ns enough to have riddled the fleet of American
cruisers--and why did they not have torpedoes? They had the Mauser
rifle, which has wonderful range, and ten millions of smokeless powder
cartridges. Marksmen could sweep the decks of a ship with Mausers at
the distance of a mile, and with the smokeless cartridges it would have
been mere conjecture where the sharpshooters were located. There are
rows of armor-piercing steel projectiles from Germany still standing
around rusting in the Spanish batteries, and they never did any more
than they are doing. It is said--and there is every probability of
the truth of the story--that some of these bolts would not fit any
gun the Spaniards had mounted. The Admiral paid no attention to the
big rock and the alleged torpedoes, but steamed up the bay near the
city where the Spaniards were sleeping. He was hunting the fleet he
was ordered to remove, and found it very early in the morning. Still
the thunder of his guns seems to thrill and electrify the air over the
bay, and shake the city; and the echoes to ring around the world, there
is no question--not so much because the Americans won a naval victory
without a parallel, as that Dewey improved the occasion, showing that
he put brains into his business. They say--that is, some people seem to
want to say it and so do--that Dewey is a strange sort of man; as was
said of Wolfe and Nelson, who died when they won immortality. Dewey
lives and is covered with glory. It has been held that there were
not enough Americans hurt in the Manila fight to make the victory
truly great. But the same objection applies to the destruction of
Cervera's fleet when he ran away from Santiago. General Jackson's
battle at New Orleans showed a marvelously small loss to Americans;
but it was a good deal of a victory, and held good, though won after
peace with England had been agreed upon. The capture of Manila is
valid, too. Spain surrendered before the town did. If Dewey had been an
every-day kind of man, he would have left Manila when he had fulfilled
the letter of his orders, as he had no means of destroying the Spanish
army, and did not want to desolate a city, even if the Spaniards held
it. He remained and called for more ships and men, and got them.

"How is it?" "Why is it?" "How can it be?" are the questions Admiral
Dewey asks when told that the American people, without exception,
rejoice to celebrate him--that if one of the men known to have been
with him