The times., 1898-11-18
FRIDAY. NOVEMBER Is, 1898.
Truth Rises Again.

There is no doubt that the truth is
having its innings with the Alger Relief
Commission and that this seems to be
synchronous with the deposition of
Credit Mobilier Dodge as boss and
chief examiner Whether he has SIM
ply taken vacation and the boys are
having fun with him or whether the
long threatened revolt against Algerian
domination has materialized, the i'm
mediate future will reveal. Anyhow,
Alger is getting il straight and warm.
More has been revealed of the truth and
the vital inwardness of his murderous
maladministratiOn since the election
in one little week of six working days
than during the dawdling months that
preceded. If anything can change
look OF simpering happiness to one of
real anxiety which the situation would
impose on a man of conscience and
Judgment, the testimony of this week
must do ii.
From the restricted inspector general
of the army. from the chief surgeon in
Cuba and from other witnesses the AL
ger Relief Commission, and in some
measure the public, have learned that
the chief first cause of all the woe that
followed our short war with Spain, was
the appalling presumption of the civil
ian Secretary of War and his immediate
subordinates in the War Office, which
hampered and virtually deposed the
commanding general and which robbed
the inspector general of the reports of
"a cub limo
cation of his office with the army in
the field and camp and causing himself
and his principal assistant, General
Sanger to enter the active service
With fatuous conceit, the War Office.
after seizing on General Miles plan of
campaign, sacrificed the benefit of the
services of General Miles and General
Breckinridge and invited the long train
Of horrors that is the inevitable price
sf amateur generalship. The selection
Of Michigan man of fat wit and un-
Tieldy body TO conduct the invasion of
tropical island in hot weather was
another sequence of audacious amateur
war-making, and to this, at last, is trac-
ed most of the needless sufferings of the
army in Cuba.
1t is obvious from the documents
submitted by General Miles in his re-
port that if he had been allowed to ex-
ercise his functions all the defects
would have been avoided. 1t is
equally evident that if General Breckin-
ridge had been permitted to control his
own office and subordinates the head of
every department-medcal. quarter
master, commissary, etc.-would have
been in constant touch with the army,
and would have known, and enabled to
cure, every defect. All the evils that
followed were the inevitable effects of
this cause. The recent testimony of
Major La Garde, regular army sur,
geon, in command of the hospital at
Siboney, proves that General Shafter
was personally responsible for the lack
of stores of all kinds, which led to the
exposure, deprivation and susceptibility
TO disease that wrecked his command.
General Shafter is shown to be as de-
ficient in knowledge of what is neces.
sary for an army in action as of the
conditions of the battle field. He does
not, however, monopolize the blame,
The War Department, whose transpor-
tation officials allowed the Fifth Corps
TO leave Florida without the proper
vessels for effecting a landing of sup
plies. must shoulder its share of the di-
rect responsibility
But it is waste of time to go into
the minor faults. Given a civilian as
Secretary of War, whose brief and not
happy Civil War experience untitled
him to bother with military operations.
who, with his ambitious subordinates.
resolved to dispense with the advice
and prohibit the activity of an expe-
rienced commanding general; and given
subordinate who crippled the inspec-
tors department and severed the COM