The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-05-11
Berating the Governor.


Governor Hastings and General Snow
den deliberately deceived the president
and the war department by the solemn
assurance that the Pennsylvania division
OF the National guard was fully equipped
and thoroughly prepared to take the field.
All the newspaper reports agree
that the condition of Camp Hastings is
entirely discreditablc. Horses
have died from exposure. The volunteers
are badly clothed and worse. fed. The
governor and the generals and their staff
have shown their utter incapacity, and
the sooner the volunteers from the Ma
tional guard are freed from the incubus
of their incOmpetency the better for the
men and the service. Governor
Hastings, and his inspector general ana
his quartermaster general and his ior
general, and his brigadier general have
brought down the cOntemptuous laughter
of the officers of the regular army sent
to Mt. Gretna. The only thing for
Governor Hastings to do to remedy the
mischief he has made by his Incorporate
haste TO have the first volunteers in the
service of the United Staes, is to go to
Washington and ask the war department
and the general of the army to take
charge of the National guard, to officer
1t, 10 equip it, to feed it and to take it
to the front
Our Philadelphia contemporary seems
disposed to emulate in a small way
those papers which, during the Civil
war, pestered and insulted President
Lincoln, attacked Grant and ran the
war every morning in their editorial
columns far better than the govern
ment could. AS a matter of fact, the
Pennsylvania division of the National
guard, when mobilzed at Mt. Gretna,
was equipped and prepared to take the
field, and if it had been accepted by the
war department as a division, would
have been ready for immediate march
ing orders It's equipment and prepar-
alton We're according to Pennsylvania
standards. The war department, by
imposing different standards, caused
the delay that followed. Responsibility
for it cannot therefore fairly be charged
against Governor Hastings.
AS for the conditions at camp, we
venture to say they will compare very
| favorably with those OF any regular
corresponding weather. At Mt Gretna,
ere the troops We're mustered in, two
men slept under one tent; today, under
| regular army regulations, six men oc.
| Cupy one tent. The food and clothing
provided by the state We're the same
in kind as the food and clothing pro.
| Yided heretofore at brigade and divis.
ion encampments. If there has beer
| complaint this time and none before il
has been on account OF the extraordi.
narily inclcment weather, which neither
the governor nor his staff could have
made to order and because Of the fac
that this encampment, far from beinl
midsummer lark, has meant the mos
serious business in the guards late
history.
AS for the laughter of the regula
army officers, it had best not be prema
ture. The administration Of the quar-
termaster and commissary depart
ments of the National Guard of Penn
sylvania will not shrink from compari
son as to honesty of service and free
dom from scandal with the correspond
ing departments of the federal govern
ment; nor do the officers OF that guar,
feel that the representatives of tn
regular army now at Mt. Gretna ar
so superior In true merit as to entitl
them to indulge in challenges,