Four years ago at Vera Cruz our modern navy had its first taste of war. It was only a light touch of war, and there was no doubt of the outcome; but in little affairs men may be tried out, too. Through somebody's blunder, for which somebody should have been jacked-up, our bluejackets were sent up in solid sections to occupy a large open area on the Vera Cruz water-front. Standing there in solid columns, not knowing just what was going to happen, but feeling to a certainty that something stirring was going to happen, and to happen soon, they stood there grinning widely and waiting for the ball to open. It may have been their childish innocence, it may have been their untutored ignorance, but when that sheeted rifle fire first burst from the roof of the Naval College, and a solid squad or two of our lads went down, and following that the snipers began to get them in ones and twos and threes--when that happened there was no distressing confusion in their ranks. When, later, it became necessary for the _Prairie_ and _Chester_ to fire just over their heads to batter the walls of that same War College, it made no difference. The ships' gunnery was rapid and excellent--they knew it would be--and when the shells went whistling through the walls of the second story, the marines and bluejackets stood under the first story and let them whistle. Plaster and bricks from the shaken walls came tumbling down upon them. They ducked beneath the falling mortar, some of them, but they all took their shells standing. They are not the sailors of classic tradition, these battleship lads of the twentieth century. Every man to the age he lives in--it must be so. The old phrase, "Drunk as a sailor," meant, in most men's minds, drunk as a man-o'-war's man. I was born and brought up in a great seaport--Boston--and my earliest memories are of loafing days along the harbor front and the husky-voiced, roaring fellows coming ashore in the pulling boats from the men-o'-war; fine, rolling-gaited fellows, in from long cruises and flamingly eager to make the most of their short liberty. Great-hearted men, who gave truth to the phrase--"and spending his money like a drunken sailor"--and knowing, usually, but two inescapable obligations--to do his duty aboard ship and to stand by a shipmate in trouble ashore. Almost any of the old-time policemen of the large seaports can tell you many fine tales of the riotous hours along the water-front in the old days. Such is the passing tradition. The present lad of the navy is creating a new one. For one thing, he no longer gets drunk--that is, he does not get drunk by divisions. To illustrate: