PITTSBURGH: BIRTHPLACE OF THE VFW
The largest veterans advocacy organization in the country was founded here 100 years ago, recounts historian JONATHAN NEU
Despite continual flare-ups in the Middle East which threaten to prolong U.S. military involvement in the region, tens of thousands of U.S. troops have been withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan over the past few years and returned to their homes and families. For many of these veterans, the transition to civilian life marks a continuation of — rather than an end to — their travails. The growing presence of veterans facing physical and psychological scars, steep rates of unemployment and homelessness, and a Veterans Affairs administration rocked by scandal have magnified a persistent challenge that every generation of returning U.S. soldiers has faced — a nation often ill-prepared to provide the support and services its veterans deserve. Veterans throughout our history frequently have turned to one another for this support, forming organizations designed to offer camaraderie and collective power to promote veterans’ rights. A century ago, a previous generation of veterans gathered in Pittsburgh to formalize the creation of what is now the nation’s largest veterans’ advocacy organization — the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
The story of the VFW begins with the return of troops from America’s first overseas wars. In the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States flexed its military muscle against a declining Spanish empire, depriving Spain of its colonial authority over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. With the subsequent U.S. annexation of the Philippines, however, a new conflict — the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) — soon broke out between Filipino revolutionaries and American occupying forces. The two wars involved nearly half a million U.S. troops (over 10,000 of whom fell dead, wounded or stricken with debilitating disease). Upon their return from these military ventures, some veterans banded together in locally oriented fraternal associations to provide comradeship and to advocate for veterans’ pensions and other benefits. By 1902, a handful of Spanish-American and Philippine-American War veterans’ groups operated in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Colorado. These autonomous and oftentimes competing groups gradually merged so that veterans had established by 1913 a nationwide organization dubbed the Army of the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Early the next year, members renamed the group the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States and arranged to convene in Pittsburgh to formally rechristen their society.
From Sept. 14 to 17, 1914, hundreds of Spanish-American and Philippine-American war veterans descended on Pittsburgh for their organizing convention. The four-day event opened at the Schenley Hotel (now the William Pitt Union on the University of Pittsburgh campus) in Oakland. The hotel took on a military air as uniformed veterans from across the country swarmed its elegant ballroom and conference facilities. Among the longdistance travelers was the VFW’s recently elected commander-inchief, Rice W. Means of Denver. Mr. Means had served with distinction in the Philippines and spearheaded the process of unifying U.S. veterans under the organizational umbrella of a nationalized VFW. On the morning of the convention’s first day, veterans gathered to hear Mr. Means deliver the welcoming address. After entreating his comrades to instill in all Americans a patriotic spirit and devotion to the flag, the VFW commander turned to criticizing those who disapproved of an organization that championed readiness for war. “We who have seen service in the foreign wars in 1898,” Mr. Means challenged, “know of the horrors of unpreparedness for war. It would be a crime to send our young men unprepared into another warfare as we were that time. We want peace, but if war is thrust upon us, we want to be prepared for it.” Mr. Means’s words were particularly prescient as at that moment the great powers of Europe were roiled in the opening stages of World War I — a conflict that would engulf America’s next generation of soldiers in less than three years.
The remainder of the Pittsburgh convention unfolded as a mix of business and pleasure for the assembled veterans. Their central task was to formally launch the VFW by drafting a constitution and by-laws. Meanwhile, roughly 50 women (many the wives of