The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 30, 1899, Page 1

The VOLUME LXXi\'l— SAN FRANCISCO, SATURDAY, SEPTEEBER 30, 1899. ADMIRAL DEWEY HEAD MAGNIFICENT MARINE P > S d MOST PRICE FIVE CENTS, AGEANT More Than Three Million Spectators Witness the Passing of the Nation's Hero on the Bridge of the Olympia, Followed by a Great Fleet of Warships and a Thousand Vessels of ' ; Ships Peace. o 3 e a'n e F R ST RO P 3 in Wat}e»r Pageant Passing in Review Before Dewey on the Olympia, Off Grant’'s Tomb EW YORK, Sept. 20.—No Roman tri- conqueror ret d to his umphs of barbaric s victorious ing war, ever I ovation as Dewey to-d. of the kin, home mag- with wate broad whos: flage ¢ wind. The s under the straight and pie knolls were L astic peopie, make thei fect bedlam of t companied the afloat. As the tomb of erside drive was r its tribute to the n warrfor with a natior brignt i up the f the upper ay of th < e gay streamers with dancing the water rippled < with franti » strove Y ashore and al Grant on Riv- ¢ of the great alute of twen- ty-ome roaring guns. The fleet then wnchored and reviewed the almost end-, less procession of craft that steamed past, so burdened with humanity that they looked as if they would turn turtle hefore they got back to their piers. To- ward the end the parade became disor- | 1ed the fleet paid | | ganized and it took hours for the heter flotilla tern with all the grace and attractive- to 2 get by. Darkness |r known to shippers. But the dis last brought relicf to the tired ad- |play in the t River was not to be miral who had stood on the bridge fe ompared with that of the North River, X hours, bowing his ac vled en up which the procession was to pass. to the stentorian expression of h From the peaks of every pier long v Yo before-appre g thi remarkable demonstration. The fan naval parade, the dedication of Grant's tomb and the reception of the North Atlantic squadron last fall, all pale before th! ntic ovation to the sailor, who, in a gle morning, de- ved an enemy’s fleet without the of a man or a ship. It is not be- | yond the mark to say that three million people viewed the pageant from ashore, E that a quarter 6f a million were | ropes strung with flags of every.hue we: retched to the snubbing post at the corner, the fronts were decorated with a multitude of gay devici There were flags on the staffs and lines of flags above the ropes, The vessels at their sides were dres: ed from stem to taffrail and some car- on their yards and had khouses covered. The wind 100k the banners from millions of win- dows, porticoes and even steeples and never, perhaps, in this generation did | hearts that love it bound so quickly to | the sight of the flag. Up the river, far haze inff on the Jersey shore and high on the over the harbor, but this was soon | misty Palisades it gleamed. burred up by the bright sun which | The best place from which to view bathed sea and city in its brilliant rad- | the great marine panorama was natur- iance. The wind s strong and gusty | ally from the deck of the Olympia, and and kept the flags spapping. by the courtesy of Admiral Dewey an People who went down the bay were | Assoctated -Press representative was |lost In admiration of the display of | permitted aboard. Very early the fleet bunting along the water front. On the | of steamships, yachts and tugs which East River, from the bridge to the Bat- | were to have a place in the line began | tery, where the sailing craft lle in 1 moving down the bay to the allotted | droves, the spars were covered with |points where the seyeral divisions were such a mass of color as might be com- |to form, but many of them could not re- | pared to a maple grown hillside in the | sist the temptation to first visit the deep autumn. The tall spars of the | anchorage of the men-of-war off Tomp- | clippers were conspicuous for their en- | kinsville, and before 11 o'clock the ’signs and signals. Every craft in the | Olympia was surrounded by a perfect harbor was decked out from stem to | mob of every known kind of craft, all wond en New York turned out to the tion this morning a light !s\\m‘minn with people, circling around | or pushing their noses close under the ship to get a glimpse of the admiral pacing the quarterdeck. The bands board the excursion boats playeéd and | the whistles and sirens of the other craft made the air hideous by their | shrieks. They kept coming, coming, in pairs and half-dozens, until they lay 4 dozen deep, resisting the charges of | the patrol boats in their determination to get up within shouting distance. | Their recklessness was amazing. They | | ran across each other's bows, t |'rubbed against one another, they | pushed bow on stern, until further| movement seemed paralyzed by the in- | extricable confusion. It was with | |.great difficulty that the police could clear a passage for the admiral's launch when he went off to return the official visit of the Mayor at noon, and when he did step into his launch the patriotic skippers afloat grabbed their whistling cords and made the hills echo with such a blast as can only be heard when a Yankee yacht crosses the finish first in a race with foreign mug-hunters. And that was simply the prelude to what continued through- out the day—an almost continuous roar of steam whistles. Meantime the vessels to take part in the parade were massing over near the Long Island shore, until that side of the harber became a tangle of stacks and’flags and framework as far as the eye could reach. The grassy slopes of ‘Wadsworth and Fort Hamilton and the ! | sailors had been from the toe of the first marine to the | wharves and shores of Staten Island were covered with sightseers, watching the fleet below. The warships lay spick and span ready for the start, their bur- nished metal flaming in the sun, their sides white as virgin snow. Between them and the shore I the low, long, lean, wicked-locking torpedo-boats #nd still, inside of them, the graceful flo- tilla of revenue cutters. Aboard the Olympia the marines and critically inspected Jaunty cap' of the last sailor. All seemed a little dazed at the prospect before them, and no doubt many would have preferred a programme involving a duplication. of the Manila fight to the ordeal they were to go through. The officers of the fleet did not wear their showy uniforms, but were attired in special! undress ““A,” as it is technically known in the pavy. There were no gold epaulets, gold-bound beavers and clat- tering swords abcard. This was the ad- miral’s order and added but another to the many evidences of his unique mod- esty. A brother and the widow of Cap- tain Gridley, who fought on the Olym- pia in Manila Bay; Cclonel Frank Bartlett, former Representative -in Congress from New York, and an inti- mate personal friend of the admiral, to- gether with three.newspaper men, were the only civilians aboard. One of the naval guests was the engineer of the Olympia when it led the way past Cor- regidor Island. He was given three rousing cheers as he went forward to see the men. Immediately after Admiral Dewey re- turned from Sandy Hook the wig- wagger on the bridge signaled the fleet to prepare to get under way. The gangways were hauled up and the ed. An old quartermaster r small dark roll of bunting to the main, hand over fis It hung there while the bugle sounded the cal to quarters and the marines were muster- ed aft. Then, just as the signal to weigh anchor was given, a pull on the halyards opened the roll and spread the four starred flag which Farragut flew as he ran the forts in New Orleans. It was the flag which was presented to Admiral Dewey. As it broke, sailors at their stations and the marines on the quarter deck greeted it with the hip, hip hooray we got from our an- cestors. The flag floated proudly all through the pageant to-day. It is the most precious possession of Farragut's pupil, and when it is struck on Monday, it will probably be forever, as it is-alto- gether unlikely - that Admiral Dewey will ever command another fieet. It was exactly 1 o’'clock, the hour fixed for the start when the fleet, with anchors short hove, began to move. memory of those who saw it. In ad- vance of the. Olympla was a double line of patrol and fireboats, a lilliputian fleet to clear the way of unofficial tres- pa s. It did not require much per- suasion either, as the skippers had a wholesome respect for the steel ram of the mighty sea monsters. On the port béam of the Olympia was the escortihg ship Sandy Hook, with the Mayor and other dignitaries aboard, and in her wake at intervals of 400 tched out a mile long, were the great towering warships, the ar- mored cruiser New the battle- ships Ind and achusetts, the cruiser Brookl second-class battle- ship Texas, the old wooden frigate Lancaster, the gunhoat Marietta and | the Chicago, the flagship of the South ships had swung to the flood tide and | were pointing down stream, but with | their twin screws, they faced about as | on pivots and headed for the Hudson, followed by the long line of vessels in | civic. parade. When the ships had straightened out for their journey across the upper bay, the spectacle they made will ever be treasured in the | | I Atlantic squadron. Old Glory fluttered frém each masthead and taffrail. On each qué New York were the black, tow-lined torpedo-boats, three on each flank. The rest of the proces- sion tailed out for miles. Slowly and majestically the procession moved across the shiny waters. Admiral Dewey went up sn the after bridge as soon as start was made and remained there throughout the pa- rade, a heroic figsure outlined against the skies for the thousands afloat and ashore. With hi:n on the bridge most of the time wnas Cclonel Bartlett, to whom he talked when he was not ac- knowledging the salutes or personally directing thie movements of his imme- date fleet, and the admiral gave close