The evening times. [volume], May 14, 1910, Image 7

About The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914

Image provided by: State Historical Society of North Dakota

                
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CHARLES N. LURIE.
AGNIFICENT tb« United
States Military academy
has been In the past. It will
be etIU more magnificent
In the future. "It Is the finest mili
tary Institution In the world." said Lord
Wolseley, the treat British soldier, a
few years ago, before the Improve
ments in the buildings and grounds
had reached their present stage of
completion. "The new buildings and
ft'
«$
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W*re**
appliances in every department place
the college on the highest level of
military instructional Institutions,"
said Lord Kitchener the other day
shortly after his visit to West Point.
He recommends the establishment In
Australia of a military academy simi
lar to West Point. To the testimony
of these two military authorities of
Great Britain must be added that of
other foreigners who have seen West
Point, some of them with the Idea of
recommending to their respective gov
ernments the adoption of the system
and methods that have made West
Point the world's best military school.
Nature made' West Point Imposing
and beautiful, and man has made the
place magnificent. To the thousands
who annually sail up the Hudson to
the historic site of the Military acad
emy the river presents a continual
succession of beautiful pictures. By
the time the bow of the steamer has
/passed Anthony's Nose, Hook moun
tain and Sugar Loaf the eye of the
traveler has been regaled with scenes
unsurpassed elsewhere, not even on
the Rhine. As Storm King and Cro*
Nest, above West Point, round Into
view the traveler's attention Is dis
tracted from the natural beauties of
the river by the buildings of the acad
emy, and it is then that their beauti
fully proportioned- architecture,' rising
Big African Beast Ex
pected to Figure Soon
on American Bills of
Fare.
The hippo is a fearsome beast
(The one that Teddy shot),
But hippo meat we'll all soon eat
Cooked in a hippo pot.
—Prom the Author's "Anti-Beef Trust
Rhymes."
HAT is, we shall eat'hippopo
tamus if the hopes and as
pirations of Congressman
Broussard of Louisiana meet
fulfillment Broussard is the
man who wants to bring the hippopo
tamus from Africa—not personally, ot
course—so that we may eat him. As
a move In that direction ho requests
the government to spend 9260,000 to
Investigate the prices of derricks and
other necessities tor the moving of the
hippopotamus.
with
When the preliminary work Is fin
ished and it Is ascertained that Mr.
and Mrs. Hippo could find a happy if
somewhat watery home in Louisiana
and Florida and elsewhere and raise
a large and interesting family there
the next step will be the purchase of
some sample specimens for about $10,
000 apiece. After that, in the fullness
of the years, If most of us are not too
dead to care very much about any
thing to eat or if the high prices of
animal food haven't made vegetarians
of us all we can all get busy with our
knives and fbrks and eat hippo steak
and hippo chops and hippo other
things.
There seems to be no doubt that tho
hippopotamus makes good eating. Tho
natives In Africa eat hippopotamus
DENTAL OPERATION ON A HIPPO.
NEW
from the living rock, impresses Itself
on him.
Art and Nature at West Point.
The Impression of fitness, of pro
portion and of beauty Is not lessened
when the visitor lands. He realises
that the splendor of the academy's
site has been wisely utilised to lend
beauty and impresslveness to the
scene. The construction of the new
buildings from the native rock of the
vicinity la only an added touch of ap«
proprlateness and utility.
Possibly nowhere else on earth can
so splendid a view be obtained as that
looking north from the academy
grounds over the upper stretches of
the Hudson and over Constitution is
land, lying in the middle of the stream"
Just above the academy. Looking at
the highlands of the Hudson dimming
In the distance, one can understand
the reverence and affection for the
river scenery felt and described by
Cooper, Irving and other writers and
the delight expressed in their repre
sentation on canvas by some of our
most famous painters.
How Will You Have Your Hippo?
flesh whenever they get a chance, and
white men who have tried it declare
that it is tasty and nutritious, provid
ed the animal from which it is cut is
not too old. With age the hippo loses
much ot his flavor and all of his ten
derness, and only dire need would lead
any one to consider him edible.
"I am able to speak from the point
of view of one who knows the prac
tical side of the hippopotamus," re
cently said Captain Fritz Duquesne,
the famous Boer soldier and scout,
when asked about the desirability of
the hippopotamus as food. "I was
born and bred among these animals.
I probably would have been dead my
self but for the hippopotamus, for It
was the food upon which I subsisted
all during my boyhood. The hippo can
be easily domesticated. It is as gentle
as a lamb in all the zoos. It can be
led about with a halter. A young hip
po wUl take milk from a baby's bot
tle."
y..
In June of the present year the new
military chapel of the reconstructed
West Point will be dedicated In the
presence of an Imposing group of civil,
military and naval dignitaries. The
chapel Is the only one of the great
new group of buildings about which
dedication ceremonies are contem
plated. it ts intended to take the place
of the historic old chapel, which has
been In use since the thirties and Is
hallowed to the generations of West
Pointers since that time by the serv-
Ices within Its walls and the memorial
tablets that adorn it. The old chapel
will not be demolished, but will be
taken apart carefully, stone by atonj^,
to be rebuilt in the ^cemetery at" the
Military academy, where It will' serve
as a mortuary chapel.
The new chapel is considered the
most noble of the new buildings on
the academy grounds. It stands on
the hillside below Fort Putnam and
commands an extensive landscape. It
is mediaeval in design, with a tall
square tower having four, great-.mul
lloned windows on each -side. The
Probably, Fritz, but It would have
to be a bigger bottle than any now in
use in the United States. Also the
possibility of leading a young hippo'
about with a piece of string is open
to question.
Granted, however, that the hippopo
tamus is good for eating by humans,
where is he to get his own provender?
"That's easy," say the enthusiastic
friends of the big river horse. "In the
swamps and marshes of the southern
states, of course." And in the domes
tication here of the hippopotamus they
profess to find the solution of a much
vexed problem, the choking up of th6
rivers of the southern states by the
hyacinth that has so greatly impaired
the value of the streams in recent
years. The federal and state govern
ments' lights against the water hya
cinth have been defeated by the ra
pidity with which these noxious plants
propagate and spread. But let the
hippopotamus loose on the hyacinth.
ji
say the hippo's advocates, and In a
short time he will turn the destructive
flower, root and branch, Into meat.
That is where the hippo is expected
to score his greatest success. In the
meat question "It Is a condition and
not a theory that confronts us," as the
late Grover Cleveland once said,
speaking on another topic. Meat Is
dear, has been getting dearer for years
and threatens to become still dearer.
The cause of the high prices is vari
ously stated, but one factor that cer
tainly enters Into the problem is the
4' I
rmm
•5%. A
most conspicuous and important fea
ture of the edifice is to be a magnifi
cent stained glass memorial window,
which is Intended to serve the visitors
to the aoademy and the cadets as a
perpetual reminder of the high ideals
Inculcated at the school and the
achievements Wilts graduates. All
graduates of tm I institution and the
desoendants and families of students
have been asked to contribute, to the
cost of this memorial window and
other*.
Improvements Cost $7,500.000.
Several years ago the military au
thorities, especially those connected
w$th the administration of the acad
.amy., demonstrated to the country at
large that the buildings at West Point
had been outgrown and had outlived
their usefulness. Some of them had
been in constant and active use for al
most seventy-five/years. They were
historic," of course^and pervaded with
the sentiment that comes of long as
sociation with rHiSiss- famous in the
nation's history.- but they provided
only cramped qu^t&rs .for the work
increasing value of land formerly
used for grazing and now turned over
to agricultural uses. With the de
crease in the amount of grazing land
the supply of cattle becomes smaller
and the prices of beef cattle go up.
Of course they take the prices of other
food animals with them, as the people
turn to the latter for substitutes for
beef. The watery lands on which It Is
proposed to raise hippopotamus are
worthless for any other purpose.
The Importation of hippopotamuses
is taken seriously by government sci
entists, who see in It one source of
relief for the high prices of meat.
Probably the most enthusiastic of
these men is Professor W. N. Irwin of
the bureau of plant Industry In the
department of agriculture, who says:
"We should be large gainers by us
ing the flesh of the hippo—and I like
to say hippo Instead of the full name,
because it is shorter and somewhat
more euphonious—because for one
thing tuberculosis has never been
found In the animal. Our beef and
pork animals in this country at this
time present a very serious menace to
human health. In his habits the ani
mal Is clean, quiet, herbivorous. He
is a pachyderm in common with the
horse, the swine, the elephant and the
rhinoceros.
"I have had fine specimens of hippo
meat sent to me from Africa, and. al
though It had been many weeks on
the way. had been quickly and rudely
preserved, it was certainly very pala
table—what you might call good eat
ing. even though it was something to
which you were not accustomed. There
are some who must cultivate an ap
petite for oysters and for many differ
ent kinds of food. It may be that
many would have to get used to hippo
meat to like it. But killed under right
conditions and cooked properly it is
not only good, but it Is really a deli
cacy. In flavor it is a blend between
good beef and turkey. Sometimes one
might say It Is a combination of beef
and fine sweet pork."
Bringing the hippopotamus to this
country as a source of food would only
be In line with other governmental ac
tivities In that direction. Almost
since the time of the establishment of
the department of agriculture scien
tists and investigators have ransacked
the earth in their endeavors to find
new varieties of plants for propaga
tion in this country. Some of the gov
ernment's efforts in this direction have
been highly successful, and there 1s no
reason why an.Imals from other coun
tries should not flourish here. Con
trary to general belief, the hippopo
tamus Is not essentially a tropical ani
mal, although he is found mainly in
tropical Africa.
Considering the enormous amount of
good meat the hippo w^ll make when
he Is properly cut up. the guanttty of
food available for him In our south
land and the ease with which he may
be reared here, he certainly looks like
a good proposition.
Great Britain has eaten the Aus
tralian kangaroo and likes him, horse
flesh Is a staple food in continental
Europe, and the people of Central
America eat the lizard. Why cannot
Americans absorb the hippopotamus
WILLIAM HENDERSON*
t:
of the school. Other buildings were
very badly needed. An appeal was
made to congress for funds, and the
house of representatives responded
with an appropriation of 15,600,000,
less by 91,000,000 than the amount re
quested by the military men, and only
about half of the sum spent in the re
construction of the Naval academy at
Annapolis. Later appropriations rais
ed the total of $7,500,000, and this has
been spent In providing new buildings,
roads, etc., for West Point.
the proposed alteration was subjected
to the close scrutiny of men thoroughly
familiar with the old West Point and
its natural surroundings, and nothing
that would be Inharmonious with the
QmceRS' CLUB
general plan was given a place. Among
the new buildings are the cavalry and
I artillery barracks, artillery gun shed,
riding hall, cadet headquarters and
cadet store, post headquarters, cadet
barracks, quartermaster and commls
sary storehouse and shops, officers'
quarters, chapel, post exchange, gym
nasium and elevator. The last named
is intended to afford better transporta-
The keynote of the alterations is
found in the words of the report to
congress made by Colonel Charles W.
Lamed, professor of drawing at the
academy, who helped in the drawing tlon of persons and baggage from the
railroad station, from which access
now is gained to the academy by a
steep and winding road. A new hotel
for the accommodation of visitors to
of the plans and the making of the
estimates. Colonel Lamed said:
"It is not desirable that any scheme
should attempt to sweep the field
clean and destroy architectural asso
ciations made honorable by genera
tions of great men, while it is of the
highest importance to preserve Intact
the structural sentiment which gives lowing table, which gives the approxi
chara.cter and individuality to the! mate amounts expended for the varl
academy. It would be a very great ous items of work:
pity to make such an institution the I Cadet barracks
subject of an architectural thesis in Sixteen sets officers' quarters
His story of the long ago
Brings out the little maiden's sigh.
She hears him tell of stricken fields
Whereon he saw his comrades die
West Point was also planned.
Some idea of the extent and cost of
the new buildings and other Improve
I ments may be gathered from the fol-
^*9
Academy Buildings Reconstructed
at Cost of $7,500,000 to Be
Dedicated Soon
which the heritage of past days plays Power, heat and light plant
no part." I Cavalry and artillery barracks
It Is gratifying to learn that Colonel Administration building
Larned's views have prevailed.
8ome of the New Buildings.
Chapel
Bachelor officers' quarters
Riding hall
Academic building
For more than two years the archi
tects worked over the plans for the re- Gymnasium
modeled West Point. Every point of Cadet headquarters and store
Increase of water supply
New walks and roads
Elevator from railway and gate.
The "Father of the Academy."
$275,000
180,000
The Empty Sleeve
And where he left his own lifeblood—
His tales a spell around them weave
But most of all she loves to hear
The story of the empty sleev*
800.0W
406,000
500,000
00,000
100.000
700,000
GOO,000
SOO.OOu
275.000
400.004
160,00"
100,000
Of course the Improvements at West
Point have not disturbed the historic
monuments and battle trophies that
adorn the academy site. Prominent
.".mors these is the monument to the
jrto***$
*11 »l
A'
memory of Colonel Sylvanus Thayer,
to whom, as "the father of the Mili
tary academy." high honor Is paid by
every West Pointer.
Colonel Thayer was a Massachusetts
man who was graduated from West
Point in 1808 and served In the second
war with Great Britain as chief en
gineer of the northern army. From
the time of the establishment of the
Military academy, in 1802, by act of
congress, it had been permitted to fall
into a shocking condition of neglect.
Under the able superlntendency of
Colonel Thayer, however, beginning in
1817, the academy took on a new lease
of life, and it has advanced steadily
since that time to the position it now
occupies. Colonel Hugh L. Scott, who
was Kitchener's host at West Point,
is the present superintendent of the
academy, but General Thomas H. Bar
ry has been nominated for the posi
tion.