The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-02-07
SAMPSON.
Naval Hero Banquet
ed at Boston.
NOTED GATHERING,
Stirring Speech on the Les
sons of the War.

Boston. Feb. Cover one hundred of
the leading citizens of the city honored
Rear Admiral Sampson with banquet
at Hotel Tuileries, this evening, and for
two hours statesmen, representatives of
the navy and Others paid tributes to
the sterling qualities of one of the
leading naval heroes of the late war
with Spain.
The speakers, led by former Secretary
of State Olney, are all well known
throughout the nation. Behind the adj
miral's chair hung his double starred
blue flag, that had waved over many
mile of stormy southern sea and passed
through half a dozen bombardments
The reception which preceded the
banquet was Of about an hours dura-
ton. 1t was a few minutes after seven
O'Clock when Mr.. Olney led the way to
the banquet hall with the admiral fol-
lowed by Gov. Wolcott and other dis
inguished guests.
Grace was pronounced by Bishop
Lawrence, the assembly devoted two
hours to the discussion of the Viands.
The speaking began almost Immediate
ly after, Mr. Olney arising amid APP
plause and in his well known straight
forward style started the after-dinner
oratory with a theme ofVlaudation to
the American soldier and sailor, which
theme was echoed through the evening
by all the other speakers.
Mr. Olney was followed by Collector
Lyman, who spoke for the president.
Gov. Wolcott, Capt. Higginson, who
commanded the battleshlp Massachu-
sets off Santiago, Bishop Lawrence,
Capt Stockton, Mayor Quincy and
President Eliot of Harvard followed;
then Judge Grant read a poem, which
was followed by speeches from e. B.
Haskell and Maj. H. l.. Higginson, with
Admiral Sampson himself closing the
evening
The company first drank to the
health of the admiral, who then spoke
as follows;
Il rise to thank you for your most
generous greeting for myself, for my
friends and for all the navy that you
have included in all the remarks which
have been made. / want you to
understand that 1 do not take it all
unto myself. but that it is divided with
all the men. ] do not propose to say
anything, as you might expect, about
the battle of Santiago, but I would like
to say few words about the lessons
we have learned or should learn from
that battle.
First, l wish to say that neither
that battle nor any other that / know
of, was ever won by chance. The sea
fights furnish many instances where it
was found that the most powerful fleet
was the one that was successful. Mel
son was always in favor of overwhelm-
ing fleets, though he did not always
have them at his command.
THE second lesson. If we may call
it so, is closely allied perhaps to the
first Shall we not imagine our foe in
the future, as might well be the case,
to be superior to the one over which
we have been victorious? The fleets
that were opposed to each other on
that Sunday, off Santiago, were, as re-
CARDS the numbers of ships, about six
to seven. Leaving out the torpedo de-
stroyers and the Gloucester, which
may be said not to have been fighting
ships, the proportion was six to four, in
our favor. We outnumbered them
about three to one.
'Now it seems to me that you gen.
tlemen who are so influential in deter
mining and deciding in what the navy
of the United States should be should
bear this emphatically in mind that we
must have more ships, more guns and
all that goes to constitute an efficient
navy.
Il am not advocating a large army.
I do not believe that we should support
large navy, but that it should be
much larger than it is at present. The
increased territory which we have add
ed to our country will probably pro-
duce an increase in our chances for war
by at least 100 per cent, not that we
need increase the navy to that extent
but probably Will.
Among those present other than the
speakers were: Admiral Howison, Of
the navy yard, Rear Admiral Belk-
nap (retired), Capt. H. c. Taylor of
the battleship Indiana, Capt. Chadwick
of the cruiser New York Chief Engi-
neer Milligan, engineer of the Oregon
during the war, Capt Wise of the En-
terprise, Capt Colby Of the lighthouse
board, and Lieut.. Smith, inspector Of
torpedo boats.