Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/264

 402 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS whose most faithful and devoted servant you have been. I thank you for all you have done for my House and for the greatness of the Fatherland. We greet in you not only a Prussian leader who has won for the army the reputation of being invincible, but one of the founders of the German Empire. The presence of the King of Sa.Kony, who has made a point of personally congratulating you, recalls the time when he and you fought for Germany's greatness. The distinctions con- ferred upon you by my grandfather leave nothing in which I can personally show my thanks to you. ... I call upon all those present to express their feel- ings of gratitude that Field-Marshal von Moltke has known how not to stand alone in his greatness, but to form a school of leaders of the army for time to come, and for all future generations, by giving cheers for his excellency." This, the last occasion on which public honors were accorded to the field- marshal during his life, appropriately emphasized the universal esteem in which "Father Moltke," as he was affectionally designated by the army, was held as one of the founders of the German Empire. GEORGE DEWEY By Major-General Joseph Wheeler (born 1837) VERY occasion finds a man to meet the exigencies of the hour, every conflict brings forth its hero, and every war educates soldiers for a war to come. War begets the warrior. Washington came out of the French and Indian wars, Jackson from the Creek wars ; Scott and Taylor both emerged from Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, Grant and Lee from Mexico. So, George Dewey came out of the fierce internecine strife of our Civil War. He came, too, from one of the great sources of the best elements of our Amer- ican population. The Puritans of New England and the Cavaliers of Virginia spnmg from the same soil and a common ancestry, worked side by side, in a widely different manner, but to the same end ; and from these two classes have sprung nearly all our great soldiers, statesmen, and authors. From the former came the great naval hero of the Spanish-American War.