Milestones, Sep. 23, 1940

Birthday. John Joseph Pershing, his 80th. After Franklin Roosevelt had presented him the only military award he had not previously received, the Distinguished Service Cross, the erect, silver-haired, kindly-faced old man walked into his darkened War Department office. On its walls hung oil portraits of the five U. S. Generals of the Armies: Washington, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Pershing. On its neat, massive desk stood a single memento: an old World Series baseball with fading autographs. Quizzed by a battery of surrounding newshawks, he had slow, measured words of hope for the British. Later,...

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