The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1899-11-30


for the first time since he had smashed
the Spanish armada at Manila, looked
upon his countrymen at home. was not
honored one whit more than he deserved.
This great arch was then called the Dewey
arch. New York named It so. and all the
people called 1t so; and there was the sug-
gestion OF caress In the tone In which
the name was uttered.
Now, New York Is mad. The Dewey
arch must be called tho Dewey arch no
more, but the Navy arch. II this be
not done the New York committee.
charged with tho perpetuation In marble
OF tho plaster of paris original, will not
be able to raise the money necessary. an
nounces the chairman. IF the people"
declares this worthy dignitary, keep on
making the mistake that IL Is Dewey
arch the action Of Admiral Dewey in
giving away the Nations gift may have
some effect upon the subscriptions to the
arch fund.-
By all means the subscribing public,
grown so fastidous as to the dispensation
of its vulgar dollars, should defer. to the
man who has leaped with amazing sudden
moss into fame as the custodian Of fund
designed to commemorate no event in
particular, nor to call the attention OF
the American who proudly struts beneath
its expanded vastness to no history max
ing deed of some valiant countryman, but
merely to the stupid reflection that we
have always had navy and that It has
ever been filled with mediocrities not one
OF whom ever rose above the dead level
of ordinary excellence to write his chap
ter in the history OF his nation with the
bold hand of his own rugged genius, as did
Farragut. Dewey or Schley.
BY the way, what right has the New
York committee chairman, who looks af-
ter the construction of a subscription
arch that would better subserye the pur-
poses of its creators II carved upon its
marble frontage ran the names of the
nonentities whose redundant cash is their
only hope and chance of notoriety, to call
that Washington house which Dewey
decided to his lawful wife the gift OF the
Nation? In what sense was 1t the gift OF
the Nation? If 1t had been voted to
Dewey by act of congress and paid for
out Of the revenues of the general govern
ment IL would then have been the gift OF
the Nation and of the American taxpayer
As 1t Is. the subscribers to this house can
not lay to their purse proud souls the
narrow concelt that their gift is that OF
the Nation, any more than they can con-
sistentiy claim that they in their self
anointed eXclusiveness constitute the Ma
ton itself
No sensible American man or woman
ever regarded this Washington residence
as the gift of the Nation and there never
has been time when Admiral Dewey
could in justice to his own common sense
so regard 1t. He must have known from
the first that the house scheme was origi-
mated and pushed to success by lot Oh
| people who. in the main, were moved by
the base and law-born motive OF seeing
their fameless names in juXtaposidon to
that of a real hero. Ii he did not know
1t then he knows 1t now. and richly de-
serves every twang of modification that
the ILL bred herd of his subscribers. who
have demanded the return of their noto-
rlety seeking dollars has inflicted upon
his proud spirit.
Admiral Dewey's friends did not believe
that he would accept this home and were
disappointed and mortified when he put
aside the mantle of his greatness and let
| the vulgar parvenues. who provided it,
see that he too could forget the dignity
and glory to which the honest aduation
of his honest countrymen had liftei him