The Thibodaux sentinel. (Thibodaux, La.) 1905-1912, 1911-05-20

Aneie are eoiulers and sailors of high rank men
gray in service and gray in years who have never
peeh apie 70 i've down some little act of their
lives at either the naval or military academy
which made them unpopular with thar fellows
and the effect of which lasts to this day
Naming no names and giving no specific case
with date and circumstances 1t may be said that
In one Of the greatest controversies which ever
ivexed the service one man won out WIN the
country, but did not win out with his fellow Off
GERS, and he did not win out with them simply
because they thought that the thing he was
charged with doing was in keeping with one act
he committed as boy, an act that lost him stand
ing with his fellow students
At West Point and Annapolis they have habit
OF cutting" the boy who bears tales, or who
shows a streak of timdity that is called by a
harsher word, or who does some other thing that
boys in their boyish humor do not like. When a
man graduates and gets into the service he is no
longer cut, but his society is not sought, and as
a result perhaps Of mere momentary weakness,
monetary thoughtlessness whole
career from the social point of view may be
blasted. There are some cases in the army and
navy today, and pretty fair measure by which
to Judge of mans personality is the measure OF
regard in which he is held in later life by the
men who vent to school with him in the day OF
the boy.
William w. Russell not long ago this gov
ernment's envoy extraordinary and minister plen-
American country at the time of the strained rela-
lions which existed for while between Uncle
Sam and President Castro
William w. Russell is popular in the navy and
his popularity dates back to his school days. He
is grave diplomat with light in his eye that
neither gravity nor position can put out. But he
was not always a grave one burdened with the
affairs of state. Once upon time he Pete
Russell, midshipman at the United States naval
academy. William was changed into Pete" the
minute that he reported at Annapolis, but truth
compels the statement that neither the official
archives nor the middies archives disclose the rea
son for turning William into Pete" Suffice is
to know that the middies would have it that way.
and that way 1t went.
Some time ago had dinner with graduate OF
Annapolis who had known William W. Russell in
his Pete" days at the academy Midshipman
Russell did not graduate. but he was long enough
at the academy to leave his mark upon the insti-
tuition and to make his memory dwell lovingly
in the hearts of succeeding generations OF mid
dies Possibly some d the stories that the gradu-
ate told of Pete's school days may account IN
some measure for the fact that he became dip
lomat instead of becoming salt.
Midshipman Russell had way with him, and
the middies and the authorities were not long IN
finding it out. Pete had difficulty IN restraining
himself on occasions, witness:
One Sunday at Annapolis the chaplain preached
long and droningly The listening middles were
tired out with the heat of the day and the Dur
den of the sermon which lasted one hour ana
ten minutes. The sermon over, the sololst IN the
choir undeterred and undismayed by the length
of the chaplans discourse, started in to sing Sun
of NV Soul" He went through the first line un
trippingy and then struck into the second. 1T IS
not night" he sang. Then he repeated 1t Is not