The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-01-29
men FOR THE SEA
Officers Make Raid on West for
Raw Material.
Find That Boys from Farms
Make Best Seamen.
COMING TO TOPEKA.
Recruiting Station to Be Opened
Here.
BIakesley Will Be in
Charge.

Next month Kansas will be called
upon to send her sons. with a liking
for the sea. to Join the United States
navy. The recruiting officers viii be in
Topeka February to and in Leaven-
worth February to A.
Lieutenant Blakesley will have charge
of the recruiting Offices in Kansas and
he hoDes to take back with him some
OF the best young men of the state.
Kansas is already we'll represented in
the navy but with the rest of the west
ern states is expected to send more. The
navy prefers western boys, as the fol-
lowing written by William E. Curtis, the
well known Washington correspondent
of the Chicago Record-Herald will ex-
plain:
Good men are wanted for the United
States navy a thousand a month from
now until July, and several recruiting
parties, each composed of a lieutenant,
a medical officer and three or four non
commissioned officers and sailors have
been sent out into the west where ex-
perience has demonstrated that the best
material for seamen can be found There
used to be a superstition that only boys
who had been brought UP on the coast,
who had learned to swim in salt water
and sail boats would make good sail
ors, and hence the rank and file of the
navy was formerly recruited in the
cities and fishing villages on tide water.
This fallacy was exploded long ago, and
now it is the unanimous opinion that
the best sailor comes from the farms
and the villages of the west, where the
boys are born of honest. industrious
families, reared under good moral in
1uences and have principles as well as
intelligence, ambition, education and
self-contrOl.
The modern sailor is not the swash-
buckler that we read about in sea tales,
who is always -shivering his timbers,
and splicing the main brace" and
"hitching up his trousers The modern
sailor no longer uses the strange oaths
of the 70 cas- lie and despises "land-lub-
bers," but he is q machinist, an cleo
trician, a telegrapher by signals and
must have education and intelligence to
do his work The cruisers and battle
ships of this generation are floating ma
chimes and require as much mechanical
skill to manage them as a big manufac-
tory. Therefore the highest class of
moral and mental material is demanded
for the navy, and it is found in the west.
Boys who have been brought up in the
merchant marine, in the fishing fleets
and on the docks of the great tideWater
cities are no longer wanted They know
too much that is wrong and have too
many bad habits. The navy is not re-
form school these days. and every boy
who presents himself for enlistment Is
required to show a certificate of good
character from his pastor, his school
teacher, the mayor or postmaster of his
town or the employer he worked for last.
He is required to submit to a physical
and mental examination. If he has bad
habits he will be rejected. The best
men possible are wanted because they
are needed, and those whose conduct IS
unsatisfactory will be promptly dis
charged from the service as soon as
they are found out, and their parents
VIII be required to pay their expenses
home.
All sorts of men are wanted; not only
apprentices between IS and II years of
age, but searnen. machinists, mechanics
and every possible kind of artisans who
receive the following pay: