Porto Rico: Its History, Products and PossibilitiesHall, A. D. (Arthur D.)
History
Porto Rico: Its History, Products and Possibilities
Hall, A. D. (Arthur D.)
Puerto Rico -- Description and travel; Puerto Rico -- History
"And look at the display of American patriotism. When the volunteers
were summoned by the President they walked on the scene as if they had
been waiting in the wings. They were subjected to a physical examination
as searching as that of a life insurance company. A man was rejected for
two or three filled teeth. They came from all ranks of life. Young
lawyers, doctors, bankers, well-paid clerks are marching by thousands in
the ranks. The first surgeon to be killed at Guantanamo left a New York
practice of $10,000 a year to volunteer. As I was standing on the steps
of the Arlington Hotel one evening a tall, thin man, carrying a large
suitcase, walked out and got on the street car for the railway station
on his way to Tampa. It was John Jacob Astor, the possessor of a hundred
millions of dollars. Theodore Roosevelt's rough riders contain a number
of the smartest young men in New York society. A Harvard class-mate of
mine, a rising young lawyer, is working like a laborer at the Brooklyn
Navy Yard, not knowing when he may be ordered to Cuba or Manila. He is a
naval reserve man and sent in his application for any post 'from the
stoke hole upward.' The same is true of women. When I called to say
good-by to Mrs. John Addison Porter, the wife of the Secretary to the
President, whose charming hospitality I had enjoyed, she had gone to
Tampa to ship as a nurse on the Red Cross steamer for the coast of Cuba.
And all this, be it remembered, is for a war in which the country is not
in the remotest danger, and when the ultimate summons of patriotism is
unspoken. Finally, consider the reference to the war loan. A New York
syndicate offered to take half of it at a premium which would have
given the Government a clear profit of $1,000,000. But the loan was
wisely offered to the people and the small investor gets all he can buy
before the capitalist is even permitted to invest. And from Canada to
the Gulf, from Long Island to Seattle, the money of the people is
pouring in."
Mr. Norman concludes his article with these pregnant words, words which
will force every man of any brains whatever to pause and think:
"Here, then, is the new America in one aspect--armed for a wider
influence and a harder fight than any she has envisaged before. And what
a fight she will make! Dewey, with his dash upon Manila; Hobson and his
companions, going quietly to apparently certain death, and ships
offering the whole muster roll as volunteers to accompany him; Rowan,
with his life in his hand at every minute of his journey to Gomez and
back, worse than death awaiting him if caught; Blue, making his 70-mile
reconnoissance about Santiago; Whitney, with compass and notebook in
pocket, dishwashing his perilous way round to Porto Rico--this is the
old daring of our common race. If the old lion and the young lion should
ever go hunting side by side----!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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