The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-07-19
Trials Of a Latter
Day Candidate for
Gadetship
How a Ukiah Boys Ideals Of the
Civilization of the Effete
East Were Shattered
by Unpleasant
Realities

1t was the middle of May, 1898. The
little city of Ukiah was IN a fever of ex-
element.
The weekly papers had come out day
or two before with the statement that Con-
gresham Geary had ordered competitive
examination held at Santa Rosa for the
purpose of selecting an aspirant for en-
trance into West Point Military Academy.
OF course, every boy in the district who
was eligible to compete had his heart set
on going.
Among all of them there was none more
keenly DESTROYS of the honor than L Why
this was SO has always been mystery TO
me. My ambition was not to be a soldier
in fact, that mode of life was extremely
distasteful in my eyes. 1t must have been
that had inherited the instincts of pol
itician and wanted to be known as major"
or Colonel" Happily, this trait in my
character has since been entirely
eradicated.
After deal OF coaxing my fathers con-
sent to taking the examination was OBJ
tanned, and May 26 1 was in Santa Rosa,
prepared for the worst. Thirteen other
youthful candidates from the various
counties in the district were also there.
L
fully understand how kind fate was to
them in defeating their hopes.
The examination was held in the high
school building before board of three
Attorney Burnett of Santa Rosa, Professor
Bull of Healdsburg and Professor H. G.
ADshire of Sonoma City.
The result of that examination was
that won the appointment. Every act of
my life has since been directed toward
atonement.
June found me in San Francisco, under
going physical examination at the Pre-
sidio. Having been pronounced eligible
in that respect by the army surgeon,
wandered round the City viewing the
sights for two or three days, and then
boarded the train for West Point.
To one of my inexperience that trip was
the turning point in lite, an insight into
the vastness of the country. the grandeur
of nature, and the attalnments of man.
1t was also a revelation, comparatively
speaking, as sweeping as that made to the
seer of Patmos. The alkaline deserts of
Nevada and Utah, the majestic Rockies
with their snow-capped peaks towering
toward heaven in thedistance, the rolling
plains OF Kansas, the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, the broad Father of Waters"
the Windy City, Lake Erie. and lastly the
scenery along the banks of the Hudson
all these were to me a source of infinite
wonder and delight.
And then 1 saw few things that effec-
tuaIly dispelled whatever illusions might
nave been laboring under as to the COM
paratlve degrees of civilization attained by
the East and the West. Take the State of
New York, for instance.
Now l unused, "this is the Oldest and
most thickly populated State in the Union;
tnls Is the ground stained with the blood
oi our ancestors in their noble battle for
hDerty; here is where the father OF his
country tramped at the head of the Con-
tinental army; this is the region where
burgoyne met his Waterloo, where Ar
noio gained the reputation so well deserved
oy all traitors, and where Nathan Hale
SO nooiy gave up his life in an heroic en-
oeayor TO aid his country in her struggle
Tor Independence; from the Catskill Noun
talns washington Irving derived the in
splEation TO write of Rip Van Wrinkle, and
from dell near Tarrytown, where Major
Andre was captured, to pen the Legend