We regret to record the death of General Leonard Wood,
the Governor-General of the Philippines. Trained as a doctor, he used his appointment as a surgeon in the Army to study the art of war even more closely than the science of medicine, though he was always as far as possible faithful to his nominal profession. His name became well known in the Spanish-American War, when with Mr. Roosevelt he raised the Rough Riders. As Governor of Santiago de Cuba he obliterated yellow fever and brought the regular terrible mortality from this disease to an end. He did it by washing the city and its outskirts from end to end with fresh water. He believed then that yellow fever was a dirt disease. Really he was exterminating the mosquitoes which carried the disease, but the guilt of the mosquito was not yet suspected. He afterwards became successively Governor-General of Cuba, Military. Governor of the difficult Moro Province in the Philippines, and Governor- General of all the Philippines. As an.administrator he drew upon the teachings of Lord Cromer, and as a soldier on those of Lord Roberts. For years he pointed in vain to the danger. from Germany. If objections had not been raised by President Wilson, which may have been personal or political, he would no doubt have com- manded the American Army in France.
* *
Previous page
