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FOR ALL THE NEWS THE
OMAHA DEE
BEST IN THE WEST
The Omaha
VOL. XXXLX-NO. 39.
OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 13, 1010.
.SI MILK COLT FIVE CENTS.
SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE BUSY IN PEACEFUL AVOCATIONS
Heroes of Havana Harbor, San, Juan Hill llajuba HiH, the T&zlg, the Modder and the Tugela Work
With Vim to Push Through a Great Building in a Tense Race Against
Clock.
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FROM the ends of the earth they come, these men who build.
The tollers who place beam on beam and stone on stone to
fill the cities with sky-scrapers are a cosmopolitan crew. By
their share In the labors in society they must be nomads.
Their home Is where the big girders swing from lofty der
ricks, where the pneumatio hammers rattle their staccato trills,
where brick and etone and steel must be fashioned together In the
making of cities. It Is an endless career of constructive activity;
when their work Is done they muBt be Journeying somewhere else to
begin anew. So they ramble about the world, le&vlng their wake
marked with towering buildings.
Strange coincidence brought Into Omaha for the erection of the
Brandels theater a little company of soldiers of many nations, the
veterans of three wars, men of many battles turned from strife and
distraction to the arte of peace. British, confederate and American,
they have worked side by side in the making of this architectural
tribute to beauty. Men who charged the Boers across the dun-colored
ldta of South Africa, men who ciawled through the rice paddles
and swamps of the Philippines In pursuit of the little brown insur
gents, and, yes, even a man who marched with Longstreet In the days
of the war of the rebellion, have forgotten their rifles and the bugle
cll to take up the trowel and hammer. Tommy Atkins rubs elbows
wfth Johnny Reb, and a veteran from the campaign In Cuba bosses
the Job.
Peaceful and Industrious as the building scene appeared, these
soldier-builders were engaged last week in a real battle, a fight
against time, which,' of course, they won. It was not a battle of the
kind they used to fight, just a battle of hard work, and lots of It;
work for days and nights without sleep or respite. To get the theater
dona on tlm was the victory for which they fought and won. The
struggle against time lacked the excitement and dash of the heroics
of war, but real soldiers such as they know how to fight without a
band.
The general of this victorious army, the master of the game, was
V. B. Weston, manager for the Thompson-Starrett company, lie
had nothing to do but be boss, but even that gets tiresome when it
means twenty-four-hour shifts piled on. end and overlapping. The
boss did not sleep; there was Just time enough to do the work if
everything went right, each fighter to bis place, and the boss stayed
with the boy. A prosaic sort of heroism may be but still a place
where it took the staying powers of a good soldier. When the cur
tain rose on the opening scene of "Arsene Lupin" in that playhouse
of mauve and gold the public saw the fruits of the victory, but those
who saw Imagined little of the story of labor and duty behind that
pretty picture. Weston was sent to Omaha to urge to completion a
lagging job. They ordered so many days; he being a soldier, deliv
ered the theater in so many days. That was all; just orders obeyed.
This same Weston it was who received an order one morning in
June down In Habana harbor some years ago. lie was not the
builder then. Just Sergeant Ftrst-Class W. B. Weston, Fifth Volun
teer Engineers. The United States waa there to make a call on the
Spaniards, a call backed with guns and men.
Sergeant Weston it was who took his orders, went out under fire
&om the soldiery behind the walls of grim old Moro castle, and later
caflie back wounded, but carrying sections out from the marine cables
that had given the city and the enemy communication with the na
tion of the world. They sent him for the cables and he delivered
the goods. ThiB was another hard job of different kind from theater
building, but a soldier put it through.
Weston and his squad put off the cruiaer New York in a speedy
little mosquito of a launch. The cruiser and the war vessels ttaad
lnf eff In the bey opeaed frre to cover the advance of the daring ex
pedition and the big-throated
Spanish cannons in the fortifica
tions gave answer.
The little group of men in the
V0.-' launch had the official chart
' 1'' which purported to tell where the
,' cables were in that slimy harbor
' . , t bed. There was Just one place
. ' . to reach them in shallow water;
that place was close under the
guns of Moro castle, but the or
ders Vere, "Get the cables." Incidentally
the orders were a trifle wrong in the loca
tion and little mistakes in a big game make
serious trouble. After groping about in
the mushy ooze of the water's edge, while
the fire of small arms in the castle and in
the shore trenches made the water boil
about them, they picked up the cables. The
snaky strands were drawn up across the
bow of the launch against the capstan and
a man with an axe did the rest
"That was just a little the, hottest place 1 was ever In," remarked
Weston, the boss, as he squinted down a row of opera chairs to see if
they were in line. "The Spaniards did not get on to what we were
after when we put off from the New York. Thought we were desert
ers, according to what I learned afterward.'' The bona builder
smiled a bit at the idea of desertion. "But when they woke up they
tried to shoot that launch out of the water. We were too busy to
watch carefully, but my recollection is that they came near to
doing it.
"We cut two twelve-foot sections out of the two cables, the Amer
ican and the foreign wires into Havana, and took them back to the
ship. Everybody was wounded but me.
"Well, yes, I did get a scratch on the arm from a splinter they
shot off the launch, but that wasn't bad," be admitted modestly.
"Poor Green, one of the squad, died of bis wounds. He was groan
ing in the pit of the launch whlU we were hacking at the cables and
we couldn't do anything to help him while the bullets were flying
about. That was the tough tide of it."
After the fighting was over In the Atlantic Weston waa a member
of the detachment that took up the floating mines along the coast.
This was a job, where tons of explosives were fished out of the har
bors. That kind of fishing Is work for sure hands. The first mix
take with a charge of guncotton is not repeated.
With Weston in the erection of the Brandels building twelve vet
erans of war have worked. Often they have met before, so often. In
fact, that they have come to style themselves "the Continental
Tramps." Never before, however, have so many of them couie to
gether on a single job.
One of the "flghtlngest" fighters of the theater builders is Ser
geant Theodore Schaeffer. "Sarg," as they call him, id too busy in
bis plasterer's uniform to bedeck his expensive front with medals,
but he had them stowed away in his trunk. Schaeffer took a hand
in twenty-eight Philippine engagements.
Schaeffer it. was who carried Colonel Fredrick Funston. now a
brigadier general of the regulars, when wounded from the tiring line
at Ho Ilo to safety in the rear. Again Schaeffer became a factor in
the making of history when he accompanied Funston in that swim
ming expedition across the Passlg river.
Schaeffer ddn't care in the least for tan-colored marksmen in the
jungle, but he is mightily timid when the Innocent eye of the camera
stares at him.
A bonnle working laddie of the soldier clan is George Hardy, or
namental plasterer unco' deft wl' the trowel, late of the Forty-second
Highlanders, the famed old "Black Watch." George was one of the
braw sodjer boys that figured In the capture of General Kronje. That
military gentleman of many whiskers delivered to the custody of the
English, much to the honor of her majesty, the queen, the Forty
second took up a little matter of discussion with the Boers at Paar
desburg. They still tell tales among the Kaffirs about that day,
when the Black Watch, with their kilties flashing in the sun, marched
out to the warring shriek of bagpipes sounding the battle song of
those fighting Highlanders. Hardy figured conspicuously In that
fight. He had six medals for gallantry in battle.
A certain mischievous cockney plasterer of that white-coated crew
often seeks to make sport of the Highlander.
"A great sod Jar you be, fighting with a trowel," he teased.
"Dlnna ye remember wba the English got off at Lucknow?" re
joined the unnlffled Hardy, moving along with bis work aa be began
to softly whistle the battle song of bis regiment. "Ken y na the
rorty-twaT-
Then there was silence tor a bit. The EnglUh are sensitive about
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that situation back there in Indian history.
Hardy had a companion in battle on the
Job, Private G. W. Williamson, who saw
the Brltlsh-Boer conflict as a member of
the Royal Guards. With them was Cor
poral C M. Oldham, who went through
that conflict as orderly for Lord Roberts.
He knows a story or two about LadyumUh
that he will not tell, even now.
Marry M. Crowe, corporal in Colonel
Roosevelt's Rough Rider regiment, has
been a lieutenant of Weston's in the work
on the Brandels building. Crowe is in the
general habit of being in a hurry.
"I remember just one' thing prominent
above the rest," said Crowe, speaking of
that immortal charge of the Rough Riders.
"We were making it up the hill, when a
noisy Spanish lieutenant rose up In plain
view and delivered himself of a series of
remarks about what he was about to do,
and some of it was not considered gentle
manlike by a few that were clote enough to get next.
"When we found him on the field after the muss was all over I
counted just fifteen holes in him. Every man in our company must
have chosen that chap."
S. A. Grimblott, electrician, once a member of the Illinois volun
teers, who saw service in Porto Rico, played a large share in the race
which brought the theater to completion on time.
Grimblott put in Just a solid ten days and nights with the remark
able switchboard with which the theater Is equipped.
"It Is the greatest board I ever saw," said the electrician. "I had
to stay until It was done; that was all there was to it."
So for ten days anU nights he worked steadily through without
leaving the building. Occasionally a bit of a cat nap was all the
sleep that he got until the board was dene. Other workmen carried
in lunches to him. Efforts to get him to leave to take rest were
futile. Grlblott had Just one Idea fastened in bis mind to finUh
that switchboard. He stayed to the finish.
After the board was finished he inspected and tested it time after
time, affectionately Angering the switch levers. It is this intricate
mechanism that controls all of the wonderfully delicate lighting
effects of the playhouse. Every unit of illumination must be under
the direct Control of the man at the board.
The oldest soldier of them all Is "Pap" Addleman, plasterer, a
confederate veteran, whose one brightest memory is of an incident at
the battle of Chlckamauga. He as a youngster of 13 years had gone
Into the service of the confederacy to fight for what the confederacy
thought was principle. ,
"I was a little shaver," said Addletnau, laying down his mortar
board a moment. "I wasn't big enough to tote a gun, so they made
me a kind of a handy man. "On the day of the big fight at Chlcka
mauga I was carrying water to the wounded In the rear. General
I.ongstreet, to whose brigade my regiment belonged, came by. I can
remember very clearly how he asked me for a drink. I was worried
a bit about it, too. The idea of giving a general a drink out of an
old gourd. If I hadn't have been a kid I wouldn't have thought
about it at all with that battle raging In front.
"But the general took his drink from an old yellow gourd and
patted me on the head.
Even the children are fighting for us, he said. 'You are
brave little man.' "
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"Pap" Addleman reached again for his mortar Doard and trowel.
' The bon8 of all these soldier-plasterers Is J. H. Huntington, onee
a sergeant In Colonel William J. Bryan's regiment. He Is better
kpown to the builder folks as "Postofflco Joe." He has the distinc
tion of having put on the plastering of Just twenty-three United
States postofllees.
"For a real war record our regiment got it," remarked Sergeant
Joe. "But wo whipped, killed and captured more Florida mosquitoes
than any other body of men that ever didn't go to war for their
country." '
Huntington got the patriotic fever in Omaha when the Spanish
American war was declared. He was engaged in superintending; the
ornamental plaster work on the buildings for the Omaha exposition,
then under construction. He enlisted hero for Bryan's regiment, but
he refused to admit that he fought.
"Me, I'm a plasterer, not a soldier," he declares solemnly.
Walter Burke, steel worker, who put in place the big steel trasses
that arch over the Brandels theater's roof, installed the first disap
pearing guns mounted in the coast defense fortifications along the
Atlantic coast. He enlisted with a Pennsylvania regiment during
he Spanish-American war, but was trsnBferred to an artillery organ
ization because of his skill in handling heavy installations.
To have seen C. R. McGlumpy unaggreKslvely strolling about the
theater Job during the rush toward the finish would hardly have
hinted at a military career, but he was a member of the Fifty-first
Iowa volunteers, with rank of a corporal. This regiment , it was
which took the naughty town of Manila in hand and trimmed up the
loose ends of that Inland metropolis.
Howard Bagley, a member of the famous crew that went around
the Horn with "Fighting Bob" Evans, the admiral, had a hand In the
building of the playhouse. Sergeant Hibbs, member of the Utah
battery that went to'the Philippines, was employed on the building
as a wire lather. Corporal Green, a bricklayer in the employ of
Bridges & Hoye, was with the Fifty first Iowa volunteers. .
The long,' sleepless shifts Just before the opening nlht of fh
theater found one man always on the Job; that was Claude Harrlsqa.
a timekeeper. He has no war record, but he Is s trVotep BlftcatJit
(Continued on Page roar.),
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