The Wilmington morning star., 1942-12-30
FAIR ENOUGH

responsibility for the personal views of Mr. Pegler
and often disagree with them much as many OF
his readers His articles the good purpose OF
making people Think
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER =.
NEW YORK, West Point may have had
few football players who were little better
than Red eagle but he happened along in
States was game-crazy and no Army player
won greater renoWn. Up to his time, the
Military Academy had been a remote insti-
tuition, as Secretive as a prison and cadet
on furlough in his gray uniform might be
taken for a letter carrier, little did the
public know the school and the corps. Then
the War Department decided that the people
should become acquainted with West Point
and Phil Fleming, then major OF engineers,
now major general, was sent in to manage
athletic operations and Capt Walter Wells,
who had won his commission in action in
France, was assigned to make publicity. Wells
is now a colonel of infantry and probably
somewhere overseas but not with regiment
because he is considered to be too old.
eagle was slippery, nimble mischievous
kid and one to write about and his reputation
was helped along by the showmanship of Flem-
ing, Wells and the War Department in send
ing the corps of cadets on tour with the team
several times a season. Formerly they barely
were seen off the post now they were packed
off to Boston and New Haven, New York
Philadelphia and Baltimore and even to Chica-
go and California and they made a mighty
show with the precision Of their marching
the cocky music of their band and the antics
OF their mule who was strickly a fake. The
people thought the mule was a West Point
ri Oht i,
but in New Haven he was a local ash-wagon
mule one year and elsewhere he was barrow
ed from the nearest Army post or rented from
a horse dealer The deception was discovered
at Harvard when the enlisted soldier of the
mule detail were strapping on the West Point
blanket and one of them said to the mule:
"Growl Degan! Growl!"
Degan growled and this performance in.
terested some sport reporters. One asked how
come.
That is the name Of our colonel" one
of the soldiers explained. This here is a
machine gun mule and he growls like the old
man..
There was no Colonel Degan at West Point
SO 1t came out that the soldiers and mule
had been borrowed from local post and
a beautiful public illusion was duly shattered
IN the Sunday papers.
AOAAO''SO
He was a plebe and played little in 1926
the last year of Tom Trapnell and Moe Daily
both missing and, it is hoped alive in the
hands OF the Japs in the Philippines, and
Art Meehan, who led the air attack on Wake
island but missing somewhere in the
South Pacific. The teams he really plaved
on were not champions but good crews nev-
ertheless and Major Fleming gave the public
show that glamoured over some fairly in
terror football. He was raising vast pot of
money at the gate and Cagle in his way.
contributed to some important permanent i'm
provements at West Point built with foot
ball money.
There came fuss with Annapolis over the
eligibility rules of West Point which permitted
pleebes, or freshmen, with previous college
football experience, meaning eagle and John
ny Murrill, among Others to play varsity
football as long as they maintained t h e i r
scholastic standing and kept out of the dog
house. The Navy revoked its football treaty
with West Point and the traditional game was
suspended in atmosphere of real bitter
ness at which point a high officer of the
Military Academy said he hoped it would
never be resumed because graduates carried
over their rivalry into actual service and the
flag officers sitting on important boards some
times were unable to cooperate for this child
ish reason.
| LII LIe duIu1llII Ol 1919, WOTQ TedCneQ Paul
Calico of the New York Daily News that
eagle had married his boyhood sweetheart
during his Christmas furlough, in violation of
the regulation providing that cadet shall
have a horse, dog, wife mustache. Gal
lico was bound by confidence neither to print
the story tell it to any officer who would
have been honor-bound to cause the disrnis-
sal of the captain and star of the team. The
secret broke next spring just little before
eagle would have been commissioned and he
was asked for his resignation
He was sad kid one beautiful day when
he went back to visit old friends busy
with preparations for the beautiful ceremonies
OF June week. His classmates gave him a
Whooping welcome back but Red was long
er one of them and he looked seedy by COM
parison in his civvies, sitting a bunk with
his friends. Bust Perry tackle, and trying
to make light of things.
| Toward dusk he went to the enlisted SOL
diers' speakeasy where he knocked over sew
eral portions of applejack and eagle insisted
that it meant nothing to him not to finish
with his class. The hell is didn't.