ecretary Taft felt proud
of the fact that the army organization had proved itself able to
withstand the sudden strain put upon it, while the enlisted man showed
his ability to act at a distance from his commissioned officer with an
intelligence and an initiative which would be impossible in the
European armies.

As during the days of disaster and terror stricken San Francisco was
absolutely under the control of General Funston, a few facts about his
career will be appropriate here. Red-headed, red-blooded; a pygmy in
stature, a giant in experience; true son of Romany in peace and of
Erin in war--the capture of Aguinaldo in the wilds of North Luzon and
his control of affairs in San Francisco fairly top off the adventurous
career of Frederick Funston, fighter.

General Funston was born in Ohio, but when he was two years old his
family moved to Kansas. After passing through the high school he
entered the University of Kansas. His father had been a congressman
for a number of years. His ambition was to enter West Point, but he
failed to pass its examination. He later broke into the newspaper
business, but his career in that field was short. In 1900 his father
secured him an appointment as botanist in the Department of
Agriculture. After a trip to Montana and the Dakotas he was attached
to the party which made the first Government survey of Death Valley,
the famous California death-trap. Seven months were spent in this
work, and Funston is the only man of the party alive and sane today.

In 1891-92 the Government sent him to make a botanical survey of
certain parts of the Alaskan coast, and in 1893 he returned to the
Arctic and made a similar survey of the Yukon. He negotiated Chilkoot
Pass, then an untrodden pathway. After trying to start a coffee
plantation in Central America and to fill a job with the Santa Fe
railroad, the torch of the Cuban revolution became a beacon to his
adventurous spirit. He joined a filibustering party which the
Dauntless landed at Camaguay in August, 1896. He was assigned by
Garcia to the artillery arm of the insurgent service.

Twenty-three battles in Cuba was his record with his guns. Once he was
captured and sentenced to death, but escaped. Later still a
steel-tipped Mauser bullet pierced his lungs. This healed, but the
fever struck him down, and compelled his return to the United States.
As he was preparing to return to Cuba the Maine was blown up and in
his certainty that war with Spain