Engineer Memoirs
A:
Oh, yes. My father was a great admirer of Pershing. A great admirer of Pershing
because of his grasp of all the elements of war and especially his grasp of military
logistics. That's an aspect of Pershing that you don't read about very much.
My father felt that some combat commanders don't grasp the importance of logistics,
but that Pershing clearly did. Of course, he had many other strong points besides that.
Q:
There are some historians who say the smartest thing he ever did was marry [Senator]
Francis E. Warren's daughter [Helen Frances Warren].
A:
Well, of course, the rapidity with which he rose in the Army was attributed to his
connections. But I think my father and his compatriots also thought Pershing had a lot
on the ball.
Q:
That he deserved the rise.
A:
Yes. Exactly.
Q:
Where did you grow up?
A:
I grew up in Washington, D.C. My father had been living on his Army retired pay.
When he got married, he felt that he had to have more money than that.
He worked briefly in New York for a shellac company, the Marx and Rowalley Shellac
Company, trying to rebuild this company, which was on very hard times. They did turn
it around, but my father felt that they weren't paying him enough. They didn't want to
pay him any more, so he left them. He came down to Washington in a very interesting
way. Some friends of his called him and said they wanted him to come to Washington
to be the chief engineer on the National Press Building, which was being built at the
corner of 14th and F streets. My father, because of his deafness, seldom talked on the
phone. My mother was on the phone, and he kept saying, "No, I'm not going to do
that." Finally, he named what was then, he thought, an outrageous price, that he would
not come for less than ,000 a year, which was pretty good pay back in those days.
The person who was trying to persuade him to come immediately said he could have
,000 a year. So my father went. His office was in the Willard Hotel. According to
my father, he never did anything except sit in the office and look out the window at the
construction. But the interesting part is that according to my father, they were watering
the stock. The finances were very bad. They put out a brochure, a prospectus for the
stock, and among other things, they put my father's picture there as chief engineer.
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