The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-10-07
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70 wi. eht oI mathematics and I set valiantly
70 WORK 10 make our quarters at least hobitobIe
nonraaI furniture has an exasperating way of
lepeesehung the combined tastes of n long line
of former Occupants " "Ns h"e
we were assigned to a ton floor fat in Colds
n.usn row. the one where Admiral Theodore
- . laughter wrote her name with a din
nn o"I ~ d window pane when she was a child
rnu -. ne Iut d lieutenant. Admiral Benson, our
present chlef of operations, lived in the Same aot
ana doubtless endured remnants of tbe somo g..
hlture when he was an ensign. The midsbinmon
called the old place the Corrals and sometimos
.he hcu0ators-young devils! The whole row
~ gone now TO make way for a green lawn. but
us memories will go out only with the last of tho
souls who peopled the shabby rooms.
Il think it must be this succession of roo,,o
lucIhs at ulIlerent times the same problems and
uiHcultles, stepping actually into each others
iootsteps IN work and play, which gives us that
splendid spirit of the service, the warm brotbor-
hood OF thought and action that no outsider NAV
really understand. 1t begins with the plebe class
IN the academy and goes on down a mans life fill
he Is struck off the list forever and ifs warmth 10
MS childrens heritage. 1t is the unspoken gene
roslty OF the upper-class men at the academy TO
lend a hand to youngsters (third- class mem or
plebe alike. 1t begins in discipline and ends in
justice.
1T is the cooperation of officer with men. II
stands behind our guns and sweats in the stoker's
hell. 1t is the chap who stays aboard to take
dholhSl eIioN . uuty InuC some waiting wife
may be happy, some child discover that the pho-
tograph he is taught to call father isn't lust a
makebelieve. 1t is, more than any other one
thing, fleet efficiency. It's steady, unchanging ex-
istence Is the armament against which politicians
errors break like froth. 1t is our safeguard for
protection and against militarism.
my father had never let me visit the naval
academy as a girl for fear I might marry a naval
officer, so I looked forward to meeting my first
midshipman with a curious bareback of youth,
almost as If | were to see them through the eyes
of n girl. l had determined when we went to
duty at the academy to have a home place for
the boys who were not invited out very much.
My husband told me once long years ago, when
L had gone all the way from Boston to Gibraltar
to be with him for four days, that no one had
ever asked him out to a single meal at the time
he was at the academy.
81 never forgot that little confidence or the look
man TO invite to our quarters it was because he
said Yes, ma'am' to me and didn't know what to
do with his hands.
"The Sunday after S. reported we went to
chapel in the academy. We were seated well
back and in the shadow of one of the side bal
comics. 1t was infinitely quiet there the very
light held a quality of silence and the rows and
rows of empty pews beneath the splendid dome
seemed to be waiting tensely with me for some
expected sound.
81 looked up into the rapidly filling balconies.
So many girls, so young and eager, men and
women, town folk and visitors. Then, as my