ort forwarded
to our Government is one of the most lucid and forceful military
documents ever received by the Department.

If any discouragements had come to the young officer in his lonely
campaigns in the jungles of the Philippines and he had felt that somehow
he had been banished to a region where his services of necessity would
never be recognized, that thought was banished by the action of
President Roosevelt in 1906.

His services in the First and Fifteenth Cavalry as well as his
activities in Washington and his report as the military attache of his
Government, had brought him very strongly before the attention of the
President, who now was eager to reward him for his faithful services.

There were certain obstacles, however, in the way, and the President did
his utmost to secure the proper legislation to enable him to reward the
soldier whom he was eager to honor. There were delays, however, and the
delays continued. Red tape exerted its binding force upon the makers of
the laws and no apparent progress was made.

Thereupon President Roosevelt in his direct way determined to wait no
longer for changes in the laws. Promptly he nominated Pershing to be
Brigadier General; the nomination was confirmed and the long deferred
recognition was now manifest.

He had labored in somewhat obscure fields. He had assisted in subduing
insurrections, had supervised many local improvements in the territory
within which he was working. He had assisted in winning victories and
had warded off attacks by hostile Moros. There had, however, been
nothing spectacular in his work. His reliability, good sense, bravery
and administrative ability, however, were now better known and he was in
every way prepared for the more important problems which now confronted
him.

The President by his action had raised or "jumped" the new general eight
hundred and sixty-two orders. Worthy as the honor was and worthily
bestowed, for a time there were protests from disappointed seekers after
office. Some cried "politics," but as a rule these objections came in
loudest tones from those who by devious ways had sought certain "pulls"
for their own elevation. Personal ambitions and personal jealousies,
perhaps, also entered to a degree and aided not a little in delaying the
legislation which President Roosevelt desired.

Doubtless this condition deeply hurt General Pershing, but there was no
complaining on his part. It was his to show that he was not un