Letter from Frank L. Greene to General Enoch H. Crowder - October 16, 1917

Transcript

House of Representatives U.S. Committee on Military Affairs Washington, D.C. ST. Albans, Vermont, October 16, 1917. Major General Enoch H. Crowder, Provost Marshal General, Washington, D.C., My dear General Crowder: I have your favor of October 12 and note the characteristic modesty with which you deprecate any suggestion that your advance in grade has relation to a desire to recognize your personal service and record. I will not debate the question with you now, but some day I will stroll around and try to convince you that you do not estimate yourself fairly in this business. And, beside, I do not believe this is the end of the business, for that matter. I understand and sympathize with your natural ambition to go into the field at this time. I realize that no amount of philosophizing and fine reasoning will dissuade you. I can understand that sympathetically too. Without doing any bombastic business, I want to be there myself, and the other day when I saw my older son, a lieutenant of Field Artillery, in his camp, I bit my lip and choked down the hunger to be serving with him. You and I understand each other about that sentiment of service in the field, although you would be a man of great responsibilities and I a simple soldier of the line. But, for all that, there is a philosophy keeps you where you are for the present and it is broader and deeper and far more important than any personal ambition or desire. It is the supreme fact that you are performing a conspicuous national service where you are, and there is no one presently to take your place. Genius forges its own fetters sometimes by being so superb that it must