The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-07-26
Pershing Our Leader in France; His
Rise Through Effective Work; Story
of Promotion by President Roosevelt
(World's Work.


Joseph Pershing sailed to command
the first American army ordered to
France For during nearly IL years
he had been the stoical victim of a
persistent SANDER conceived by sus-
picion and kept alive by envy and
malice. This was the charge that his
elevation from captaincy to a bri-
gadier- generalship in 1906 over the
heads of S62 officers of grades senior
to his--the longest jump in the history
OF the army-was the result of his po-
litical pull, his. father in law being
Senator Francis f. Warren of Wyo-
ming, then powerful republican
member of the senate committee on
military affairs
Against such a charge, openly made
more than once. for an officer of Per-
shings spirit there was no reply, ex-
cept the reply of performance.
In his own heart he knew that
politics did not figure at all in his
promotion by President Roosevelt;
yet he could not make a defense even
to his closest friends without personal
humiliation. So he said nothing at all
but sought the hardest tasks in the
service and threw himself into his
work. While his detractors were bus
lest about their backbiting Pershng
was with his men on horseback in the
iunges of Mindanao. Yet even when
1HA tN fhA A M nnr n
column into Mexico there might still
have been some who could assert that
this duty fell to him as the available
officer. of his rank. 1t needed some
greater honor to come to him through
merit to silence forever the calumny
that he had not earned what he re-
ceived
That honor has now sought him out.
There are at least a half dozen Amer
lean officers any one of whom might
creditably have commanded the first
divisions of troops sent to Europe. We
may be sure that President Wilson
weighed. the qualifications of these
generals anxiously and prayerfully.
He was about to select the man to
guard the prestige. and reputation or
the American arms among the trained
veterans of France and Great Britain
and he chose the man who had not
failed him in Mexico-John Joseph
Pershing
Except in the senate chamber dur
ing the fight raised in 1906 against
Pershing's confirmation, no full de-
Tense has been made against the ac-
cusation that politics brought about
his great promotion; yet a complete
defense exists in the official docu-
ments of the United States, and this
defense is strangely interviewer with
the tragic romance of the mans life
But first, let us get a picture of his
earlier career.
He was born in a home of poverty
in Linn county, Missouri, September
IS, 1860. Even as boy he was forced
by necessity to work each year well
into the winter, so that his months OF
schooling were brief. His ambition
for education surmounted these diff
culties and he managed to take the
course at the normal school at Kinks
vile, at the same time teaching
school to support himself. He had in
tended to study law, an ambition
which he was able to crafty some
years later when stationed at the Uni
versity of Nebraska as it's professor of
military science.
Three weeks after receiving his d.
ploma from the normal school he heard
of competitive examination for West
Point to be conducted at his old home.
He won this examination by single
point. He was graduated from the
military academy in 1886. When he
took this course Pershing had no SER
ious intention to make the army his
career. His mother was opposed to
such service on his part. Pershing
went to West Point for it's educational
advantages. He carried away from
the academy. and has always retained
an intense admiration for it. "Black-
jack" Pershing was his plebe nick
name.
Until his mothers death Pershing
treated her with the tender devotion
a youth might pay to his sweetheart
Tragedy always seemed to find him in
action. His troop was mounted and
he himself was on his horse ready to
depart upon one of his expeditions
against the Moros when an orderly
brought him the cabed message that
his mother was dead. The blow fell
hard upon him, but he collected his
resolution and gave the command to
ride
Few army captains have been so
often or so highly commended as he
by his commanders. When he was
STRIPPING lieutenant in the Geronimo
campaign of 1886, General Miles in
his dispatches complimented Pershing
for marching his troop, with pack
train, 14O miles in 46 hours, bringing
In every animal in good condition"
Lieutenant Pershing saw hard fight
ing. in the Indian country. In 1889. he
gave an example of his unusual tact
and unwillingness to shed blood If un-