Winners of American Legion Essay Contest
Are Announced – Scranton Republican –
July 16, 1924
“Minooka
Post Awards Gold Medals to Three Students
Who
Submitted Best Compositions on Popular Subjects”
Patrick Diskin, of 2700 Birney avenue,
age 13 years, a fifth grade high school student; Frances J. Powell, an eighth
grade student of the Woodrow Wilson school, and Robert Coyne, age 11, a fifth
grade student, of 2726 Birney avenue, were last night named as winners in the
American Legion essay contest conducted in Minooka by Connolly post, No. 568.
Gold medals were awarded the three
winners. Diskin’s essay was entitled “The American Legion,” Coyne’s essay was
“Personal Hygiene” and Miss Powell’s essay was on “Minooka.”
The three winning essays will be
published in The Republican, the first of three: Master Diskin’s work, this
morning and the other two on Thursday and Friday mornings, respectively.
Patrick Diskin’s essay, “The American
Legion,” follows:
There are always arguments in the world
by different people, and taking some of them into consideration, we find “The
American Legion” the topic of the day.
The American Legion is the G.A.R. of the
great war. It was not organized by any individual for a selfish purpose, nor
was it conceived by any group of men. It sprang into being the result of a
universal demand among the soldiers and sailors of the great war for an
effective nationwide organization, which would enable them not only to
perpetuate their relationship formed in service, but also to carry on in time of
peace, the defense of America which they had so well begun in time of war.
