Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-12-25
G E N. LEONARD WOOD
Some characteristics of the New Governor
General of Cuba.
A Tribute Paid Him by One Who Was
With Him During the
War.

I
man who was created by crisis The
| writer knew him in San Antonio lust after
lie had been appointed colonel of the Ist
| Volunteer Cavalry. or Rough Riders" saw
| him on the battlefield when the first volley
| fired by the Spaniards during the late war
| was shot at him and his men; while he was
| governor of Santiago province. and facing
| problems which would have appalled, most
| men, saw him many times; saw him imlne-
| diately after he had received his appoint
| ment as military governor of Cuba
4 Always he was the silent man. who be-
| lieved-in his own words-that a plaster
over a mans mouth is as useful as elo-
| quence within it; the calm man with nerve
| Of iron, appalled, not by outlaws or dudes
| not by enemies or their bullets. not by yell
| low fever or smallpox, nor by dirt, filth or
dISorganizatton: the tirCiesS man whose
| muscles stood firm and brain stayed cool
| after the most trying strains; the demo-
CFdtlc man. who ever ready TO listen
| earnestly to and try to help any one from
| the President of the United States to the
most emaciated of Cuba'S pickaninnies. and
| VINO has, on many occasions, helped both.
| The bullets, to the thinking man, We're
scarcely less dangerous at GuaSimaS than
are the problems which were recently given
| to him TO solve when the President made
him military governor of Cuba. He re-
ceived them both with the intense earnest
| ness of the intelligent man who knows
| what faces him. but he received them both
| entirely without excitement.
His Appearance.
| He is tall man, of great physical
| strength. He is neither handsome nor ugly.
| but his fac is wholesome, with power in
| its steel gray eyes and evidences of hard
work in its wrinkles. which are far too
| pls niiful for man of thirty-nine years.
| There are corrugations in his forehead and
there is a little bag under each eye which
there before "a tod
went to war with Spain
| These came from hard work. When he
| was governor of Santiago province he
| worked sixteen hours a Gay. He Went to
| the palace in the morning at 1870. and he
| left it at 10 o'clock. Then he inspected
| thfngs-and there We're many things to in
Spoct He had streets cleaned whose accu-
| mulated filth had corroded there undis-
| turbed for full thee hundred years. No
one who dld not know Santiago-tne city Of
dirt and corruptiou-befGre the war. and
\ who does not know it nOw-as a fairly
salubrious and healtfful town-cau appre-
ciate what has been done for that part Of
| Cuba since our war with Spain ended.
Leonard Wood did not do all Of it. He had
! many earnest helpers. But his was the
! directing spirit. Al noon he returned 20
| the palace, and seldom left it again before
midnight.
| when the province, with its unspeakable
filth, with its unhappy and liSorderly DoIl-
| lation. with its plenty of disease and excess
| of death, was turned over to him, he did
those thlnES winch he could do. He found
| three thousand cases of smallpox. Within
sixty days he had isolated these unhappy
/ creatures and 50 thoroughly disinfected
| their previous surroundings that only four
teen hundred smallpox patients We're left
| in Santiago province, and these were well
cared for. He did not quell, but he pre-
vented. riots He fed the hungry. He revo-
lutiOnized the town. and for the better
When yellow fever broke out among our
troops and among the natives he concealed
| it, but he stopped it. He was in Washing
| ton when 1t broke out; he was in Santiago
soon as a ship could take him there
after its outbreak.
An Ideal Military Organizer.
At san Antonio he was the ideal mill
| tary organizer. He and Theodore Roose-
| welt. with the assistance of Major Alex
| ander Brodie, had gathered thousand or
more men together of characters which
made, in the aggregate, such human mix
| ture had not been seen before. There
We're cowboys from Arizona and New Mex
| leo, there We're outlaws whose previous
records made il necessary for them to en-
| list under assumed names, and from falsely
designated towns; there were miners, farm
erS, hunters from the west: there were col
lege men, business men and dudes from
the east. And yet Colonel Wood, who was
really in charge of the regiment disciplined
them all, Instructed them all, handled them
all in "a way which brought out of this
seeming chaos such complete harmony that
the hunters chose the 9TH avenue swell as
his 'bunkie" in his tent at San Antonio,
and afterward the dude warrior and the
cowboy soldier mingled their red blood in
the trail at Las Guasimas and on the hill
at San Juan
We marched with the present governor of
Cuba from DaiQuiri to SibOney Cuba, on
the 23d of June, 1898 He had so thorough
~ assimilate the different elements in his
command that by that time none could
have distinguished from their looks or
bearing the difference between the west
ern desperate or laborer and the eastern
college man. All We're bronzed, dirty,
happy, careless, we'll disciplined soldiers.
Wood, with Roosevelt's Invaluable help,
had built something out of nothing, and
that something was the finest volunteer
regiment that the American, or any other
army, has ever had the good fortune to see.
An Impressive Sight in Rattle.
No man has ever made a more impress
sive sight in battle than Wood did at
Guasimas. He went well in advance of his
own men, and led his horse into the field.
He stood leaning against his sorrers side
with what seemed like absolute indiffer-
ence and the side he leaned against was
the outside. He had taken a natural breast
work into the field with him, but he
scorned to use it.
I shall never forget how ne looked. with
his face burned to a brown which was
almost like that of the khaki uniform he
Wore. His sandy mustache. too had baen
griZzled by the sun until it fitted into the
general harmony Of tone, and he stood
there, brave and strong, like a statue IN
light bronze.
The Cuban grass reached almost to his
waist. There was not a breath of air and
yet the grass about him moved, once, slow
ly, if a breeze were blowing 1t. At first
We had no right idea of what had caused
this, but presently it came to our minds
that it might be bullets. Aud then We
realized that Colonel Wood, forming With
his horse the most conspicuous item in
view before the Spanards, was naturally
the target for all the bullets they cou!l
shoot. 1t was the effect of volleys fired
from Spanish trenches and from the bush
across the valley that made the grass wave
about his feet. We realized it slowly. He
knew it from the start. That he escaued
unscathed was extraordinary, but that he
stood there without CULVER of a muscle
without the. tremble of a seconds worry
was not less than wonderful. He had left
a wife and family of little ones in Wash
ington, and, of course, he wanted to re.
turn to them. The certainty that he would
be advanced with or without winning bat
ties, was absolute. Yet he stood there in
the battle which he had sought himself
and never stirred a finger.
And he stood on the outside of his sorrel
horse.