AMERICA’S DEFENCELESS SEAPORTS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1267, 11 June 1896, Page 19

AMERICA’S DEFENCELESS SEAPORTS.

PICTURE AND SKETCH OF THE U.S. SECRETARY OF WAR.

In view of the alarming report of a committee of tho United States Senate, published elsewhere, that in tho event of war the City of New York and 20 other seaports would bo at the mercy of the enemy, a portrait of the U.S. Secretary of War, lion Daniel S. Lamont, is of current public interest. While the House of Representatives (and not the President or Cabinet or Senate) has tho right to declare war, it is the Secretary of War’who would have to direct tho plans of campaign, defensive or offensive, should an enemy succeed in making a landing. Colonel Lamont, tho War Secretary, is not a military man, he having obtained his title only as a member of tho Governor’s stall' when Air Cleveland was Governor of the State of New York. Colonel Lamont’s career is a good illustration of tho possibilities in tho United States for men to rise. Less than 20 years ago ho was a very poor young man earning a very modest living as a newspaper correspondent at tho New York State Legislature for a local paper. He eked out his salary by doing stenographic work for members

of the Legislature. Grover Cleveland, then Governor, took a fancy to him, made him his private secretary, and when the Governor was elected President in 1884 he took Colonel Lamont with him to Washington in tho somo capacity. While there Lamont laid tho foundation of a fortune that is now estimated at .several millions of dollars. When his patron, Cleveland, was elected President the second time in bSUg, Lamont had grown too great for the humble position of private secretary, and was made Secretary of War. With war going on, Lamont-, who is no more than a cunning politician and money-getter, would play a wretched figure as Secretary of War. Physically, he is a diminutive and in-significant-looking man, very mysterious in his movements, quid harder to obtain an audience with than is the Czar of Russia. When ho travels the public never know he is in a place until lie has left. Tho American people look so little for war that they rarely care who is appointed Secretary of War or of tho Navy. Those with tho Secretary of the Treasury, of State, tho Attorney-General, and tho Secretary <4 Agriculture are all appointed by the President and compose the Cabinet.