The Cordova daily times., 1919-09-18

pIOnlSe ol ullILdFy aDll1ty. ROOS0- welt had made Wood a brigadier gen. eral in 1901 and he made Pershing, then a captain, a brigadier general in 1906, to the absolute consternation of I the old line of the army because it | involved the jumping" of both off, cers over many hundreds of their seniors. Pershing justified the confidence that Wood had imposed in him in his Moro campaign. There was a Sultan of Bacalod with unknown thousands | of followers intrenched in the marshes and mountains of the tropical in- l lands behind heavy forts of palm l wood, logs and giant creepers and thorn bushes woven into what was supposed to be impregnable defenses. Pershing had made a study of the con- ] ditions and so we'll had he organized his little force, consisting of bat | talon of infantry, a squadron of cav l airy and section of artillery, that in two days the Moros' strongholds were | cleared out and the Island of Minda- mao was soon placed under Pershing's military governorship.
 When he returned home in 1914 he was given but a short rest in San Francisco. Trouble began on the ! Mexican border and he was sent there in command of the Eighth brigade, charged with the special duty of run ming down or driving off Villa. This I expedition penetrated many miles in- to Mexico and army officers believed that the ultimate capture of Villa was prevented only by recall orders from Washington where the authorities de- cided that they were unwilling to con- tinue a military policy seeming cer- tain to involve the United States in regular war with Mexico.
 { When Pershing was chosen to com mand the American forces in France, he took with him many of the 1 Drowned and hardened veterans of his Mexican campaign and these men formed the nucleus of the famous First division of the American expe- ditionary force.
 terrible tragedy had come into Pershing's life during his Mexican ho of his wife and three of their little chil- dren who were burned to death In their home at the Presidio, in San l Francisco, during his absence. His life became hard and stern; not to- r wards his soldiers, however, but in l the regime he imposed upon himself and in the objects he had marked for attainment. He threw himself into his work with a passion that com handed success, evidently seeking re- lief from his private grief in public service It was said of him in France that he was never tired; he could be called upon any hour out of the tWenty-four for consultation or direc- tion without complaint on his part, in contrast with some of his famous colleagues in the entente armies.
 Pershing believed in team work; he knew that whatever success the Ger mans had attained was through their unified command of the armies of the Central Powers. So he was not only willing but anxious to see the same principle adopted by the entente ar mics. He sank his private ambitions and freely rendered the services of the last American soldier and all his army equipment to General FOch at the most critical point in the cam paign. There is said to be no doubt that his example affected the other commands and went long way to- wards bringing about the unificatiOn of the entente armies under Marshal FOch.
 It was not until Pershing was cer- tain that the plans he had made with the assistance of his own staff for a successful campaign into Alsace- Lorraine had behind them the support of sufficient number of American soldiers that Pershing felt justified in taking complete command of an important sector of the line of battle with the full assent of Marshal Foch and with the result that the Ameri- can army broke the morale of the Germans and brought the war to an end.
 For what he did in Europe Pershing has been praised beyond measure by the greatest rulers and soldiers of