Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1919-07-03
ADM|RALS, STAPLE
VERMONT PRODUCT
Pleasing Editorial Comment of
New York Times on Dewey,
Mayo and Clark

| New York. June 30.-The Times says
editorially staple product Of Vermont
| is admirals. although its statisticians
| give prominence in their tables to mar
BILE. granite, spruce milk, cheese, hay.
livestock and abandoned farms. The
area of Vermont Is one three-hundred-
| and sixteenth of the continental United
states and in 1918 Vermont had an esti-
mated population of 336. 1872, as compared
with 1o5 300 for all the States: its
quota Of admirals should therefore be
microscopically negligible. As matter
or fact, Vermont produces admirals as
easily as It yields granite. marble and
Morgan horses; not mere rear adnlirals,
who nowadays are as blackberries in
August. but famous admirals, who COM
mand fleets or make history, or do both
The University of Vermont on Tuesday
proclaimed Henry T. Mayo. commander
Of the Atlantic fleet in the great war, a
doctor of laws. There is no need to ask
from which State he first saw the light
in Vermont. for most of our great ad-
nirals of this generation were born in
the shadow of the Green Mountains The
university on the hill was honoring a Bur-
lington man. From Battery Park you
can look across the inland sea to Platts-
burgh bay. where Commodore Thomas
Macdonough whipped a British SQUAD
ron in 1874 and the biogra pher of Henry
| T. Mayo will account for his naval
career by deriving his inspiration from
that stout conflict in which 300 British
and 2o Americans persisted. fighting at
close quarters in the old, romantic and
sanguinary style
Admiral George Dewey, Of deathless
Manila bay fame. was born at Mont
peier under the State House hill on
whose crest the cows chew the cud as
they look in on the legislators at their
desks. Admiral Dewey wrote his own
| life. and in chapter I, he says that dur
| ing his long stay in the heat Of Manila
| bay after the battle, certain angles OF
view of the irregular landscape Of Luzon
| from the deck of the flagship Olympia
often recalled the Green Mountains Of
| my boyhood days" and he adds: In
deed | never look across a stretch Of
rolling country without a feeling of
| inconsistencies for Vermont" That is the
way all absent Nermonters feel. and they
| like to say so. AS Dewey's great-grand-
father, William. fought at Lexington,
and Williams brother. Simeon. was one
of Ethan Aliens Green Mountain Boys
at the taking of Ticonderoga, George,
admits), seemed to be destined for the
land forces, Indeed. he spent two years
at the Norwich Military Academy for
the sake of it's discipline. which he
needed (see his wild FRANKS in the auto
biography. But there happened to be
no vacancy for West Point from Yer
mont when George Dewey was old enough
to be entered "Otherwise.'' he says, 81
might have gone into Manila bay on an
| army transport instead of on the Olym-
| pia."
| 1t was through the influence Of Senator
Foote that the Montpelier's Doctors son
| was dispatched to Anna polls to become
| a famous admiral. The University of
Vermont never made him a doctor of
laws: 1t was anticipated by the Univer-
| sity Of Pennsylvania. George Dewey was
always true to the Green Mountain State
| Woodstock was his favorite summering
place. although the records of its county
| court show that at the December term
in 1854 he and four other boys were
| solemnly tried Cthe State versus Lloyd
| E. Bowers, ct all for singing negro mel
| odies outside a house with intent to
break up the hymn singing of devout
Woodstock family. So wicked was the
admiral-to-be.
| Another Vermont admiral of note is
Charles Edgar Clark, he of the Ore
| CONS run round South America and the
fight with the Dons off Santiago in which
he took such gallant part. Clark was
| born at Bradford, VT, the picturesque
town that is mirrored in the Connecti-
cut, very placid at that point. There is
nothing in it's flow through oxbow mead
ows and past wooded banks to send a
boy to Annapolis with visions, but YER
mont cannot help turning out admirals
who do things. OF all her sailor sons
Vermont seems to have liked Clark (also
LII. D. Of Pennsylvania. the hest, for
his democratic ways and his modesty.
He, too, spends his summers in Vermont
singular to say on an artificial lake
high up on Mount Mansfield, where the
simple life is lived at a rustic clubhouse
Vermont will go on producing admirals
as long as Cancels Hump salutes Mans
| field and Kilungton, and historic Cham
plain reflects the sun at its rising and
setting, but Dewey, Clark and Mayo
will not soon be surpassed.