L 
 592 
 L2G5 
 

 
 
 
 Oo 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■' 
 
 ' ^ 
 
 
 "oo^ 
 
 
 
 
 <?■ 
 
 
 < 
 
 ^•^ 
 
 •/*^ 
 
 .#' 
 
 '•^ ' '^> 
 
 .^N^ .^^ 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 t 
 
 
 V s, 
 
 %• 
 
 
 A^' P 
 
 
 
 
 
 •::^\o^ 
 
 ^^% <^^"\ ,^^ 
 
 ''^^ - '^ ' '^ ^- ,-:» A * 
 
 .,-^ 
 
 ^A V 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ „. 
 
 ^^,^0^ 
 
 0^" 
 
 ,■?■ 
 
 >^" 
 
 
 ,^^^' 
 
 
 
 
 
 xOO, 
 

 ■x^^'"-^ '- 
 
 ^'-■.. .^' 
 
 •^c^. 
 
 •x^^" ■^^' 
 
 
 ^0 O^ 
 
 
 
 ^°,/*.;'o^" / 
 
 
 
 -^ ,^^^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 ^'IsV « ^ ' « < "^c 
 
 j^\ ^ ^/r?;>i^ 
 
 ■i "o 
 
 r-. ^ ^M*" « o? 
 
 
 <^v 
 
 .^^ ^^. 
 
 
 
 .^^ '<h 
 
 
 
 ^ - -P 
 
 V 
 
 
 * 'V 
 
 
 '^' 
 
 ^^ 
 
 .V 
 
 A 
 
 
 ^-c^ ' » « ^ ' 
 
 
 <>* 
 
 
 \^°^. 
 
 .0 0^ 
 
 .-^^ 
 
 ^> 
 
 
 •^^. 
 
 
 A-^ 
 
 ,0- -o, 
 
 0^ s^'"// '"c 
 
 >:^ /X * -^'M-wj*. 
 
 ^'"'0'\'^^A<^' 
 
 
 
 . -i. 
 
 
 
 \} ^W"^ > 
 
 
 a"^' ^"^ '^^^*. 
 
 ,<i^' 
 
 
 
 X- '/ 
 
 
 0^ ■ 
 
 .iS^' V 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 V 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 and 
 
 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 ON THE MEXICAN BORDER 
 
 TWO MASTERPIECES OF REPORTING 
 
 by 
 
 FLOYD P GIBBONS 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 AND 
 
 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 ON THE MEXICAN BORDER 
 
FLOYD P. GIBBONS 
 
HOW THE LACONIA 
 SANK: ^/?e MILITIA 
 MOBILIZATION ON 
 THE MEXICAN BORDER 
 
 Two masterpieces of reportincJ 
 FLOYD P GIBBONS 
 
 London correspondent of iho 
 Chicago Tribune, a survivor of 
 the Laconia disaster; Special Wir 
 Correspondent with the U.SArn^ 
 in Mexico. 
 
 Introduction by 
 
 ROBERT R. Mccormick 
 
 JOSEPH M. PATTERSON 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Daudhadayand G)mpany' 
 
 Publishers 
 

 Copyright, 1917, by 
 
 Daughaday and Company 
 
 All rig/its reserved 
 
 ©Cl,A457972 
 -2 1917 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The German announcement of an unrestricted sub- 
 marine campaign followed by the breaking off of diplo- 
 matic relations by our government gave to London a 
 renewed value as a source of news. 
 
 The American public immediately became interested to 
 learn how England would meet the submarine measure 
 and, anticipating hostilities with Germany, to learn what 
 unprepared, loosely governed England has done to equip 
 herself for war. 
 
 During the course of the war The Tribune has made 
 many efforts to obtain interesting news from England 
 but, due to the censorship and the deadening effect of 
 London association upon American newspaper men, its 
 own correspondents had been as unsuccessful as the 
 correspondents of other newspapers. 
 
 We chose for our final attempt one of our star local 
 reporters, Floyd P. Gibbons. Mr. Gibbons has added 
 to a wide experience in local reporting, a series of ad- 
 ventures in Mexico with Villa, the expedition to Colonia 
 Dublan with Pershing, and a critical study of the militia 
 mobilization in Texas. 
 
 In order to safeguard his voyage over we suggested 
 that he should travel with Ambassador von Bemstorff on 
 
6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the Frederick VII or should go to France via Spain. It 
 was his own idea to cross the submarine zone and with 
 the expectation of being submarined on the way. For 
 this contingency he was clothed and equipped with a 
 special life-preserver, a large fresh-water bottle, electric 
 flashlights, and a flask of brandy. 
 
 Mr. Gibbons' expectation was realized. His account 
 of the sinking of his ship, the Laconia, is one of the great 
 feats of reporting in the history of journalism. 
 
 The proximity of the war with Germany makes mili- 
 tary training the greatest question before the nation. In 
 a country where the army does not and cannot rule, the 
 public must supply the will for adequate methods. 
 
 In order to supply the proper pressure the public must 
 understand how well we are prepared, not only in ma- 
 terial but in leadership, to create a great army. 
 
 Information is available upon this point, obtained from 
 the experience of our mobilization in Texas last summer, 
 but it has been very generally suppressed. 
 
 Through a mistaken idea of patriotism and through 
 fear of threatened censorship most newspaper correspon- 
 dents refrained from publishing the truth. 
 
 Twenty-one employes of The Tribune were in the 
 Mexican mobilization, and while none of them had the 
 opportunity of seeing the whole mobilization that was 
 afiforded to Mr. Gibbons in his capacity as war corre- 
 spondent, they all agree that insofar as Mr. Gibbons' 
 observations concern matters which came under their 
 personal observation, they are entirely accurate and con- 
 tain no exaggeration. 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 The Tribune gladly consents to the publication of Mr. 
 Gibbons' articles, believing that unless the public realizes 
 how terrible was the inefficiency of the Texas mobiliza- 
 tion it will not insist upon, and probably not even permit, 
 the degree of military efficiency in our coming mobiliza- 
 tion which alone can save us from catastrophe. 
 
 Robert R. McCormick. 
 Joseph M. Patterson. 
 Editorial Offices 
 Chicago Tribune 
 March 9, 1917. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 I. In the Danger Zone 11 
 
 II. Torpedoed at Night Without Warning .... 14 
 
 III. The Last of the Laconia 23 
 
 IV. Adrift in Open Boats 26 
 
 V. The Rescue by the British Patrol 29 
 
 VI. Landing the Survivors 31 
 
 II 
 
 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION ON 
 THE MEXICAN BORDER 
 
 I. The Call to the Colors 39 
 
 II. En Route 45 
 
 III. In Manana Land 49 
 
 IV. Camp Fare 53 
 
 V. A Texas Hurricane 57 
 
 VI. Field Training under Difficulties 59 
 
 VII. Cavalry and Artillery not Ready 62 
 
 VIII. Quartermaster Department Hard Put .... 68 
 
 IX. Difficulty in Getting Supplies 74 
 
 X. Regulars Were Patient Tutors 80 
 
 XI. Field Hospitals 84 
 
 XII. Delay in Granting Discharges 90 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 IN THE DANGER ZONE 
 
 QuEENSTOWN, February 26, 1917. 
 
 I HAVE serious doubts whether this is a real 
 story. I am not entirely certain that it is not all 
 a dream. I feel that in a few minutes I may wake 
 up back in stateroom B 19 on the promenade deck 
 of the Cunarder Laconia and hear my cockney 
 steward informing me with an abundance of "and 
 sirs" that it is a fine morning. 
 
 It is now a little over thirty hours since I stood 
 on the slanting decks of the big liner, listened to 
 the lowering of the lifeboats, and heard the hiss 
 of escaping steam and the roar of ascending 
 rockets as they tore lurid rents in the black sky 
 and cast their red glare over the roaring sea. 
 
 I am writing this within thirty minutes after 
 stepping on the dock here in Queenstown from the 
 
12 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 British mine sweeper which picked up our open 
 Hfeboat after an eventful six hours of drifting 
 and darkness and baiHng and pulling on the oars 
 and of straining aching eyes toward that empty, 
 meaningless horizon in search of help. 
 
 But, dream or fact, here it is : 
 
 The Cunard liner Laconia, 18,000 tons bur- 
 den, carrying seventy-three passengers — men, 
 women, and children — of whom six were Ameri- 
 can citizens — manned by a mixed crew of two 
 hundred and sixteen, bound from New York to 
 Liverpool, and loaded with foodstuffs, cotton, and 
 war material, was torpedoed without warning by 
 a German submarine last night off the Irish coast. 
 The vessel sank in about forty minutes. 
 
 Two American citizens, mother and daughter, 
 listed from Chicago, and former residents there, 
 are among the dead. They were Mrs. Mary E. 
 Hoy and Miss Elizabeth Hoy. I have talked 
 with a seaman who was in the same lifeboat with 
 the two Chicago women and he has told me that 
 he saw their lifeless bodies washed out of the 
 sinking lifeboat. 
 
 The American survivors are Mrs. F. E. 
 Harris, of Philadelphia, who was the last woman 
 to leave the Laconia; the Rev. Father Wareing, 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 13 
 
 of St. Joseph's Seminary, Baltimore; Arthur T. 
 Kirby, of New York, and myself. 
 
 A former Chicago woman, now the wife of a 
 British subject, was among the survivors. She 
 is Mrs. Henry George Boston, the daughter of 
 Granger Farwell, of Lake Forest. 
 
 After leaving New York, passengers and crew 
 had had three drills with the lifeboats. All were 
 supplied with life-belts and assigned to places in 
 the twelve big lifeboats poised over the side from 
 the davits of the top deck. 
 
 Submarines had been a chief part of the con- 
 versation during the entire trip, but the subject 
 had been treated lightly, although all ordered 
 precautions were strictly in force. After the first 
 explanatory drill on the second day out from New 
 York, from which we sailed on Saturday, Feb- 
 ruary 17, the "abandon ship" signal — five quick 
 blasts on the whistle — had summoned us twice to 
 our life-belts and heavy wraps, among which I 
 included a flask and a flashlight, and to a roll call 
 in front of our assigned boats on the top deck. 
 
 On Sunday we knew generally we were in the 
 danger zone, though we did not know definitely 
 where we were — or at least the passengers did 
 not. In the afternoon during a short chat with 
 
14 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 Captain W. R. D. Irvine, the ship's commander, 
 I had mentioned that I would hke to see a chart 
 and note our position on the ocean. He repHed: 
 "O, would you?" with a smiling, rising inflection 
 that meant, "It is jolly well none of your busi- 
 ness." 
 
 Prior to this my cheery early morning steward 
 had told us that we would make Liverpool by 
 Monday night and I used this information in 
 another question to the captain. 
 
 "When do we land?" I asked. 
 
 "I don't know," replied Capt. Irvine, but my 
 steward told me later it would be Tuesday after 
 dinner. 
 
 II 
 
 TORPEDOED AT NIGHT WITHOUT WARNING 
 
 The first cabin passengers were gathered in 
 the lounge Sunday evening, with the exception of 
 the bridge fiends in the smoke-room. 
 
 "Poor Butterfly" was dying wearily on the 
 talking machine and several couples were 
 dancing. 
 
 About the tables in the smoke-room the conver- 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 15 
 
 sation was limited to the announcement of bids 
 and orders to the stewards. Before the fireplace 
 was a little gathering which had been dubbed as 
 the Hyde Park corner — an allusion I don't quite 
 fully understand. This group had about ex- 
 hausted available discussion when I projected a 
 new bone of contention. 
 
 "What do you say are our chances of being 
 torpedoed?" I asked. 
 
 "Well," drawled the deliberative Mr. Henry 
 Chetham, a London solicitor, **I should say four 
 thousand to one." 
 
 Lucien J. Jerome, of the British diplomatic 
 service, returning with an Ecuadorian valet from 
 South America, interjected: "Considering the 
 zone and the class of this ship, I should put it 
 down at two hundred and fifty to one that we 
 don't meet a sub." 
 
 At this moment the ship gave a sudden lurch 
 sideways and forward. There was a mufiied 
 noise like the slamming of some large door at a 
 good distance away. The slightness of the shock 
 and the meekness of the report compared with my 
 imagination were disappointing. Every man in 
 the room was on his feet in an instant. 
 
 "We're hit!" shouted Mr. Chetham. 
 
i6 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 "That's what we've been waiting for," said 
 Mr. Jerome. 
 
 "What a lousey torpedo!" said Mr. Kirby in 
 typical New Yorkese. "It must have been a 
 fizzer." 
 
 I looked at my watch. It was 10:30 p. m. 
 
 Then came the five blasts on the whistle. We 
 rushed down the corridor leading from the 
 smoke-room at the stern to the lounge, which was 
 amidships. We were running, but there was no 
 panic. The occupants of the lounge were just 
 leaving by the forward doors as we entered. 
 
 It was dark on the landing leading down to the 
 promenade deck, where the first class staterooms 
 were located. My pocket flashlight, built like a 
 fountain pen, came in handy on the landing. 
 
 We reached the promenade deck. I rushed 
 into my stateroom, B 19, grabbed my overcoat 
 and the water bottle and special life-preserver 
 with which The Tribune had equipped me 
 before sailing. Then I made my way to the upper 
 deck on that same dark landing. 
 
 I saw the chief steward opening an electric 
 switch box in the wall and turning on the switch. 
 Instantly the boat decks were illuminated. That 
 illumination saved lives. 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 17 
 
 The torpedo had hit us well astern on the star- 
 board side and had missed the engines and the 
 dynamos. I had not noticed the deck lights 
 before. Throughout the voyage our decks had 
 remained dark at night and all cabin portholes 
 were clamped down and all windows covered with 
 opaque paint. 
 
 The illumination of the upper deck on which 
 I stood made the darkness of the water sixty feet 
 belo'w appear all the blacker when I peered over 
 the edge at my station, boat No. 10. 
 
 Already the boat was loading up and men were 
 busy with the ropes. I started to help near a 
 davit that seemed to be giving trouble, but was 
 stoutly ordered to get out of the way and get into 
 the boat. 
 
 We were on the port side, practically opposite 
 the engine well. Up and down the deck passen- 
 gers and crew were donning life-belts, throwing 
 on overcoats, and taking positions in the boats. 
 There were a number of women, but only one 
 appeared hysterical — little Miss Titsie Siklosi, a 
 French-Polish actress, who was being cared for 
 by her manager, Cedric P. Ivatt, appearing on 
 the passenger list as from New York. 
 
 Steam began to hiss somewhere from the giant 
 
i8 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 gray funnels that towered above. Suddenly 
 there was a roaring swish as a rocket soared 
 upward from the captain's bridge, leaving a 
 comet's tail of fire. I watched it as it described 
 a graceful arc in the black void overhead, and 
 then, with an audible pop, it burst in a flare of 
 brilliant white light. 
 
 There was a tilt to the deck. It was listing to 
 starboard at just the angle that would make it 
 necessary to reach for support to enable one to 
 stand upright. In the meantime electric flood 
 lights — large white enameled funnels containing 
 clusters of bulbs — had been suspended from the 
 promenade deck and illuminated the dark water 
 that rose and fell on the slanting side of the ship. 
 
 "Lower away !" Some one gave the order and 
 we started down with a jerk towards the seem- 
 ingly hungry rising and falling swells. 
 
 Then we stopped with another jerk and re- 
 mained suspended in mid-air while the man at 
 the bow and the stern swore and tussled with the 
 lowering ropes. The stern of the lifeboat was 
 down, the bow up, leaving us at an angle of about 
 forty-five degrees. We clung to the seats to 
 save ourselves from falling out. 
 
 "Who's got a knife, a knife, a knife!" shouted 
 a sweating seaman in the bow. 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 19 
 
 "Great God, give him a knife!" bawled a half- 
 dressed, jibbering negro stoker, who wrung his 
 hands in the stern. 
 
 A hatchet was thrust into my hand and I for- 
 warded it to the bow. There was a flash of 
 sparks as it crashed down on the holding pulley. 
 One strand of the rope parted and down plunged 
 the bow, too quick for the stern man. We came 
 to a jerky stop with the stern in the air and the 
 bow down, but the stern managed to lower away 
 until the dangerous angle was eliminated. 
 
 Then both tried to lower together. The list of 
 the ship's side became greater, but, instead of our 
 boat sliding down it like a toboggan, the taffrail 
 caught and was held. As the lowering con- 
 tinued, the other side dropped down and we found 
 ourselves clinging on at a new angle and looking 
 straight down on the water. 
 
 A hand slipped into mine and a voice sounded 
 huskily close to my ear. It was the little old 
 German Jew^ traveling man who was disliked in 
 the smoke-room because he used to speak too cer- 
 tainly of things he was uncertain of and whose 
 slightly Teutonic dialect made him as popular as 
 smallpox with the British passengers. 
 
 "My boy, I can't see nutting," he said. "My 
 
20 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 glasses slipped and I am falling. Hold me, 
 please." 
 
 I managed to reach out and join hands with 
 another man on the other side of the old man and 
 together we held him in. He hung heavily over 
 our arms, grotesquely grasping all he had saved 
 from his stateroom — a goldheaded cane and an 
 extra hat. 
 
 Many feet and hands pushed the boat from the 
 side of the ship and we sagged down again, this 
 time smacking squarely on the pillowy top of a 
 rising swell. It felt more solid than midair, at 
 least. But we were far from being off. The 
 pulleys twice stuck in their fastenings, bow and 
 stern, and the one ax passed forward and back, 
 and with it my flashlight, as the entangling ropes 
 that held us to the sinking Laconia were cut 
 away. 
 
 Some shout from that confusion of sound 
 caused me to look up and I really did so with the 
 fear that one of the nearby boats was being low- 
 ered upon us. 
 
 A man was jumping, as I presumed, with the 
 intention of landing in the boat and I prepared to 
 avoid the impact, but he passed beyond us and 
 plunged into the water three feet from the edge 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 21 
 
 of the boat. He bobbed to the surface imme- 
 diately. 
 
 "It's Duggan !" shouted a man next to me. 
 
 I flashed the light on the ruddy, smiling face 
 and water-plastered hair of the little Canadian, 
 our fellow saloon passenger. We pulled him over 
 the side. He sputtered out a mouthful of water 
 and the first words he said were: 
 
 "I wonder if there is anything to that lighting 
 three cigarets off the same match? I was up 
 above trying to loosen the rope to this boat. I 
 loosened it and then got tangled up in it. The 
 boat went down, but I was jerked up. I jumped 
 for it." 
 
 His first reference concerned our deliberate 
 tempting of fates early in the day when he, Kirby, 
 and I lighted three cigarets from the same match 
 and Duggan told us that he had done the same 
 thing many a time. 
 
 As we pulled away from the side of the ship, 
 its ranking and receding terrace of lights 
 stretched upward. The ship was slowly turning 
 over. We were opposite that part occupied by the 
 engine rooms. There was a tangle of oars, spars, 
 and rigging on the seat and considerable 
 confusion before four of the big sweeps 
 
22 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 could be manned on either side of the boat. 
 
 The jibbering, bullet-headed negro was pulling 
 directly behind me and I turned to quiet him as 
 his frantic reaches with his oar were hitting me 
 in the back. In the dull light from the upper 
 decks I looked into his slanting face, eyes all 
 whites and lips moving convulsively. Besides 
 being frightened the man was freezing in the 
 thin cotton shirt that composed his entire upper 
 covering. He would work feverishly to get 
 warm. 
 
 "Get away from her; get away from her," he 
 kept repeating. "When the water hits her hot 
 boilers, she'll blow up, and there's just tons and 
 tons of shrapnel in the hold!" 
 
 His excitement spread to other members of 
 the crew in the boat. The ship's baker, designa- 
 ted by his pantry headgear, became a competing 
 alarmist, and a white fireman, whose blasphemy 
 was nothing short of profound, added to the con- 
 fusion by cursing everyone. 
 
 It was the give way of nerve tension. It was 
 bedlam and nightmare. 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 23 
 
 III 
 
 THE LAST OF THE LACONIA 
 
 Seeking to establish some authority in our 
 boat, I made my way to the stern and there found 
 an old, white-haired sea captain, a second cabin 
 passenger, with whom I had talked before. He 
 was bound from Nova Scotia with codfish. His 
 sailing schooner, the Secret, had broken in two, 
 but he and his crew had been taken off by a 
 tramp and taken back to New York. He had 
 sailed from there on the Ryndam, which, after 
 almost crossing the Atlantic, had turned back. 
 The Laconia was his third attempt to get home. 
 His name is Captain Dear. 
 
 "The rudder's gone, but I can steer with an 
 oar," he said. *T will take charge, but my voice 
 is gone. You'll have to shout the orders." 
 
 There was only one way to get the attention of 
 the crew and that was by an overpowering blast 
 of profanity. I did my best and was rewarded 
 by silence while I made the announcement that 
 in the absence of the ship's officer assigned to 
 the boat. Captain Dear would take charge. There 
 was no dissent and under the captain's orders 
 
24 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 the boat's head was held to the wind to prevent 
 us from being swamped by the increasing swells. 
 
 We rested on our oars, with all eyes turned on 
 the still lighted Laconia. The torpedo had struck 
 at 10:30 p. M. According to our ship's time, it 
 was thirty minutes after that hour that another 
 dull thud, which was accompanied by a noticeable 
 drop in the hulk, told its story of the second tor- 
 pedo that the submarine had dispatched through 
 the engine room and the boat's vitals from a dis- 
 tance of 200 yards. 
 
 We watched silently during the next minute, 
 as the tiers of lights dimmed slowly from white 
 to yellow, then to red, and nothing was left but 
 the murky mourning of the night, which hung 
 over all like a pall. 
 
 A mean, cheese-colored crescent of a moon re- 
 vealed one horn above a rag bundle of clouds low 
 in the distance. A rim of blackness settled around 
 our little world, relieved only by general leering 
 stars in the zenith, and where the Laconia lights 
 had shone there remained only the dim outline 
 of a blacker hulk standing out above the water 
 like a jagged headland, silhouetted against the 
 overcast sky. 
 
 The ship sank rapidly at the stern until at last 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 25 
 
 its nose stood straight in the air. Then it sHd 
 silently down and out of sight like a piece of dis- 
 appearing scenery in a panorama spectacle. 
 
 Boat No. 3 stood closest to the ship and rocked 
 about in a perilous sea of clashing spars and 
 wreckage. As the boat's crew steadied its head 
 into the wind, a black hulk, glistening wet and 
 standing about eight feet above the surface of 
 the water, approached slowly and came to a stop 
 opposite the boat and not six feet from the side 
 of it. 
 
 "What ship was dot?" the correct words in 
 throaty English with the German accent came 
 from the dark hulk, according to Chief Steward 
 Ballyn's statement to me later. 
 
 "The Laconia," Ballyn answered. 
 
 "Vot?" 
 
 "The Laconia, Cunard line," responded the 
 steward. 
 
 "Vot did she weigh?" was the next question 
 from the submarine. 
 
 "Eighteen thousand tons." 
 
 "Any passengers?" 
 
 "Seventy-three," replied Ballyn, "men, women, 
 and children, some of them in this boat. She had 
 over 200 in the crew." 
 
26 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 "Did she carry cargo?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Veil, you'll be all right. The patrol will pick 
 you up soon," and without further sound, save 
 for the almost silent fixing of the conning tower 
 lid, the submarine moved ofif. 
 
 "I thought it best to make my answers truthful 
 and satisfactory, sir," said Ballyn when he re- 
 peated the conversation to me word for word. 
 "I was thinking of the women and children in 
 the boat. I feared every minute that somebody 
 in our boat might make a hostile move, fire a re- 
 volver, or throw something at the submarine. 
 I feared the consequences of such an act." 
 
 IV 
 
 ADRIFT IN OPEN BOATS 
 
 There was no assurance of an early pickup, 
 even though the promise were from a German 
 source, for the rest of the boats whose occupants 
 — if they felt and spoke like those in my boat — 
 were more than mildly anxious about our plight 
 and the prospects of rescue. 
 
 We made preparations for the siege with the 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 27 
 
 elements. The weather was a great factor. That 
 black rim of clouds looked ominous. There was a 
 good promise of rain. February has a reputa- 
 tion for nasty weather in the north Atlantic. The 
 wind was cold and seemed to be rising. Our boat 
 bobbed about like a cork on the swells, which for- 
 tunately were not choppy. 
 
 "How much rougher weather could the boat 
 stand?" This question and the conditions were 
 debated pro and con. 
 
 "Had our rockets been seen?" "Did the first 
 torpedo put the wireless out of business?" "Did 
 anybody hear our S. O. S. ?" "Was there enough 
 food and drinking water in the boat to last?" 
 
 That brought us to an inventory of our small 
 craft, and after much difficulty we found a lamp, 
 a can of powder flares, a tin of ship's biscuits, 
 matches, and spare oil. 
 
 The lamp was lighted. Other lights were vis- 
 ible at small distances every time we mounted 
 the crest of the swells. The boats remained quite 
 close together at first. One boat came within 
 sound and I recognized the Harry Lauder-like 
 voice of the second assistant purser, last heard on 
 Wednesday at the ship's concert. There was 
 singing, "I Want to Marry 'Arry," and "I Love 
 to Be a Sailor." 
 
28 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 Mrs. Boston was in that boat with her hus- 
 band. She told me later that an attempt had been 
 made to sing 'Tipperary" and ''Rule, Britannia," 
 but the thought of that slinking dark hulk of 
 destruction that might have been a part of the 
 immediate darkness resulted in an abandonment 
 of the effort. 
 
 "Who's the officer in that boat ?" came a cheery 
 hail from a nearby light. 
 
 "What the hell is it to you?" bawled out our 
 half-frozen negro, for no reason imaginable other 
 than, possibly, the relief of his feelings. 
 
 "Brain him with a pin, somebody!" yelled our 
 profound oathsman, and accompanied the order 
 with a warmth of language that must have re- 
 lieved the negro's chill. 
 
 The fear of some of the boats crashing 
 together produced a general inclination toward 
 further separation on the part of all the little 
 units of survivors, with the result that soon the 
 small craft stretched out for several miles, all of 
 them endeavoring to keep their heads into the 
 wind. 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 29 
 
 V 
 
 THE RESCUE BY THE BRITISH PATROL 
 
 And then we saw the first Hght, the first sign 
 of help coming, the first searching glow of white 
 brilliance, deep down on the sombre sides of the 
 black pot of night that hung over us. I don't 
 know what direction that came from — none of us 
 knew north from south — there was nothing but 
 water and sky. But the light — it just came from 
 over there where we pointed. 
 
 We nudged violently sick boat-mates and di- 
 rected their gaze and aroused them to an appre- 
 ciation of the sight that gave us new life. 
 
 It was way over there — first a trembling quiver 
 of silver against the blackness, then, drawing 
 closer, it defined itself as a beckoning finger, al- 
 though still too far away to see our feeble efforts 
 to attract 
 
 We nevertheless wasted valuable flares and 
 the ship's baker, self-ordained custodian of bis- 
 cuit tin, did the honors handsomely to the extent 
 of a biscuit apiece to each of the twenty-three oc- 
 cupants in the boat. 
 
 "Pull starboard, sonnies," sang out old Cap- 
 
30 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 tain Dear, his gray chin whiskers Hterally bris- 
 thng- with joy in the Hght of the round lantern 
 which he held aloft. 
 
 We pulled lustily, forgetting the strain and 
 pain of innards torn and racked from vain vom- 
 iting, oblivious of blistered hands and yet half- 
 frozen feet. 
 
 Then a nodding of that finger of light — a hap- 
 py, snapping, crap-shooting finger that seemed 
 to say "Come on, you men," like a dice player 
 wooing the bones — led us to believe that our lights 
 had been seen. This was the fact, for immedi- 
 ately the coming vessel flashed on its green and 
 red side-lights and we saw it was headed for our 
 position. 
 
 We floated off its stern for a while as it ma- 
 neuvered for the best position in which it could 
 take us on with the sea that was running higher 
 and higher, it seemed to me. 
 
 "Come alongside port!" was megaphoned to 
 us, and as fast as we could we swung under the 
 stern and felt our way broadside toward the ship's 
 side. A dozen flashlights blinked down to us and 
 orders began to flow fast and thick. 
 
 When I look back on the night, I don't know 
 which was the more hazardous — our descent from 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 31 
 
 the Laconia or our ascent to our rescuer. One 
 minute the swell lifted us almost level with the 
 rail of the low-built patrol boat and mine sweeper, 
 the next receding wave would carry us down into 
 a gulf over which the ship's side glowed like a 
 slimy, dripping cliff. A score of hands reached 
 out, and we were suspended in the husky, tattooed 
 arms of those doughty British jack tars, looking 
 up into the weather-beaten, youthful faces, mum- 
 bling thanks and thankfulness, and reading in the 
 gold lettering on their pancake hats the legend 
 "H. M. S. Laburnum:' 
 
 VI 
 
 LANDING THE SURVIVORS 
 
 We had been six hours in the open boats, all of 
 which began coming alongside one after another. 
 Wet and bedraggled survivors were lifted aboard. 
 Women and children first w^as the rule. 
 
 The scenes of reunion were heart-gripping. 
 Men who had remained strangers to one another 
 aboard the Laconia wrung each other by the hand, 
 or embraced without shame the frail little wife 
 of a Canadian chaplain who had found one of 
 
32 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 her missing children deHvered up from another 
 boat. She smothered the child with ravenous 
 mother kisses while tears of joy streamed down 
 her face. 
 
 Boat after boat came alongside. The water- 
 logged craft containing the captain came last. A 
 rousing cheer went up as he landed his feet on 
 the deck, one mangled hand hanging limp at his 
 side. 
 
 The jack tars divested themselves of outer 
 clothing and passed the garments over to the shiv- 
 ering members of the Laconia's crew. 
 
 The little officers' quarters down under the quar- 
 terdeck were turned over to the women and chil- 
 dren. Two of the Laconia's stewardesses passed 
 boiling basins of navy cocoa and aided in the dis- 
 entanglement of wet and matted tresses. 
 
 The men grouped themselves near steam pipes 
 in the petty officers' quarters or over the gratings 
 of the engine rooms, where new life was to be 
 had from the upward blasts of heated air that 
 brought with them the smell of bilge water and 
 oil and sulphur from the bowels of the vessel. 
 
 The injured — all minor cases, sprained backs, 
 wrenched legs, or mashed hands — were put away 
 in bunks under the care of the ship's doctor. 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 33 
 
 Dawn was melting the eastern ocean gray to 
 pink when the task was finished. 
 
 In the officers* quarters, now invaded by the 
 men, somebody happened to touch a key on the 
 small wooden organ, and this was enough to send 
 some callous seafaring fingers over the keys in a 
 rhythm unquestionably religious and so irresisti- 
 ble under the circumstances that, although no 
 lone knew the words, the air was taken up in a 
 serious humming chant by all in the room. 
 
 At the last note of the amen, little Father Ware- 
 ing, his black garb snaggled in places and badly 
 soiled, stood before the center table and lifted his 
 head back until the morning light, filtering 
 through the open hatch above him, shone down 
 on his kindly, weary face. He recited the Lord's 
 Prayer, all present joined, and the simple, im- 
 pressive service ended as simply as it had begun. 
 
 Two minutes later I saw the old German Jew 
 traveling man limping about on one lame leg with 
 a little boy in his arms, collecting big round Brit- 
 ish pennies for the youngster. 
 
 A survey and cruise of the nearby area re- 
 vealed no more occupied boats and the mine 
 sweeper, with its load of survivors numbering 
 267, steamed away to the east. A half-an-hour's 
 
34 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 steaming and the vessel stopped within hailing 
 distance of two sister ships, towards one of which 
 an open boat, manned by jackies, was pulling. 
 
 I saw the hysterical French-Polish actress, her 
 hair wet and bedraggled, lifted out of the boat and 
 handed up the companionway. Then a little boy, 
 his fresh pink face and golden hair shining in the 
 morning light, was passed upward, followed by 
 some other survivors, numbering fourteen in all, 
 who had been found half drowned and almost 
 dead from exposure in a partially wrecked boat 
 that was just sinking. 
 
 This was the boat in which Mrs. Hoy and her 
 daughter lost their lives and in which Cedric P. 
 Ivatt of New York, who was the manager for the 
 actress, died. It has not been ascertained here 
 whether Mr. Ivatt was an American citizen or a 
 British subject. 
 
 One of the survivors of this boat was Able Sea- 
 man Walley, who was transferred to the Labur- 
 num. 
 
 "Our boat — No. 8 — ^was smashed in lowering," 
 he said. "I was in the bow, Mrs. Hoy and her 
 daughter were sitting toward the stern. The boat 
 filled with water rapidly. It was no use trying 
 to bail it out — there was a big hole in the side and 
 
HOW THE LACONIA SANK 35 
 
 it came in too fast. It just sunk to the water's 
 edge and only stayed up on account of the tanks 
 in it. It was completely awash. Every swell rode 
 clear over us and we had to hold our breath until 
 we came to the surface again. The cold water 
 just takes the strength out of you. 
 
 "The women got weaker and weaker, then a 
 wave came and washed both of them out of the 
 boat. There were life-belts on their bodies and 
 they floated away, but I believe they were dead 
 before they were washed overboard." 
 
 With such stories ringing in our ears, with ex- 
 changes of experiences pathetic and humorous, 
 we came steaming into Queenstown harbor short- 
 ly after ten o'clock tonight. We pulled up at a 
 dock lined with waiting ambulances and khaki- 
 clad men, who directed the survivors to the vari- 
 ous hotels about the town, where they are being 
 quartered. 
 
 The question being asked of the Americans on 
 all sides is : "Is it the casus belli?" 
 
 American Consul Wesley Frost is forwarding 
 all information to Washington with a speed and 
 carefulness resulting from the experiences in 
 handling twenty-live previous submarine disas- 
 ters in which the United States has had an in- 
 
36 HOW THE LACONIA SANK 
 
 terest, especially in the survivors landed at this 
 port. 
 
 His best figures on the Laconia sinking are: 
 Total survivors landed here, 267 ; landed at Bant- 
 ry, 14; total on board, 294; missing 13. 
 
 The latest information from Bantry, the only 
 other port at which survivors are known to have 
 been landed, confirms the report of the death of 
 Mrs. Hoy and her daughter. 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 ON THE MEXICAN BORDER 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 ON THE MEXICAN BORDER 
 
 I. 
 
 THE CALL TO THE COLORS. 
 
 September, 1916. 
 
 Without a single man killed in action, with- 
 out a single engagement with an enemy, without 
 the firing of a hostile shot, the armed civilian 
 forces of the United States, numbering approxi- 
 mately 100,000 men, have been drawn up in more 
 or less military array along the nation's border 
 for more than two months. These American cit- 
 izens left their many homes and families, their 
 jobs, stores, and factories, when war was in the 
 air. A national crisis was at hand — or at least 
 everybody was led to believe that it was. In each 
 troop-train that hurried borderward, guardsmen 
 were hoping and praying that hostilities would 
 not begin until they had reached the firing line. 
 
 It was a glorious sight for those who believed 
 
40 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 that one bugle blast from the porte-cochere of the 
 White House and "a million men would spring 
 to arms." 
 
 It was a disheartening spectacle but at the same 
 time an "I told you so" demonstration for those 
 who believe in the democracy of universal mili- 
 tary service, big navy, and unquestioning support 
 of American rights by force, anywhere, any time, 
 anyhow. 
 
 It is a matter of suspended judgment for anoth- 
 er and larger class, which subscribes to neither 
 of the extreme doctrines of the pacifist or the mil- 
 itarist, but believes soundly in that poorly defined 
 something called "adequate national defense." 
 These "rationalists" are now ready to consider 
 the performances and results of the last two 
 months' pursuit of military duties on the border 
 by the federalized militia. 
 
 Our national experience in defensiveness has 
 been a costly one. The government has paid mil- 
 lions for the transporting and supplying of the 
 men who answered the call to the colors. The 
 men themselves have paid millions in lost time, 
 lost salary, lost profits, lost opportunities. The 
 stay-at-homes, some of them, have paid other un- 
 estimated sums for the relief of militia depen- 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 41 
 
 dents. Industries crippled at a time of glorious 
 shortage of labor and consequent wage prosperity 
 suffered the loss of their militia employes, many 
 of whom held important posts in the industrial 
 organization. 
 
 The total cost will be a difficult one to compute. 
 It will be enormous. Now to take advantage of 
 the expenditure. Now to get our money's worth, 
 dollar for dollar; now to reap the benefits of the 
 lesson, to learn what there is to be learned, what 
 we have paid to learn, and credit the sum total 
 cost to education. 
 
 To begin with, there is one fact of which the 
 general public is not aware. That is that the 
 border mobilization was not planned by the gen- 
 eral staff of the War Department. This staff is 
 composed of the brains of the army for the pur- 
 pose of giving the nation the benefit of scientific 
 direction and management of its military affairs. 
 The notion of sending untrained troops to the 
 border at the time they were sent did not originate 
 in the mind of the general staff. And it is the 
 generally accepted belief — among regular army 
 officers — that the sudden call to the border was 
 diametrically opposed to the recommendations of 
 the general staff. 
 
42 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 The regular army plan for the mobilization, so 
 far as it has leaked out, called for the assembly of 
 the several state guards in their respective state 
 concentration points where their organization was 
 to be completed, the work of recruiting up to war 
 strength begun, and, more important still, the 
 enormous labor of completely equipping the mil- 
 itiamen. Following this, the plan specified the 
 mobilization of the troops in army posts in or ad- 
 jacent to their states, where the men could occupy 
 the barracks left empty by the departure of all 
 the regular forces for the border. 
 
 In these army posts, upon which the nation has 
 spent millions of dollars, the militiamen were to 
 have received their soldierly training under all the 
 accommodations of barrack life, which would 
 have permitted a greater application of time and 
 effort on drilling and thoroughly acquainting the 
 men with the use of their arms. Relieved of the 
 distracting and uninteresting labor of camp house- 
 keeping, the ditch digging, the brush cutting, the 
 potato peeling, and sanitation drudgery, the men 
 were to have devoted their entire energies to an 
 intensive study of soldiering, target practice, fire 
 control and distribution, field maneuvers, lectures, 
 officer school, etc. 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 43 
 
 There was nothing new about the plan. It is 
 in use today in the training camps in Canada, in 
 Australia, and other contributing colonies of the 
 entente allies, where the regiments of territorials 
 are being trained and drilled at or near their 
 homes, in accustomed climates while they ha- 
 bituate themselves to unaccustomed work and un- 
 accustomed diet. It has always been used in Ger- 
 many, in France — the great military nations. 
 The "seasoning" process which is concomitant 
 with the scientifically abandoned deception that 
 men to become soldiers must be exposed to pri- 
 vations, discomforts, and a general "roughing 
 it" program, has in the experience of the last few 
 years been condemned as a debilitating detriment 
 to individual military effectiveness. 
 
 In Montreal the camp drudgery is done by pris- 
 oners, laborers, and fighting ineflfectives. The sol- 
 diers-to-be undergo ten hours' strict soldier train- 
 ing daily for six days a week, and on the seventh 
 they have a recreation period which permits them 
 to visit the cit}'- and spend the day with their 
 friends or family. The recruits are not sent far 
 away to some unaccustomed climate to learn their 
 new vocation. And Canada is at war. 
 
 Although the border mobilization of the militia 
 
44 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 was secretly condemned by the military experts, 
 in view of its absolute ignoring of the general 
 staff's recommendations, the War Department, 
 working under the handicap of unpreparedness 
 as to plans, ways, or means, applied itself 
 obediently to the will of the state department or 
 whatever governmental division directed the bor- 
 der bungle. 
 
 Away went the boys to the border, bands play- 
 ing, flags waving, mothers crying, fathers chok- 
 ing, sweethearts thrilling, cameras snapping, 
 typewriters clacking, transmitters clicking, news- 
 boys shouting, everybody cheering — 
 
 Away they went to dare and do 
 For the old red, white, and blue, 
 
 Villa chasing, 
 
 Self-effacing, 
 Through the mesquite in the cactus, 
 Bully boys they were that backed us, 
 
 Double timing, 
 
 Songsters rhyming, 
 "Dolly Gray" and "Blue Bell" chiming, 
 
 Busting greasers 
 
 On their beezers, 
 "Up and beat 'em" — ^ad infinitum. 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 45 
 
 II 
 
 EN ROUTE 
 
 Transportation was the first difficulty which 
 betrayed the lack of industrial preparedness. The 
 railroads did wonderfully well — far better than 
 it was expected they could do. They had never 
 done so well before. The rail managers pointed 
 with pride to their achievements. Yet in moving 
 100,000 men across the continent to the border, 
 nothing more was accomplished than has been 
 done numerous times during large national con- 
 ventions or world's expositions. 
 
 The militiamen wanted sleeping cars, and the 
 minute they asked for them up went the cry of 
 "mollycoddle," and the stay-at-home wits began 
 to inquire whether each of the boys in khaki would 
 like to have his valet in attendance throughout 
 the campaign. Sleeping-cars were not necessary. 
 That was proved by dozens of troop-trains of 
 dingy, overloaded day-coaches from the Atlantic 
 seaboard lines, which reached the Rio Grande 
 valley after five and six days' railroad bufifeting, 
 and discharged their weary, sleepless, unwashed 
 human freight. 
 
46 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 There were plenty of sleeping-cars. But they 
 were in use by the regular traffic. You see the 
 reason the militiamen asked for sleeping-cars was 
 this — they felt they were the fire department an- 
 swering the alarm. As such they believed they 
 should have had precedence over all other traffic. 
 They felt that in return for the sacrifices they 
 were making in rushing to the colors, the general 
 public should make some compensating sacrifice, 
 particularly if such sacrifice would enable the men 
 to reach the border sooner and in better condition. 
 
 '*We can get along without sleepers all right," 
 one Massachusetts infantryman told me as he and 
 his company detrained from dilapidated Boston 
 and Albany day coaches in El Paso. "We can 
 travel in box cars if there is the necessity, but 
 there has been no need of it. You can satisfy 
 your hunger all right with a cup of black coffee 
 and three hardtack, but there is no use eating that 
 stuff if there is roast beef and potatoes in front 
 of you, or even a Saturday night mess of 'Boston 
 baked.' " 
 
 And speaking of food recalls the disquieting 
 dispatches from Cleveland and other points where 
 the headlines shoot home twinges of responsibil- 
 ity with "Militia en Route Riot for Food," 
 
I 
 
 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 47 
 
 "Guardsmen Storm Restaurants," and "Sol- 
 diers Leave Trains to Raid Grocery Stores." 
 "Food riots" is the phrase to which we were ac- 
 customed only in connection with British stories 
 of conditions in Germany or our own unemploy- 
 ment problem. 
 
 The food shortag-e on the troop trains was at- 
 tributed to three causes. They were: Insuffi- 
 ciency of supplies, untastefulness of diet, and poor 
 management of what supplies there were. Some 
 New Yorkers told me that they made the entire 
 trip on hardtack and water — prison fare. Some 
 with private funds were able to purchase sand- 
 wiches at wayside stations, but officers who do- 
 nated large sums to the relief of their men on the 
 trip found many instances where they were un- 
 able to buy food in sufficient quantities. Many 
 were the telegrams that were sent on in advance 
 of the troop-trains to have 2,000 hard-boiled eggs 
 waiting at such and such a station at such and 
 such a time, and many were the disappointments 
 and belt tightenings when the food failed to ap- 
 pear. 
 
 It is admitted that there was much wastage of 
 supplies and there is no, question that "wilful 
 waste" drew its complement of "woeful want." 
 
48 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 Lack of experience on the part of the guardsmen 
 was the reason. Empty stomach travehng ended 
 upon the arrival of the miHtiamen in the south- 
 west — the happy hunting ground of the real 
 estate gentry, the land of salesmen, the colony 
 builders, and the town lot peddlers. 
 
 Thus it was that the militiamen, detrained at 
 their respective destinations along the border, 
 were marched forth to the edges of the pros- 
 pective metropolis at which they had landed and 
 there introduced to the brush-covered jungle 
 which they were to improve and change to the site 
 for a future town addition. 
 
 In many of the towns the industrious booster 
 bund had sent gangs of Mexican laborers through 
 the brush to decimate the undergrowth with 
 their machetes, and in other places to lay water 
 piping for the company streets which had been 
 planned hurriedly by the regular army officers in 
 charge of designating the camp sites. The men 
 went to work with a will, clearing the brush, dig- 
 ging draining ditches, hauling, carting, carrying. 
 
 In Brownsville the Iowa brigade landed and 
 took the first look at its future home. Cactus 
 and mesquite, Spanish dagger and ebony brush, 
 mud, water, heat and insects were the tenants to 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 49 
 
 be ousted. Animal and vegetable life alike wore 
 horns and thorns, stickers and prickers, stingers 
 and biters. Fleas and flies, mosquitoes and chig- 
 gers, blister bugs and buzzing beetles, tarantulas, 
 scorpions, centipedes of all sizes and colors, 
 snakes of varying length, complexion and dispo- 
 sition, all joined with the local chamber of com- 
 merce in extending a rousing welcome. 
 
 III. 
 
 IN MANANA LAND 
 
 It WAS the same throughout that tropical strip 
 which is called the lower Rio Grande valley and 
 which bears the military designation of the 
 Brownsville district. It was slightly different but 
 no better, to the north and west along the sandy 
 desert wastes to the border river. Westward 
 from El Paso along the boundary lines the scen- 
 ery changed to a more somber desolate hue, the 
 air became lighter, the sun seemingly stronger, 
 but the average condition of the militiamen was 
 pretty much the same as those tucked away in the 
 geographical end of all things where the Rio 
 Grande, the Gulf of Mexico, the United States 
 of America, and the Dis-United States of Mex- 
 ico collide. 
 
so THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 For seemingly unending hours, days, and 
 weeks the guardsmen labored on their improve- 
 ment work, their town addition building, their 
 road construction, their camp housekeeping du- 
 ties — ''knitting," as the men called it. White in- 
 habitants of the 'Unanana land" frontier looked 
 on and marveled. "White men," which is the 
 nomenclature for those who are not Mexicans, 
 complimented the display of northern "pep" with 
 which the guardsmen attacked the work in front 
 of them. In the Rio Grande tropics such labor 
 is done only by Mexicans, of whom there are 
 thousands who work for from fifty cents to 
 one dollar a day. 
 
 The colonel of an Iowa regiment showed me 
 his men, tugging away at loaded transport 
 wagons, working in the places of the absent army 
 mules, to drag the loaded vehicles away from the 
 camp and dump the collected refuse. The regi- 
 ment was shy on mules. The men had to place 
 their shoulders to the yoke. 
 
 The duration of this labor and the extent to 
 which it interfered with the training of the men 
 is officially hinted in a recent published state- 
 ment from General Parker, commander of the 
 B.rownsville district. When domestic pressure 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 51 
 
 was being applied to bring about the recall of the 
 First Illinois cavalry to its home state, General 
 Parker, in advising against the recall, said that 
 the regiment had almost completed the fatigue 
 work and was just ready to get some good train- 
 ing. This was after the pick and shovel exercise 
 had lasted three months. 
 
 The medical officers were determined to pre- 
 vent a repetition of Chattanooga and Montauk 
 Point. Intensive sanitation, that peace-time oc- 
 cupation which keeps idle soldiers busy after they 
 are trained, was pursued vigorously. In some 
 of the camps it became necessary to dig long 
 drainage ditches to carry off the surface water, 
 which increased the insect life to a menace. The 
 size of these works might be inferred from the 
 names with which the men dubbed them — "the 
 Panama Canal," ''the English Channel," and 
 "Gondola Avenue." 
 
 Construction of latrines, mess-halls, inciner- 
 ators, the oiling of stagnant water, hauling and 
 similar labors engaged the time and energy of 
 the northerners and northwesterners and north- 
 easterners, under the direct rays of a tropical sun 
 which drove the mercury up to 127 and even be- 
 yond. 
 
52 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 I stood one day in front of the quarters of 
 Brigadier General Dyer of the Second New York 
 brigade, at McAllen, Texas, and saw the ther- 
 mometer register 125. By placing the palm of the 
 hand on the glass the mercury could be made to 
 fall almost to blood heat. 
 
 "We are human refrigerators," one of the gen- 
 eral's aids said. 
 
 'T think the thermometer is wrong," observed 
 the general. 
 
 He brought another instrument from within 
 his quarters and replaced the first one in the sun. 
 We stood by and watched the indicator rise from 
 98 to 118 degrees. 
 
 It was in such igneous air as this that the citi- 
 zen soldier jumped into work which only Mexican 
 peons, weazened and withered as to exterior but 
 wiry and enduring as to internal arrangement, 
 attempted to perform in this part of the country. 
 I heard Texans of long border experience say 
 they would mutiny if forced to such extremes. 
 
 Of course, there was no mutiny. The men 
 stood the gaff. They stood it like good fellows. 
 Certainly it was hot. They became dizzy from 
 the sun. Climatic combinations tended to debili- 
 tate, to sap strength and stamina, but they bore 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 53 
 
 it. Unaccustomed to the work, unaccustomed to 
 the cHmate, unaccustomed to the diet, they went 
 at whatever was put before them with bhnd faith 
 in the beHef that it was making soldiers of them. 
 Every man in the national guard wanted to be 
 a soldier. 
 
 IV 
 
 CAMP FARE 
 
 There was much difficulty with the food, but 
 most of the blame devolved upon the shoulders 
 of the cooks, who were untrained in the prepara- 
 tion of army rations. The depot quartermaster, 
 as far as I was able to learn, was never remiss 
 in his supplies of coffee, bacon, hardtack, beans, 
 and flour. The supplies, dealt out on the basis 
 of twenty-six cents' worth per day per man, were 
 seldom missing, but it was a diet which the men 
 found hard to stomach day after day. Said a 
 V^irginia infantryman one day, as I was walking 
 through his company street at mess time: "This 
 is the same grub the army deals out to the men 
 up in Alaska in midwinter. I wonder why we 
 can't get some fresh vegetables. That's all they 
 are supposed to produce in this valley." 
 
 Leaden pellets of uncooked rice are far from 
 
54 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 appetizing, and the fact that the cook is a friend 
 of yours and you know that he is doing the best 
 he can doesn't reHeve the indigestion and intes- 
 tinal disorders that are sure to follow. Ptomaine 
 poison was certain to break out, and it did. There 
 were 203 serious cases of the poisoning in one 
 Minnesota regiment at Llano Grande on account 
 of canned stufifs. The cooks of the regiment re- 
 ported that when they jabbed a knife into some 
 of the cans of tomatoes which were issued to 
 them the cans immediately spouted blood-red gey- 
 sers of sour catsup. 
 
 When the grumbling about the food began 
 there was a marked improvement, and in many 
 regiments regular army cooks arrived, tardily, to 
 explain cuisine mysteries to their civilian prote- 
 ges. Competent cooks could have been obtained, 
 but the army will not pay the wages of an as- 
 sistant cook at a third-class restaurant in the 
 "loop." 
 
 Private funds, both individual and collective, 
 went far toward satisfying the militiamen's 
 healthy craving for a more varied diet than the 
 army ration permitted. Infantry companies from 
 the southern part of Minnesota supplemented their 
 messes by purchases from company funds which 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 55 
 
 ranged all the way from $200 to $2,000, raised 
 from public subscriptions back in the towns from 
 which the companies came. The "boys" looked 
 upon that fund as a life saver after a few weeks 
 of the heavy, heatening "chow." 
 
 With the arrival of the militiamen numerous 
 restaurants sprang up over night in the nearby 
 towns and on the edges of the camps. Quite fre- 
 quently these institutions contributed momentary 
 satiety to the hunger gnawing, but subsequently 
 internal revolutions, too. Brownsville news- 
 papers editorially advocated the establishment of 
 food inspection in these "eating houses." By 
 way of comparison with the tiresome camp fare, 
 it was worth a trial, anyway, and men who could 
 afford it ate in town as frequently as their pocket- 
 books and camp leave would permit. 
 
 In Mc Allen, the headquarters for the New York 
 division, one Greek met another Greek, and of 
 course, they opened up a restaurant, under the 
 sign "Jack's Branch, 2,500 Miles From Broad- 
 way." In Brownsville the "Chicago Bar" ad- 
 vertised free lunch, while the Manhattan and 
 Oriental Cafe presented elaborate bills of fare, 
 from which at times diners could select some- 
 thing that happened to be in stock. At San An- 
 
56 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 tonio and El Paso there was real food to be had — 
 regular meals, with music and lights and danc- 
 ing, roof gardens, cabarets, all to supply a change 
 from the *'come-and-get-it" stuff. 
 
 Dainty tastes and finick)^ appetites were put to 
 rout b}' the stomachs that had to supply the 
 steam for all the work that had to be done. The 
 enormous amount of camp labor, which is well 
 called "fatigue," and the order of General Fun- 
 ston interfered greatly with the real soldier train- 
 ing of the men. It was decreed that the men were 
 not to be drilled or placed on hard fatigue between 
 the hours of lo a. m. and 3 p. m., on account of the 
 heat. This order was followed as closely as the 
 troop commanders could, although there were 
 numerous unnecessary exceptions. The regi- 
 mental veterinarians heartily concurred in the or- 
 der, because they had in mind the condition of 
 the few horses possessed by the regiment, of 
 which approximately ten per cent were on the 
 sick picket line most of the time. 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 57 
 
 V 
 
 A TEXAS HURRICANE 
 
 Again, the destructiveness of the rain and 
 wind storms seemed to make the fatigue almost 
 interminable. After rains, drill schedules would 
 have to be abandoned for days while new ditches 
 were dug or old ones deepened or extended, or 
 surface water drained, or oiled, or blown-down 
 tents re-erected and patched together. One night 
 the wind and rain were so intense that the ma- 
 jority of the 40,000 men in the valley found 
 themselves shelterless and forced to abandon 
 their camps for the more stable habitations of 
 the nearest town. General Parker's orders on 
 that day read : 
 
 HEADQUARTERS BROWNSVILLE DISTRICT, 
 Brownsville, Texas, 
 
 August 18, 1916. 
 From : District Commander. 
 To: All commanding officers of troops in Brownsville 
 
 Camps. 
 Subject: Preparation for storm. 
 
 1. In view of the increasing severity of the storm and 
 the weather prophecy that it will not reach its height of 
 violence until near midnight tonight, it may be necessary 
 to take temporary shelter in the town of Brownsville. In 
 
58 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 that case the commanding general directs assignment of 
 shelter as follows : 
 
 Iowa brigade, brigade headquarters and First regiment 
 
 to city hall. 
 Second Iowa to public school building. 
 Third Iowa and company of Iowa engineers to the 
 
 courthouse. 
 First Illinois cavalry, new schoolhouse. 
 Virginia Troops. 
 
 First regiment to Fort Brown. 
 
 Second regiment to moving picture theaters. 
 One battalion Iowa field artillery to Hinckley hall. 
 All field hospitals and ambulance companies on Victoria 
 
 Heights to the new base hospital. 
 Thirty-sixth infantry to any shelter in the vicinity of 
 
 their camp south of Levee street. Suggested freight 
 
 and passenger depots or large mills or warehouses 
 
 along railroad. 
 Battery D, Fifth field artillery, to quartermaster's depot 
 
 at rice mill. 
 
 2. Any detachments of troops left unprovided for to 
 Fort Brown. Detachments under an officer will be left in 
 each camp to look after public animals and government 
 property. 
 
 3. The regiments will march equipped for the field and 
 carry two days' cooked rations and receptacles for making 
 cofifee; candles and lamps will be taken. 
 
 4. Officers will remain with their organizations. 
 By command of Brigadier General Parker. 
 
 F. McCoy, 
 Captain Third Cavalry, Acting Chief of Staff. 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 59 
 
 The only camp in the storm district not blown 
 down was that of the First Illinois cavalry, which 
 had been floored and framed by private subscrip- 
 tion raised by Colonel Foreman after Secretary of 
 War Baker had refused the recommendation of 
 the local commanders for lumber. 
 
 VI 
 
 FIELD TRAINING UNDER DIFFICULTIES 
 
 These conditions, ever recurring during the 
 ten weeks in which I observed the militiamen, 
 prevented adequate training. Other detracting 
 features were lack of facilities for training and 
 lack of equipment. Many of the regiments were 
 on the border six weeks without having as much 
 as fired one single practice shot. 
 
 At San Benito, the camp of the First Oklahoma 
 infantry, I talked with Captain Jarboe, who four 
 years ago was the champion long distance rifle 
 shot of the world. He said that his men only 
 theoretically knew how to insert a cartridge into 
 the chambers of their rifles. No ammunition had 
 been issued to them. There had been no target 
 practice for the regiment since the state encamp- 
 
6o THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 merit the year before, and with the organization 
 increased about fifty per cent by recruits, he said 
 he beheved there were some men in the regiment 
 who had never fired a gun. 
 
 The Iowa and Virginia brigades at Browns- 
 ville were in little better condition. The first 
 night, sentries from among these boys from the 
 prairies and the Blue Ridge walked their lonely 
 posts on the edge of the clearings, their guns were 
 empty and so were their belts. "If anybody had 
 tried to jump our camp, we would have had to 
 club 'em back," said an lowan. 
 
 At Llano Grande, where Brigadier General 
 Lewis commanded the provisional division com- 
 posed of Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, and 
 North Dakota troops, a month and a half had 
 expired before arrangements had been made to 
 train the men in the actual firing of their rifles. 
 
 Then the training was conducted on a min- 
 iature scale. The size and range of the targets 
 were reduced to suit cramped accommodations. 
 The targets were located only lOO feet from the 
 firing line. The men started to train in small num- 
 bers at these "shooting gallery" ranges, and many 
 of them confessed that they had no idea of a dis- 
 tance of 500 yards, which is the battle-sight range 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 6i 
 
 with the Springfield rifles. The range of this gun 
 extends to 2,000 yards and more, a distance at 
 which the American soldier with his high- 
 powered, long-range weapon would have the ad- 
 vantage over Mexicans armed with shorter range 
 pieces. But throughout the first two months of 
 the border mobilization even such practice was 
 limited. 
 
 At San Antonio, apparently there w^as no avail- 
 able space for field exercises or target practice, 
 because the infantry regiments, long before they 
 had been completely shod, were marched twenty 
 miles or more to practice grounds where they 
 could do target work and maneuvers. Through 
 this arrangement the efficiency of the men was 
 reduced, not only by the heat of the unaccustomed 
 marches in w^iich hundreds collapsed, but the dis- 
 comforts attendant upon living in pup-tents and 
 the scarcity of water supply. 
 
 The Illinois artillery arrived at San Antonio 
 with only one battery that had even fired a 
 shot. A month later when the batteries went to 
 Leon Springs for maneuvers and practice, regu- 
 lar army instructors severely criticised the organ- 
 ization and said that they would be worse than 
 useless in field operations owing to their slowness 
 
62 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 in taking and leaving positions and manipulating 
 the guns. Nevertheless, the batteries were re- 
 stricted to a few rounds of ammunition with 
 which to attempt improvement. The Minnesota ar- 
 tillery at Llano Grande had had only sub-caliber 
 practice — which means aiming a cannon and fir- 
 ing a pistol blank cartridge. 
 
 VII 
 
 CAVALRY AND ARTILLERY NOT READY 
 
 Non-uniformity of equipment resulted in 
 further reduction of efficiency, not to mention the 
 military appearance of the guardsmen. Some wore 
 khaki of one hue, some of another ; some had leg- 
 gings of one vintage and some of another; some 
 had the back packs of the latest model and others 
 had the old smother rolls that were over the left 
 shoulder, complemented by a cumbersome haver- 
 sack dangling from the left hip. Some had the 
 new bottle canteens and others had the old pan- 
 cake variety. 
 
 These incongruities extended into the vital 
 matter of arms. In a cavalry regiment at 
 Brownsville some of the men carried the new 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 63 
 
 regulation automatic pistols, while the rest were 
 provided with an old issue sidearm of the revolver 
 type. This meant that the regiment would have 
 to depend upon being supplied with two different 
 kinds of ammunition, 38-caliber cartridges for 
 the old revolvers and 45-caliber shells for the 
 new automatics. In addition, some of the troops 
 had the old curved sabers and others had the 
 new lance sabers, each calling for a different set 
 of regulations covering their use. An assorted 
 shipment of saddles, some of one color leather, 
 some of another, completed the hodgepodge. 
 
 The lack of horses was felt by all of the militia 
 organizations. The infantry regiments could not 
 get enough mounts for officers and orderlies or 
 mules for the transport wagons. This handicap 
 greatly interfered with and consequently pro- 
 longed the camp work, which meant just that 
 much more time away from drilling. Again, the 
 lack of transport prevented the foot regiments 
 from attempting extended marches as regiments 
 and removed the possibility of their ever cross- 
 ing the border, if the order for invasion had been 
 received. 
 
 It is no recent knowledge that an army travels 
 on its stomach and without transport service a 
 
64 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 regiment is without supplies for the traveling bel- 
 lies. Consequently it would be able to advance 
 just as far as the food carried individually by the 
 men would take them. 
 
 Artillery regiments were in almost the same 
 fix. Not only were most of them unable to obtain 
 mules for their combat wagons, but horses to 
 drag the field pieces were missing. The Iowa 
 artillery at Brownsville didn't have enough 
 horses. The Illinois batteries arrived with only 
 a handful of horses, hardly sufficient to haul a 
 small portion of their armament and supply 
 trains. The Indiana artillery at Llano Grande 
 was able to move about as far as a coast defense 
 fort; the Minnesota artillery at the same place 
 could just as well have changed its military des- 
 ignation from field artillery to stationary artillery. 
 The New York artillery brigade had horses 
 enough for one and a half regiments when I 
 visited it two months after its arrival at the 
 ''front." 
 
 "Dead horses" was the name which the men 
 applied to the majority of the animals which were 
 received from the government. Most of them were 
 undersized, soft, and sickly. The picket lines of 
 the veterinarians usually had ten per cent of the 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 65 
 
 unit's horseflesh under treatment for influenza, 
 catarrh, and shipping fever. Frequent appHca- 
 tions of creosote were necessary to keep the ani- 
 mals from being devoured by ticks and insects. 
 When one miHtia outfit at Brownsville brought its 
 horses to Fort Brown to have them shod, the 
 regular army veterinarians refused to permit the 
 animals in the same corral with the regular army 
 horses on account of the condition of the militia 
 live stock. 
 
 Then there was the matter of horseshoes, or 
 rather there wasn't the matter of horseshoes. 
 The matter really was that there were no horse- 
 shoes. Our cavalry and artillery horses were 
 barefooted. It wasn't so bad when the ground 
 was soft from the rains, but when the road be- 
 came hard and baked under the sun equination 
 ceased or was indulged in with utmost care on 
 account of the barefooted condition of the horses. 
 The First Illinois cavalry after weeks of requi- 
 sitioning received some horseshoes, but not enough 
 to shoe the regiment and not more than enough 
 to shoe the front feet of the insufficient number 
 of horses which the regiment had. In all mounted 
 regiments the scarcity of horseshoes and quite 
 frequently the absence of tools and horseshoeing 
 
66 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 outfits would have made horseshoeing out of the 
 question, even if horseshoes had been obtainable. 
 
 At Llano Grande, Batteries A, B, and C of 
 Indiana were without horseshoes, although after 
 six weeks they had received horses. Because the 
 horses were barefooted the officers had to drill 
 the artillerymen on foot. The guardsmen manned 
 the field pieces as they used to back in their In- 
 diana armories every Thursday night, and went 
 through stationary firing drills, but mounted prac- 
 tice was out of the question. 
 
 Of this Indiana battalion one ofificer told me that 
 none of the men in the organization had fired a 
 real shot in more than a year and that there were 
 some of the recruits who had never heard a can- 
 non fired. He said that arrangements were being 
 made with Fort Brown to transport the men of 
 the Indiana units to Brownsville on motor trucks 
 and there borrow the guns of the Iowa artillery 
 for firing practice on old Palo Alto battlefield, ten 
 miles out of that town. This meant, if carried out, 
 that the gunners would practice marksmanship on 
 one set of guns and then, if needed in battle, would 
 try their luck on an entirely different set. 
 
 The Minnesota artillery at Llano Grande could 
 not move because of the universal discrepancy be- 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 67 
 
 tween sizes of the horses' necks and the sizes of 
 the army steel collars. The collars did not fit and 
 apparently were not possible of an adjustment that 
 would make them fit. The result was that ex- 
 tended mounted drill was impracticable and offi- 
 cers of the battalion were trying to arrange to 
 have the pieces dragged to Brownsville behind 
 motor trucks so that the men could get some much 
 needed firing practice. Palo Alto battlefield was 
 the only place in the valley where the army could 
 secure a sufficient expanse of unpopulated land 
 for artillery practice, and its flatness, absence of 
 ridges and rolling country made the test of up- 
 to-date indirect firing out of the question. 
 
 The First New York cavalry and its fashion- 
 able satellite, Squadron A, brought most of their 
 horses with them to McAllen, where they were 
 placed in camp with a twenty-acre swamp on one 
 side of them and the brigade dump on the other 
 side. The swamp contributed mosquitoes and the 
 dump incubated flies and gnats. I watched a 
 trooper in this camp as he conveyed a spoonful of 
 beans from his mess kit to his mouth. He lifted 
 the spoon with his left hand while with his right 
 hand he fanned it to protect it from insects on the 
 trip to the mouth. Two men conversing in the open 
 
68 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 took on the appearance of a prize ring contest, or 
 pantomime, or a case of St. Vitus's dance. The 
 helpless horses were subjected to a constant night- 
 and-day irritation from the hungry swarms. 
 
 I talked with the colonel of the First New York 
 horse for ten minutes and became exhausted from 
 swinging hands and arms in front of my face and 
 head to keep the horde of insects in motion. 
 
 "We're going to move to another site," the 
 colonel said. "We can't stand it here." 
 
 Neither could I. 
 
 VIII 
 
 QUARTERMASTER DEPARTMENT HARD PUT 
 
 The divisional cavalry of New York was fortu- 
 nate in completing its quota of horses. One of its 
 officers happened to be detailed to the horse pur- 
 chasing board in San Antonio, with the result that 
 his regiment was probably the first and possibly 
 the only completely mounted militia cavalry unit 
 on the border. 
 
 The First Illinois cavalry attempted three 
 practice marches with its horses. Only one squad- 
 ron could ride at a time, because to put one squad- 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 69 
 
 ron on horse left the other two squadrons on 
 the ground. The horses walked about eighteen 
 miles on each of the two days. They marched 
 at a rate less than two and a quarter miles per 
 hour, which is also less than the infantry rate. 
 These marches so exhausted the horses that 
 the third squadron never had its march. 
 
 On the contrary there was no mounted drill 
 for four days. The reason was that the two short 
 walks had made the horses unfit for immediate 
 use. During the four days, the cavalrymen 
 drilled on foot or went back to pick and shovel 
 exercises. After two months' presence on the 
 border this regiment, when ordered to move 
 twenty-six miles to Point Isabel for maneuvers, 
 had to send a large number of its men on motor 
 trucks. 
 
 I know one cavalryman in that regiment who 
 told me he had never been on a horse. I heard 
 another one paraphrase an old burlesque gag. He 
 said, "If I had a saddle, I would take a ride if 
 I had a horse." Yes, it is true that the regiment 
 did not have enough saddles. Frantic appeals to 
 San Antonio finally brought a shipment of sad- 
 dles, but not enough. The cases that contained 
 them bore the date "1898," I was told by a lieu- 
 
70 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 tenant who opened them and found the saddles 
 to be of black leather and an ancient issue. The 
 dry hide crackled with the salt with which it had 
 become impregnated when it was under the Gal- 
 veston flood. 
 
 The leather tore almost like paper. A charge, 
 an extra pressure on the stirrup, a parting of the 
 straps, a plunge over the horse's head, a broken 
 neck. It all happened except the broken neck. 
 The trooper was only stunned. 
 
 Concerning military equipment the American 
 layman's knowledge is usually confined to a recol- 
 lection that it is all marked "U. S." On a train 
 through the camps of the Brownsville district I 
 sat behind an officer's wife. She was from Chi- 
 cago. We were passing rows of tents that bore 
 the black stamp "L C." 
 
 'T thought they were all marked *U. S.'," she 
 said to her seat mate. "What is 'L C for? Oh, 
 I know; they are railroad tents; the government 
 borrowed them from the Illinois Central." 
 
 A lieutenant across the aisle corrected her. 
 
 " T. C means 'Inspected and Condemned,' " 
 he said, and added : "And there are tons of equip- 
 ment through this valley that the inspectors 
 haven't stamped yet." 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 71 
 
 It was '1. C." canvas, in holes and shreds, that 
 covered the sick of the Fourth United States in- 
 fantry at Fort Brown. There were the sick men, 
 there was the ragged tentage over them, there 
 was the convicting lettering "I. C." And for 
 the tenting which the inspectors had kindly miss- 
 ed because there was no new canvas to replace 
 it, the elements stamped their further condemna- 
 tion with more rents and tears. 
 
 "I. C." is better than no canvas at all, and so 
 it was that all organizations clung with deathlike 
 grip to what they had and prayed that it would 
 last until new covering could be obtained. Much 
 of it failed. Little of the tentage was uniform or 
 new. There were white tents and brown tents, 
 pyramidal tents and conical Sibleys, and wall tents 
 of all sizes. "J^st like the gypsies," said one offi- 
 cer of an El Paso camp as he waved his hand at 
 the assortment. 
 
 The machine gun troop of the First New York 
 cavalry had no tents at all, and after six weeks in 
 the federal service its members were still bunking 
 around the regiment in the tents of other troops. 
 The regular limit of occupants for one of the new 
 pyramidal tents is eight men, but a large number 
 of these tents were crowded with ten occupants. 
 
72 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 Eight companies of the Third Indiana infantry 
 were without camp tentage from June 1 1 , the day 
 of their arrival at Llano Grande, until July 24, and 
 rain fell in torrents much of the time. "We were 
 an example of unpreparedness," one officer told 
 me. 
 
 This regiment had cots for half of the men after 
 six weeks in camp, during which time the men 
 who could not purchase cots from private funds 
 were sleeping on the ground — the mud, because 
 there had been no lumber for flooring issued. 
 Many of the men improvised flooring from boxes, 
 crates, fence boards, barn doors, or any nearby 
 lumber that wasn't chained down. 
 
 In this connection I recall that a dismantled 
 brick property on the edge of the First Illinois 
 cavalry camp at Brownsville underwent a grad- 
 ual metamorphosis, by which it became a much 
 envied causeway through the mud of one troop 
 street, with enough left over to make a piazza 
 for the regimental hospital tent. That private 
 brick pile seemed to melt away like salt before 
 the nightly visits of the foragers. 
 
 Llano Grande, after two months' occupation, 
 contributed one Venetian efl^ect which was a 
 source of much complaint on the part of the 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 73 
 
 regiments to Brigadier General Lewis, the camp 
 commander. The First Indiana and the Third 
 Minnesota figuratively changed themselves from 
 infantry to naval reserve units by reason of the 
 large lake which formed on the drill grounds and 
 then extended its placid surface over portions of 
 both regimental sites. 
 
 The Minnesota exchange was a mud splattered 
 island, approached over causeways of pop bottle 
 crates. The officers' baths and latrines were fifty 
 feet distant from visible land. Two company 
 streets were completely flooded and their occu- 
 pants forced to move. In some places this lake was 
 eighteen inches deep and it stayed there for three 
 weeks. 
 
 With no changes of clothing, the men would 
 plow through this mud — deep gumbo, which 
 worked up into a doughlike substance in the un- 
 floored tents — and then lie down in it to sleep, 
 unless they were lucky enough to have cots. The 
 dampness, the heat, the noxious mists, and ground 
 vapors which covered man, horse, and equipment 
 with moisture through the night, and the lack of 
 changes of shoes and clothing spread general dis- 
 comfort among the guardsmen, in spite of the fine 
 spirit which they and their officers displayed in 
 
74 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 their efforts to overcome the handicaps placed in 
 their way. 
 
 IX 
 
 DIFFICULTY IN GETTING SUPPLIES 
 
 Many of the men needed mosquito netting. 
 The presence of dengue fever among the troops 
 brought forth medical and official denials for three 
 weeks and correspondents reporting affirmatively 
 on the subject were publicly consigned to the Ana- 
 nias class and threatened with expulsion from 
 the camps, censorship, and other official hin- 
 drances. 
 
 Yet at the ends of three weeks the doctors ad- 
 mitted that there were cases of dengue fever in 
 the camps and hospitals of some of the organiza- 
 tions, and General Parker sent the official warning 
 up the valley that dengue was prevalent in the 
 district, that it was epidemic at Brownsville. The 
 men who had not been told through some news- 
 paper reports were acquainted with the fact that 
 the fever was communicated by mosquitoes, and, 
 accordingly, orders were issued that all were to 
 sleep under netting. 
 
 Everybody did — who had netting. But many 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 75 
 
 of the organizations did not have netting, and 
 could not get it unless they purchased it from 
 private funds, as some of the regiments finally 
 did. In some places where "mosquito bar" was 
 issued the men complained about using it on ac- 
 count of its ultra exclusiveness. It not only ex- 
 cluded the insects, but it excluded the air. It was 
 not netting. It was cheesecloth. 
 
 The First Minnesota infantry lacked govern- 
 ment issue cots and flooring for weeks, and pur- 
 chased quantities of the former articles from pri- 
 vate funds at the rate of $1.75 apiece. Cots, floor- 
 ing and mosquito netting were the principal equip- 
 ment needs of the New York division number- 
 ing 17,000. In a country where rain approached 
 a cloudburst, floors and cots are most essential to 
 health, and screening or cloth netting becomes 
 almost a matter of life and death to protect the 
 men from the hordes of tropical insects. 
 
 The government at first refused to honor the 
 repeated requisitions for lumber. Later this in- 
 humanity was rescinded, but not until the militia- 
 men had spent thousands of dollars of their own 
 to buy such necessities. 
 
 In the Iowa and Virginia brigades at Browns- 
 ville, before the issue of the government lumber. 
 
-je THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 squads and companies would pool funds to pur- 
 chase lumber and construct the needed flooring. 
 For weeks there were no wooden latrines in the 
 Iowa camp, and oil in sufficient quantities to in- 
 cinerate the pollution could not be obtained from 
 the government, although Texas ranks among the 
 greatest oil-producing states in the country. 
 Colonel Bennett of the Third Iowa, a veteran 
 commander who led his regiment through the 
 Philippine campaigns, bravely put into words that 
 which many another officer feared to breathe. 
 
 "The conditions under which this regiment has 
 been ordered to go into camp are the worst that 
 I have ever encountered in my twenty-five years' 
 experience in the national guard and the federal 
 service," Colonel Bennett told me. 
 
 From Staunton, Virginia, the birthplace of 
 President Wilson, commander-in-chief of the 
 army, came a machine gun company without 
 mules to carry the machine guns, if there had 
 been any. Popular subscription provided machine 
 guns for one organization that was without this 
 instrument which is necessary to modern war- 
 fare, and forced the war department to buy the 
 machine guns lacking in other regiments. Popu- 
 lar subscription also provided moving soup kitch- 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 'jy 
 
 ens with which the soldiers could be fed on the 
 march, after the fashion of the German, French, 
 English, Russian, and Japanese armies. Private 
 funds supplied numerous automobiles used in the 
 government service. 
 
 For weeks these men in training took their 
 food under almost the same conditions that it is 
 consumed by men in the trenches. Squatting on 
 the ground, in the dust or in the mud, the men ate 
 from their mess kits while ponderous, slow-mov- 
 ing machinery at Washington tried to arrange for 
 lumber appropriations. When the lumber was 
 received for mess halls, kitchens, flooring, and 
 latrines, all hands laid off drill for another long 
 period while enough hammers or saws could be 
 borrowed or privately bought or rented to erect 
 buildings. 
 
 Open cesspools in the ground took the place 
 of incinerators for weeks while the regiments 
 waited for material to build this sanitary essen- 
 tial. When it rained, the crude containers, as well 
 as the latrines, became flooded and carried pollu- 
 tion all overi the camps. When it was windy, 
 ashes and half-burned particles of refuse were 
 spread about while odors of a crematory prevailed. 
 When bricks were received for the incinerators, 
 
78 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 cement was missing. Other regiments had bricks 
 and cement, but no trowels. 
 
 Company B of the First Minnesota did not have 
 enough blankets to go around. The second regi- 
 ment from the same state was shy shelter halves. 
 The Third regiment reached the border with an 
 embarrassing deficiency of shirts and pants, I 
 was told. I saw Virginia noncommissioned offi- 
 cers drilling, and some of them wore derby hats 
 and stiff straw head gear. Some had leggings 
 and some did not and some wore civilian shirts. 
 
 And Bryan's state — Nebraska. A month and 
 a half after their arrival on the border the Fifth 
 Nebraska infantry was still in need of shoes for 
 the entire regiment. 
 
 The regiment had not received cots and was 
 sleeping in the mud, as there were no floors. 
 There were two companies without blankets, and 
 the rest of the regiment, before leaving its state 
 camp, had received a carload of gray cotton 
 blankets. 
 
 Concerning blankets, on September 15 Gov- 
 ernor Dunne of Illinois petitioned the war depart- 
 ment to grant a furlough of ten days for the en- 
 tire First and Second infantry regiments, then at 
 Springfield, on the ground that the men were suf- 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 79 
 
 fering from the cold and did not have enough 
 equipment to keep them warm. 
 
 But there were additional discomforts suffered 
 by the Nebraska regiment, which arrived on the 
 border on July 14. Until August 27 the men 
 were without underwear with the exception of the 
 single privately owned suit they had worn when 
 they left their homes. On that day they received 
 the first issue of undershirts, six hundred of which 
 were size 45. Line officers of the organization 
 told me that there were not 100 men in the regi- 
 ment who could fit into a garment larger than 
 size 40 and that the greater number needed 36's. 
 Company B of the Fifth, coming from Bryan's 
 home, Lincoln, Nebraska, arrived on the border 
 lacking hats, shoes, pants, and leggings to the 
 regulation amount. 
 
 Inadequate transportation only increased the 
 difficulties of supplying the men. Three hundred 
 miles of single track railroad is all that connects 
 the lower Rio Grande valley with the rest of the 
 country. Everything that reached the valley 
 had to come over the single line of the St. Louis, 
 Brownsville and Mexico. The men had to be fed ; 
 consequently rations got precedence over other 
 supplies. The food shipments, together with reg- 
 
8o THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 ular shipping to and from the civiHan population 
 of the valley, almost required the entire facilities 
 of the road. 
 
 Major General O'Ryan, commanding the New 
 York division, told me one day that his quarter- 
 master department had been able to get ahead 
 of current needs by only four days' supplies. 
 
 X 
 
 REGULARS WERE PATIENT TUTORS 
 
 The absence of prearranged plans in the border 
 mobilization devolved the biggest burden upon 
 the regular army staffs in the border districts, 
 which were suddenly called upon to mother a 
 hundred thousand comparatively inexperienced 
 officers and men who were eager and willing to 
 help themselves but, in view of their admitted 
 amateurishness and handicaps of equipment, be- 
 came largely dependent upon the regulars. 
 
 The regulars accomplished wonders under the 
 circumstances. They, better than any one else, 
 realized how ineffectual the results of their work 
 seemed as compared with foreign demonstrations 
 of a similar nature; they could appreciate the 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 8i 
 
 deplorable absence of plan and prearranged fa- 
 cilities denied them by the administration. Btit it 
 was their lot to make the best of it in silence, be- 
 cause a public complaint from an army officer is 
 practically equivalent to his resignation. 
 
 I found but few and far isolated instances of 
 the traditional regular army disesteem for the 
 civilian soldiery. A spirit of farsighted hopeful- 
 ness, helpfulness, friendliness marked the atti- 
 tude of the regulars toward the militiamen. The 
 regulars realized that here was the opportunity 
 to teach the franchised soldiery of the nation the 
 military needs of the nation. It was and is their 
 belief that this knowledge would result in the ap- 
 plication of widespread political pressure to bring 
 about the much needed reform and extensions, so 
 frequently recommended by the politically helpless 
 regulars and as frequently ignored. 
 
 Regiment after regiment of regulars was strip- 
 ped of officers who were detailed to advise, in- 
 struct, and train the militiamen. A regular army 
 first lieutenant had for his class the officers of a 
 regiment, including colonel, lieutenant-colonel, 
 and three majors. A captain was assigned to im- 
 part technical knowledge to a brigade, especially 
 the militia brigadier. Regular noncommissioned 
 
82 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 officers spent days and weeks in the camps, teach- 
 ing cooks, horseshoers, bakers, farriers, lieuten- 
 ants, and captains. At Fort Ringgold, near Rio 
 Grande City, where there was a force of 1,500 
 men, only twelve regular officers remained, in- 
 cluding the post commander. At Fort Brown some 
 companies of the Fourth United States infantry 
 had but one instead of three commissioned officers. 
 
 It was the duty of these detailed regulars to 
 direct the footsteps of the militia and act in the 
 difficult capacity of adviser to the untrained com- 
 manders of the guard units. They also conducted 
 the one hour a day school in Spanish for officers 
 and assisted the troop commanders and the sup- 
 ply department in solving the farcical mysteries 
 of the requisition formulae, by which a week's 
 mathematical computation and reams of documen- 
 tation are necessary before a size seven shoe can 
 be changed for a pair of elevens. This red tape 
 was the despair of the militia, and the business 
 men in the guard who encountered this system 
 marveled at its indirectness. 
 
 The absence of blank forms frequently impeded 
 this work for days. Certain needed things could 
 not be asked for because the regulation applica- 
 tion blank or requisition blank needed in that spe- 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 83 
 
 cial case was not to be had. I knew of cases where 
 guardsmen whose enHstment had expired could 
 not get their final discharges because there were 
 no proper forms on which the final papers could 
 be drawn. This trouble extended to the pay rolls, 
 the muster blanks, the transportation vouchers, 
 the medical reports. 
 
 Where the men criticized conditions under 
 which they were forced to live, many of their 
 ofificers characterized the complainants as "kick- 
 ers and soreheads." The men were receiving only 
 $15 a month, which was far below their civilian 
 wage, and maybe, in the absence of action, this 
 had something to do with their kicks. But a 
 large percentage of the militia officers receiving 
 regular army pay, were getting more money than 
 they ever earned in civilian life, and consequently 
 found less reason for dissatisfaction. 
 
 Another number of of^cial condemnations of 
 criticism of the service, the conditions, the equip- 
 ment, can be rightly attributed to pure ignorance. 
 Such of^cers thought the conditions were good 
 because they did not know what good military con- 
 ditions are; their opportunities of learning had 
 been limited. Other of^cers were stimulated to 
 denounce criticism, in the mistaken belief that the 
 
84 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 criticism had been directed at them personally. 
 The regular army has been made the "goat" so 
 frequently in "investigations" that it subcon- 
 sciously assumes the defensive whenever criticism 
 is in the air. 
 
 XI 
 
 FIELD HOSPITALS 
 
 As usual, the care of the sick came in for much 
 censure, but here again it was evident that the 
 medical officers, although stoutly defending their 
 
 conduct of affairs, were sorely handicapped by the 
 paucity of premobilization plans for taking care 
 of the sick and wounded. It is not to be wondered 
 that in a profession where humanity is so profess- 
 edly the prime stimulus, the medical and surgical 
 profession would make generous response to the 
 needs of the army. Militiamen while in the ser- 
 vice undoubtedly received medical and surgical 
 attention which would have cost thousands' to 
 civilian patients capable of paying the bill. 
 
 In army life the medicos are in the happy posi- 
 tion of a disbursing agent who is his own auditor. 
 They lay the rules for the sanitation of the camp. 
 They care for the sick and then care for the sta- 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 85 
 
 tistics which show how numerous the sick are. 
 These statistics show in turn how good the sani- 
 tation has been, and altogether it all proves that 
 the medical service is excellent. 
 
 It is not my intention to intimate that the army 
 doctors would take advantage of the opportunity 
 to make out their own scores, but that they are 
 unwilling to submit to an outside audit is unde- 
 niable. Obstacles were put in my way when I 
 tried to investigate conditions. Cases of illness 
 were hidden from me. Furthermore, the report 
 of Dr. Darlington was suppressed in the War De- 
 partment. 
 
 Hospital conditions on the border upon the ar- 
 rival of the militia were admittedly bad. The ad- 
 mission has come in the form of extensive re- 
 forms and corrections of severely criticized con- 
 ditions which were stoutly defended at first, but 
 which gave way finally when criticism would not 
 be browbeaten. 
 
 At McAllen, sick men of the New York division 
 lay on the ground in open, unfloored tents and 
 the ground was muddy. The only hospital at hand 
 was a field hospital and in its operation there 
 came a clash of theory and practice. Theory re- 
 mained uppermost for weeks, to the great discom- 
 
86 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 fort and pain of patients, but practice finally won. 
 
 The theory of a field hospital is that it should 
 have no cots or flooring or screening, because, 
 theoretically, patients would not remain in the 
 hospital long enough to get the advantage of these 
 comforts. The field hospital is hardly more than 
 a first aid station immediately back of the firing 
 line, where the wounded are assembled for ship- 
 ment back to the next unit, which is called an evac- 
 uation hospital, at which place there is another 
 sorting and the hopelessly ineffective fighters are 
 sent on back to the base hospital. The field hospi- 
 tal must be mobile so that it can move forward or 
 backward with the tide of battle. Extra equip- 
 ment would impede it. 
 
 But there being no other hospitals in which 
 the New York sick could be cared for, the 
 field hospital in reality became an evacuation or 
 base hospital, but in theory and according to 
 regulations it remained a field hospital unit. 
 
 There was no other hospital at hand and the 
 men had to be taken care of in the field hospital. 
 So while strict field hospital regulations were fol- 
 lowed, the canvas shelter performed the function 
 of a base hospital. One day in the early part of 
 July and right after a rain which left McAllen 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 87 
 
 in a sea of mud, I saw sixty sick men lying on the 
 damp ground in this hospital, while a four-inch 
 ridge of earth held back the water from them. 
 Another man, suffering from pneumonia, had 
 been unconscious for four days ; he was lying on 
 a canvas stretcher on the ground. 
 
 Opposite these rows of men on the ground were 
 the tents of the officers, floored, screened, and 
 equipped with cots. Since that time the hospital 
 has been changed. Floors were placed, cots pro- 
 vided, and the sides of the tents inclosed in wire 
 screening. Now another base hospital composed 
 of a number of wooden pavilions is being erected 
 at McAllen at a cost of $25,000. This new insti- 
 tution grew out of complaints which New York 
 patients made over their treatment in the other 
 base hospital at Brownsville. But the New York 
 improvement was without diet kitchens for the 
 feeding of convalescents who were in need of such 
 consideration before being returned to the coarse 
 army ration. 
 
 Some of the men forwarded to that base hospi- 
 tal at Brownsville deserted the institution. Among 
 those who were able there were frequent instances 
 where they got away and reported back to their 
 regiments that they would rather stand court 
 
88 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 martial for desertion than undergo treatment or 
 operation at the Brownsville base hospital. 
 
 I recall one corporal of the First Oklahoma in- 
 fantry who was sent to Brownsville for a minor 
 operation. The man had been a hospital ward 
 steward in the navy. He told me that what he 
 saw at the Brownsville hospital caused him to ab- 
 sent himself without leave on the day of his arri- 
 val and return to his regiment, where I saw him, 
 a secret patient in another field hospital which 
 was not supposed to be taking care of such cases. 
 
 The Brownsville hospital is composed of six 
 wooden pavilions and auxiliary buildings, very 
 much like chicken coops, which had required six 
 weeks to build. The delays were caused by the 
 difficulties in getting lumber, labor, screen, and 
 supplies. I went through it the day it was pro- 
 nounced ready for occupancy. 
 
 The water connections were not in; the opera- 
 ating room had not been built ; the kitchens were 
 not finished ; the ground had not been broken for 
 either the baths or the administration building; 
 the nurses' quarters were still in the brush, and 
 there was no laundry. But cots were being in- 
 stalled and that night the train from up the valley 
 brought in two carloads of sick from the up-river 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 89 
 
 camps, the ambulances backed up to the platform, 
 the sick were loaded on and taken out to the "hos- 
 pital." 
 
 For this the medicos are not to blame, but the 
 commander-in-chief of the army who sent 30,000 
 men to live in a fever hole without preparing hos- 
 pital facilities is. 
 
 Before the occupancy of the new hospital, the 
 Brownsville "cases" were handled in an old Civil 
 War ruin on the Fort Brown reservation. This 
 building was erected several years after the war 
 of the rebellion and had long since passed its use- 
 fulness. 
 
 At the opening of the border troubles three 
 years ago, the building was reoccupied by the 
 army, and sick and well alike had been living in it 
 since. Two troops of cavalry used the interior for 
 a barracks, while the sick were allowed to lie in 
 cots on the veranda. This veranda was un- 
 screened and the militiamen who began to arrive 
 in July were without mosquito netting, as the reg- 
 ulars had been before them. 
 
90 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 XII 
 
 DELAY IN GRANTING DISCHARGES 
 
 If the sick had many things to contend with, 
 the well men had other problems almost as dis- 
 couraging. One of the greatest of these was the 
 problem of getting discharged. 
 
 The men began to feel that the cause for which 
 they had enlisted — namely : the active defense of 
 the nation's border or the invasion of Mexico — 
 existed no longer. Thousands of these men, who 
 had given up homes, families, and positions, all to 
 take their place in their regiments if they be- 
 longed to the guard, or to enlist if they were not 
 members, began to feel as the days dragged into 
 weeks and the weeks into months with no military 
 action to break the monotony, that they had been 
 cheated, duped, shanghaied into a proposition 
 where they lost their accustomed work and civili- 
 an salary and gained a day laborer's job at a mil- 
 itary pittance. 
 
 When it appeared that there had been no 
 necessity for the mobilization, that either the dan- 
 ger had not existed at all or did not continue to 
 exist, that nothing was being accomplished by the 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 91 
 
 continued presence of the militia on the border, 
 employers who had agreed to pay their employes 
 in government service began to get the same feel- 
 ings as their employes; they began to feel that 
 they had been and were cheated, duped, exploited. 
 
 Congress passed a poorly defined act by which 
 militiamen with dependents, if they knew the 
 formula, could make application for discharge. 
 Immediately employes who possessed the ex- 
 pressed qualifications of the act began receiving 
 letters from their employers, urging them to get 
 their discharges and return to work or their sal- 
 aries, which had been going to their wives and 
 children, would stop. There was a stampede for 
 discharges. It is not to be denied that guardsmen 
 with dependents were considered fortunate by 
 their irresponsible comrades, and it must be ad- 
 mitted that many forgotten sisters and cousins 
 and aunts and relatives or distant connections 
 suddenly found young guardsmen eager to con- 
 tribute to their support. 
 
 But the overwhelming majority of the cases 
 were bona fide, and the condition of many wives 
 and children and aged parents suddenly deprived 
 of support from fathers, husbands, and sons was 
 deplorable. 
 
92 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 Employers couldn't understand why their em- 
 ployes who were in the guard and who had de- 
 pendents didn't take advantage of the immunity 
 offered by congress, return home to the care of 
 their loved ones, and relieve their employers of 
 the financial drain, which had by that time begun 
 to lose its patriotic aspect. The reason was that 
 the guardsmen couldn't get the discharges; that 
 their efforts were opposed; that many obstacles 
 were put in their way to prevent them from leav- 
 ing the ranks. The opposition, sometimes passive, 
 sometimes active, came from the commanders, 
 most of whom would have found their commands 
 much reduced if all of the applications for dis- 
 charges were acted upon, or were acting upon 
 instructions from Washington. 
 
 The fact remains that almost everybody wanted 
 to go home. As I was boarding a train in Browns- 
 ville several weeks ago, I was approached by a 
 young guardsman, who hurriedly told me his case, 
 thrust into my hands a number of copies of letters 
 between himself, his wife, and his employers, and 
 said: "Explain to the employers back home that 
 we want to get out but can't. They don't under- 
 stand why we can't get out and neither do we, but 
 the fact is that we can't. My employer is threat- 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 93 
 
 ening to cut off my salary unless I return, and I 
 have a wife and baby back home. I'll be in an 
 awful fix if the salary doesn't continue." 
 
 I found obstruction after obstruction was put 
 in the way of the men who wished to return to 
 the care of their families, almost regardless of the 
 extremity of the circumstances. A man who was 
 suffering the mental anguish that comes with the 
 knowledge of loved ones unprovided for was made 
 to feel that he was a "quitter" and a "slacker" if 
 he made application for discharge. 
 
 Commanding officers addressed their men on 
 this subject and heaped anathema upon those who 
 might have in their hearts the primitive and just- 
 ly selfish feeling of responsibility toward their 
 families. 
 
 If the determined militiaman, with will power 
 and courage sufficient to overcome these intimida- 
 tions, did decide to ask for his discharge, he en- 
 countered a new stumbling block — official ignor- 
 ance, either real or professed. He was told that 
 the application had to be made in "due form," but 
 what that consisted of was a mystery. He was 
 told that he had to have affidavits from relatives 
 and friends, and papers signed, countersigned and 
 witnessed. There were no blanks for the pur- 
 
94 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 pose, the officers didn't know whether any had 
 ever been prepared ; the orders had been delayed. 
 The matter would be looked up. 
 
 And so, for some of the men, the weeks dragged 
 by, with every mail bringing appeals concerning 
 the need of shoes, the butcher's bill, the doctor's 
 bill, the increase in the price of baby's milk — and 
 the empty purse. In the meantime the would-be 
 applicant for discharge was being subjected to all 
 manner of humiliation. 
 
 It is difficult to get the figures on how many 
 desertions there were, but I know of five from 
 one Illinois regiment. Every fifty miles of the 
 way from Brownsville toward San Antonio pro- 
 vost details searched all the trains and placed un- 
 der arrest all guardsmen unable to show official 
 permission for their movement. Many officers 
 unable to obtain furloughs resigned and some for 
 other reasons. 
 
 All over the country funds started for the re- 
 lief of the militia dependents. The Red Cross 
 took up the work. In Chicago this organization 
 had, by the end of September, expended about 
 $50,000 in administering relief to some 600 de- 
 pendent families, which received from $5 to $50 a 
 month. Aside from these sums, chambers of com- 
 
 1 
 
THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 95 
 
 merce and city organizations in small towns and 
 large cities endeavored to meet the worthy de- 
 mand by subscription, and further still, many reg- 
 imental officers held lists of regimental "un- 
 cles," military enthusiasts, wealthy former mem- 
 bers of the organizations, all of whom were 
 called upon to contribute to the support of fam- 
 ilies for the honor of the regiment so that the 
 ranks of the organization would not be decimated 
 by the stalking figure of want. 
 
 But their work, patriotic and wide-spread, has 
 not sufficed. In thousands of rented rooms, little 
 houses and small flats, tragedies are being en- 
 acted as bitter to the sufferers as the tragedies of 
 unavoidable war — and they are caused by the 
 selfishness and caprices of politics. 
 
 Have I overlooked what was done for what was 
 not done? Have I been scant in praise of what 
 was done right? Have I been tactlessly remiss 
 with congratulations and brutally frank with cold 
 observations? I have. 
 
 In another series, if the editor permits, I will 
 present the pleasing side of the picture. Quarter- 
 master Aloe, working far into the night, every 
 night; Captain McCoy doing a general officer's 
 work with captain's rank and pay; militia officers, 
 
96 THE MILITIA MOBILIZATION 
 
 business leaders, struggling with the atrocious ac- 
 counting system, although every one of them could 
 have installed an infinitely better one if permitted 
 by officialdom ; the courage of other business men, 
 wielding ax and spade in the frightful heat, dig- 
 ging ditches, building picket lines, and doing other 
 labor they should not have been called upon to do. 
 And General Parker, medal of honor hero, who 
 in the face of all obstacles, lack of modern equip- 
 ment, and government indifference, has kept his 
 cavalry on a par with Russia's, working night 
 and day to bring order out of the chaos thrust 
 upon him. 
 
 But first must be set out the wrongfulness of 
 the civilian head of the army compelling the mob- 
 ilization of troops in the field contrary to world- 
 wide lessons fully learned by soldiers. 
 
 In this instance it has led only to unparalleled 
 discomfort, not a little tragedy and some avoid- 
 able deaths. If it should occur again in the face 
 of a competent enemy it might lead to national 
 destruction. 
 
^\ 
 
 
 V 
 
 ^^. 
 
 , , . / 
 
 '^ 
 
 
 
 y 
 
 _;^ 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '■<- ^' 
 
 
 " 'V 
 
 ^•'^ci;. 
 
 
 
 
 A^^' ^x- 
 
 
 N 
 
 
 
 'O 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 ~s 
 
 , 1 B ■--', 
 
 ■S\'' 
 
 
 \^ 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 ■'% 
 
 <^' 
 
 
 ■■-o^^ 
 
 
 
 
 -*> 
 
 
 <^., * 8 1 A "■ 
 
 "^f>:-;.L^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 '"■•% 
 
 ^^A 
 
 
 
 
 
 <% >*■ 
 
 
 
 x^ 
 
 °<. ; 
 
 A 
 
 ^^.. . 
 
 \. 
 
 , o . 
 
 y 
 
 '^ 
 
 
 r~- 
 
 
 fi' 
 
 ^ , 
 
 
 "^ 
 
 \^ ■ 
 
 
 'O 
 
 
 .^ 
 
 <>/ 
 
 
 ^- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 >• 
 
 A-^'- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 v\>-^. 
 
 -.. ./ 
 
 %c^' %,^ 
 
 
 \ 1 B ^ 
 
 -/ 
 
 
 v^ 
 
 
 
 ,0 
 
 o 
 
 
 V^ 
 
 
 
 ."i <V, Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 
 ^ \, <?■ ^ ts £>' Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 
 ^ 11 ^ *■/„ , Treatment Date: uiv 
 
 ^^ , . <^- "' ^ MAY 200J 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 V- A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
 
 -^^ 
 
 ■^ 
 
.V3 O^ >■ 
 
 
 V -^■ 
 
 % " " "■ \> ^ 
 
 
 .A^' 
 
 ^:.o^^ 
 
 -.s^ ^, 
 
 c 0' 
 
 
 .0- 
 
 
 ■x^^' 
 
 
 
 •>-^ A 
 
 -?=•. 
 
 % V 
 
 .0 o 
 
 V>\s 
 
 
 
 
 ,^ "^^ 
 
 0^^' 
 
 
 ^ ^^.. 
 
 ■^ , V I » , 
 
 yr ^ 
 
 A^• '^r. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^■:, '^ o"^