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Show iUMSt I' ' What They Say About General ' : . .jf$ ' Peutoh March in His Own A ' ".! v HMMr x Home Town V- - ltP A Yl! PA'- .... - ; , - . - t;?V ill,!, I A , VT -7 . t v . J e M - Jy Charles IF. Duke Easton, Fa.. Marph 9. 4aHERE are. three things for which ( 1 this busy little Pennsylvania city is pre-eminently famous in this epochal epoch-al twentieth century Lafayette College, Col-lege, the Easton Board of Trade and General "Bob" March. With profound respect for the intellectual in-tellectual prowess of the first and keen appreciation of the astute commercialism commercial-ism generated in the prolific Lehigh Valley by the second, we submit that the greatest of these three, from the standpoint of international utility, is Major General Peyton C. March, or "Bob" as they called him in college, now the chief of the general staff of the United States army and as such copartner with the Secretary of War In the direction of democracy's greatest great-est army. This is the home town of General March. Here he was horn, here he was educated and from here he went forth to win his spurs at TVest Point, to fight the Spaniard in '98, to quell the Philippine insurrection in 1900, to. observe the Russo-Jap war in 1904, to help thwart Villa and Carranza in the Mexican muddle of '12, to be sent for1 by General Pershing in 1917 and, after putting the American artillery in. France on a basis of efficiency second to none in the world, to be recalled to Washington in 1918 and made chief of staff of the United States army. Step lively, please, as we alight from the New York Express on the fation platform here at Easton and direct our steps into the home town of the famous general. Here we will i rub shoulders with some of his boy-hood boy-hood playmates and his old college Churns. Here we will scout around through the old college halls and the Northampton hills where "Bob" March studied and frolicked and see whether we can hit upon the flow of circumstances that led him upward from the ranks of the small-town boy to the tents of the world's leaders. Here we are on Third street, driving straight up into the town of Easton. A youngster typical of America wants to sell us an afternoon newspaper news-paper and carry our satchel both ?it the same time. Now the boy has our bag and we are reading one of his newspapers. There you go right off the reel first page stuff big headlines: head-lines: "March Sword Fund Increases" Just a few paragraphs telling the world that the citizens of Easton are contributing a dollar each toward a fund to buy a sword for Major General Gen-eral Peyton C. March, "the Pride of Easton." Nobody can give more than ft dollar; everybody is giving a dollar. "Who's this fellow March you folks up here are giving a sword to?" we Inquire casually of the prancing "newsie." A look of mingled amazement and disdain and then: "What! Hain't you never heard of General March? Why, he's the biggest big-gest guy in the American army, i . Didn't you know President "Wilson had ' made him the chief of the whole i VJarned army? That's who General inarch is and and he used to livo right here In Easton," the boy concludes con-cludes with a grandiloquent gesture that nearly lands the handbag over the bridge parapet into the Lehigh River. Oh, yes, we recall having heard somewhere some-where about a General March, and so Press forward while the bright youth rumbles on, telling all about the plans of Easton to present General March 'ith a sword as the gift of his home folks. Just at this moment we arrive ar-rive abreast of a flaming poster of Charlie Chaplin. From within the "movie" emporium comes the tinkle an orchestra and then a young nan wearing a smile and a familiar rolleee fraternity pin. We stop to "shake." j "General March General March hy, everybody in Easton is as proud I 18 Proud can be of the new chief of Etaft," warbles "Charlie" Oldt, proprietor pro-prietor of the "movie" theatre, himself 1 Lafayette "grad." "Son of Easton, ,0" of Lafayette why, they are poing to award him a degree up on the Hill," fitters "Charlie" as he concludes his "egyrlcs. fily Easton is proud of her great funeral all the way from the hum-(oCst hum-(oCst newsboy at the railway station 'he puissant prince of trade in wthampton street and thence up-ra up-ra 'o the undergraduates and the cu"y on College Hill the home of j (aWe College. So much so, in I fiP' that 'hey are planning to bring "lm to Easton during commence- 1 ment week if Uncle Sam will spare him and give him the sword and the degree. So, you see, thev unite in vindicating our judgment that while Lafayette College and the Easton Board of Trade are both great, "Bob" March is the greatest of these three Come on. now, let s climb the steDS to College Hill. Here is the very beginning be-ginning of the story of "Bob" March, for it was here upon College Hill that Peyton C. March had his beginning In the old-fashioned, wide-striped weather-boarded house that used to stand on the campus of Lafavette, where now stands the Delta Tau Delta house, "Bob" March was born in the closing days of the Rebellion, just after Lee had been turned back at Gettysburg. Remember how only a. few years ago thero were a. few "persons who doubted very much that Woodrow Wilson would ever make a good President Presi-dent of the United States because he had been a college professor over at Princeton? They said he was "too theoretical." How these critics have been confounded has long since been demonstrated. Well, what do you think of the world's leading general being the son of one of the world's greatest scholars, a renowned philologist, philolo-gist, a litterateur and linguist, awarded degrees by a dozen of the leading universities uni-versities and colleges of the world, including in-cluding Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania and Columbia? Colum-bia? Descendant of Washington Of such stock is Major General Peyton Pey-ton C. March, born and raised amid an environment of English grammars, rules of syntax, etymologies, spellers and classics, the son of Dr. Francis A. March, "the grand old man of Lafayette." So profound an exponent of German "Kultur" as Prof. F. Max Muller, referring tothe works of Professor Pro-fessor March in his "Chips From a German Workshop," acknowledged, mind you, that "America possesses some excellent scholars, whom every one of these German savants would be proud to acknowledge as his peers." But that was before the war. Behold the son of Francis A. March today leading the hosts of democracy against German "Kultur"! Looking for the blend in the blood that gave General "Bob" March the military inclination,- we fmel that on his mother's side he came of the stock of General George Washington. His mother was Mildred Stone Conway and her grandfather was Peter Daniel, whose mother was a half-sister of George Washington. But turn in here for a moment. This is Lafayette College library and we can start to unravel the story of General March right here among the pyramids of books that the senior March loved so well. Here at the desk is a demure lady librarian, who hands us the biographical catalogue of Lafayette La-fayette College. In it are grouped page on page the classes graduated from Lafayette during the last more than three-quarters of a century. Peyton Pey-ton C. March went out with the class of '84. In his class were lawyers, teachers, politicians, writers, mission-arieSi mission-arieSi preachers and business men but only one military man, Peyton C. March. Here is the record of "Bob" March as you read 'it in the Lafayette Biographical Bio-graphical Catalogue: Peyton Conway March, A. B., A. M. ; born Easton, Pa., December 27. 1S64. Delta Kappa Epsilon. Thi Beta Kappa. United States Military Academy. West Point, '84-'SS; second lieutenant Third Artillery. Ar-tillery. U- S. A., Washington, December, Decem-ber, '8S; first lieutenant Fifth Artillery, Artil-lery, '94; artillery school, '96-'9S; captain cap-tain Astor Battery Spanish-American War, '9S; A. D. C. to General McAr-thur McAr-thur in Philippines '99; A. A. A. G. second division Eighth army corps, '99; major Thirty-third Infantry United States Volunteers, 1S99-1900; lieutenant lieuten-ant colonel lb. 1900-01; military governor gov-ernor district comprising Lepanto, Bor.toc and southern half Ilocos Sur; brevetted'by the President for bravery in various actions in the Philippines, 9S-'99; detailed general staff of the army, '03; military attache with first Japanese army Russo-Jap War February, Feb-ruary, '04; major Sixth Field Artillery, '07' umpire United States army maneuvers ma-neuvers at Fort Riley, Kan., 'OS; detailed de-tailed adjutant general 'U: adjutant general Department of Missouri, '12; lieutenant colonel, '12." From Colonel to Chief of Staff Here the printed record end?. But there has since been written in with f " " " " " , t 1 ; - s v - " ' - - 1 I -" " -. - ' I " ' ' 1 " 1 . 1 BBS ' " - IBfiH II f ' , ,- , , M r " ; l?' 1 1 r 1 , , -W4 MAJOR GENERAL 'sM KJ V v: PI ION c. mvrcii Pen and ink the following addendum: "Colonel, '14; brigadier general, '17; major general, 'IS." Some jump in four years from colonel to major general gen-eral and chief of staff! Enough of the catalogue. From it we have culled the names of a number of townspeople who were college chums of Peyton C. March, and it is from them that we will get a little later on some reminiscences of the general. First of all we will take a peep in at the Delta Kappa Epsilon house, the fraternity of which General March is a member. The fraternity flag is at half-mast. And then we learn that Peyton C. March, Jr., eldest son of the general, had fallen to his death this very day on the aviation field at Fort Worth, Texas. "Peyton, Jr.. was here with us in college when the war broke out," declares de-clares one of the D. K. E. boys. "When the war broke out he wanted to enlist right away, but he was too young and so went into an ambulance unit at Allentown. When he came of age he immediately signed' up with the aviation avia-tion section of the signal corps, and was in training at Fort Worth when he met with the accident that resulted in his death." So is Lafayette College requiting the debt of America to the Marquis Lafayette for the part that France played in the American war for independence. in-dependence. This old college on the hills of Northampton was founded just at the time General Lafayette . was touring America nearly a century ago, and it was named for the famous Frenchman. It is a singular and noteworthy note-worthy coincidence in the repayment of our debt to France now that one of the most eminent sons of Lafayette should be leading the armies of America, Amer-ica, and that his son should have shed his blood for the France of General Lafayette. Ilbw He Got to West Point Come on over here, now, on the campus to the homo of Prof. Francis A. March, the only one of eight children chil-dren of the "grand old man of Lafayette" who remains today in Easton. He is the oldest of the six sons. General March came next. Thomas is an inspector of Pennsylvania Pennsylva-nia schools. Alden is a Philadelphia editor. Moncure practices law in New Y"ork city. John is a professor at Union College. Professor Francis is the dean of the Lafayette faculty. "Was my brother Peyton inclined to the military from youth?" ponders the professor. "Yes, very much so, for I can remember as boys that he liked to play soldier. He liked to read the biographies of great soldiers and was fond of athletics, outdoor life, anything any-thing and everything stirring. One of his favorite performances was to dive under a string of three or four rafts tied together out in the river. Being a good swimmer saved his life, for during the campaign in the Philip-' pines when he was chasing Aguinaldo he went under while fording a stream one day. Swept along by the current he became lodged under a rock. After a hard struggle he succeeded in getting ivvji c Hint trv-njJi 1 1 nii; ui iciil. it. member a valentine that he once got. We used to tease him about it. It ran something like this: Boom-a-laddy, boom-a-laddy, I'm a soldier like my daddy. When war comes I'll soldier be Hiding behind a hickory iree. "How did he come to get the appointment ap-pointment to West Point'.' Well, you see " But this story is best told by Aaron Goldsmith, an Easton lawyer, a close friend of Prof. Frank March, one of the "Three Jolly Musketeers," as then-trio then-trio was known in college. It is best told by Goldsmith because Professor March is just a little too modest to tell the whole truth. This story of how Peyton C. March got to West Point is the crux of our whole visit to Easton, because it brings out the very circumstance that turned the son of a rioted scholar away from the realm of bookland into the saddle of the soldier. So come on downtown into Aaron Goldsmith's office and hear him spin the yarn. "Congressman Mutchler was having trouble getting some chap to make good on the West Point appointment," begins Goldsmith. "Two or three fellows fel-lows had flunked, and Mutchler was much disappointed. One day Mutchler said to one of his friends: 'Blamed if I don't offer it to one of Professor March's boys they seem to be able to do most anything.' So he went up on the hill and told Professor March he wanted him to send one of his boys to West Point. The fine old gentleman called a little family conference he always had a fashion of doing it that way. He told "the boys that he had a West Point berth at his disposal and was going to give it to one of them. "After some deliberation the father announced that it should go to the eldest Frank. But right away Peyton Pey-ton set up a great commotion. That West Point place appealed to him wonderfully. It just suited his temperament tem-perament strong and vigorous, a famous football and baseball player, life, action, the fulfillment of his boyish boy-ish dreams. The matter hung fire for a few days, while Peyton campaigned in the March household. In the end Frank- gracefully withdrew in favor of his brother rather than disappoint him. Jubilant, Peyton went away to West Point and all the world knows the sequel." Famous College Athlete That's how the son of an eminent philologist got to West Point stepping up over the failure of two or three lads who had flunked, and over the sacrifice of a brother who sits here in his study today supremely satisfied with his niche in life and very proud of his brother Peyton. Talking about football and baseball, here's a gentleman who will tell you how Peyton March got his training for turning the flank of the Hun and splitting the plate at Potsdam with three strikes during his athletic career at Lafayette. Our informant is Dr. Jacob D. Updegrove, an Easton physician, phy-sician, who is very busy now because he has taken over the practice of his son, who is with the medical corps of the United States army in Italy. Doc- sis' Sn 1 v HV , - r . ' 1 " v . k i ! ;- a.- ' ; k i t oa- ii ' ' r i M- v , ' , ' 3 t , " W N V i Easton. Pa., and Lafayette College are proud of the family of Prof. Francis A. March, "the Grand Old Man of Lafayette." This picture of the family was taken in 190 i, just after General March had returned home from the Russo-Japanese W ar, where he went as an observer for the War Department. General March is the second from the left on the lower row time out for luncheon, but v.'e will ride around with him in his car as he goes to see his patients and hear something some-thing about "Bob" March, the athlete. "Bob and I were battery mates." ays the doctor. "He was pitcher and I was catcher. And believe mo. it was some job to take his slants. They came over the plate with the velocity of a cannon ball. Ask any one that ever batted against him. We started out as the battery of our class team, and then became the star college battery. Look up the' college baseball records back there in the early eighties and you will see how good a pitcher he was. And when it comes to football-say, football-say, Bob was the whole show. He and I played on the first Lafayette team to score against Princeton. We made the first touchdown ever scored by Lafayette on the Princeton Tiger. Bob kicked a goal from the field. One of the Poe boys was quarterback on the Princeton team. Baker and Lamar La-mar were halfbacks and Alexander Moffatt was fullback. It was one of Princeton's greatest teams." Quite another angle to the many-sided many-sided life of General March is given by another old classmate, another Easton Eas-ton physician, Dr. Benjamin R. Field, twice Mayor of Easton. Here is the Field building on Northampton street. Sit down a moment and listen to the doctor. "Bob and I were kids together," says Field. "We went through the Easton High School in the same class and then up on the hill to Lafayette College. Col-lege. Bob and I read much together. We had a fashion of picking our books and reading them together. At Bob's suggestion we evolved a plan like this: We would read a book and then see who could remember the nlost characters charac-ters in the book and then their most striking characteristics Charles Dickens, Dick-ens, Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress,' Robert Louis Stevenson and the1 like. Another one of our favorite stunts was to take a given word and see how many synonyms we could coin from it." Wouldn't you like to hear the synonyms syno-nyms for Kaiserism that "Bob" March could coin today? Doctor Fielct says one of the most striking characteristics of his chum was his great fund of humor and his habit of looking always on the bright side of life. The father always instructed in-structed the son to express himself in words of one syllable, and so Doctor Field figures that Major General March as chief of staff has but one word in mind as he takes hold of his new job, and that is Win! Easton hasn't seen a whole lot of General March since he went away to West Point years ago. The last time he was here was two years ago, when detailed by the Government to inspect an artillery camp at Toby-hanna, Toby-hanna, Pa. Captain of Astor Battery "One of my earliest recollections of Bob March was when he and his father would go rambling down to An-dover An-dover Furnace, below Phillipsburg, on the New Jersey side," said Doctor Field. "Old Doctor March was advised ad-vised by his physician to vary his book lore with pedestrianism. The boy Peyton, barefooted and rugged, Invariably In-variably was. his companion. They were a familiar picture up on the Hill and down along the Delaware. "If being chief of staff means a swivel-chair job at Washington I don't think Bob , March will hold it very long," continues the doctor. "He wants to be In the thick of the fight-. fight-. ing. When war was declared on Spain he thrust his way forward. His work at the head of the famous battery recruited re-cruited by the late John Jacob Astor was every whit as" spectacular as the work of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, only you heard more of Roosevelt because he was closer home in Cuba than March in the Far East. When the United States and Mexico trot into difficulty they couldn't hold Bob March back. And who l we went into the world war a year ago Bob March was in his element, for it WuviUcU tiiu opportunity ho wanted action. "As chief of staff he will make good. Bob would have made good in any walk of life. He had the faculty of applying himself to everything ho took hold of, particularly when it was something that suited his boyish enthusiasm. en-thusiasm. No single-track mind there. This son of a great scholar will in years to come be remembered as one of the world's greatest generals. Watch my prophecy." Right across Northampton street from the Field Building is the htaa-quarters htaa-quarters of the Easton Board of Trade. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Thomas A. H. Hay, the sixty-five year-old year-old secreta.ry, a bundle of energy and enthusiasm, one of the men who ha3 been putting Easton on the map for many years. "Bob March! Say. what Bunker Hill is to Boston, what the Liberty Bell is to Philadelphia and the Goddess God-dess of Liberty to little old New York plodes the volatile Tom. "And Bob is the great and shining luminary of the illustrious family. Do I remember him? Well, rather. Way back there I remember how his fine old father used to come down into town with those six boys right at his heels. The old postoffice used to be over there in the square in the famous building where our great-grandfathers stored the precious documents brought here from Independence Hall during the Revolution, when the British occupied Philadelphia. Along the entire front of the building ran long rows of wooden steps. I remember how old Professor March used to sit down there in the sunlight to run through his mail with those six barefooted boys ranged all around him. It was a great picture. "Bob and I weren't in the same class on the Hill, but I watched him in college col-lege when he was making touchdowns on the football field and in the classroom. class-room. ' We lost sight of him pretty much after he went to West Point and then into army life. But I guess yon know we followed that Astor Battery out yonder in '98 and later on when he was chasing Aguinaldo. The world heard how Fred Funston captured Aguinaldo, but it never truly heard how- Bob March chased that pesky Filipino chieftain until he had no rest, keeping relentlessly on his trail. After Bob March had played him out and driven him into a trap, along came Fighting Fred and dragged down the prize. Now watch Bob March chase Mr. Kaiser clean to Potsdam!" Honors for Father and Son Everywhere you go in Easton you hear the word "March." Up on the Hill they have March Field, the athletic ath-letic amphitheatre, dedicated to the "Grand Old Man of Lafayette." Here ; in the town is the March Public School. Textbooks, textbooks everywhere "by Francis A. March." And now they are talking about putting up a statue in the towm square to General "Bob" , , March. Here are some more old class- , mates of "Bob's" who can spin you i yarns ad infinitum about their old ; chum Prof. William Shafer Hall, who j; j teaches mining engineering up on the Hill; George P. Adamson, a manufac- ! turing chemist; Fred Drake, a Third i : street business man; ex-Assistant Dis trict Attorney James W. Fox, Dr. Harry C. Fisler and others. But the voice of the Lehigh Valley is calling on yonder railway eminence and we must get away from here. j ! Hold on! Again that flaming poster j fronting the "movie" and again the i broad, smiling face of "Charlie" Oldt as we edge down Third street toward the depot. ! "Say, I was over in New York with I the Astor Battery when it came back fi-om the Philippines," chirps Charles. j "Several of my old college chums served in thi battery under 'Bob' March. I remember well that night. Told us how they chased the Spaniards Span-iards until the shoes of the American soldiers were worn out. They wanted to stop until new shoes came up, but Bob March said, 'Nothing doing,' and kept them right on going. They might have expected that, though, for they said when the battery was first ; recruited in New York and ordered to the Philippines the first thing March did was to march them twenty miles up the Hudson to entrain them at j Tarrytown. He said that was just to 'break them in.' "March, Forward March!" "Here's a little yarn they told that night as .indicative of the type of fighter of the man who now Is chief of staff. One day the Astor Battery was detailed on foot to capturo a block-house. The position of the American troops was exposed to a deadly fire. After waiting a long time tho order finally came to advance. Like a shot Captain March was up on his feet and away to tho charge. Seventy-live feet or more he ran on wildly ahead of his men, brandishing his sword high over his head and yelling like a Comanche Indian. Many of his men went down my old chum was shot through the lungs and through' one thigh. Captain March seemed to bear a channel life and was the very first man to arrive at the blockhouse as the enemy retired. He was a strict disciplinarian, but so bravo in battle that his men would follow him anywhere." any-where." By way of a. parting anecdote "Charlie" Oldt said that when the late Prof. Francis A. March was over In Oxford in 1896 receiving the degree of doctor of civil law from Oxford University Uni-versity tho English students thought to have a bit of fun by calling out in ' unison as Professor March advance! to the rostrum, "March, forward march! March, forward march!'" keeping time with the stops of the distinguished American linguist. ': "Same thing for your Uncle Sam today," laughs frind Charlfs as the Lehigh Valley comes puffing over the Delaware. "March, forward marchl" |
