ment stood for Uncle Sam, of Samuel Wilson, a citizen of Troy. It is doubtful whether there is any truth in this story. Certainly, however, “Uncle Sam” was an accepted sobriquet for the United States as early as 1817. Uncle Sam is conventionally portrayed as a tall man, thin, with long, narrow beard, long-tailed coat and high hat.
Un′derground′ Rail′road′, the name popularly applied to the system adopted by many persons in the north, before the Civil War, for aiding fugitive slaves to escape from their masters into Canada, beyond the reach of the fugitive-slave law. Sympathizing abolitionists furnished the fugitives with food, hiding-places, transportation and advice, while they refused information or comfort to their pursuers. The most favored routes lay through Ohio and Pennsylvania. The houses along these routes where aid was given came to be known as “stations;” those persons directly assisting the run-a-ways as “conductors;” those who made contributions of clothing and money as “stockholders” in the enterprise. Wm. Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips were stockholders. Among the most active officials was Levi Coffin, who claimed to have actively engaged in the work for 33 years and to have received an average of 100 fugitives annually; he was often styled the president of the concern. Seibert in his exhaustive work on “The Underground Railroad” gives the names of 3,211 “agents, station-keepers and conductors.” Many of them were heavily fined for violation of the law, but the practice continued to be one of the chief grievances of the south against the north.
Underwood, Oscar, W. Chairman of the
Committee which drafted the 1913 tariff
(q. v.), was born in Louisville, Ky., May 6,
1862, graduated from Virginia University,
was admitted to the Bar in 1884 and practiced
at Birmingham until his election to Congress
in 1895. Although coming to opposite
conclusions with regard to the tariff, Mr. Underwood,
like Mr. McKinley, has made it a life
study. In the preparation of the 1913 tariff he
had the great advantage of practical business
experience. This enabled him not only to
analyze clearly a measure so vitally related
to our business life, but to present it in clear
terms to his colleagues and to the country at
large. While not an orator in the popular
sense, Mr. Underwood may be well said to be
an orator in the true and practical sense
which has been well defined to be the power
to bring people to your way of thinking.
United with this ability he has the same gift
for conciliation and compromise which
distinguished Mr. McKinley, and to this faculty
combined with tireless industry, good health
and singleness of purpose is due his successful
guidance of the legislative work which determined
the character and final enactment of the
measure with which his name will always be
identified. Although largely interested in the
steel business himself, as part owner of an
independent plant at Birmingham, he stood
unflinchingly for downward revision.
Ungulates (ŭn′gū̇-lā̇ts), the name for an order of hoofed mammals. The larger proportion of mammals belong to this interesting order, which embraces the species useful to man, as the horse, ox, sheep, camel, pig and deer. They all walk, so to speak, on the tips of their toes, each toe at the end being incased in a horny hoof. They are naturally divided into two groups: the odd-toed and the even-toed mammals. The former includes the horses (q. v.) with a single hoof, the rhinoceroses with three toes on each foot and the tapirs with three toes on the hind feet and four (one of which is not used) on the fore feet. The odd-toed mammals (Perissodactyla) have had a long geological history, and many modifications can be traced through those found in the rocks. The horse, for example, sprang from ancestors with five toes, and between those remote ancestors and the modern horse with a single toe lie more than two and one half million years (see Evolution). The even-toed forms (Artiodactyla) include all those with cloven hoofs, as cattle, deer, sheep, goats, swine and the like. The hippopotamus has four toes on each foot. The swine has four toes, but the two outer are lifted above the ground and not of use in progression, and the cud-chewers have the toes reduced to two. These even-toed mammals likewise have a long history, and in the rocks are forms which lead up to those now existing.
U′nicorn, a legendary animal described by ancient authors as possessing the body of a horse and a single long horn, issuing from the forehead and projecting forward. It was supposed to inhabit India. This fabulous creature became a sign in heraldry. A somewhat similar animal with the cloven hoof and the beard of a goat is depicted on the coat-of-arms of England. The word translated unicorn in the Bible refers to some horned creature. It is supposed by some scholars that the buffalo is indicated.
Uniforms of the U. S.: Military and Naval. Of recent years, particularly since 1902, considerable changes have been made in the uniforms both of the army and the navy of the United States regular and volunteer forces. These have been introduced with the design of adapting them more effectively to the conditions of active service and to combine an ornamental and tasteful neatness with the idea of utility, but without undue display or ostentation. In accomplishing the changes the cumbrous helmet has been almost entirely discarded for a serviceable peaked cap (blue or khaki), retaining also the soft, felt, buff-colored campaign hat; while khaki, of a now fast
