Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1920 — WOOD HAS VARIED CIVIL EXPERIENCE [ARTICLE]

WOOD HAS VARIED CIVIL EXPERIENCE

ADMINISTRATIVE QUALITIES ARE TESTED AND PROVED IN HANDLINQ GREAT BUSINESS PROBLEMS.

By EDWARD B. CLARK.

Ffom time to time people ask, »«What has been the administrative and business experience of Leonard Wood? What has been his experience with men outside of the army? What does he know about conditions in the different parts of the United States and in our overseas possessions? Has he any thorough knowledge of foreign affairs and of our foreign relations?” The administrative qualities of Leonard Wood have been tested and proved. No American living has been tried more thoroughly than he in complex fields of constructive civil work, administrative work of the highest order which carried with it the necessity for the exercise of keen business acumen. The republic of Cuba, built upon firm democratic foundations, is a monument to the administrative ability of* Leonard Wood. In the Philippines is to be found another monument to his , statesmanship. Leonard Wood graduated in medicine from Harvard University in 1884 and served for more than a year in one of the great hospitals, later to take charge of the charity departments in a section of the city of Boston where the poor lived. Not long after the completion of Wood’s work in Boston he became an assistant surgeon in the army, coming into contact with the western plainsman, the miner, the people generally, and giving much of his time to the work of assisting the Indians and to a study of the problems of irrigation and reclamation.

Then for Leonard, Wood there cams four years in California. He covered the state many times In pursuance of his duties and extended his field as occasion required into the states of the Northwest Then for two years he was In service in the South, having headquarters in Georgia. , Prom the South Leonard Wood went to the city of Washington, where his work brought him into daily contact with Grover Cleveland. Then he had the same Intimate relations with William McKinley and the men of his time. . Then came the Spanish war and the active campaign In Cuba as the colonel of the regiment of rough riders of which Theodore Roosevelt was the lieutenant colonel. At the close of the Spanish war Leonard Wood’s supreme administrative duties began. He was made the governor of the city of Santiago and a few weeks later of the entire eastern half of Cuba. Under Wood profiteering was abolished, Industry was built up, agriculturerehabilitated, hospitals organized, equipped and maintained, tens of thousands of people clothed and fed—and all this done In a thorough businesslike manner. ■ It was done under tribulations which arose from the fact tit the people were Impoverished to the point es starvation and had been dying by thousands for the lack of the things which Wood quickly provided. Them there came the rehabilitation of the municipalities, the establishment of schools, the opening of roads, : top ■ orsfewWng kA tmnsaaA la the provinces, the readjustment of taxation and ofthe courts, and toe wort of providing for toe thousands of chUdren made orphans by war or famine. There was more burinass and more --■ . •

varieties of it than it has been the lot #f many men ever to have placed up>n their shoulders. Not long after this there came the greater opportunities in Havana. It was necessary to re-write the election taws to make them fit the habits of the people. Production had to be stimulated, for agriculture was the main source of the wealth. Here again the same measures were followed and as a result there were established law and order, protection of life and property, and liberty within the law. These were the foundation stones. Wood knew that the government must ae run by the Cubans, and so 90 per lent of the officials engaged in the great work of reconstruction were selected from the people of the island. The Cubans were taught government while the government was being built and thus they were able to run It when the rule of the Island was turned over to its Inhabitants. When it became necessary to reorganize the Cuban railroads Wood secured the services of Sir William Van Horne, president of the Canadian Pacific, and of Granville ML Dodge, builder of the Union Pacific. The same general policy was followed in dealing with the problem of taring for the tens of thousands of orphans that had been left by the war. Homer Folks, commissioner of charities of the state of New York, was called to Cuba by Wood to aid in tHte establishment es a system for placing md permanently caring for these little desolates. Chief Justice White of the Supreme court of the United States, at that time an associate justice, was consulted as to the method to be pursued in reorganizing the courts.

Leonard Wood was In Cuba about Cour years. He left there a reorganized and sound banking system, a food railroad system, no debts, nearly 12,000,000 unincumbered money In the treasury, a sugar crop of nearly 1,000,XX) tons, sound municipal laws, fine public works, a firm agricultural foundation and an absolute respect unong the people for life and property. The school system whlclrWood established was founded on the laws )f Massachusetts and Ohio. Roads vere built which made communication ipeedy. The hospitals erected under* his rapervlslon were of the highest type. Lord Cromer said he wished this American officer was available to follow him In his reconstruction work in Egypt. Elihu Root said this work sever was paralleled In colonial possessions anywhere. Theodore Roosekelt said that Leonard Wood “has rendered services to Cuba of a kind which, if performed three thousand years ago, would have made him a hero mixed up with the sun god in various ways.” After the Cuban experience Wood was for five years In the Philippines confronted with the difficult labor of establishing a civil government, this time among a Mohammedan people. There he did the same successful work he did In Cuba. This period df residence in the Philippines gave Wood an opportunity to study conditions in the British colonles, Borneo, Singapore, and to keep In dose touch with conditions in Japan and along the China coast. Wood traveled through India, spent some time with the Dutch to Java, and with Lord Cromer in Egypt Ho gained and retained knowledge of all which at that time came under his studious observation. Then Leonard Wood became chief of the general staff of the United States army, to whose hands rests very largely the direction and administration of the military establishment, which after all to 90 P« «nt a busimatter. - "■ ' : - The administrative career of Leonard Wood is spread upon the records of his country. The workwhich ha has dene Is lasting, It to a dates ■Mate works . — •