Evening star., 1914-05-10

came attending physician at the White
House.
1t was now that he first met Theo-
dore Roosevelt. at that time assistant
secretary of the navy. They boxed,
fenced, wrestled. rode and walked to-
Sether. and then came the explosion of
the Maine. No youngsters were ever
more intoxicated by the prospect of
war and the hope of getting into It
They plotted, planned. conspired to get
commissions in the approaching CON
fiict and are said to have first sought
majors commissions in New York S
list Regiment. And finally after a
vain attempt to have Gov. Walcott put
him in command of Massachusetts
regiment. Wood filed an application
with Secretary of War Alger for a
colonel'S command. But Roosevelt was
first to be favored by Alger. He was
offered a cavalry regiment, but told the
War Secretary that if he would make
Wood colonel he tRooseve1t would go
with him as lieutenant colonel Thus
was conceived the famous regiment of
Rough Riders. and thus did those twin
stars start upon the ascendant Wood
had Alger telegraph each of the four
territorial governors for n quarter
regiment of sharpsheoters and rough
riders and within eighteen days the
tonic. fully equipped even to extra
shoes for the horses. They carried
machetes instead of sabers. and were
the only volunteers armed with Krag-
JorEensen carbines shooting smokeless
powder.
It was after the heavy skirmish at
Las Guasimas-fn which Theodore
Roosevelt had his first experience on
the firing line-that Gen. Young fell
sick and Col. Wood was ordered to sue
ceed him. Roosevelt now succeeded to
the full command of the Rough Riders
Wood. with his brigade. experienced
some of the fiercest fighting in the bat
tie of San Juan hill. within whose first
hour he lost his horse and all of his
staff officers
The two comrades of the Apache cam
paign We're now to be brought together
again after twelve years After San
tlagos surrender. Lawton was put in
command of the city of Santiago. They
are the two best men in the army here"
Shafter wired to Alger. Wood trans
formed Santiago from a prolonged slum
into a spotless town.. and then he sue
ceeded Lawton as governor of Santiago
province. Once while he was having
trouble in making the Cuban army dis
band and 90 to work as individuals. n
mob gathered outside his palace and
threatened him Armed only with a rid
ing crop he went into the midst of it
alone and dispersed it. In the December
following the war he was commissioned
major general of volunteers. This was
seven months after the time that he had
begun to organize the Rough Riders with
Roosevelt. who was now governor-elect
of New York. Wood was thirty eight and
Roosevelt forty.
Eihu Root while Secretary of War,
made two selections pregnant with his
tory. He selected Gen. Wood to be mill
tary governor of Cuba and William How
ard Taft to he civil governor of the
Philippines. The young general sat in
Weyler's chair. III Weyler's palace. and
polished up the pearl of the Antilles un-
til it shone resplendent upon the sapphire
sea. He transformed Cuba from a place
of miasmas and pestilence to a health re
sort and-aS Secretary Root put it, in an
official order:
Out of an utterly PROSTATE colony
free republic was built up-the work be-
ing done with such signal ability. in
tegrity and success that the new nation
started under more favorable conditions
than has ever before been the case in
any single instance among her fellow
Spanish American republics
Wood rewrote the administrative and
electoral laws Of the Cubans shaped
their government into a republic model
ed on the lines of the United States, and
after teaching them to assemble theil
constitutional convention turned the gov
ernment over TO them with a balance in
the treasury. But during his administra-
tion of Cuba Gen. Wood gained the bit
ter enmity of a powerful faction in Con-
gress by prosecuting an influential sena-
tors friend and the political henchman
for fragrant frauds In the Cuban postal
service, This feud delayed his con-