The San Francisco call., 1898-02-18
Growing Belief That the Disaster Was Not Due
 to Accident.
High Government Officials, How- ever, Await the Result of the Investigation Into the
 Loss of the Maine.

state of affairs has been reached flour warships cannot be constructed so that 1 there is no possibility of their maga- zines exploding through spontaneous combustion of coal or the powder being | ignited through some cause that all the safeguards that surround the maga- zines fail to prevent.
 l The Navy Department was again thronged all day with people eager for news from Havana. The wires were burdened with dispatches making anx- ious inquiries regarding the officers and men on board the Maine, and very lit 1 tie else was accomplished in the bureau l of navigation beyond replying to these :. telegramS. All of the messages were signed Long" and most of them car 1 ried sad intelligence to all sections of I the country. Great anxiety was be- | trayed on the faces of all the officials 1 during the day as time wore on and no news came from Havana.
 The requests for something specific sent to Captain Sigsbee last night and early this morning drew forth no. re- ! sponse until o'clock this afternoon, when cablegrams came from Sigsbee and Lee, mainly relating to the dead. 1 There was a conference between Secre- ] tary Long and the President during the | afternoon, but the occasion of it was not divulged by the Secretary, who said to The Call correspondent: T have no further information than has been { given out. l am not in a position to form better opinion than any one else with the same data at his command. I am still of the opinion I formed yes- l terday and which may be expressed by stating that I see nothing in the dis patches from Havana to indicate that 1 the horror of Tuesday night was any, thing except the result of an accident" 1 During the day Assistant Secretary Meiklejohn of the War Department was summoned to the Navy Department 1 and held a conference with Secretary Long. MT. Meiklejohn has made ar arrangements to go to Fortress Monroe ''on public business it is given out at ! the department, and will leave Wash | ington on Saturday. It is said at the Assistant Secretary's office that he was going on a visit to General Alger. The cablegrams were posted as fast as re- 1 ceived in the Bureau of Navigation and read with eagerness by everybody. The department officials insist that all mes sages have been given out in full. This is true, with the exception of one mes sage which came in cipher from Key West about o'clock this morning. This message (whatever it was) did not reach the public, and the officials said it had no relation to the Maine disas- ter and was of no interest. This cir cumstance naturally excited the suspi- cions that something was being with held and the conferences between the l President and Secretary Long at the White House, and between the latter and MT. Meiklejohn at the Navy De- partment did not dispel this belief
 The officials at the Navy Department | devoted the day to the effort of cor recting the list of living and dead; to answering frantic telegraphic appeals from relatives of men on the battle ship and last, but not least, in meeting with unwavering courtesy and patience the exacting demands upon their time of the press representatives. The dis position of the survivors, Captain Dickens, acting chief of the Navigation Bureau, has arranged for as well as could be from this distance. The wounded sailors in the Havana hos pitals, on the Spanish flagship and elsewhere, when not in condition to be l brought back to Key West, will be carefully looked after by Miss Clara Barton who has been given carte | blanche to buy any and everything necessary, food, clothing, delicacies and hire nurses and physicians The wounded able to get across to Key 1 West will be taken care of in the Marine Hospital there. The sound sur vivors will be quartered in the spare army barracks there.
 AS for the Maine herself, notwith- standing discouraging reports from I Lieutenant Hood as to her condition, the Navy Department will make the effort to raise her. While this is re- quired by every creditable sentiment, they say they are bound to remove the l hull from the small harbor in any case, and it may be as easy or easier to raise I her as it would be to destroy the hull and machinery by the use of divers and dynamite. It is believed this work can best be done by private wrecking corporations, and negotiations are al- ready afoot for placing the contract, based on the work by the day, at an estimated cost of s200.000.
 At the Navy Department specific de- | nial was given of the report, emanat- ing from Madrid, that torpedo f1otflla was about to leave Key West for Cuba.
 It was stated that only two torpedo boats, the Cushing and the Ericsson. I are at Key West, and these have nou
 been ordered and will not be ordered. | according to the present plans. to 1 Cuba It was strongly asserted that
 no present purpose existed of sending | any warship there.
 Senor Dubosie, the Spanish charge,
 had received no instructions up to s
 D. m. as to going to New York and
 stopping the Spanish ship Viscaya
 from entering the port, and reports to
 this effect were discredited-