National Affairs: With Merit

At Helena, Mont., there died from an attack of bronchial pneumonia a distinguished soldier, General Samuel B. M. Young, in the 85th year of his age. His career could hardly be called spectacular, but it was one of those lengthy records of achievement which occur every now and then in the Army.

In 1861, at 21, he entered the Army as volunteer in the Twelfth Pennsyl vania Infantry. At the end of a three months' enlistment, he became a Captain in the Fourth Pennsylvania Cavalry. During the war, he rose step by step to a colonelcy. Peace came. He slipped back to be a Sec ond Lieutenant and once again began his steady rise. The Spanish War gave him a sudden boost; and he rose to be a Brigadier General; then a Major General of Volunteers.

Peace again. He slipped back to be a Brigadier General in the Regular Army and was sent to the Philippines, where he campaigned against the natives. On his return from the Islands, he was made a Major General and selected by Secretary of War Elihu Root to be President of the War College. In 1904, aged 64, then a Lieutenant General, he was automatically retired.

Twenty years later he died. Nothing spectacular marked his coming or his going. He had simply served 40 years with merit.