Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-04-07
THE PASSING OF THE MAINE
BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS


tries picked dry; and in the end the plan adopted
which succeeded where, is known, the Others
would have failed, not to lift the Maine out of the
water but to build island around it and then dig it
out of the island An engineer will tell you that tech
nically that is perfectly incorrect and absurd state
ent; but IN words OF one syllable that is what was
done.
When you reached the island you found that its banks
made of iron. This iron cut in strips panks
a hah-inch thick seventy-ive feet long, and about
foot and half broad One edge of each plank along its
entire length was bent like hook in hook and eve.
year ago. thirty forty feet distant from the
Maine, pile driver hammered of these planks into
the mud, and another iron plank driven next to it,
the bent edge of each claspng the other, children
bend their fingers to form circle in ring around
rosy Better to meet the pressure of the water these
planks camped in circles that they formed great
hOgSheadS with the eghteeninch pankS for staves
and for still greater safety these hogsheads bal
lasted with earth and limestone and rocks When there
enough of them to surround the wreck completely
the work of digging it out began.
The water inside the walls of pumped the
harbor from around the wreck by machinery and later
by hand labor; lifted above the layers of mud that
smothered it, and then after thirteen years of darkness
the battleSp, twisted and distorted her bow plates
driven in her back broken, and, with the scattered
bones of seventy skeletons between her decks,
posed to the sunshine and the sight of man. To look
seemed mpertnent; not alone because the skeletons
of the seamen made you feel you intrudng upon
burial place. but because in the distorted manged skee
ton of the ship herself there such tremendous dig
nifty and pathos. Fifteen years before, in Key West
Harbor had seen her as white as wedding cake her
bright work flashing, her awnings lifting laziy, and
sticking out in superb insoence her great black guns
capable of hurting thunderbOt nine miles, of laying
waste the entire city of Havana And now, stabbed in
the darkness she lay helpless and shapeess CHASTITY,
dismernbered corpse.
In the thirteen years since she plunged into the mud of
Havana Harbor, carrying with her three hundred and
fifty sailors, the Maine had become of the great
mysteries of the world And doubt will she always
be- That part of the mystery that concealed the nature
of her destruction she has set at rest 10 do she
from the grave show her wounds but who that
struck the blow may be determined. In spite of
the largest rewards ever offered to discover criminal
in spite of the most earnest efforts of Government
to fix the blame and Of another to clear herself of
picon, the guilty has never been found; and that
now he will be is improbable 1t is of little
quence At sight of the great ruin he caused the per-
sonaty of the who laid the mine became of little
consequence Instead turned in admiration to the
young man who had carried out the plan of the engi-
declared impossblity,- hand to lift bat
teshp out of twenty feet of mud and with the other
hold back the waters of the harbor 1t pleasant
find that Major H. B. Ferguson, of the Engineer Corps
of the United States army, character with the
big work he had accomplished. 1t pleasant to find
that he young modest, with his thoughts all the
work and not the who had carried it
yet escape without charge against him of graft
self advertisement it pleasant to find that in the
case of Major Ferguson Cubans, Americans and Span
iards combined in speaking his praises.
1t will be poor return for the work he has
pshed if the War Department does not recognize it by
quick promotion, and if the Congressman who at
the expense of the Maine widely advertised them
selves do not honor the who relieved us of
eproach and gave peace and decent burial to the bones
Of American fighting men and an American WarShiD