Rough Riders Take Over
Arizona Town in Reunion

    PRESCOTT, Ariz., June 24--Amid vivid memories of American cheers and Spanish bullets the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt rode thunderously into town here today with an honor guard of Roughriders.
    Just 50 years to the date after the immortal Battle of Las Guasimos in Cuba, where the Roughriders were baptized in blood, the remaining members of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry met here for their half-century reunion.
    The original regiment of Roughriders as formed at San Antonio by Col. Leonard Wood with Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt second in command numbered 1203 men. Barely one-tenth of these or about 120 men now are living. Of these 64 registered here for this so-called final convention as contrasted with a mere 28 who attended the 1947 reunion in Los Angeles.
    Spry, and vocal, the Roughriders today marched into their session as enthusiastically as they stormed up San Juan Hill in '98. Out from New York flew their tall president, Col. David M. Goodrich, to lead in the feasting, speechmaking and yarn spinning of the survivors attending.

    Teddy Roosevelt's men literally took over this little mountain town where the Volunteers of Arizona Territory were mustered in 50 years ago.
    Everybody joined in the welcome. In the Courthouse Square under the old trees the statue of famed Bucky O'Neill, onetime Mayor of Prescott and captain of Co. A of the Roosevelt Roughriders who was killed in the charge at San Juan Hill, looked down on comrades of war before atomic bombs and radar. In the shadow of Bucky's rearing bronze horse, by Sculptor Gutzun Borglum, the Roughriders spoke with many a good round cavalry oath of the days when life was cheap and glory was being bought with blood under the hot Cuban sun in the American fight to save an enslaved people.
    From all over came the veterans to join in the big barbecue at noon in Courthouse Square and the banquet for Roughriders only this evening.
    John N. Adair of Tahlequah, Okla., a first cousin of Will Rogers, who was 90 on June 3, sported a red shirt and a campaign cap and walked the gizzard out of younger comrades. Clustered around him constantly were his two closest pals of Co. L, J. E. McGuire and Burt Miller.

    Col. Arthur F. Cosley of New York, one of the Harvard dudes in the Roughriders, was another who could testify about Mausers. He has carried a Spanish bullet in his chest ever since '98. Cosley flew out with Col. Goodrich and famed Maj. George G. McMintry of the Lost Battalion in World War I, and William Quaid. Goodrich and Cosley are veterans of these wars.
    Two notable women added a feminine touch to the grizzled masculine gathering. V. Adelaide Green of San Diego was honored as the only woman ever to be commander of J. W. Green Camp 7, United Indian War Veterans, a post named for her father, who was a veteran both of the Indian Wars and the Roughriders.

    Likewise paid special deference was Mrs. Joseph L. B. Alexander of Phoenix, whose late husband was United States Attorney for Arizona. She recalled Teddy's great partiality for Roughriders when he was President of the United States.
    The nomination of Ben Daniels to Roughrider for United States Marshal was being opposed before a Senate committee on the ground he was a wild man.
    "Why it's even said he killed a man," one hostile Senator told the committee.
    This was relayed to Teddy. "One man," exploded Teddy. "Why Ben told me it was three." Ben was confirmed.
    Greeting the Roughriders were Robert W. Buck Denny of Whittier, secretary of the association, and Harmon H. Wyncoop of Prescott, who arranged the program.

Source:

Ainsworth, Ed, "Rough Riders Take Over Arizona Town in Reunion," Los Angeles Times, Friday, 25 June, 1948, p. 14.