THE ROUGH RIDERS 



RAISING THE REGIMENT 



DURING the year preceding the outbreak of the 

 Spanish War I was Assistant Secretary of 

 the Navy. While my party was in opposition, I 

 had preached, with all the fervor and zeal I pos- 

 sessed, our duty to intervene in Cuba, and to take 

 this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the 

 Western World. Now that my party had come to 

 power, I felt it incumbent on me, by word and deed, 

 to do all I could to secure the carrying out of the 

 policy in which I so heartily believed ; and from the 

 beginning I had determined that, if a war came, 

 somehow or other, I was going to the front. 



Meanwhile, there was any amount of work at 

 hand in getting ready the navy, and to this I de- 

 voted myself. 



Naturally, when one is intensely interested in a 

 certain cause, the tendency is to associate particu- 

 larly with those who take the same view. A large 

 number of my friends felt very differently from the 

 way I felt, and looked upon the possibility of war 



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