The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1915-08-19
By JULIUS W. MULLER
Copyright, 1915 By J. W. Muller.
All rights reserved.

Because Sandy Hook Is not within
the city, as the other two forts were,"
was the solution at which the cityH
lawyers arrived after considering the
rules governing military action. 'aThs
invader plainly Is adhering carefully to
all the accepted rules Of war. BY do
ing so he can and does hold US to ae-
count vigorously under the same rules
This is profitable to him. for despite all
their apparent stipulations in favor OF
a conquered territory the rules OF war
are made, after all, to facilitate war;"
It was impossible to warn the COM
mAnder at Sandy Hook. Private serv-
ice over the telephone and telegraph
systems was suspended entirely. The
FIRE alarm system was operated under
the watchful control of soldiers. In
police headquarters sat a colonel Of
cavalry, whose countersign was necess
sary for every order issued by the po-
lice commissioner.
This was a stern officer, who held
the police force in a hard, masterful
hand. The men were accountable more
than ever for strict enforcement OF
all laws, but they were subject also to
summary control by every military Of
ncer. Even guards and posts of pri-
vate soldiers had some authority over
them. There were many daily expert
ences and sights in their streets that
served to make the people tractable,
but few things were so powerful as
the daily spectacle of their pugnacious
police yielding sullen but complete obe-
dience.
at is unlawful to disobey orders CIV
en- by our army" This short regula-
tion covered great deal 1t tied the
police and the citizens hand and foot.
On Sandy Hook, fifteen miles down
the harbor from the Battery, there
were being demonstrated the inexora-
BILE mathematics Of war that had been
demonstrated at Naragansett. at Bos-
ton, at Forts Schuyler and Slocum. In
WestcheSter, and at Fort Totten, on
Long Island
Fort Hancock, on Sandy Hook, al
most invulnerable to ship attack from
tie sea, was being reduced from the
land. The fort commander had dis
posed his men in the most formidable
positions possible, and they made the
narrow sandy neck of the Hook that
led from the mainland to their fottifi-
cations q pass that no force, however
contemptuous OF death, would attack
hastily. Barb wire and great sand
mounds, rapid fire guns and big guns
behind them, made them no despicable
senttnelA. but the Americans numbered
companies where the enemy numbered
battalions and regiments. The Amer
lean mobile guns numbered pairs where
the eneny's artillery was counted by
dozens.
The steel mass OF fort that could
protect harbor and city could not pro-
tect itself. The motley aotflla, emery
ing into Raritan bay, landed its men
on the New Jersey shore ae KeypOrE.
inside Of the lower harbor and behind
Sandy Hook. The defenses had net
been devised or built 10 withstand at
tack from their own bay. The great
r1aed guns and the steel mofars were
ponderous. They were mounted en-
complex engines, equally ponderous,
whose bases were firmly anchored IN
concrete and steel. These naammoths
were not things that could be swung
around TO all points OF the compass.
They were set In their solid beds for
the one purpose OF fighting things out
! at sea.
The commander had succeeded, with
desperate labor, by blasting away con-
crete emplacements and facings, in
turning two Of his big guns around TO
face the land and protect the open
back OF the fort. But the giant steel
guns, with their 1000 pound projec-
3 ttles, that could fight $4,000 ton bat
tlcehips, could not fight little two leg.
ged men. They might, by chance or
Q fortune, find and destroy one Of the
Z Siege guns that were attacking them
But If they missed a gun and fell
merely among soldiers they would be
: scarcely more murderous than a little
i Geld gun that fires bursting charges Of
E Strapped