During all these restless months we were also trying to get Mildred Aldrich the legion of honour

During all these restless months we were also trying to get Mildred Aldrich the legion of honour. After the war was over a great many war-workers were given the legion of honour but they were all members of organisations and Mildred Aldrich was not. Gertrude Stein was very anxious that Mildred Aldrich should have it. In the first place she thought she ought, no one else had done as much propaganda for France as she had by her books which everybody in America read, and beside she knew Mildred would like it. So we began the campaign,montblanc ballpoint pen. It was not a very easy thing to accomplish as naturally the organisations had the most influence. We started different people going. We began to get lists of prominent americans and asked them to sign. They did not refuse,nike foamposites, but a list in itself helps, but does not accomplish results. Mr. Jaccacci who had a great admiration for Miss Aldrich was very helpful but all the people that he knew wanted things for themselves first. We got the American Legion interested at least two of the colonels, but they also had other names that had to pass first. We had seen and talked to and interested everybody and everybody promised and nothing happened. Finally we met a senator. He would be helpful but then senators were busy and then one afternoon we met the senator’s secretary. Gertrude Stein drove the senator’s secretary home in Godiva.
As it turned out the senator’s secretary had tried to learn to drive a car and had not succeeded. The way in which Gertrude Stein made her way through Paris traffic with the ease and indifference of a chauffeur, and was at the same time a well known author impressed her immensely. She said she would get Mildred Aldrich’s papers out of the pigeon hole in which they were probably reposing and she did. Very shortly after the mayor of Mildred’s village called upon her one morning on official business. He presented her with the preliminary papers to be signed for the legion of honour. He said to her, you must remember, Mademoiselle, these matters often start but do not get themselves accomplished. So you must be prepared for disappointment. Mildred answered quietly, monsieur le maire, if my friends have started a matter of this kind they will see to it that it is accomplished. And it was. When we arrived at Avignon on our way to Saint-Rémy there was a telegram telling us that Mildred had her decoration. We were delighted and Mildred Aldrich to the day of her death never lost her pride and pleasure in her honour.
During these early restless years after the war Gertrude Stein worked a great deal. Not as in the old days, night after night,Link, but anywhere, in between visits,HOMEPAGE, in the automobile while she was waiting in the street while I did errands, while posing. She was particularly fond in these days of working in the automobile while it stood in the crowded streets.
It was then that she wrote. Finer Than Melanctha as a joke. Harold Loeb, at that time editing Broom all by himself, said he would like to have something of hers that would be as fine as Melanctha, her early negro story in Three Lives.