Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1918 — Pershing's Boyhood Index to His Career [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Pe rshing's Boyhood Index to His Career

Commander of America’s Armies in France Earlu Gave Evidence of Courage and Power of Will.

7 1 ■ 1 IS boyhood friends in Linn Bn county, Mo., agree that it was neither pull nor politics that made John Pershing commander of the American forces in France. They say also that he is not a genius and that luck has not aided him in rising from the ranks. Advantages he had—outdoor life, farm work, plain living, good parents and. a Ch/istian home. Even yet his old home town carries the flavor of the open country. Laclede is scarcely larger today and no less wholesome than it was forty years ago when its three nurseries made it at once the most Important and the most agricultural town in the county, writes A. A. Jeffrey in New York Sun. To this thriving town of the ’sos came the general’s father, John Z F. Pershing, from Westmoreland county. Pa., where his family had been honored citizens since 1749, the year chosen by John and Frederick Pershing for their pilgrimage from France to the new home of freedom in the new world. The ambitious young Pennsylvanian of the fourth generation from these early patriots came to Mlsffourl in 1855 to take a sub-contract in tlie building of the old Missouri Northern railroad from St. Louis to Macon. At the end of four years he had little of material value to show for his work; but at Montgomery City he had won a bride—Ann Thompson, a fair-haired Missouri girl with brave, sweet mouth, honest blue eyes and a heart of gold. Borh in Shanty Near Laclede. Coming westward from Macon at the conclusion of the railroad building the young contractor stopped at Laclede to accept the first honest work that was offered, the foremanship of the west of Laclede section of the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad. The Pershings started housekeeping in a little shanty two miles west of Laclede. It was there that their first baby, John Joseph, was born September 18, 1860. ■ “It was just- after the outbreak of the Civil war In 1861,” relates Henry C. Lomax, now Laclede’s pioneer banker, “that the Pershing family came to town to live and John F. Pershing opened a general store here. “Their family and ours lived together for several months, as my father had gone to. war and there was not an cmnty bouse in town for the newcomer®. • When the Pershing store was open-

ed I was old enough to accept employment in it, and for years I worked as a clerk for the general’s father. As I remember the Johnny Pershing of those days he was a quiet, well-be-haved little boy.” The elder Pershing was strict In his discipline. As the boys grew up he kept them steadily employed at useful, wholesome work. By' the time John had reached his teens the family possessions Included a 160-acre farm a mile from Laclede and there the future soldier worked from spring plowing to corn husking. “Every morning, If you were up early enough, you could see John and Jim with their teams going out to the farm.” says C. C. Bigger, boyhood friend of General Pershing, now a lawyer at Laclede. “John was a worker. His' father, though not unduly severe, was strict in his requirements; yet I never heard John complain. He always had a genuine interest in carrying to a successful finish every piece of work that he was directed to do. Not a Genius. “John Pershing was not a genius,” continues his boyhood friend. “He possessed a clear, analytical mind, but no bettet mind than thousands of other boys possess. He was clean in character, absolutely so, and a regular attendant at church and Sunday school at the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he was a member and in which his father and mother were active workers. His parents were intensely religious. “The traits distinguishing him from many other boys,” concludes Mr. Bigger, “were those that characterized him as a tireless worker, indomitable In his purpose to perform every task set before him. And he never was tough; he never considered it necessary to seek questionable companions or places In order to have a good time. In the wholesouled fashion of a healthy country boy he enjoyed our neighborhood parties, our taffy pullings, our baseball, fishing and Swimming, but he never resorted to rowdyism." Though never quarrelsome, Pershing was abundantly able to take care of himself. His old associates proudly tell of the first term of . school he taught, when he was eighteen. It was at Prairie Mound, In Chariton county. It became his duty In the course of the term to thrash a big boy, and he addressed himself to this responsibility in his usual direct and vigorous fashion. The discipline had the desired effect on the boy, but brought the boy’s father rampant to humiliate the young teacher. “John was then only a boy himself, a big. strong, broad-shouldered boy, but only a boy,” says Captain Henley, with whom the young teacher boarded

at Prairie Mound, “while his assailant, '’ld man Card, was a burly giant, fully six feet four and wildly determined to lick the young teacher. “He made it plain that nothing else would appease him. John tried to present a reasonable view of the sltua* tlon, but Card only grew more insolent In word and gesture. Showed Iron Determination. “Then it was, as my children recounted at the time, that John’s usually ruddy lips whitened and his big blue eyes narrowed to steel-gray points. He stepped toward the big man and his words had a cold preclsioh that was truly ominous. “ ‘You get out of this house and off these grounds and stay off as long as I’m teacher—or I’ll kill you.’ “With mumbled apologies, old man Card hastily backed out of the schoolhouse,” concludes Captain Henley, “and he did not trouble. the young teacher again.” From other sources there Is additional evidence of the sturdy fiber of John Pershing’s courage and power of will. “John was no sissy, even if he was clean and well behaved,” asserts Charles R. Spurgeon, who was Pershing’s boyhood chutai and his college roommate. “He was a manly, upstanding boy. In his classes he had his lessons, and when asked to work a problem he would step promptly to the blackboard and do It in a way that proved his heart was in the work. “It was the same at college. At Kirksville Normal, where we were classmates, John was a hard-working student. He always was thoroughly Interested in his class work and was always looking forward to the succeeding years in the course and the finish. “When we came home at the end of our first term I was offered a position in a store, took it and, by heck, I’m clerking yet. Johp had a similar offer, but turned it down.

“ ‘l’m going back to Kirksville, anyway,’ he said. T don’t know what ril finally do —probably be a lawyer, but just now I’m going to stick to the school.’ “The next time I saw him was when he came home the time the Laclede post office was robbed. His father was postmaster then, and of course the loss fell upon him personally. John came home from college and turned over the remainder of his savings to his father —gave up his college course to help the folks at home. • “It was just then that Congressman Burrows of the old Tenth district announced the first competitive examination for the appointment of a cadet to West Point. John heard of it, saw his chance, went to Trenton and won- the appointment fairly and squarely by the sheer merit of his work.”

General John J.Pershing