Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/571

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STORIES OF THE FIGHTING LEADERS.
179

ADMIRAL SAMPSON, COMMANDER OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC SQUADRON.

was nothing after him but the bubbling water of the bay. When Dewey entered Manila harbor in the quiet of night, indifferent to Spanish mines, he was following out the lesson taught by Farragut, who exclaimed profanely, "Damn the torpedoes!" as he led his double column of ships between the forts. The American officer follows the teaching of experience up to the point where further following might tempt to hesitation, and then he brushes precedent aside.


PERSONAL TRAITS OF DEWEY.

Admiral George Dewey is a good type of the naval officer of to-day. For over thirty years he has been faithfully performing the tasks allotted to his varying ranks, and doubtless he had little thought, as the time of his retirement approached, that he was destined to perform a feat which would distinguish him above his fellows; but he was ready when the moment came. In person Dewey is not the naval hero of popular imagination. He is slight, of medium height, with finely chiseled face, and hair sprinkled with gray, while his firmly set lips and clear eye would mark him as a gentleman and a man of the world. While in service at Washington he was a clubman and fond of society, one of those who rarely appeared after dinner except in evening dress: just the kind of a fellow, in short, that the Populist agitator has in mind when he inveighs against the "dudes" of the navy who are pensioned on the government and haunt the drawing-