The age-herald., 1898-05-14
COMMODORE DEWEY
 IN HIS REAL LIFE
From tha New York Press.

| and by all odds the best dressed" said a man who knows the hero of Manila well | to the writer yesterday. And in spite of | his 61 years he cuts an elegant figure on | the ballroom floor.
 "I should say of Commodore Dewey" the l speaker continued, "that he likes all the | good things of this life and knows how to | enjoy them rationally. He is an excellent l judge of good wine. but he drinks with l great moderation. The fragrance of fine l cigar is extremely grateful to his taste, but he smokes sparingly, and at stated times only. He is an enthusiastic sports 1 man, being fond of both shooting and fish | ing. He likes horseback riding, and when 1 he was last doing shore duty, stationed at | Washington his well set up figure astride perfectly mount was one of the
 regular sights of the Capital city.
 "He is anything but the sort you would | pick out in a crowd for a fighter, though. | His manner is courtesy itself, his talk Is | that of gentleman and scholar, and he | never swears. In appearance and bearing | he is all that Fighting Bob Evans is not, but in saying this I don't mean to speak l disrespectfully of the burly captain of the d. men of the Yankee naval officer, but the types are totally different.
 .one of Deweys most engaging charac- | teristics is his fondness for jokin. and this, | coupled with his ability to crack really | good jokes, makes him an extremely agree | able companion. He tells mighty good sto- | ries too, most of them new ones, and | when he has to fall back on an old one he | manages always to work in some new twist | that gives the yarn an entirely novel bear | ing. There is nothing he likes better than | to get in a smoking-room with congenial | company and swap yarns. The time never | lags when he is around. but he is by no | means inclined to mopopolize the atten- | ton of the crowd, and is as good ns- | tener as talker. Dewey speaks well on l his feet also, and I have heard him make little after-dinner addresses that would | have done credit to Chauncey M. Depew | or Horace Porter.
 You mustn't understand from all this | that he is frivolous chap. Far from it. | He is one of the closest students and solid | est thinkers in the navy. He is good | deal like Rear-Admiral Sampson in this. | I should say that what these two men | don't know about modern war ships. ord
 nances and high explosives wouldn't be of much value to any one.
 "Dewey is a fine disciplinarian-one of | the finest, if not the finest, In all the navy, | in fact-and his men know better than to l be lax in anything. But the statement l printed in one of the papers that his strict ness makes him unpopular with the men and the under officers is all bosh. He is as solicitous for the welfare of his men as he is that they shall behave themselves, and his courtesy to the humblest man under him is as pronounced as to his off, cers. This makes him one of the most | popular of all Uncle Sam's naval officers, | not only with his equals, but with Jack | Tar as we'll.
 "Dewey Is one of the coolest men in an | emergency I ever met. He is man of strong convictions He believes in himself, | he believes in his officers and men, he be- | lieves in his ship, and he beleives in the | American people.
 "He has been spoken of as a taker of long | chances, and to one who does not know him | his action at Manila would, perhaps, seem | to justify this estimate of the man. But | those of us who do know understand full well that what would be long chance with | some men was practical certainty with | him. In some way he learned exactly what | to expect; he sized up his own ships and men, and, knowing and believing in them, he went in confident of winning before | the first shot was fired as he was after the | last of the enemy's vessels had been sunk. He showed all the qualities I have just | spoken of away back in 1861, when he was | with Farragut. and, while the country at l large seems to have been much surprised by his work in the Philippines, the officers l of the navy were, to man, well satisfied | that he would give an excellent account of l himself when he went out to take charge | of the Asatic station.
 And I may add that there Is not an off, 1 cer of his acquaintance who is not heartily l glad as friend of his great success and l his coming promotion"
 l It is hard to tell whether Commodore | Dewey's son, George Goodwin Dewey, who
 is connected with wholesale dry goods house in this city. or members of the Uni- versity club, to which the commodore be- longs, feel greatest pride In his Manila l achievements. Certainly none who know
 him is more delighted with the victory than Major z. K. Pangborn of Jersey City. l Dewey went to school to Pangborn when l boy at Montpelier, and there has been | considerable said in print within the last i few days about the good licking Pangborn | had to give the lad before he would buckle l down to. study and general good behavior. l "I was warned in advance that young l Dewey would give me trouble when took l the school" said Major Pangborn to the l -....L -.I,~x l 1t. The trustees told me the whole school | was pretty tough, but Dewey was the ring
 leader. I saw that on the first morning. l Young Dewey was one of the last to come l in at the sound of the bell. had felt pretty | safe till saw him, but there was that In l his bearing and the utterly fearless look 1 in his flashing black eye which made me l wonder, after all, If I hadn't a pretty good 1 sized job ahead of me. It wasn't long be- l fore I knew had. The boy was quick, | learned his lessons without the slightest
 difficulty and had plenty of time for mis-