Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 143, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 June 1914 — DO VALIANT SERVICE [ARTICLE]

DO VALIANT SERVICE

“Veteran” Writes Interestingly of United States Marines. Gallant Corps Is Older Than the Republic Itself, Having Been Organized by Act of Continental Congress in 1775.

By a Veteran.

Washington, D. C. —It was the campaign of the 4Hies against the Boxers in 1900. They had captured Tientsin by a hard three-day battle. A conference had been called of all Ute commanders to discuss the question of advancing or waiting for reinforcements. Gen, Robert Meade, in command of the United States marines, was ill and Col. Littleton T. Waller, then a major, was the junior officer of the representatives of many nations in the conference.

One by one the elder men gave their opinions that there was no pressing need of an advance and that the troops must have several more days of recuperating. Finally, Major Waller’s opinion was asked and he stood up and said:

"Gentlemen, I don’t know just what the rest of you mean to do, but the marines start for Peking at six o’clock In the morning.” The marines did start at six o’clock in the morning, taking the allies along. This incident was recalled to my mind on seeing that Colonel Waller had been ordered East from the coast and is likely to get mixed up in the doings in Mexico. Waller’s reply was typical of the gallant little corps which is older than the republic itself. An act of the Continental congress in 1775, a year before the Declaration of Independence, organized the corps along the lines of a similar British body.

Just one hundred years before the marines battered at the gates of the Forbidden city they did a heroic feat in Tripoli. In 1803 a detachment of these soldiers of the sea marched 660 miles across the African desert to subjugate the insolent tyrants of the Mediterranean. They pulled down the malodorous flag of the Tripolitans and hoisted the Star Spangled Banner over an ancient fortress before a horde which had in large number never seen it before. The marine as a fighting man aboard ship is said by one historian to date back to the Persian empire. Marines are mentioned in connection with the battle of Lade, in the time of Darius I, king of Persia, about 495 B. C.

In the old days of engagements at close quarters the marines were the “cutlass crews.” The fighting of naval battles at a range of five to ten miles has destroyed the usefulness' of the slashing boarder, but there is plenty of work left for the soldier of sea and land. As Josephus Daniels, secretary of the navy, said recently: "The marines and bluejackets have rendered valiant service at Vera Cruz. The marines as well as the bluejackets have proved their caliber, always understood by our own people as well as those of other nations.' It is the marine who is always called upon to form the entering wedge, to blaze the trail in landing on foreign shores.”

To illustrate the manifold services of the marine, let us take the example of Haggerty, one of the three marines who fell in the first day’s fighting at Vera Cruz. He had been under fire at Samar and again at Peking. He had gone into action twice in Nicaragua and had had rifles aimed in his direction in Hayti.

Just one hundred years after their march to Tripoli the United States marines touched again-on African soil, but on the peaceful mission of escorting a representative of the state department to the coijrt of King Menelik of Abyssinia. They took a camelback ride of several hundred miles. Between the Peking expedition and this they also had a touch of excitement at Samar, Panama and Colon, and even while the detachment was

crossing the Abyssinian sands another band of their comrades was aiding in quelling the insurrection of 1903 in Seoul, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Hayti. _ The warships are manned by seamen or bluejackets, who, in time of need, must become soldiers for service ashore. The marine is not a soldier pure and simple. His uniform resembles that of a soldier, but he has an actual part in the manning of the ship, in that he has his regular duty aboard with a “battle station” to which he must spring whenever "battle stations” is sounded, and the ship goes into action. Among other things the marine must possess good eyesight, for under modern conditions 1 , with high-powered rifles, the. greater part of land fighting would be done at a range of about a mile.

The training of the marines includes not only thS signal drills, searchlight and heliograph practise in Which the soldiers of the army are trained, but also the drills peculiar to the management of a ship of war, such as the use of the wireless wig-wag, signaling, semaphore signaling, and in many cases the handling of small boats.