anybody seated in the stadium.
“I have learned since the competition that the corps were judged under an entirely different set of rules than
those qualified under and we, of the St. Paul organization, want not only the members of the drum corps of your
city, but the citizens of your city, to know that your organization put forth their most earnest efforts and
presented a remarkable performance, and while they have been for several years our main opposition in these
national contests, we have always received from them clean, good sportsmanship efforts on their behalf.
“There is little doubt in the minds of anybody who witnessed the exhibition as to the honesty of the judgment,
and while our organization has not protested, we are taking severe steps along the lines of drawing national
competition rules to govern these contests so that the best drum corps at the convention may take the prize
home and not the organization with the largest political following within the American Legion.”
A letter written by the officers of the Philadelphia Elks Lodge No. 2 to Racine’s Mayor Armstrong highly
complimented the behavior of the members of the American Legion Post 76 drum and bugle corps during its
stay in Philadelphia.
The letter follows:
“During the convention of the American Legion, held in the city of Philadelphia during the past week, it has
been our privilege to have as guests of our hotel section the officers and members of the Racine Drum Corps.
“Knowing of your deep interest in this corps, we are sure that you will be glad to learn of the impression made
upon outsiders by this manly organization of your good city.
“Their gentlemanly conduct and rigid adherence to the regulations of their own organization have been a
source of surprise to many, because of things which are heard concerning conventions of all types.
“Their respect of the regulations of our house and their unfamiliar courtesy to all of our employees, have been
a source of gratification to us and we take occasion to give assurance of the genuine pleasure which we have
experienced in being privileged to house them during the past week.
“The sportsmanlike attitude of these men after what must have been a crushing blow to their ambitions, if only
for a time, the spirit which makes them look forward to another convention to regain their laurels which they so
proudly carried for four years, have been an inspiration to our boys here and we feel that their folks at home in
Racine have every reason to be as proud of them as we were happy to have them.”