The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-09-16
MASTER OF SUBMARINES

is known here and is a friend Of Cap
tain Sanders, the pilot:
Captain Frank Taylor Cable is the
man who has made the dreams Of
Jules Verne come true
He has travelled leagues under the
sea, shut up tight i'm the cramped walls
of the mysterious little underwater
demon of war-the submarine-and he
has come back safe and been down
again and again until the daring life
under the sea is no more to him than
quiet smoke besire his kitchen fire.
He has risen from the humble posi-
ton of farm boy to the head of the
greatest submarine concern in the
world, the Electrical Boat Company at
the Fore River shipyard in Quincy,
but still the call of the deep and the
destinations of the little diving mon
sters Of the sea are an obsession that
his A years has not eclipsed.
He has been down on more sub
marines than any one man alive, and
the miniature submarine navies of
England, Russia and Japan owe their
inception to the daring feats of this
Yankee under-sea navigator.
A decade ago Captain Cable first as
sumed command of the old Holland,
the first submarine that received the
seal of Uncle Sans approval and was
purchased by Congressional appropria-
ton for $15O,OOO
His appointment marked the first
rung in the captains latter of fame.
He began life out in a little country
town in Connecticut with just the
usual proclivities of the ordinary keen
headed farmers boy
At IS he had carried off his diploma
from Claverack College, a technical
school in Hudson, N. Y. From school
he went back to farming.
He ran the pillow four years. Then he
took off his overalls, put on his Sunday
suit, and hiked over to Morris Heights
N. Y, where there was then in opera
ton a naptha launch company He got
a job and learned all there was to be
learned about launches. That took
two years and a half.
Next his genius took another flight
and landed him in a machine shop OF
the Philadelphia Electrical Company,
with 10 hours of hard work and a 50 a
day wage before him He kept putting
money into his sock and also fixed an
eye on the main chance, with the re-
suit that the managers of the company
decided that Mr. Cable ought to be
given one of the favored positions IN
the laboratory department At the
end of seven years Mr. Cable had
proven himself an expert in electrical
equipment-a speciality which first
brought him in connection with sub
marines.
The Philadelphia company built all
the electrical equipment for the old
Plunger, the first American submarine
and one which finally turned out a
failure
About this time Mr.. Holland was
perfecting the first Holland boat, and
he decided that new electrical en-
gineer was needed. Mr. Cable got the
job, and in 1897, following the trials
of the Holland submarines in Bridges
Bay off Staten Island, the engineer
was made captain of the ten wonder
of the age, the Holland.
The next year he became superin-
tendent of the Holland company. and
when the Holland boat was accepted
by the government, in 1900, he STOOD
as the one of the world-famed sub
marine engineers.
At this time the company began
building the submarine Fulton, which
was later turned over to the Russian
government The shipment of this
little fighting machine in 1904, during
the period of the Jap-Russo war, turn
ed out one of the official sensations of
the time, which Captain Cable, by his
mastery stroke of business, one dark
night, down on the end of Long Island
where his company was then doing
business, turned into a coup d'etat.
which left the high officials of Uncle
Sam chuckling in their sleeves while
assuming an exterior air of stern re-
proach.
The Russians were anxious to get
the Fulton. There were a whole lot
OF Russian submarines in the harbor
of Vladivostok, but they didn't do the
things they had been built to do.
Urgent cipher kilograms kept ar
irving surreptitiously down at New
Suffolk, L. l. The Fulton was com.
pleted and launched.
Then the question arose as to the
rights of a full-fedged fighting sub
marine being shipped from the United
States to Russia while Russia was al
war with the Japanese. 1t really look,
ed as though the red tape machine IN
Washington would begin to unwinC
and tie the little Fulton up in a hard
and fast knot.
Captain Cable decided to turn a
trick on his own account before tbe