Grand Old Partisan salutes John Pershing, born in Missouri, September 13th 1860. His first job was elementary school teacher for African-American children. He graduated from West Point at twenty-six, later gaining the nickname "Black Jack" for commanding African-American troops in Montana and Cuba.
While fighting in the Spanish-American War, he impressed Theodore Roosevelt, who as president tried unsuccessfully to have Pershing promoted from captain to colonel. In 1905, Pershing married the daughter of Republican Senator Francis Warren. Ten years later, his wife and three of his four children died in a house fire. Frances Pershing, a noted suffragist, had been planning to attend the 1916 Republican National Convention.
Having commanded the U.S. troops fighting in Europe during WWI, the GOP-controlled 66th Congress established for him the ‘General of the Armies' rank. He had considerable support for the 1920 Republican presidential nomination, and a Pershing Republican League headed by a former Republican Senator campaigned on his behalf. The nod went, though, to Senator Warren Harding.
General Pershing retired from the army in 1924 and lived another twenty-four years. Throughout retirement, he chaired the American Battle Monuments Commission.
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Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement.
Each day, Michael Zak's grandoldpartisan YouTube channel and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than sixteen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states.
He also wrote the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar.
Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision.
See www.youtube.com/q?v=IzxKCiXc5Qc for a brief video of a Texas Republican praising Back to Basics for the Republican Party.
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