COMMENTS, NOTES AND REVIEWS. |
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DEWEY IN OHIO. During the month of June guests of international fame were voy- agers through the State of Ohio. The peculiar features of their respective visits are deserving of permanent note, not only because of |
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the prominence which the guests occupy in the his- tory of our day, but because of the significance of the events which they represent. The first of these in time and importance was the three days' stay in Columbus, his only stop in Ohio, of Admiral George Dewey, hero of Manila, and perhaps the most illustrious figure of our genera- tion. The Admiral with his wife, secretary and servant retinue, arrived in Columbus on Wed- nesday afternoon, June 6, and for three days was the honored and delighted guest of Ohio's Capital. The weather was propitious and the streets in gala |
attire, and the period of his stay was to his party a "continuous per- formance" of banquets, dinners, receptions, parades and entertainments. Vast throngs of people, not only from the city, but all parts of the state, crowded the streets in order to catch a glimpse of the incomparable victor, who on that memorable May day morning (1898) steamed into Manila Bay and almost in the "twinkling of an eye" sunk Admiral Montojo's ten Spanish ships with hundreds of sailors to the bottom of the sea, and this too without the loss of a single American sailor and with scarcely any damage to the American vessels. The suggestive feature of the Admiral's visit was that, although he was received with the greatest courtesy and respect due his office and his unparalleled achievements in the annals of the country, there was still lacking a spon- taneity and heartiness of enthusiasm which is usually accorded to mili- tary and naval heroes by their fellow countrymen. Dewey upon his arrival in New York, in October, 1899, was greeted with perhaps the greatest demonstration of honor and pride ever accorded by any country to a national idol. His trip the past months, by invitation, extending from New York to Chicago and St. Louis, and a few cities of the South, (137) |