25

[17]?

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt says: "Wood and I were speedily commissioned as Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. This was the official title of the regiment, but for some reason or other the public promptly christened us the 'Rough Riders.' At first we fought against the use of the term, but to no purpose; and when finally, the Generals of Division and Brigade began to write in formal communications about our regiment as the 'Rough Riders,' we adopted the term ourselves."

The name was one with which the public had become familiar, and in a way fascinated, through its adoption some years ago by Col. W. F. Cody --"Buffalo Bill"-- to designate precisely the class of frontiersmen associated with his Wild West Exhibition, which, as Colonel Roosevelt himself remarks, "made up the bulk of the regiment and give it its peculiar character." The term was gradually widened to include the Cossack, Arabian, Mexican, South American, trooper and other free, fearless equestrians, now marshalled under the leadership of the greatest horseman of them all. Millions of people have grown to understand, fully appreciate, and unhoundedly admire that title and what it stands for, and its transference to the First U. S. V. Cavalry was not only a deserved compliment, but an honourable designation, whose admirable fitness was at once and universally recognised. Colonel Cody first introduced the name "Rough Riders," to the American public. The manner in which Colonel Roosevelt subsequently introduced it to the Spaniards has made it historically immortal. Col. Cody will now popularize it in a peaceful manner in Great Britain.

COL. THEODORE R. ROOSEVELT

A DISTINGUISHED AUTHORS TRIBUTE.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West increased its roster of horsemen in London in 1892 by the addition of the Russian Cossacks and South American Gauchos. The following year they added the genuine furloughed soldiers of the 7th United States Cavalry, Veteran French Chasseurs, English Lancers, German Culrassers with the Russians, Mexicans, Cowboys and United States Artillerymen. As history rendered them interesting, a band of Fillipino insurgents, squad of Porto Ricoians and wounded native Cuban Patriots found a place in this organization, together with a detachment of Hungarian Ciskos, in fact, anti-dating, what has new become world's history, at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, the English, American, German, French, and Russian soldiers and their flags assembled together in amity in the Wild

29

West Arena as they afterwards fought side by side in China at the battle of Tientsin and other points which resulted in the eventual rescue of Pekin. The public of the United States were thereby taught a lesson and made familiar with types of mankind that would have cost years of travel to accomplish. It was this mingling of flags and representations of races and nations so very aptly alluded to by Mr. Opic Reid the popular author, journalist and novelist, who thus expresses himself in the Chicago Post after mingling in the company and being touched by the amiability and respect of these different men for each other.

"If man's greatest study is man, of what worth has Buffalo Bill been to the student? Strip him of romance, of history, and regard him simply as a collector of the human species, and then note the distance he advances beyond any 'showmen'. When Barnum gathered wild beasts from the dark corners of the earth, wise men applauded, for they declared that he had brought home to every child the truth of natural history.

"And what has Buffalo Bill done? He has opened a great school of anthropology, and not only wisdom but royalty has been forced to applaud. Surely his entertainment is the greatest that the world has ever seen, and could it have been possible in the vigorous days of Rome; had this mommoth play been enacted in the neighbourhood of the Eternal City, the school boy of all nations would to-day translate its wonders into his mother tongue. Morse has made the two worlds touch the tips of their fingers together. Cody has made the warriors of all nations join hands. Who but this man has conceived so fantastic a play?

"In one act we see the Indians with his origin shrouded in history's mysterious fog; the cowboy, nerve-strung product of the new world; the American soldier, the dark Mexican, the glittering soldier of Germany, the impulsive dragoon, and that strange, swift spirit from the plains of Russia, the Cossack--marvellous, theatrical display, a drama with scarcely a word--Europe, Asia, Africa, America in panoramic whirl, and yet individualized as though they had never left their own country.

"Buffalo Bill has taught the knowing world a lesson. It was a bold thing to undertake, but this man from the West did it. There often arises a man who makes the world think, but how few have made the world stare? In the years to come, when Cody has passed away, hundreds of imitators will arise to scramble and strive for a semblance of his marvellous force, but he cannot be approached, for History had marked him as one of her children. Columbus discovered America. The centuries rolled one upon another and a man from the Western plains completed the discoverer's work and brought a band of Indians to Rome."

A GROUP OF COL. ROOSEVELT'S ROUGH RIDERS, NOW WITH BUFFALO BILL.