The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-07-04
Disaster TO the Oregon.

Americans heard of the disaster to
the Oregon with sorrow greater than
was felt when the Monitor went down
In gale off the Carolina coast, or the
Kearsarge was wrecked in the Carbide
an Sea. These we're historic ships of the
civil war, as the Constitution was of
the war of 1912, and the Bon Homme
Richard of the Revolutionary period.
About the Oregon clings the ro-
nance of the Spanish conflict on the
wave, as she personifes also the sub
FINEST heroism of the war on the water,
under the greatest variety and the most
trying of conditions. The Oregon
awakens in the heart of every Ameri-
can feelings of pride and endearment
more intense than the name of any
other ship of the navy, new or old.
She stood for the perfection of Ameri-
can ship building, in speed and end ur-
ance, as we'll as for the unrivaled eff
cheney of her guns, the gallantry of her
crew and the professional skill, un-
sleeping vigilance, dauntless courage
and burning patriotism of her com.
mander, Captain Charles E. Clark, and
his tellow-officers.
1t will be pitiable, indeed, if this
splendid ship, with her cargo of glo-
rious associations, is wrecked beyond
restoration and must be abandoned in
gloriously to the waters Of treacher-
Gus eastern sea. The query cannot be
repressed, What IL similar disaster
had befallen the Oregon in her $4,000
mile race, following "down the billow
through nights when tempests toss,"
doubling the perilous Cane and sailing
up the Atlantic with its dangers of
lurking foes, as we'll as of the sea? But
no such disaster-no disaster of any
kind-happened, when the great ship
was every hour environed with the ele-
ments of fatal injury from the sea or
man.
Was immunity sheer luck, sheer good
fortune2 Or was it due to the mortal
vigilance that never slept, the judg-
ment that never erred, the skill and
caution that foresaw and warded off at.
tack whether of the wave or the rock,
whether If Spanish emissaries in port
or their armed agents on the high seas?
AL the facts and circumstances of the
remarkable voyage from the Pacific to
the Atlantic, and of the blockade of
Santiago and the fight off the Cuban
coast, 60 to show that the Oregon's
wonderful record was not merely the
product of good mechanical construc-
ton, but primarily and pre-eminently
the result of the qualities in her COM
mander and crew that could get the
utmost attainable out of a good ship
and save her utterly from Gripping
misfortune. The wreck in the Gulf of
Pechili seems to sustain and empha-
size this view of Captain Clark's stew
ardship of the Oregon in a mighty
emergency.
The event in Chinese waters is il
Illuminating. Disaster might have hap
pened on the run from San Francisco
to the West Indies. The chances,
natural and of mans devising, were
vastly on the side of happenings that
would wreck the ship, vastly greater
than existed between Manila and Taku.
But the Oregon arrived in the West
Indies on time, in condition for instant
service, and in the battle, without re-
pairs or overhauling of any kind, ex-
ceeded her trial speed, and was the de-
cisive factor in the final and utter ex-
tinction OF the four formidable Spanish
cruisers that had terrorized the whole
Atlantic coast of the United States.
Results like these were not the evolu-
tons of chance. The value and i'm.
portance of Captain Clark's services to
his country, in great crisis, is receiv-
ing a new and unexpected enforce.
ment.
IL