The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-20
TOO CLOSE TO WASHINGTON.
influential Friends and Visitors
Spelling Camp AIger Volunteers.

Influential Friends and Visitors
Spelling Camp AIger Volunteers.
Washington, July 49, - Washington
has been treated to a series of
interesting newspaper stories which
have told of the disgraceful doings of Che
soldiers who are camped out near here.
For some time not a day passed that did
not bring delectable reports of raids made
by arrestng officers upon disreputable re-
sorts in the city and the capture of
large number OF soldiers in uniform. Camp
Alger has contributed very goodly pro-
portion of the Police Court cases during
the past few months, and the climax was
capped by a disgraceful row in Willard
Hotel, in which one of the chaplains
seems to have been the central figure.
A friend of mine, who is general in
the regular army, and the head of one
of the most important departments in the
big war building, showed me the regular
army disgust at some of the ways and
means employed in what he and others
denominate this political war; when we
were discussing these arrests and the dis
graceful things that led up to them.
Those he said, with fine sarcasm,
care the mammals boys, whose mothers
keep writing to their senators and con-
gressmen and to the President claiming
that their boys are being starved on sol
diers' rations and are being III treated in
camp. Have you heard of soldiers of
the regular army figuring in such scenes?
1 guess not. The men in the regular
army are just as human as any Others
and they like their fun just as we'll but
there is an unwHtten law in the army
that every man learns sooner or later and
which LpGpc him l0rip lee
to the uniform he wears. 1t is the rarest
thing in the world, he went on to say
that a soldier OF the army is caught in
any scrape with his uniform on. If he IS
out for a lark, he will sneak a suit Of
citizens clothes some where and hide his
uniform. The uniform means a great deal
to the army and what it means to the
army as a whole 1t means to every man
in it,
There is a great tendency" the gen.
eral went on, "to criticize the regular army
soldier, and he may not be one to shine
in the drawing room; but he as a soldier,
and he knows a soldiers duty. He knows,
too that the blue he wears means some
thing more than a mere suit of clothes.
Regulars? Why, my boy, the regulars
won that victory a. Santiago 1 know
you hear much more in the papers about
the part which some of the volunteer regi-
ments that were there took in the affair,
but the official reports will show what
we all know. and that is, that the regu-
lars won in the face of a lot of mis-
takes which I do nor care 10 enumerate,
and that to them is due the credit for a
victory which, under the circumstances, is
certainly great one"
The trouble out here at Camp Alger
seems to be that influential visitors have
been entirely too common. OF all places
in the world the capital city is the worst
for a volunteer camp. Gen. Graham, who
is in command, has the reputation in the
army of being a strict discipliHarian, but
neither he nor any other commanding gem
eral could hope to do much with men
when his camp has been overrun with
senators and congressman buying beer for
the boys and cunying political favor by
listening to their every complaint Most
of the senators and congressman are gone
now. and there is hope of getting things in
shape; but in the meantime the stories Of
disgraceful actions by soldiers in uniform
have been told and they have moi been
exaggerated.