The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-05-27

burn, and reared in and about To-
peka. returned to this city this. week
after twenty-five years of wandering.
with the, proud assertion, I'm 100
per cent American"
In the twenty-five years of the pill
grimage, Brown has made no less
than seventeen round trips to the
Philippine Islands from Seattle.
Wash. with a couple of little side
stroIls to Alaska, a couple more to
Australia, and junkets and calls in
China, Japan, the Hawaiian Islands
and such like odd corners of the back
yard of the United States.
A quarter of a century ago Brown
enjoyed playing ball, and with some
of the other youngsters of this COM
munity played himself quite a lot of
that diversion. Two of his friends OF
those days were Frank Leech. now in
and Mitchell BuHdy, for years de-
tective on the Topeka force.
When he came to town the other
day, Brown, who is the uncle of Dr.
Earle G. Brown, city health officer,
whom he is visiting, stepped down to
the police station.
Didn't Fool Leech.
He walked up beside Leech, who
did not turn. and explained that he
had had a motor car stolen. Leech'
listened without turning his head, AL
right, Harry Brown" he said, at no
loss whatever to identify the man he
hadn't seen for more than twenty
years.
Brown doesn't look mis- fifty-nine
years. Years of seafaring have left
him with a constitution as rugged,
step as sure and unhesitating, as his
face is tanned and weathered. There
is no hint in the piercing eyes that
look out from under heavy gray eye
brows, focused to stare across the
Pacific. that he has come anywhere
near the end OF the trail he has fol
lowed.
He is full of "reminiscences of the
life of the Orient which he has lived.
His first taste came when the United
States was at war with the Filipinos
and with Spain. His version of the
battle of Manila, has some new view
points that have not been brought
out.
Familiar With AguinaIdo.
He was welding a rifle when
Aguinaldo attacked Manila. "Aguin-
aldo had been going in and out of
with the Americans. They were
about ready to make us salute him as
he passed our block house, when the
revolt broke, and he attacked US with
$4,000 Fillipinos," Brown says.
Brown isn't much taken with the
Dewey in the battle of Manila Bay.
nor with Dewey's conduct and the
support he gave the American troops
on land.
He went to the war as waggoner of
Company G, First Washington regi-
became one of assistant wagon-mas-
tiers of the government transport Dix,
which for many years carried across
the Pacific the horses and mules used
by the American army in the islands.
The Dix, which has now been re-
tired from the service. had stalls for
SIS head of horses and mules. Twelve
days out from the United States she
would stop at Honolulu, where there
is a government corral, and there the
stiffened and seasick animals would
be allowed to rejoice on solid land for
a week, before embarking for the
three weeks which remained of thel
journey.
Drove Stage in Alaska.
Brown vas not in the transport
service all the time. He spent two
sea sons in Alaska, driving a stage
coach. on a line out of Dawson City.
He also slipped over to Australia to
engage in raiIroa ding. and came back
no less disguised with Australia than
with the dinky little contraptions they
call railroads there.
Incidentally, he went with the
American troops to the relief of Pc
king, during the Boxer revolution. IF
they had let the American troops fight
all day. there wouldn't have been any
boxers left in the evening" he says.
He Unanswered about China quite
a bit, in the course of his travelling.
and also visited most of the Philippine
Islands. He returned much impressed
with the natural wealth of the Islands,
and the undesirability of turning
them over to the natives, who, he be-
lfeves, are totally unable to govern
Secs Remote War Menace.
And >as to the menace of war bel
tween Japan and the United States: II
1T is the Japs in California and
the Hawaiian Islands who are talk-
ing war. not the JaDS in TokYon he