page_830 < previous page page_830 next page > Page 830 of the New Deal's policies for depression relief and reform. Carefully conceived under Perkins's watchful eyes and shepherded by her through the intricacies of the political process, the Social Security Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act remain monuments to her ability to make progress through incremental steps and to her mastery of the art of compromise. Although Roosevelt leaned heavily on her, Perkins's strong attachment to social justice rendered her an unpopular figure in Congress and the press. She alienated business but won over the leaders of organized labor by resisting pressure from industrialists to intervene in strikes. She refused to succumb to threats of impeachment when right-wing congressional leaders urged her to deport Harry Bridges, leader of the Longshoremen's Union and a suspected communist, without appropriate legal action. Perkins resigned her position after Roosevelt's death in 1945. Thereafter, she wrote a best-selling book, The Roosevelt I Knew, lectured widely, and accepted a professorship in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. George Martin, Madam Secretary: Frances Perkins (1976); Susan Ware, Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal (1981). ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS See also Labor; New Deal; Settlement Houses; Social Security. Pershing, John J. (18601948), army commander. Pershing became the most famous American soldier of the World War I era because of his successful command of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France. Pershing was born in Missouri and graduated from West Point in 1886. Prior to his baptism of fire at San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, he saw frontier duty as a cavalry officer, taught at and earned a law degree from the University of Nebraska, and served briefly at West Point. Although he impressed superiors with his bravery in Cuba, it was not until his service in 18991903 against the Moros on Mindanao in the Philippines that he distinguished himself as a commander. Because of this, he won a rare promotion from captain to brigadier general in 1906. His next great opportunity came in 1916 when he led an eleven-thousand-man punitive expedition into Mexico in pursuit of the Mexican leader Pancho Villa, who had raided an American outpost in New Mexico. Although the expedition did not catch Villa, it probably deterred similar raids, at least during the eleven months the troops were in Mexico. When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Pershing was a major general and the only officer of that rank who had held a semi-independent command. When Secretary of War Newton D. Baker selected him to command an expedition to France, no one knew how large the army would be or how it would coordinate with the Allied forces. Pershing, accompanied by a small staff, sailed for France in May 1917. In his talks with the Allied leaders, he quickly grasped the desperation of the French situation after a great defeat that spring and called for a much larger force than the War Department had deemed possible. With the failure of a British offensive and the collapse of Russia in the fall, the Allies realized that more American troops would be necessary, and the British offered to supply the required shipping. But they wanted the Americans to serve as replacements in their ranks. Pershing argued forcefully with both the British prime minister David Lloyd George and the French premier Georges Clemenceau that the American troops should fight as a separate army under its own flag. In several conferences, the argument continued until the great German offensives in the spring of 1918 forced the issue. Ultimately 2 million Americans served under Pershing's command in the AEF. It is a tribute to Pershing that the foundation he and his staff had so carefully laid was able to sustain such a huge force. In the summer of 1918, the AEF went on the offensive. From September 26 to November 11, it fought the greatest battle in American history to that point in the Meuse-Argonne campaign; it proved to be a major contribution to the Allied victory. Pershing's achievement rested on his ability to pick and  < previous page page_830 next page >