t materials, were
the chief thing. Almost any fairly well-trained bunch of mechanics will
turn out a pretty good machine to order. But there is no turning out
good men to order; only good-living generations can do that.

If it was a matter of machinery alone, then the Prussian idea would have
this war already won. But that alone cannot prevail, can never prevail
for the long run. It is the spirit which must win.

The personnel of the navy, officers and men, seemed always so much more
interesting to me, that for one hour I spent in looking over ship
equipment, I probably spent forty in observing the men; and when you are
locked up in ships for weeks or months with a lot of men you must, where
your heart and mind are not closed, come away in time with some sort of
knowledge of them.

And what sort are they?

Well, they are nearly all young--average age about twenty-one years; and
they come from anywhere and everywhere--from the farms, the prairies,
the corners of city streets; and they have been many things--farm-hands,
carpenters, mechanics, barbers, trolley-car men, clerks, street loafers,
college boys. Some are terribly sophisticated in worldly ways and some
so green, of course, that the wags have frequent chances to keep their
wits on edge. Some have come with the plain notion that if a fellow has
got to fight, why then the navy offers the most comfortable outlook for
a fellow--during this war it especially offers it--dry hammock every
night, no mud, no cooties, and three hot meals at regular intervals--but
many are there with the bright hope of some day pointing a 14-inch gun
and sending a relay of 1,400-pound shells where they will blow something
foreign and opposing high as the flying clouds.

Blowing up ships and people may have once seemed a terrible idea, but a
few weeks in the community of a war-ship with its matter-of-fact,
professional manner of discussing such subjects soon brings them around
to common, seagoing notions of the matter.

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 certaint