The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-07-28


Harbord is not a West Pointer. He
was born a poor boy in Illinois fifty.
one years ago and enlisted in the army
as a private in the Fourth infantry on
January 10, 1891. AS a boy he had
gone with his parents to Kansas, and
in due course of time was sent to the
Kansas State Agricultural college to
master the scientific points of farm
ing. He was an apt student and was
graduated with honors in 1885.
In the Kansas district in which Har-
bord lived there was a vacancy for
West Point in 1887. Hartford started
out to win II. One of the youngsters
who beat him on the competitive ex-
animation was Claude B. Sweeney, now
Lieut. Col. Sweeney and Harbords
junior by twelve files, Sweeney went
to West Point and Hartford went back
to the farm. But Hartford had made
up his mind TO be a soldier and an
officer, and so it was that in January,
1889, he appeared at the recruiting
station. He announced at the time
that he expected to win an officers
commission sooner or later.
Soon Got Commission.
The young soldier passed thru ev-
cry non-commissioned grade. Within
three months he had won his cor
poraPs stripe, in six months he was
a sergeant, and the beginning of his
second years service as an enlisted
man found him quartermaster SER
geant of his regiment-in other words,
the second ranking man of the nom
commissioned staff In July, 1891,
he appeared before an army board
to be examined for a commission and
got it with flying colors. On August
President Mckinley made him a
second lieutenant of cavalry and as
signed him to the famous Fifth. When
Sweeney, who had won the West
Point appointment which Harbord
had so desired, was graduated from
the Military Academy in 1892 Har-
bord had been an officer nearly a
year.
Harbord's first duties as an officer
took him to Cuba, where during the
reconstruction period he served un-
der Major Gen. Leonard Wood who
was one of the first high-ranking
officers to realize that in Harbord
the army possessed soldier of great
possibilities. Later, in the Philip
pine constabulary, under Brig Gen.
Henry T. Allen and under Col H H
Bandholtz, now chief of staff of the
national guard division of New York
he made n record for efficiency
When he arrived in the Philippines
he was a captain in the Eleventh
cavalry, and his transfer to the con-
stabulary carried with it the tenn
porary rank of colonel AS Colonel
Hartford he was assigned to organize
the Moro units of the Philippine ma
tive forces, in the Island of Minda.
mao. General Wood was then, IS he
had been in Cuba, the executive head
under whom he worked
Returned to U. s. in 1914.
In 1905. after two yeacs il Minda.
mao with the Moro contingents, Har.
bord was ordered to assume com.
mand of the constabulary in Contra
Luzon. succeeding Colonel Bandholtz
who had been promoted to chief o.
constabulary. 1t was not until June
1914, that he was relieved from duty
with the constabulary and ordered t.
return to the United States. The
"Manchu" inw was responsible for hi.
failure to succeed Colonel Bandholt;
in the command of the native organ
ization. Under that law only fieIC
officers could succeed to the com
mand, and Hartford was still only {
captain.
Returning to this country. HarborC
was stationed on the Pacific coast