Page:Sunset Magazine vol. 31.pdf/347

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350
Sunset, the Pacific Monthly

he met the open hostility of Miss Hobbs, who was then employed as stenographer to the bank's receiver. She did not hide her hatred of the men who were endeavoring to uncover illegal transactions on the part of her former employer. This loyalty caused Olcott to take particular notice of her and to make inquiries about her.

When the investigation was over Miss Hobbs was employed by the Ladd Estate Company. A little later Olcott became campaign manager for Oswald West, successful candidate for governor. Shortly before the time for the governor-elect to be inaugurated Olcott asked him if he had any one in View for his private stenographer. He had not, so Olcott told him he knew of a girl just suited for the position. Olcott sent for Miss Hobbs and on the day the governor took the oath of office she was presented to him. In the two years she served as his stenographer her mettle was put to the test in a number oi unusual ways and she proved so capable that when the governor appointed Ralph A. Watson, his private secretary, as corporation commissioner to administer the new "blue sky" law, he chose Miss Hobbs to succeed him. She took her new position on the third of June, being the first woman to serve as secretary to the governor in the history of the state. Then another laurel of success came to her. It was a diploma from the law department of the Willamette University. While at the capitol she had continued to give her law studies the time that most young women give to parties, halls and theaters. Yet she is young and girlish and a jolly companion, as proud of her success as can be, and is determined to "make good."

"I can't say how pleased I am" she said. "The money I make is not going to be spent for clothes and a good time; it is going to pay the mortgage. After that is out of the way then I can do just as I please." Will T. Kirk.


Every Inch a Soldier

IT is rightly accounted a most creditable achievement when an American, in time of war or peace, advances, in either the regular army or the volunteer forces, from the position of an inconspicuous subordinate to the post of highest responsibility in his chosen arm of the republic's service. How much more notable, than, is the dual triumph of one who first progressed step by step from the position of an enlisted man in the volunteer service to the pinnacle of attainment and then, starting in again at the ladder's lowest round, comparatively, progressed from a modest lieutenancy in the regular forces to the rank of a commander of the army.

Lieutenant-General S. B. M. Young occupies in the roster of our military heroes a position that is virtually unique. Not only has his career exceeded, probably, in interest and significance, that of any other American army officer now living, but his record of more than hall a century of varied and conspicuous service is in many respects the most remarkable in the entire history of the nation's fighting service. His career is in the highest degree an inspiration and encouragement to all young men who aspire to military distinction through any channel of advancement.

General Young has been an active participant in four wars—the Civil War, the conflict with the Indians, the Spanish War and the struggle in the Philippines—and yet figuratively no more than literally he shows no scars. At the age of seventy-three he is active, alert, erect, characterized by that same bearing which has always made him the ideal soldier and betokening by every word and movement that in some cases, at least, our present age of retirement in the military service robs the nation of the full measure of service from officers whose powers are in the autumn of a splendid maturity

His prolonged and varied service has given to General Young a breadth of vision and of interest vouchsafed to few men. In his military capacity he has served in widely separated sections of the country and his service in almost every instance has been sufficiently prolonged to give the officer a more or less intimate knowledge of conditions rather than a merely superficial view. The West in articular owes much to General Young. By years of arduous campaigning against hostile Indians in the Southwest he made his contribution to the cause of the rich and peaceful empire of the present day and later in California and at the Yosemite and Yellowstone Parks he instituted movements the full value of which have come to be better appreciated