Show espi ap i 0 no 6 HEN william 11 tatt taft was a candidate for the republican nomination for president some newspaper said that doubtless every delegate to the convention who claimed yale as his alma aline mater would vote for the nomination of mr taft no matter what his instructions were from the people who made him a delegate of course this paragraph was jocose but yale men seem to be particularly loyal to the pres ident of the united states and it Is a curious thing to note tufit the loyalty of the men of all colleges to graduates graduato s of their Is marked in washington every official ol 01 high position seems to have the enthusiastic support of the graduates of the school which sent him out into the world with a sheepskin under his arm and party politics seem to ut no figure at all in the matter of course the yale men are not all for taft tor for yale has turned turne d out men of all parties and men to whom party means much more than mere personality it may he be however that mr taft if he runs again will get the vote at the polls polis conventions vote not considered of every man who was a member of his class at the new haven school they say in washington and some of the president s classmates live here that he was as popular with hi classmates as any man whom they claimed as their own perhaps more popular but the yale men don t care to make comparisons that might seem the yale men who were at school with the president and who came to washing ton to visit always make straight for the white house this means something more than that mr taft la Is simply a holder of a big public office it if a person wants to learn team how popularity at school or unpopularity at school lasts through life let him make a study it if he can find the opportunity por port unity of the standing today ot of some men in the army and navy there are in one or the other of the twin services today men who have splendid records as officers and yet who would give over several pages from their effi efficiency clency records it if they could write the word popular in the seem invidious there are soldiers and sailors of high rank men gray in service and gray in years who have never been able to the ih e down some little act of their lives at either the naval or military academy which made them unpopular with their fellows and the effect of which lasts to this day naming no names and giving no specific case with date and circumstances it may be baid bald that in one of the greatest controversies which ever vexed the service one man won out with the country but did not win out with his fellow off cers and he did not win out with them simply because they thought that the thing he was charged with doing was in keeping with one act he committed as a hoy boy an act that lost him stand ing with his fellow students at west point and annapolis they have a habit of cutting the boy who bears tales or who shows a streak of timidity that is called by a harsher word or who does some other thing that thal boys in their boyish humor do not like when a man graduates and gets into the service he la Is no longer cut but his society is not sought sough MI a result perhaps ot of a mere momentary w or a mere momentary tary thoughtlessness career from the social point of view blasted there are some cases in the a havy today and a pretty fair measure b to judge of a mans man s personality Is the me regard in which he Is held in later life men who went to school with nith him in the the boy william W rusell not long ago was t ern eminent ments s envoy extraordinary and finist potent lary to venezuela he ile was in th american country at the time of the eions which existed for a while between sam and president castro william W russell Is popular in the n his popularity dates back to his school d Is a grave diplomat with a light in his neither gravity nor position can put out was not always a grave one burdened N 1 affairs of state once upon a time he wa russell midshipman at the united stati stat academy william was changed into P minute that he reported at annapolis b compels the statement that neither the archives nor the middies middles archives disclose son for turning william into pete S to know that the middles would have it 0 sad and that way it went some time ago I 1 had dinner with a grai gra annapolis who had known william W R his pete dais at the academy mid russell did not graduate but he was long it at the academy to leave his mark upon t tl lution and to make his memory dwell in the hearts of succeeding generations flies dies possibly some of the stories that th ate itte told of pete a school days may ace come some measure for the fact that he becam lomat instead of becoming a salt midshipman russell had a way h the middles and the authorities were not finding it out pete had difficulty in res himself on occasions its as witness one sunday at annapolis the chaplan p long and droningly the listening tired out with the heat of the day fand nd 1 den of the sermon which lasted one hi ten minutes the sermon over the choir undeterred and undismayed by th of the chaplain chaplains s discourse started in to el si of my soul he ile went through the first trippingly and then struck into the second not night he sang then he repeated ato chit VY ma F aruo 0 pa 74 rr 0 s waa POKED PY cye BY haab OF parz 7 night and repeated it again after the manner ot of soloists who don dont t know when the listeners have had enough and having a good hold are loath to let go the sermon and the song got on pete russell russells s nerves lie ile cat in the middle seat of a pew in the very middle of the corps of midshipmen with officers at the front at both flanks and at the rear under the strain of the thing pete stood up whistled melodiously but very loudly the tune accompanying the third and fourth lines of the first stanza of sun of my soul and then before the bewildered and shocked officers could put in an interference he calmly commanded the bov be 1st to get a moe mo e on him they grabbed pete out from his middle pew seat and marched him down the aisle under guard when the corps was dismissed and was marching back to the barracks pete was going in the opposite direction headed tor for the prison ship santee with his books and his blanket swung over his slin 01 1 s and the own hir ln counterfeit count ertelt akers right under to work d iring his skeleton more fear an any man pete certain inspecting entering a veil vell and orderly to en jerk and to look ings for it was a en to sweep things e that they would nd not by the exercise ingenuity be sue when the door was thing would drive t f the man who did nal on pete a part nt to recitation one skeleton had been e who didn dian t know door was vms in exis lence ence which might came and gave the poked in the eye by ton of d pete a roommate e santee where he urs the roommate heard ome come shuffling steps outs outside ide hia his prison door looking out be lie saw sand pete with his books and his blankets corn com ing to share his durance what s the matter pete he asked nothing said pete only I 1 f forgot to take that d d skeleton down when william W russell first went to av venezuela ene zuela in a subordinate diplomatic capacity an american naval ot of fleer who knew him well who liked him and who had memories of the diplomats pranks at annapolis con eluded that pete should have a proper reception but it Is 1 needless to say that be he didn dian t take pete into his conn dence when russell newly accredited to the court of president castro drove from his hotel to the presidential pal ace in an open carriage and wearing a black frock and high hat ot of diplomacy be he was greeted in the middle of every block and at every street corner with vociferous chee rings from all the street gamins that caracas possessed the mighty cry that went up almost constantly from hotel to palace was viva vina pete russell it Is said that william W russell russells s memory was cherished at the naval academy his ills name is held in remembrance so strongly in remembrance th that at no midshipman named russell who has entered the academy in the nearly 30 years which have elapsed venezuelan minister severed hia his since our feinier school connection has escaped the name pete |