The Republican., 1899-07-20
A KANSAS HERO.
Something of the Career of General
Frederick Funston, the Ban
tam Fighter.

tam Fighter.
Funston left the Kansas farm in his
teens, where his fathers household was
established. He went to Mexico. There
he picked up Spanish. He entered the
Kansas State university in his early
twenties, alternating annually the pur-
suit of knowledge with the pursuit of
dollars-first as a Santa Fe train col
lector, then as a Kansas City newspaper
reporter and later as government bo-
tanical explorer in the Dakotas and in
Montana, and finally in the terrible
Death valley of southern California.
In the Cuban army he rose from lieu
tenant to lieutenant colonel and chief
of artillery under Garcia. Funston fired
the first dynamite gun ever used in ac-
tual war, with only the printed direc-
tions of the gunmakers to guide him.
At that time he did not know as much
about artillery as he did about a sulky
pillow, but he made what the boys call
"stab" at it; and when a chunk Of
Spanish fortification caved in Funston
was happy. and went on making ruins
with his new toy. After he was ap-
pointed colonel of the Twentieth Kansas
volunteers by Gov. Leedy, of Kansas,
Funston was called to Tampa to con,
suit with Gen. Miles about the topog,
raphy of certain parts of Cuba. Fun,
ston would not wear his colonels uni,
form at Tampa; he went about in the
linen clothes of a civilian. When some
one asked why he did not put on his uni
form he replied: Now, I'd look pret-
ty, wouldn't l, trotting up and down
in coloners rig, when all around here
are sure-enough soldiers-men who
have fought their way up from the line
in the regular army, who have been in
the civil war and in a score of Indian
wars, who have the right to wear only
captains, or, at most, a majors, uni
form! Wouldn't | be a daisy, letting
men like that salute me in my tin sol
dier clothes? Well, l guess not-not
without stimulants, anyhow" So he
scampered about in his unadorned
clothes and jeered at what he called the
hvery-stable brigadiers who did not
know fours right from balance all.
Funston did not know very much about
the fine points of the art of war, but he
was candid and acknowledged his 10
norance. When the regular army men
at Tampa began to question him about
his range with the artillery Funston
told them, with a boyish innocence 800
sweet to poison with military science,
that he pulled his guns up to within
400 or 500 yards of his mark before
firing. Whereat the army men laughed
quietly, winked at one another and
listened obviously thereafter. Later,
when some Spanish officers were taken
prisoners at Santiago, they told in hor-
ror of a little damn fool American"
fighting under Garcia the year before.
who poked the nose of his gun so close
to the Spanish Notifications that his
powder burned their eyebrows. Then
the American regular army men re-
membered Funston, and laughed again.
When Funston joined his Kansas regi-
ment in San Frascisco he put his best
bib and tucker on and went to school
to his majors. He devoted his time to
keeping the camp clean. When the
Kansas boys dressed up they imme-
diately took rank with the best regi-
ments in the camp. Their sick list was
the smallest in the division; they drilled
like machines; came to love their
colonel so that when he anointed them
with the yitals of his fluent wrath they
We're ecstatic in their happiness. He
made speeches to them that were not in
the regulations. Il have noticed" he
said to the regiment one day in August,
that you boys are getting sloppy in
your manners. When you meet supe-
rior officer you kind of brush a fly from
your ear and go on. Now hereafter YOU
Just stop brushing flies and salute.''-
Harper's Weekly