Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-07-09

ANDM1I wv long before the pres
TWENI' ent war was even
- ~ dreamed of there
were many scores of enlisted men in the
land and sea forces of the United States
too well endowed by nature and education
for civilian effort to daily through all of
their best youthful days in a military outfit
in time of peace. Long after this war is
over, the same thing may probably be set
down with truth regards a considerable
class of enlisted men in our two fighting es-
Establishments. 1t is a lack of self-control
and steadness that causes men of capacity
of the first order to drift into voluntary
military service; but, with reference to a
great number of the men of this sort who
awaken to find themselves in Uncle Sans
army and navy uniforms, the maxim that
all men, like water, are bound to find their
level, decidedly does not apply. Men OF
the type alluded to arrive at themselves.
to employ q GallicisTp, when they find
themselves serving in garrison on
board a man-of-war, and before they have
put in very much service they look around
them and reflect in a why is this thus?'
strain. The thing they need for civil
ian success is self-restraint, and they ac
quire this in chunks in a uniformed service.
With self-restraint added to their natural
capacity, they are fit, when the time comes
they have Joined. to take a winning hold
the game of life ashore. This many of
them do, not alone in this country. but in
many parts of the world. AS a matter of
fact, the most successful of them renew
shore life in foreign countries, and the
writer knows of many cases in which such
men have been conspicuously successful.
1t is better all around, too. that such men
take to the beach, Uncle Sam does not
require men too well edpcated. or too clever
by nature, for his enlisted soldiers and sail
ors. The well-educated soldier or sailor
rarely makes as useful an enlisted man as
his sWaddie or Shiprnate of only average
intelligence, for education generates indie
pendence. and individual independence in
military outfit is only a good thing in the
DRY. The fighting establishments have
more trouble with their educated enlisted
men, by far, than they do with the great
bulk of the men of only ordinary endoW-
ments for whom the army or navy Is the
natural place. Many Of the educated en-
have been notably successful in civil life
after their period of sea service, have been
failures as man-o-Wars men.
An Expert Engraver.
A young New Yorker, who, after serving
a six years apprenticeship at the art, be-
came known as one of the finest bank note
engravers in the United States, got tangled
up with the Tenderloin and the fluids ana
other allurements thereof about ten years
ago, and he went to pieces in canter
None of the engraving firms would employ
him on account of his weli-known tenden-
cles toward dissipation. He would work for
two days and carouse for two weeks, ana
he got to be a pretty no-account youth.
When he was up against 1t for falr, 10
use phrase of the pave, he concluded That
there was nothing for it but to hold up
his hand in a recruiting office. He chose
the navy. He wanted to get penmans
billet, such as ships writer or yeoman, but
there were vacancies, and, like game
young chap, he went in as coal pasSer
For a man who had been used to the COM
Portable living this young engraver had en-
joyed all of his life, the coal passer's billet
was a heart-breaking proposition, but he
had a square jaw and he shut his teeth
down and said to himself, Take your
medicine, imbecile.' BY the time he was
ready to go ashore after his three-year
cruise ON the South Atlantic station he had
been rated first-class fireman, and he
hadn't been in the brig more than half a
dozen times for wild conduct. He was as
steady as rock during his last year, and
he went over the side of his ship at Buenos
Ayres, at the conclusion of his enlistment,
about twenty times as good a man he
was the day he joined the navy. Buenos
Ayres wanted engravers badly at the time.
and this eX-coal passer got job at $40 per
diem in gold the first day he went ashore.
He stuck to his work and kept out OF the
swift whirl of young Englishmen and
Americans who convert night into day
down in the fastest city in South America,
and at the end of two years he got con-
tract for engraving and printing all the
bends and paper money of Brazil. The con-
tract made him rich man. He has big
engraving plant of his own now, and, a
young man well on the hither side of
thirty-five, with all kinds of money, he
boards American men-of-war when they get
down his way and dimes in the cabin with
the fleet commander.
Gets Big Salary.
A young San Francisco man named Whit
lock shipped in the navy as coal passer at
the Mare Island navy yard. California, in
1879. He had been clerk in real estate
ard insurance office, and he had never had
shovel in his hands before, probably, but
he raked coal out of the bunkers valiantly
for year before his clerical ability was
discovered and he was made engineers yeo-
nan, with the rate of chief petty officer.
Then his ship went out to the China sta
ton. By the time the ship arrived there
young Whitlock was in difficulties with his
chief engineer, who was an officer of the
old-fashioned staggering type, still known
among the enlisted men as "bucko' or
delaying pin first mate
Whitioclk perceived the plain fact that IL
be didn't get out of the navy he'd probably
wind up in a naval prison. for he had a lot
of trouble to keep his hands off the chief
engineer, who actually did rub it in on him,
ana IL ne had done anything of that sort it
was case of at least five years in naval
prison, and the yeeman knew 1t. So he
bought his discharge out of the service. 1t
took all of his savings, several hundreds of
dollars. to do it, but. as it afterward de-
veloped, the price was cheap enough Whit
lock had solitary s. American gold piece
when he quit the navy at Shanghai. but he
hustled for job. and got one irnmedia teiy.
He went to work as shipping clerk in
Dig English opium-exporting house, at
salary of f25 a month. ,WhitIock had it in
MIN. and his employers saw it. Within
tnfee months he was made correspondence
clerk, at a salary of &, 900 per annum. At
the end OF two years of service with the
oplum-shipping firm. he slid into the billet
OF general manager of the concern, at a
salary equal to $50. 600 per annum, and this
Is the billet that Mr. Whitloek is holding
doWn this Saturday afternoon He is one
OF the big foreign devils" of Shanghai and
ms name is in Shanghais English directory
IN heaVy type. His firm needs him so bad
~ mat ne hasn't been able to get back to
the United States since he left II as a coal
passer. on United States man-of-war, but
When WhitloclS does come back here hem
traVei on MS own yacht. Mr.. Whitlock en-
.ertalns American naval officers on board
MS yacht and at his country place on the
outskirts OF Shanghai when they nose into
his port In cruising.
III the Chinese Service.