Arizona republican., 1898-07-31
AMERICAN VALOR.

cry displayed by our soldiers and sail
 ors in the battles of the war, even to the point of boasting. perhaps; and ye- it may be doubted if the praise has all 1 ways been discriminating. It must not be forgotten that there Is d distinction
 between brute courage and true valor. Comparatively few men are wholly de-
 fcisnt in the former. They may not
 seek danger; they may be ccwardiy | under ordinary circumstances; but in 1 the heat of battle they will fight, and I fight desperately. Discipline holds
 them steady and excitement nerves them. This brute courage is not to be
 despised; it Is possibly as essential in war as any other kind. But there is a tendency to lay too much stress upon
 1t. If our troops fought hard and well before Santiago, SO did the Spaniards. Americans have no monopoly of brav- 1 cry of the obvious sort Many incl dents, however, go to show that in the higher kind of courage-true valor, , we have called it-our race has an un- deniable superiority. We take desper-
 ate chances with full appreciation of ! the risks involved; and we take them, despair, but calmly and even coldly. | Such deeds as that of Hobson and his l companions are characteristically An glo-Saxon. Germans or Frenchmen or ff11 ho hut
 do not manifest their valor in that particular fashion Admiral Dewey,
 when he sailed into Manila bay, took chances with imperturbab1e confidence
 Commodore Schley, biting the Brock lyn against the heavily armored Span ish cruisers, knew perfectly we'll what the probabilities of defeat were But those Americans were of the race of Drake and Nelson, of Perry and Bain- bridge.
 Some of the episodes of the war show
 this valor in particularly attractive
 light. "The bravest are the tenderest,"
 wrote Bayard Taylor. The Anglo
 Saxon race, as rule, has been singu-
 larly free from mere cruelty Mans
 1nhumanity to man has been common
 enough among English speaking peo- pie, heaven knows, but there has al- ways been what we may call a racial
 protest against it. That was fine
 touch in the fight off Santiago when Captain Philip rebuked the men of the Texas fer cheering at an explosion on | the Oquendo. Don't cheer" he cried;
 ''the poor devils are dying" And
 Captain Philips sympathy for the en- emy did not make himself any the less
 a coura geous fighter so long as there | was reed of fighting. A tribute from
 an unwilling admirer may be accepted i as genuine; and when the Saturday
 Review compares 'this expression of tender and sympathetic humanity" to the dying words Of Nelson, we may
 we'll believe that it has made it's due i impression upon the world and has in- | creased among the nation respect for the American character.
 What the Saturday Review calls
 the marvellous pluck and skip of { Lieutenant Commander Wainwright is another episode in the war that we are
 not sure our own people even yet wholly appreciate "The whcle story says our quondam bitter critic touches us immensely; the American sailors
 have indeed deserved we'll of their ,1n1 nf,-u' ba ioI cnf
 Wainwright, in a small unaTmored
 vessel, into the thick of the fight with
 two torpedo boat destroyers was sup
 plemented by fine chivalry worthy of
 any hero of romance. His first words
 to Admiral Cervera were tribute to
 the bravery of a vanquished foe. Nor
 has it been only in striking deeds like
 these that the courage of the Ameri
 can soldiers and sailors has been
 shown Many a poor wounded fellow
 in the trenches has borne up bravely
 and ,unccmplainingly against his sui
 ferings; many an officer and private
 has faced deadly peril without the in
 spiration of active combat. The story
 of the colonel who was killed by a wounded Spaniard who misinterpreted
 the gesture which accompanied an or
 der to take him out of harms way
 throws a painful light upon the differ
 ence between American and Spanish
 methods. And this difference is one for us to contemplate, not in a vaunt- [ inc nj ri hut
 with resolve to be worthy of the
 splendid heritage Of true valor which
 is ours.