The Glenwood post., 1919-03-01
MAN OF WESTERN FHRL
ING WANTED

casting ABOUT Tor an available man TOR
president, especially since the death of
Roosevelt.
AS an aftermath of the war there has
been great deal of talk about taking
up man of military experience for
the position.
Col. Leonard Wood is national fig
ure who Is occupying constantly
larger place in the hearts and minds
of the American people.
AS governor of Porto Rico and Cuba
and in charge of the sanitary recon-
struction of the Philippines he got ad
ministrative training.
He was not only a military hero at
Santiago, but cleaned up the city of
Havana and stamped out the last yes
tiges of the yellow fever there.
He was one of a small party with
Captain Lawton who went into Mexico
and won a medal from congress as tho
fighting surgeon who took Geronimo.
He organized the civilian training
camp at Plattsburg and led in the
! fight for national preparedness that
ended in the victory over Germany.
He went over to France and made an
independent report on conditions on
the western front that forced congress
to act.
| He was summoned three times before
the senate committee on military af-
fairs and exposed inefficiency that
compelled speeding up war.
A New Englander by birth, he is n
man of action with true westerner' IS
scope of vision and capacity for initia-
tive when initiative is necessary.
When he was first sent to Camp
Funston he found it an undrained bog
and ordered all the picks and shovels
in Kansas City and cleaned it up.
He found men without blankets and
ordered 10000 pairs at his own risk,
sent the bill to Washington and it was
paid without ceremony.
Col. Wood has a way of cutting
right through red tape and disentang-
ling ambiguous officialism with clear
grasp of common sense that gets results.
At Camp Funston he was first to in
troduce trade schools for enlisted men
to prepare them for taking full part
in reconstruction.
HIS work at Plattsburg was adopted
as basis for hundreds of civilian camps,
so his work at Camp Funston il, fol-
lowed at other camps.
The west can probably not name the
next president, but it will take kindly
to Woods western way of doing things
and thinking them.
The only man in the present admin.
lstration who takes western views is
Secretary Lane of the department CT
the interior-born in Canada.
The west takes up nearly everything
that Secretary Lane proposes and west
erners generally regret that he is
barred from being a candidate.
The western viewpoint is all-in,port-
ant when it is considered how for ten
years we have been hog-tied and handi.
capped by eastern policies.
Unless there is some weakness in his
armor of equipment for public service
and political availability unknown to
the press, Col. Wood would do.
His life has been a strenuous one
but he is mighty good sport and has
never beefed, but took his medicine
when politics kept him off the Europe.
an battle front.
The United States senators took hi,
reports on weaknesses found in the
army establishment because he had
the courage to tell the truth.
He was the apostle of preparedness,
for two years before there was any
preparation to fit our country to de
fend itself, and he was right.
He was first to tell the senate com
mittee on military affairs that we must
put an army of 100000 men in tn.
field and he was right.
He was first to demand that the
armies at home be given vocationa
training to fit them to take up th'
work of civil life and he was right.
Leonard Wood is a typical westerne
as man of action and it is hard t.
show that he is not what the ives
wants in presidential timber