The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-12-13
MEN, WOMEN
AND THINGS

American In stock breeding and figure,
the very beau ideal of the tall, lean
1.-the soldier. Missouri may well be proud
of her gallant son. for her pride is
shared in by north and south. east and
the West Pointer Resent it or deride it
as you may, but there is a finishing
touch which the army school puts on a
man which is the highest hall mark an
officer can have.
| He was born six months before the
outbreak of the civil war, and he en-
tered the academy in 1882, and did not be-
come a first lieutenant until 1892 This
is worth noting. Ten years before he
reached a point which was won in the
training camp by many men taken out
of civilian life without any military prep
aration in few months, do not call
attention to this to minimize the men
whe were so fortunate but simply to
set out the fact that in peace times it
takes quite awhile to climb in the army.
| He got his baptism of fire in Indian
warfare seeing service in the Apache
campaign In 1886, and later in the Sioux
campaign of 1900, where he served as a
cavalry captain. He had been a military
Instructor at West Point, however, and
when he laid aside chasing the red men
he became military Instructor at the Uni
unfolds keep in mind that he was all
the while in touch with the regular army
and playing the game if not according
to Hoyle at least in keeping with the
best traditions of Americas great mill
tary establishment on the Hudson.
| The Spanish-American war gave him
his first big chanceI for in it he served
under General Shafter in the Santiago
campaign, and in 1899 organized and
/ conducted the first American expedition
| to the Sulu archipelago. This gave him a
chance to take on organiza ton and adj
ministrative work fitting him later to he
come military governor of the Moro
province in the Philippine Islands This
ministrator illumines one phase of his
career, but there is another side for us
to get glimpse of. It's the diplomatic
angle.
America is the land of opportunity ana
surprises, and there is no place where
men rise out of comparative obscurity to
such eminence in few short years.
| Take the case of our distinguished
guest of yesterday. 1t is true that
through long years of preparation he
was getting ready for the supreme task
which American placed upon his shoul-
ders. but during the apprenticeship he
twas not much in the limelight.
He got on the front page" few years
| back when he crossed the border in
Mexico, but in spite of the magnificent
way in which he handled his men, there
was nothing when he returned to fore
ahead of him; and when he was called
to it busy editors had hard time to
| get some of the salient facts about
BLACK Jack" Pershing.
| I took down copy of Nelson's En-
cyclopedia published in 1907 and failed to
find his name entered. Possibly it may
have been supplied in loose leaf
later, but if oiit had not been inserted
\ in the volume at hand I then tried the
Americana Issued in 1872 and ia. glancing
! through the Pis thought was on hot
trail, for I saw the word .'Pershing,' but
it turned out to be about Cyrus L., an
American jurist. I then got busy with
the Encyclopedia BRITANNICA of the latest
vintage, but with no result l merely
cite these instances to give you an idea
of how suddenly our great general came
| into his own
| There are some people who court put
| provocation while there are others who
prefer to rest in the shade and do their
| work without any glare Such, was the
! case of BLACK Jack" Pershng. for be-
| fore he. got to be news he had done
enough to have been featured time and
again; but I am happy to know that
when his hour came he took it like a
l sport, ana was DIS liupcrViouS 70 the
| stare of the European throngs as loyalty
| itself. thereby showing to the world that
an American neither shuns nor courts the
public gaze, but is able to endure it
with perfect sangfroid as simple mat
ter of course.
All the while he ~as climbing steadily
iuntil President Roosevelt made him a
| member of the general staff in 1903. He
got glimpse of the still farther east
than that of the Philippines when he was
sent as the military attache to Toxic in
1905, and later with Kurokfs army into
Manchuria. In 1914 we find him in COM
mand of the Eighth brigade at Presidio,
Cal. Then the dash into Mexico on the
punitive expedition in 1916
There WIS talk about President Will
sons having chosen an unknown man
to lead the American forces in Europe,
but he knew the record Of BLACK Jack
Pershing. and in putting faith in him he
knew what he was about. A westerner
with the fearlessness of the great plains,
a soldier trained in tie lap of the reg
ular army with the seal of West Point
upon him, daring Indian fighter with
an intimate knowledge of the most
elusive war game in the hills, a seasoned