The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-16
MISCONDUCT OF THE WAR.

MISCONDUCT OF THE WAR.
The cheers for Shafter proposed by
General Miles at his recent banquet in
New York City, were not indicative,
after all, of any desire on his part to
placate the secretary of war.
General Miles sets forth, in his Off
ciaI report as the head of the army,
the very things that Mark Hanna and
Russell B. Alger have tried to suppress
from the beginning of the investiga-
ton.
His report shows-and every asser-
ton is backed by documentary evil
dence-that the army called was
known to be much larger than was
either necessary or practicable; that
the camps We're selected in utter disre-
gard of the rules of health and the
principles of warfare; that the trans
ports We're chosen without consulting
the best interests of the government or
the safety of the troops; that the sol
diers were crowded On the pest-ships,
in some instances, many days
before there was any intention
of having them sail; that thou
sands of volunteers died, not only
as a result of criminal ignorance
on the part of incompetent appointees
from civil life, but through the asinine
perversity of the war department, pro-
tected by the actual head of the ad-
ministration.
The report specifically shows:
1. That General Miles laid out and
gave to Alger plans for raising, equip
/ ping and making effective an army of
! less than 100000 volunteers.
| ,. That these plans, full of common
sense and humane precautions for the
men, We're contemptuously disregarded.
! 8. That in their stead Alger adopted
an incoherent and absurdly unmilitary
scheme whereby a huge horde of vol
unteers that We're never needed and
never used were herded in so-called
camps and ravaged by disorder and
! disease.
4. That wild and crazy schemes for
dumping this mass of unarmed, I'M
! equipped and unacclimated human be-
| ings into Cuba were adopted and ac-
carried out but for the protests of
J General Miles.
/ 5. That he was snubbed and side
! tracked until Skaters desperate plight
at Santiago compelled Alger and Nc
! Kinley to send him there to take
/ command.
6. That he did take command at San
tiago and did conduct the negotiations
! for the surrender, and that he issued
the only orders that were issued look
ing to the saving of our army from
death by fever.
I. That Mckinley and Alger ordered
1 him to land at a point in Puerto Rico
where, with his hastily-equipped and
! almost undrilled army of $500 men, he
would have had instantly to meet H.
geo well-armed, well-defended Span
iards
s. That these incredible orders to
rush to ruin were sent openly over for
eign telegraph wires and were pub
lished at Washington before Miles re-
ceived them, so that the Spanfards
were aware of the landing place Sc
lected and were ready to destroy our
army had General Miles obeyed these
positive orders.
9. That General Miles advocated from
the start the holding back of all mill
/ tary operations and the releasing of
our navy, which ne evidently thought
could alone and with perfect safety.
and with small loss of life, end, or al
! LlOSI emu, the war.
The campaign is over. The cause of
the volunteer who died in the pest
camps of peace. who yielded up his
life in the cause of Algerism, who was
caught and held like a rat in a tran
until death released him. may now be
discussed without sympathy for be-
reaved families being mistaken for
partisanship, or indignation at crimi-
nal indifference being regarded as DO
litical buncombe
The war is over. There is no longer
any excuse to keep silent for fear of
embarrassing the administration in q
critical time. The administration is
resting on the laurels won by the men
in the field and on the ships. 1t
is Haunting the glory of American
valor as if Hanna and Alger had con
quered Spain in the name of the Re
publican party. If a review of the
mismanagement Of the army embar-
raises the administration at this time
then the administration deserves to be
embarrassed.
When the commanding general of the
<AAAASi 4NeAAi al AilyB WIN uoJlGllS TO De aC-
quainted with every phase of soldier
life, who received a military education
in the school of experience, who knows
the privations as he understands the
principles of warfare, who has served
his country as a volunteer and as
regular, who began at the bottom anc
worked his way to the top, who sees
everything and overlool1s nothing il
the management and care of an army
when he reports that gross mismanage
ment has cost this nation more in rnel
and money than it took to subdue tn,
enemy, there is every reason why TIL,
administration should be embarrassed
and not only embarrassed, but pursued
with the record of its infamy and in
competence until the blame shall b.
fastened for all time where it belongs.
The Anaconda Standard gives tn,