"General Wood greeted him cordially and ceremoniously. He personally conducted him around the camp, pointing out what fine, big men our soldiers were, and especially directing his attention to the machine guns. Would the Rajah like to see the guns in operation?
"After the guns had mowed down a few trees the Rajah's face assumed a thoughtful expression. He became enthusiastically friendly." [Footnote: World's Work.]
Such methods in time made an impression. Even the Moro mind began to absorb the fact that it was much better to accept the invitation than to undergo what followed any failure to do so.
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Wood had also to add to his difficulties in the beginning the prejudice of army officers he found in the islands. The older men over whom he had been promoted by President McKinley had no love for him. They called him a doctor. He was not of the army fraternity. They had heard that he had done well, but not by established methods. The younger officers took their cue from their seniors and so did the enlisted men. It was a difficult problem, or series of problems, through which he had to steer a careful course. But he did it and turned the tide entirely in the other direction.
He did it by always taking his share of the hard work. Object lessons of this sort multiplied as time went on. When troops were sent out to an engagement Wood went with them and kept in the front line. When they camped for the night in the jungle he had the same bed--the ground. When they had little or nothing to eat, he had the same. Once when they came out upon the beach of one of the islands after a hard trip Wood's launch was reported a hundred yards off the surf ready with cooling fans, a good mattressed bed, excellent food and a bath. He told {183} the orderly that he would stay with the men and sent him back to the launch, taking no more notice of the matter except to scrape out a new hollow in the burning sand in the hope of finding a cooler spot to sleep.
Such episodes repeated again and again soon made a vital change of views in regard to the new governor and commander. They occurred so regularly and so often that it appeared true--this taking what came along in the day's work with the others--not a case of trying to produce effect now and then. Mr. R. H. Murray, in his article written in 1912, quoted above, speaks of an officer who served under Wood at this time and as he says quotes him as literally as he can:
"When Wood first came out in 1903, the army in the Philippines didn't know him. There were plenty of officers who reviled him as a favorite of the White House, and cussed him out for it. Pretty soon the army began to realize that he was a hustler; that he knew a good deal about the soldier's game; that he did things and did them right; that, when reveille sounded before daybreak, he was usually up and dressed before {184} us; that, when a man was down and out, and he happened to be near, he'd get off his horse and see what the matter was and fix the fellow up, if he could; that when he gave an order it was a sensible one and that he didn't change it after it went out; and that he remembered a man who did a good piece of work and showed his appreciation at every chance.
"Well, the youngsters began to swear by Wood, and the old chaps followed, so that from 'cussing him out' they began to respect him and then to admire and love him. That's the word--love. It's the easiest thing in the world to pick a fight out there now by saying something against Wood. It is always the same when men come in contact with him. I don't honestly believe there is a man in the department now who wouldn't go to hell and back for Leonard Wood."
It was again much the same story as in Cuba. It was not only the personality of the man himself, his personal magnetism, but the quiet simplicity of his methods backed by knowledge and good judgment. It was the absence of doing anything for effect, anything of the personal {185} "ego;" the getting of things done quietly, without ferment or conversation. And back of it all the absolute certainty of every one who worked with or under him that Leonard Wood would do exactly what he said he would, even though he said it quite quietly only once and even though the doing of it meant a military expedition, a battle and the death of many a good man who perhaps knew nothing of the real reasons.