Boys of '98

In Detroit. Last week 20,000 veterans of the war with Spain gathered from all states. A flock of automobiles was waiting to carry them down the streets, but the old soldiers laughed. "To hell with those things," they remarked; then they put on blue or light brown uniforms and marched afoot along Woodward Ave. Brass bands played the quick sad songs they had marched to almost 30 years ago--"After the Ball," "Just as the Sun Went Down," "Goodbye Dolly Gray." On the sidewalks girls cheered and threw flowers just as other girls had once thrown flowers to soldiers who, instead of waving, had spit tobacco juice on the pavement. The Maine. Almost 30 years ago, in theatres, in parks, in fairgrounds a thousand brass bands played "Dixie" and a song that started, "Spain, Spain, Spain, you ought to be ashamed. . . ." People sang the words and waved their caps; the whole country was talking about a terrible thing that had happened. What they knew about the story was this: A big U. S. battleship, the Maine, had rested in the harbor of Havana and there, one soft evening, when the captain was on shore, a greasy Spaniard had externally applied explosives, which had blown a hole through her bottom and had driven her keel upward through her deck. Most of the sailors, 258 of them, and two of the officers had been killed. In Washington, men in frock coats sat around long tables and talked into a blue haze of cigar smoke. Ambassadors called on one another and chatted over tea or whiskey & soda. In munitions factories and arsenals, men in dirty shirts lifted heavy kegs and barrels, piled them together in hundreds, in thousands. And in little towns, in big cities the brass bands played marching songs while the people cheered and stamped their feet. At last, on April 25, 1898, war was declared on Spain.

Fire When Ready. A few days later, after midnight on May 1, seven big battleships made white scratches on the still dark surface of Manila Bay in the Philippines. A few rockets and cannon broke cover from the high sides of the bay, but in the morning all seven battleships--the Olympia, the Baltimore, the Raleigh, the Petrel, the Concord, the Boston, the McCulloch were lined up in the harbor opposite seven Spanish boats bravely named after kings and queens and merry islands; Reina Cristina, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Cuba, Isla de Luzon, Cano, Marques del Duero. On the bridge of the Olympia stood two men; one of them was Commodore Dewey, commander of the American fleet, the other was his flag officer. The harbor was very quiet for a few minutes; it was only a little after five o'clock but you could hear dishes rattling in the galley of the Marques del Duero and the sudden high voice of the cook cry out, as if the curse were a signal, "C a r a j o!" One of the men on the Olympic's bridge rubbed his cheek and said: "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." At half past seven the firing-stopped because Commodore Dewey had won the battle of Manila Bay. San Juan Hill.* Along the edge of the sandy mounds that surround Santiago, Cuba, the U. S. Army waited until July. Then one morning the first cavalry, holding rifles across their chests, rushed up San Juan hill. Behind them was the second brigade, 500 men on horseback standing in their stirrups and galloping along, shouting curses or encouragement to one another like polo players. They called themselves the "Rough Riders." Theodore Roosevelt got off a little black horse to lead his men. Leonard Wood was pulling the mouth of a big roan. A few hours later that battle too was won and one soldier told another, as they pulled off their sweaty shirts, how he had frightened a fat Spanish corporal by prodding him with his own knife or how he had weeked the mustachio of a lean little Spanish captain.

Scurvy and Scandal. After the war was over, when drums and brass horns no longer sounded for hurrying men to march to, people were still talking. Cabinet ministers and men in barrooms were talking bitterly and saying the same things.

Men in Washington admitted that there had been graft in the supply department, that the beef and biscuits had given 70% of the army fever or scurvy, and that the water supply had been mismanaged. But when George Dewey, now Admiral, steamed into the cold, sunny harbor of New York, he was greeted with more noise than all the Spanish warships made together, and people were so glad to see him that they bought him a house in Washington, which he almost immediately gave to his wife.

Speeches. Last week in Detroit, speakers remembered how badly they had been treated in 1898. Governor of Michigan Fred W. Green/- said, "Never did an Army leader take the field with such poor equipment and such poor food as America in the days of '98. The same thing would happen if we went to war now. . . ." Major General Charles P. Summerall, Chief of Staff, protested: "The 1920 National Defense Act is ... developing excellently. ... It is what the title proclaims, an Act designed to procure adequate peacetime military establishment. . . ." Miss Jennie R. Dix, president of the Spanish War Nurses made a little speech; so did Mrs. Margaret Manion, president of the Ladies' Auxiliary of the United Spanish War Veterans. So did Mayor John W. Smith of Detroit, who fought Spain as a 15-year-old private in the 32nd Infantry.

The Fireman's Band began to play in the afternoon. Old soldiers straddled the backs of their chairs, waved flasks or sandwiches in time to the music, told one another of brave things done long-ago. As the tinny jangle of "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" stopped suddenly on a loud note, there was a great roaring of competitive anecdotes. Bellowed one bottle-nosed sport, ". . . And boy, I almost brought her home and married her. Yes, and by God if the damn kid didn't get himself shot over in France, after all the trouble I went to on his account. . . ." Boasted a lanky comedian, ". . . Maybe you don't remember the night down in Santiago when the Colonel bummed a drink of my whiskey and I wrapped him up in a tent and put him to sleep on the top of a bramble bush. . . ." Said a whiskered merry-andrew, "It was you and me that tied the bag around Johnny Tenner .... He was a great kid and he sure could beat that drum. . . . I met his girl a while back. She's married to a grocery agent now . . . funny, she should marry a drummer, huh?" The fireman's band played the tune of a bugle-call, "Soupy, soupy, soupy, without a single bean. . . ." Someone was saying: ". . . And we began to think the hard tack was turkey

when we tasted the bully beef. >>

Seibert. One of the veterans in Detroit was John S. Seibert. In Cuba he offered to nurse seven U. S. soldiers who had smallpox or yellow fever. For this he received the Congressional Medal of Honor. When a patient, one Andrew Gould, was dying, he left a message with John Seibert who, 27 years later, found the family of Gould, delivered the message. After the World War, Veteran Seibert organized the first post of the A.E.F., named it for Quentin Roosevelt, son of his oldtime friend and commander.

Elections, Resolutions. To be commander-in-chief of the United Spanish War Veterans, succeeding U. S. Senator Rice W. Means of Colorado, was elected John J. Garrity of Chicago. Other officers elected: W. L. Grayson, vice com-mander-in-chief; Peter O'Shea, surgeon general; Allen P. Wilson, chaplain in chief.

* By no means the only, ny no means the most important, although the most famed, land engagement in the Spanish-American -war. Other simultaneous battles were at El Caney (U. S. victory), Aguadores (U. S. defeat). Had the 500 Rough Riders been elsewhere, the capture of Santiago would have been made by the remaining 15,000 infantry and cavalry.

/- Spanish War lieutenant in the 31st Michigan Infantry.