Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-08-11
WHERE BLUNDES RULED.
Pittsburg Dispatch.

Pittsburg Dispatch.
Examples of the complete break
down of the staff administration in
supplying the army at Santiago con-
tinue to come in. They cannot pass
without drawing the important moral.
For instance, On the same day that the
War Department issued its labored ex-
PLANTATION that the loss of lighters on
Skaters voyage had made the landing
of supplies very difficult, a report of
Surgeon John H. Stone, of the Six
teenth United States Infantry, reached
the public, in which an illustration is
given as follows: The sick are suffer
ing from the lack of ice, while two
cargoes lie at the wharf, melting, for
want of transport facilities" The ex-
cuse that lighters are lacking to unload
steamers that come up to the wharves
at Santiago is a peculiar example of
war department logic. COntempora-
neously with that is the statement that
when the transport steamer Break
water returned to New York the officers
there were astOnished to find thou
sands Of pounds of food supplies on
board that had been shipped to Santa
go and brought back without unload
ing.
To estimate the meaning Of these
particular blunders correctly it must
be noted that they are not the direct
act of the war department. That re-
markable establishment is giving itself
plenty to answer for, in its own self
exposures, but in these particular cases
there had been activity enough to get
calc NJ nnodnI, SlrnnliaS DC for =
Santiago. But after they get there,
within from one to half a dozen miles
of the sick and hungry, the ice melts
away and the food comes back to the
United States unloaded. The incOmpe-
tence, or worse, that has been devel-
oped throughout the staff administra-
ton of this campaign extended to the
commissary and quartermaster officers
in charge of unloading these ships, so
that the work was not done.
The full knowledge of the causes that
led to the disgraceful breakdown of
the vital means for feeding and sup
plying the soldiers will require full in
vestigation But we need not seek very
far to find one cause that has a very
cogent bearing. We need only go back
to the time when commissions were
being handed around TO the sons Of
their fathers TO recall that the most
common announcement was the gift of
positions on the commissary and quar-
termaster stats 1t is not necessary in
drawing the conclusions to show that
the blunders were all committed by the
ignorance CT neglect of the recipienus
OF political favoritism. But when Off
GERS of training, who have made the
supplying of armies profession, learn
that not skill or efficiency, but a poll
teal pull, governs the distribution OF
appointments and advancement, it is a
natural result that those who fight do
better grow negligent and careless. 1t
can be set down as a fact that the de-
graduation of theermy staff into a mess
of political pottage has exerted an in
exitable effect in lessening its eff
cheney.
That there has been disgraceful in
competence in the handling, supplying
and care of the Santiago army Is prac-
rically beyond dispute. Whether ther(
have been worse and more damaginf,
influences as a result OF political favor
itism can only be determined by ID.
ture investigation.