Evening star., 1917-11-25


nicknamed her the Misery" I was
lucky enough to be on her when she
rammed the Illinois and nearly foun-
dered her in Guantanamo bay. Cuba.
After going into drydoek for two weeks
at Newport News. Va, we left for the
target range off Pensacola, in the Gulf
of Mexico.
On April IS, 1904. while on target
practice. We had an explosion in the
after turret, which killed thirty-four
men. l barely escaped with my life:
in fact, ! was smashed up little and
was sent to the Naval Hospital at
Portsmouth, Va.
My folks concluded that they had had
about enough of my foolishness and
got me out of the Navy. j was highly
incensed at this action. SO enlisted in
The 18th United States Cavalry. and
inside OF year was promoted to the
rank of squadron sergeant major.
| happened to be fairly good at rough
riding, or monkey drill" and was sent
with the second squadron to the James
town exposition to give exhibitions in
rough riding.
After three years l was discharged
from the 18th Cavalry. and came home,
but soon enlisted in the 18th United
States Cavalry, and did duty on the
Mexican border during the drst trouble
in 1911. ! was discharged al San An
tonic, Tex. returned to New York and
went into business for myself This
was distinct failure. I could not set
tie down, so l applied for a position
with a well known detective agency
and after pounding my heels in the
ante-room for several weeks. now and
then being given a shadow case" final
ly had the luck to go before the chief"
and with four other men was sent down
south on ''moonshine" case. l got in
with family of 'moonshiners" and
liked them very. we'll: in fact. / thought
so much of them that when the time
came to show them up 1t sort of went
a nd 1,,sf Il it
1t seemed like stealing candy from a
baby. OF course. this severed my con-
nection with the detective agency and
shed no tears.
New York Telephone Company. While
with them Joined the mounted scouts
of the 4th Regiment of New Jersey and
went through three maneuver camps.
::
Upon the expiration of my term Of
service, which was three years. joined
ment. New York.
Then the war broke out and was
all eagerness to get into the fight.
had been playing at soldering, and
here I was in the United States while
a real war was going on across the
water. What was 1 to do? I did not
like being neutral little bit, SO Just
agent of the French government. At
this time France was buying thousands
of horses in the United States and ship
ping them to France for the French
army. Here was my chance at last.
Ny detective experience stood me in
good stead. and after a lot of maneu-
vering I finally landed job to go over
on horse ship to try and ind out why
SO many horses were dying on the
passage over.
Shortly after my return from this
trip the Lusitania was sunk, and. like
all Americans. l. was pretty sore and
waited for the United States to get
busy.
I knew it was up to me to get over
"on my own I applied to the Brit
ish consul. "camoufaging" as Ca
madam. but it did not work They
would not send me to Canada. I de-
cided to pay my own way.
One day I met an officer of the Ca
madam army and he told me that IL I
did reach Canada / would have to stay
in training camp for at least six or
seven months before being sent over
This did not suit me in the least was
no rookie: in my opinion I was a
trained soldier
I then decided to take matters into
my own hands and go to England, and
shipped on the American line.
arrived in London about 1910
one night The Next morning before
O'Clock was u private in his majestys
imperial army. soldier of the king
Then / realized that 1 was at last up
against the real thing and all of my
pugnacity oozed out through my pores.
When you get out of civilian clothes
into uniform and close up to the fight
You do not want to fight as much as
You did before. and I felt very nervous
This nervousness never left me during
my stay on the western front
Over a year later I was so badly
wounded that 4 was discharged as
physically unfit for further war sery-
Ice" and came back to the old U. S. A
But to get to my first real adventure.
In public school No. IS I had three
chums. Bill Meek, Jim Fleming and
Charlie Unger.
Bill was full OF wild ideas and
schemes. He had the "get-rich-quiciS"
mania. About every two weeks he
would call US aside and in mysterious
and important manner carefully unfold
some daring scheme to get rich quick,
giving his personal guarantee that it
could not fail. AT first we were very
enthusiastic over his schemes and want
ed to go in with both feet" and would
carefully work out the details of how
to proceed, when. bang! Bill would in
troduce another project absolutely diff
ferent from the preceding one. When
We asked him what became Of his Won
derful proposition of two weeks ago
he blushingly told US that unforeseen
circumstances which no one could pre-
vent had interfered. Then he would un-