The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-03-06
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON
NZl17y0 c0M1A5LZARy

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- HIRTY years ago America
had a new national hero. He
Twas "a little man with slight
limp; little man who
nmu weighs less than hundred
NJ I'll pounds, with a Vandyke
s1.. beard and a sense of humOr
that bubbles in him like the
effervescence of wine" His name
was Frederick Funston and his mad
cap enterprise" as, he himself called
It, put his name on the lips of mill
lions. For Funston had captured
Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the
Filipino insurrectos, the most talked
OF man in the Orient, If not in the
whole world at that time, who for
three years had been leading some
10000 American troops and native
auxiliaries a merry chase from one
end Of the province Of Luzon to an
other. On March %, 1901, the chase
came to an end when, through the
daring and the strategy of the little
Kansan, this willy native leader was
taken prisoner.
Insignificant though Funston may
have been in appearance, few mems
lives had been packed as full with adj
venture as had his when he sprang
into fame almost overnight. He was
born in Ohio in 1865, the son Of {. first
lieutenant in the Union army. who in
1867 moved to Kansas when Frederick
was two years old, where he was elect
ed to the Kansas state legislature and
later elected and repeatedly reelected
to congress.
Young Funston was educated in
lola. Kan, attended the University of
Kansas for two years and then went
to work as a newspaper reporter,
first at Fort Smith, Ark, and later on
the Kansas City Journal
During the summer of 1896 he at
tended a mass meeting in New York
called to arouse sympathy for the
Cubans who were Struggling to throw
off the yoke of Spain. Funston be-
came interested in the cause of Cuban
liberty and offered his services to the
Cuban Junta. After drilling recruits
under its direction. he joined filibus-
tering expedition and aided in deliver
Aing to General Gomez the first Hotch-
kiss guns owned by the Cuban revolu-
tionists. Two weeks later he was
placed in charge of these guns as cap
tain Of artillery.
During his Is months in Cuba Fun
Eton took part in % engagements and
SO fearful was the execution wrought
by his guns Give pieces, including a
pneumatic dynamite gun, the first ever
used in battle) that the Spaniards set
a price upon his head. At the battle
Of Samai his lungs were pierced by a
Mauser bullet and while he was re-
covering from this wound his hip was
injured by his horse falling upon it
during cavalry charge. This was
followed by an attack of fever and
with his health broken Funston at
tempted to reach the coast and escape
to the United States.
He was arrested by the Spaniards
but succeeded in convincing them that
he was deserter from the Cuban
army (after swallowing the passport
which would have betrayed him) and
/ although they at first sentenced him
! to firing squad and stone wall, he
Z was finally freed and sent to the
! United States. This was in 1890 and
the next few years Funston spent on
the lecture platform.
At the outbreak of the Spanish-Amer-
lean war he organized the Twentieth
Kansas Volunteers a regiment similar
to the Rough Riders, of which he was
made colonel. His regiment was or