The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-07-13
WHAT OTHERS SAY.
THE NAVY AND THE ARMY.

New York Times.
During the last three months the Unit
ed States navy has done more to RAISE
the credit of this country abroad than
has been done since the sea- fights Of
1912. 1t is proved that comparatively
small as it is, it has kept pace with the
Improvement in the mechanical means of
warfare, while in spirit and discipline il
has not declined under the enfeebing in
fuence of "a calm world and long
peace" What there is of it is ready at
any time to go anywhere and do any
thing that can be required of mortal man..
The contrast of the unreadiness of the
army with the readiness of the navy
has been humiliating. The strength of
the army ON Il peace footing is that of a
single corps. If we had had single
corps equipped and ready to follow up
the successes Of the navy. it may very
well be that the war begun in February
by the destruction of the Maine in Ha-
vana harbor would have ended in the
month of May where it began. Whose
fault was it that the army was not
ready?
There is only one answer to this ia The
army itself. 1t is the incompetency of
the Secretary of War. The business of
a civilian in the War Department is to
do what Secretary Long and Mr.. Roose-
welt We're doing in the Navy Depart
ment. 1t is to push things" to find out
what the army wants and TO see that it
gets it. 1t is not the fault of the officers
of the army that this was not done. We
are crediby informed that when war be-
came imminent the General of the army
prepared a memorandum of its needs
and that if the recommendations had
been followed, as the recommendation of
the officers of the navy were followed,
the army would have been on the 23rd
of April as fit to take the field as the
navy was to take the sea. But the small
politician at the head of the War De
partment was too much absorbed in the
game of politics to throw his energies
into the game of war. He shirked his
duty in the department just as, accord
ing to the testimony of his superiOrs
he shirked it in the field during the civil
war. He ignored the recommended tons
of experts, he shuffled and dawded over
his work and the result was that even
the regular army was not 'mobiliZed'
for six weeks after the war broke out.
and that with the exception of n few
regiments of State and volunteer troops.
with the readiness of which for service
the War Department has nothing to do.
the regular army is all the army that we
have now.
The Indignation of the brave and capa-
bic officers of the army over this con-
temptible trifiing is not loud. but it is
deep and general. This we know from
the many expressions of sympathy which
our own criticisms have elected in pri-
vate communications. From not one sin
gle officer have we heard. or heard of. n
dissent from the professional belief that
Gen. Alger is grossly unfit for his place.
And yet these criticisms do not find voice
i'm Congress. Why not? That is the
politics of the War Department Sen
ators and representatives have had their
share Of me patronage with which the
Secretary has debauched and crippled
the staff departments upon which the
success of the work of mobilization de-
pended by packing them with incOmpe-
tent civilians.
General Miles has finally broken loose
from the trammels by which he was
bound to a desk in Washington when the
country was at war. He broke away
once before, to excellent purpose, for he
saw the horrible condition TO which
Secretary Ayers incompetency had
brought the camp at Tampa, and he ex-
pressed his observations In terms which,
to his official superior, could mean moth
ing less that that superior was in
competent We may be sure that he n.
more endeared himself to Secretary Al
ger by that statement than those gen
eral officers endeared themselves to Col
AIger a generation ago who expressed