James E. West, the first Chief Scout Executive of the BSA, disagreed with Boyce's concept, believing that the 4-H program was fulfilling the role.

Boyce became the executive officer or Chief Totem and Frank Allan Morgan became the editor of The Lone Scout.

In October 1915, Boyce appointed all of his paperboys as members of the LSA and published the first issue of The Lone Scout magazine.

Tribes elected officers such as chief (president, initially called captain), sachem (vice-president), scribe (secretary) and wampum-bearer (treasurer).

Boys were encouraged to write articles, stories and cartoons for Lone Scout, and several prizes and contests were announced.

[1][2] By December 1920, financial difficulties forced Boyce to publish the magazine on a monthly basis and increase the price.

[1][4][5] The beginning of the end came in 1920, when Boyce hired the first professional editor for The Lone Scout magazine, George N. Madison.

Madison discovered LSA's membership roster was wildly inaccurate and was full of duplications and inactive members.

As Chicago entered the 1920s nadir of American race relations, The Lone Scout announced that they would no longer accept applications "from members of the negro race" and in 1922, the mast head of The Lone Scout changed from "A Real Boys Magazine" to "The White Boys' Magazine.

The BSA continued to print The Lone Scout for a short time before it was merged as a section of Boys' Life.

[9] In 2019 a Facebook page, "Friends of Lone Scouts of America" (@lonescoutfriends), was started "in the interests of the Elbeetian Legion and Old Timers of the LSA so that they may not forget those friendships that took root in the days of our boyhood."