Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/578

LEONARD WOOD By Embbson Beok EIkiqht ON the blistering sands of Jolo, in the Philippine Islands, a detachment of United States soldiers were prepar- ing to turn in for the night. A day of rampaging through the stewing jungle on the trail of a shadowy enemy had dragged the men down with weariness, and here on the burning beach they were preparing for rest. A sweating orderly stood at the general's elbow and brought a hand to his brow in salute. ^'I report your boat off-shore, sir, and a tender on the beach ready to take you out." Aboard the general's boat were cool breezes and white sheets. ^^I'll stay with the men," said the general, dismissing his orderly and turning to scoop out a place in the cooler sands for his bunk. Democracy and doggednessi Those two words character- ize General Leonard Wood during a career that has led in a brief span of years from the office of army surgeon to the highest position in the United States Army — chief of staff and ranking major-generaL Li the vicinity of Cai>e Cod Leonard Wood spent a vigor- ous boyhood. He is a thorough New Englander, as the asso- ciation of his name with Cape Cod, Middleboro Academy, where his early schooling was taken, Harvard University, where he graduated, Boston, where he began medical prac- tice, and Peregrine White, the first child bom in the Plymouth colony, from whom he claims direct descent, would indicate. He comes by his military instincts naturally. His great-grand- father, John Nixon, conmianded a regiment at Bunker Hill, and his father was a surgeon on the Union side during the Civil War. He was bom in the midst of wartimes — 1860. There on the Atlantic coast Leonard Wood laid a foundation for the constitution that was to carry him so marvelously