The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-07-07
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9a11u - Eagle
Nj. NJ. MURDOCH. Editor.
THE EAGLES CRITICS.

It goes without saying that the Eagle
is not giving to worry over the criti-
cisms of its contemporaries while the
mercury of the thermometer is expand
ing into the nineties. Touching its
strategic suggestions and its. common
sense complaints, it finds nothing TO
take back, the roar Of our contempor-
aries to the contrary Notwithstanding,
and it is a waste of good gray matter
or of spleen to attempt to make Us
view the problems in question in a dif-
ferent light. Until convinced by re-
suits or subsequent events we must
maintain that the great battleship
Oregon should have been dispatched
westward instead Of eastward. She
should have been anchored in Manila
bay weeks ago. Merritt should have
gone with the Charleston and her
transports. Miles, who but few
months ago boosted that he could land
$4,000 American soldiers in Canada in
sixty hours, should have headed the
biggest force he could have possibly
mustered on short notice, and landed
1t In the rear Of Havana, leaving the
raising and forwarding of reinforce
ments to the war department. With
but twenty or thirty soldiers safely en-
trenched in the rear Of Havana, and
one Of our naval fleets patrOlling in
front, Havana would have been starved
into subsection ere this, without the
waste Of pound of powder. Even had
that city held out under such an in
vestment, by this time Miles could
and would have had one hundred thou
sand men in striking distance of the
capital Santiago is not Cuba, and the
governor general of Cuba will not sur
render until Havana falls, except at the
instance Of Spain. AS for the other two
things urged by the Eagle-the sending
Of fleet into European waters and the
snubbing of Emperor Bill by telling
him that he is holding an unnecessary
number of warships at Manila-we are
bL4Al VI NlldL ODlLAOll llC NICI man
navy is no greater than our own, and
Hohenzollern can fight US in no other
way. The ruler Of the German empire
has studied TO insult the United States
TO belittle it's authorities and to menace
it's navy, and we are in favor Of put
ting a thirteen-inch shell into the
bowels Of the first one Of his ships that
gets in the way, just to remind his
BumptiOusness that President Mckin-
ley is neither an Dom Paul, to be pa
tronizingly patted on the back, nor yet
a Turkish sultan TO be menaced, and
that seventy-five millions of people will
not forget, overlook or excuse the fact
that Germany alone declined to declare
itself neutral in a war forced upon
them in the behalf of humanity; de-
clared with notice aforethought and
with the determination to take advan-
tage Of the first reverse which might
uvertake the president and the people
of the United States. As to our advocacy
of sending a fleet to Gibralter, that will
probably be done. The truth is, Spain
hardly knows yet that Manila has fall
len, does not believe that Cervera's
fleet has been destroyed, thinks Havana
impregnable, with an all around
'don't-care'' what becomes of her
soldiers on these islands, and it there
fore becomes necessary to make such
a demonstration, not only for the bene-
fit of Spain, but of entire Europe.