The times., 1898-11-17
Gen. breckenridge Expluin. All.


eral of the regular army should be the
most important and conclusive event in
an investigation into the conduct of the
war. If the testimony of General
Breckenridge before the Alger Relief
Commission is not by all odds the most
vital and the final fact in the absurd
career of that body, it is because of GER
tain limitations in the light of which his
evidence must be read. Nobody can
form fair estimate of its value who
does not take full account of various
circumstances. The first of these is the
obvious disposition and determination of
the active Commissioners to favor Sec
retary Alger. Without attempting to
offer a reason for it, there can be no
successful denial of the fact that there
has been no jealous effort to collect tes-
timony that would reflect on the War
Department. but distinctly the reverse.
This is easily demonstrated. Then, the
reporters are excluded and the public
gets only what board favorable to the
War Office allows it to have. The wit
nesses are not permitted to give their
testimony in their own way, but the de-
fense of the War Department is conduct
ed under the severest rules of criminal
procedure. The examiner sternly re-
stricts the witness to answers to Ques-
tions which inevitably exclude a great
deal of information that may be and
presumably is of an essential charac-
ter. The idea that an experienced in
spector general could well direct the in
quiry so as to reveal what is import
ant is so reasonable that the Commits
sion refuses to allow him to do anything
of the kind, but keeps the inquiry in its
Breckenridge there is the further diff
ficulty that he is prohibited from de-
parting from the strict line of questions
and volunteering valuable facts. by his
recent punishment for a criticism of
Ayers stupendous blundering. As
signed to the command of a corps with
the rank of major general of volunteers,
he is made the victim of an earlier or
der for muster out of the volunteer SER
vice because of his comments on the
conduct of the war. This puts him in
delicate situation as a witness against
Alger. The War Office has shown in its
attacks on General Miles that it is cap
able of a contemplate system of war
fare and it would quickly charge to per-
sonal animosity and a desire for re-
venge any voluntary offer of damning
facts by General Breckenridge. 1t is
only by keeping these things in mind
that we can read the testimony of that
officer intelligently. Even then we must
see that he is made to consent to gen.
eral propositions, the force of which he
probably failed to note at the time, and
to seem to place on Congress degree of
blame that should not, but apparently
does, relieve the department of some
measure of responsibility.
The war on the capable and expert
enced army officers by the civilians of
the War Office began early. At the
same time that General Miles was
hampered, ignored, and virtually sus-
pended, General Breckinridge's office
was in effect turned over to the aspir-
ing amateurs-and in these two facts
the war. Too much stress cannot be
placed on this. If General Miles had
been allowed to manage the troops and
select the commanders, and if General
Breckenridge had been permitted to ex-
ercise the functions of his office as in
spector general, the most serious of the
evils that wrecked the army would have
been avoided.
General Breckenridge went to Cuba as
inspector general. He found every
where neglect of all the preparations
and precautions so strongly urged by
General Miles. beginning with the lack
of proper facilities for landing troops
and supplies, for which the Washing
ton office was primarily to blame. These
and all the other faults that have been
charged against the management of the
war were due to the policy of excluding
trained army officers, notably Generals
Miles and Breckenridge, from all oppor-
tunity to direct affairs. The cause that
led the latter to leave the department
of inspection, secured the only means
of communication between the War Of
flee and the troops and condemned the
Secretary of War, the adjutant gen.
eral. and the heads of the medical, quar-
termaster's and commissary depart
ments, to ignorance of the defects and
needs of the army. 1t explains every
thing. 1t has been a puzzle that these
officials did not know that supplies were
not forwarded, acquisitions not filed.
and so on. With the "umbilicaI cord"
cut-with the inspectors office virtually
abolished by the amateur war makers,
they had no means of knowing what it
was essential they should know to pre-
vent the disasters that finally overlook
the army.
There is no need to go further with
the investigation except to prove that
in this crippled condition the inevitable
and logical consequences followed; and
to prove that the nation owes a great
debt to General Miles for his foresight
and patriotism in saving Shafter from
destruction. From the ambition of Sec
retary Alger and his immediate subor
dinateS to run war without the per.
sonal participation of experienced gen.
erals flowed the long series of troubles
from which, as General Breckenridge in.
Inmates, We should have been saved if
General Miles had been permitted to
manage affairs 1t is easy to put too
much stress on the statement that Con-
gress had failed to make sufficient ap
preparations. That is matter. of
course. But while, under the existing
system, the War Department had done