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MARINE REVIEW 3t GEN. ALEXANDER MACKENZIE. When Dr. Johnson completed his celebrated dictionary he sent a copy of it to an old woman who had been a friend of his over a long series of years. She replied, after a great length of time, that she had enjoyed the book very much, but thought the narrative disconnected. To read the mere skel>- ton of any man's biography is very much like reading a dic- tionary. Hew as born on such and such a date, spent such and such an amount of time here and there, occupied such and such positions, and then a convenient blank is left for the date of his final taking-off. The mere chronological record of a man's life, the mere history of his achievements, conveys no idea whatever of his character. In looking through the war rec- ords for a sketch of Alexander Mackenzie, one runs across such intensely fascinating matter as this : "Wallets: Point Ny Y. Ney, 0, 1868, to June 22, 1874; assistant engineer of repairs to Louisville and Portland canal and improve- ment of the falls of the Ohio river at Louisville, Ky., June 27, 1874, to Now. 22, 18777 A little of such reading goes a very long ways, indeed. It is very much like reading a report o1 the department of public works. The human element is entirely extracted. Gen. Alexander Mac- kenzie is one of the most delight- ful men that has ever lived. His character has a charm that is too intangible for words. He is less like a politician than any man who has held public office. There is no such thing as self-aggran- dizement in him. It. took hir over twenty years to reach the rank of. captain: . He has done the days. .work'.as . each. day dawned, and has chosen rather that office should seek him than that he should seek office. It is, therefore, an especially brilliant commentary on his ability that the office of brigadier general and chief of engineers of the war department should have been bestowed upon him without his ever having,so much as lifted his little finger to get it. Alex- ander Mackenzie is one of nature's gentlemen, gentle yet firm, reserved and yet approachable, dignified without being ostentatious. This is the bald record of his life: He is a native of Wis- consin. He entered West Point Sept. 1, 1860, and graduated June 30, 1864, and was immediately promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, corps of engineers. He served as assistant engineer in the department of Arkansas during the last stages o. the civil war and was breveted captain on March 13, 1865, for gallant and meritorious services during the rebellion. At the close of the war he was employed in an examination of the levees of the lower Mississippi and in certain improve- ments in the harbors of Lake Michigan. He was promoted to the rank of captain on March 7, 1867. His active service as captain was largely confined to the improvements of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and on April 5, 1882, he was promoted to the rank of major, still continuing in charge of river improvements in the Mississippi valley. He was made a member of the Missouri river commission in 1884, and served upon it as well as various other boards for ten years. He was GEN. ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. made lieutenant colonel Feb. 3, 1895, and appointed to the office of first assistant to the chief of engineers. He reached the rank of colonel in 1901. He gave considerable attention to the work of military reconnoisance of the entire Hawaiian archipelago. He was made chief of engineers with the rank of brigadier general on Jan. 23 of the present year. FORCEFUL SPEECH FOR AID TO SHIPPING. Important meetings were held in Washington recently to discuss two measures at present before Congress concerning American shipping. One of these confines the forwarding of govern- ment supplies to the Philippines to American bottoms. The other ex- tends the coastwise laws of the United States to the Philippines. Mr. S. S. Sewa!l of the firm of Ar- thur Sewall & Co. of Bath, Me, appeared before the committee and said that rates were now so low on the Pacific that tonnage to the amount of 140,000 is lying idle in San Francisco harbor. The con- dition of affairs he ascribed to the cutting of rates by the French sail- ing vessels which received such large subsidies from the French government that they can sail half around the world in ballasts. The bounty pays the cost of operating the vessel, and almost all of the in- surance as well, so that whatever is paid for freight is profit to the owner. Mr, Alfred Winsor of Boston, president of the Boston Steamship Co. which is now oper- ating five ships in the oriental trade, says that what American steamers want is a greater volume of freight in preference to an in- crease of rates. He though this could be obtained by limiting the commerce to. American sitips. One of the most earnest pleaders for the extension of the coastwise laws to the Philippines was Mr. Herman A. Kelley of Cleveland, representing the American Ship Building Co. He told the committee on merchant marine and fisheries the disastrous results which followed the attempt of the lake shipping interest to enter the ocean carrying trade. Lake interests built two large steamers (the Minnetonka and the Minnewaska) at Cleveland and floated them in two pieces to Quebec, where they were joined. These two steamers now lie dismantled at Brooklyn, because they could not get freight at anything but a loss. 'This is the result of our attempts to do something for the American marine" said Mr. Kelley, "an investment of $800,000 lying idle for nearly two years and depreciating every day. Every other interest in the country has received some of the benefits of protection. Ship building alone has been exempted. Whenever we come to congress we are met by large protected interests and we are asked to sit in the background with most humiliating results, It is very singular, if there is insufficient tonnage, that we cannot find anything elsewhere for our ships to do. Secy. Taft has urged us to wait. We don't want to wait. We want immediate relief and instead of seeing our commerce to the Philippines carried in foreign ships, we want to see it carried under the American flag."' The most forceful speech of all was made, however, not by 4