The Indianapolis journal., 1898-09-26
HOW THEY BECAME RICH
ARMY AND NAVY MEN WHO STRUCK
1T AFTER LEAVING SERVICE.
Latent Qualities Developed by the
Discipline-TypicaI Cases of Those
Who Reached Prosperity.
WASHINGTON Star.

TOO Well endowed by nature and education
for civilian effort to daily through all of
their best youthful days in a military out
fit in time of peace. Long after this war Is
over. the same thing may probably be set
down with truth as regards considerable
! class of enlisted men in our two fighting
establishments. 1t is a lack of self-control
and steadiness that causes men of capacity
of the first order to drift into a volunteer
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 Gallicism, when they find them
selves serving in garrison or on board a
| man~of-war, and before they have put in
very much service they look around them
and reflect in why is this thus?" strain
The one thing they need for civilian success
is self-restraint, and they acquire this in
chunks in a uniformed service. With self
restraint added to their natural capacity
they are fit, when the time comes for them
to break away from the service they have
Joined, to take a winning hold on the game
of life ashore. This many of them do, not
alone in this country, but in many parts of
the world. AS matter of fact the most
successful of them renew shore life in for
eign 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 educated. or too clever by nature
for his enlisted soldiers and sailors. 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 endowments for whom the
army navy is the natural place.
A young New Yorker, who after serving
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 Tcnderloin and the fluids and
other allurements thereof about ten years
When he was sup against it for fair" to
use a 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 pen
mans billet. such as ships writer or yeo-
man. but there were no vacancies, and,
like game young chap, he went in as a
coal passer BY the time he was ready 70
go ashore after his three-year cruise on
rated as first-class fireman, and he hadn't
| been in the brig more than half dozen
times for wild conduct He was as steady
as rock during the last year and he went
over the side of his ship at Bunos Ayres
at the conclusion of his enlistment, about
twenty times as good man as he was the
wanted engravers badly at the time. and
| this ex-coal Dasser got a 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 a con-
tract for engraving and printing all the
bonds and paper money of Brazil. The
n( fT0 nf 0n6A hfr-a fAtr IL 14ne
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 A BIG SALARY
| A young San Francisco man named Whit
| lock shipped in the navy as a coal passer
at the Mare Island navy yard, California,
| in 1889. He had been clerk in real es-
| tate and insurance Office, and he had never
had a shovel in his hands before, probably,
but he raked coal out of the bunkers val
iantly for year before his cerical ability
was discovered and he was made engineer s
yeoman, with the rate of chief petty officer.
| Then his ship went out to the China station.
| BY the time the ship arrived there young
| Whitlock was in difficulties with his chief
| engineer.
Whitlock perceived the plain fact that if
ne didn't get out of the navy he'd probably
| wind up in naval prison. So he bought his
| discharge out of the service 1t took all
| his savings, several hundreds of dollars, to
| do it, but as it afterwaid developed. the
price was cheap enough Whitlock had a
solitary American IS gold piece when he
quit the navy at Shanghai. but he hustled
| for job, and got one Immediately He
| went to work as shipping clerk in a big
English opium-export house, at a salary Of
| his employers saw it. Within three months
| he was made correspondence clerk, at a
salary of 1000 per annum. At the end of
| two years of service with the opium-ship-
| ping firm he slid into the billet of general
manager of the concern at salary equal
to $4,000 per annum, aud this is the billet
| that Mr.. Whitlock is holding down now. He
is one of the big foreign devils" of Shang-
| hai, and his name is in Shanghais English
him i eGso so Badly that he hasn't been able m to get
| back to the United States since he left 1t as
a coal passer on a United States man-of-
| here he'll travel on his own yacht Mr..
| Whitlock entertains American naval officers
on board his yacht and LAT at his country place ptsc
nose into his port in cruising.
The Chinese customs service has for many
! years regarded it's ex-American man-o'-
wars men as among its most valuable en-
| ployes The chief inspector of the custom
| house at Canton iS-Or was two years ago
| "a Philadelphia man named Walter Cum
| mings. Cummings owned up to ii himself
| that he wasn't spectacular success as a
man-o wars man. He got bad conduct
| Francisco, and he didn't have dollar when
| he went ashore. But he had learned In
| China of the good opening there for clever
| American clerks in the customs service, and
| so he shipped aboard a wind -jammer and
| made his way to Canton, where he imme-
| diately went to work as customs clerk.
| He was chief inspector within three years,
| with enough gilt on his uniform to outfit
| two admrals, big pay and perks enough
| to permit of his hanging on to his member
| ship in all of the best foreign clubsNin Cam
! ton.
A New England Yankee from up Bath
| way" named Babcock who had done a
| lot of merchant SailOriZing up to the rate
| of second mate, shipped as an A. B. in the
| United States navy at the Portsmouth navy
! sailor man without education, but with
| whole lot of native shrewdness. He was
| liked well enough by his shipmates, who,
| however, voted him the stingiest man-o'-
wars man that ever knotted halyard
| Babcock didn't spend cent aside from his
| mess and tobacco money during his entire
| three-year cruise, and, as he was made a
Detty officer soon after his enlistment he
| had a snug pile of savings when he went
| over the gangway of his ship at Yokohama,
| Japan, "clear of the navy.
| SAW HIS OPPORTUNITY.
Rabcock looked around him for a while in
Yokohama and then he corraled about a
dozen skilful Japanese feather workers.
employed them at very small pay and set
them to work making Sx4-foot representa-
tions of George Washington. the father Of
! his country. 1t cost Babcock about ten yen
| to have these really artistic portraits in
feathers made, and he sold all of them that
he could make by employing more men and
making them work overtime to the United