Nscription: TO AUGUSTUS THOMAS: Grat

It is safe stuff to give to a young fellow who likes to take off his
hat and dilate his nostrils and feel the wind in his face. Like water
at the source, it is undefiled. DAVIS AND THE ROUGH RIDERS BY THEODORE
ROOSEVELT I knew Richard Harding Davis for many years,

and I was among the number who were immediately drawn to him by the
power and originality of "Gallegher,"
the story which first made his reputation. My intimate association with
him, however, was while he was with my regiment

in Cuba, He joined us immediately after landing, and was not merely
present
at but took part in the fighting. For example, at the Guasimas fight it
was
he, I think, with his field-glasses, who first placed the trench from
which the Spaniards were firing at the right wing of the regiment,
which right wing I, at that time, commanded. We were then able to make
out the trench, opened fire

on it, and drove out the Spaniards. He was indomitably cheerful under
hardships
and difficulties
and entirely indifferent

to his own personal safety or comfort. He so won the esteem and regard
of the regiment that he was one of the three men we made honorary
members of the regiment's association.

We gave him the same medal worn by our own members. He was as good an
American as ever lived and his heart flamed against cruelty and
injustice. His writings
form a text-book of Americanism which all our people would do well to
read at the present time. BY IRVIN S. COBB Almost the first letter I
received after I

undertook to make a living by writing for magazines was signed with the
name of Richard Harding Davis. I barely knew him; practically
we were strangers; but if he had been my own brother he could not have
written
more generously or more kindly than he did write in that
letter. He, a famous writer, had gone
out of his way to speak words of encouragement to me, an unknown
writer; had taken the time and the pains out of a busy life to cheer a
beginner in the
field where he had had so great a measure of success. When I came to
know him better, I
found out that such acts as these were characteristic of Richard Har