484 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Harris & Ewing 



MEDAL-OF-HONOR MEN WHO WON DISTINCTION ON BATTLEFIELDS PRIOR TO THE 



WORLD WAR 



It was during President Taft's administration that these officers were invited to the 

 White House to take part in the ceremony of bestowing the Medal of Honor upon a new 

 hero in the East Room. From left to right the Medal-of-Honor men are General Charles F. 

 Humphrey, General John M. Wilson, Colonel Charles H. Heyl, General Theodore Schwan, 

 Colonel Frederick Fuger, General W. H. Carter, General A. L. Mills, and Captain Gordon 

 Johnston. 



be noted that these substitutes are not in 

 themselves decorations ; they merely indi- 

 cate that the wearer has received one, 

 from which it follows that the wearing 

 of the service ribbon or lapel button is 

 nothing less than sailing under false pre- 

 tenses, if the wearer does not really pos- 

 sess the corresponding medal or decora- 

 tion. 



LORD ROBERTS AND THE VICTORIA CROSS 



Another important point is that no 

 medal, decoration, or substitute should be 

 worn unless the wearer possesses it in his 

 own right ; he must be the one whose 

 services earned it to entitle him to wear 

 it. On his death it becomes an heirloom 

 to be kept by his family, but it should not 

 be worn by any of them, and, similarly, 

 in cases where a medal is presented to 

 the nearest of kin because of the death of 

 the one to whom the award was made, the 



person thus holding it has no right to 

 wear it. 



There was one notable exception to this 

 general rule. Lord Roberts' only son, an 

 officer in the British Army, was killed in 

 the Boer War while engaged in an act of 

 great heroism for which he was posthu- 

 mously awarded the Victoria Cross. The 

 decoration was duly presented to Lord 

 Roberts, who was given express authority 

 to wear it ; but this permission was un- 

 doubtedly based on the fact that Lord 

 Roberts had a Victoria Cross in his own 

 right, earned by gallant action during the 

 Indian mutiny; so this case cannot be 

 considered as a precedent. 



This incident was an exception to yet 

 another universal rule, that the same dec- 

 oration is never given twice to the same 

 individual. Lord Roberts was the only 

 man who was ever authorized to wear 

 two Victoria Crosses. In the United 



