The evening times., 1898-09-09
SOLDIERS CRUELTY used
Criminal Blame Charged Con-
cerning Transportation.
AN INQUIRY PROBABLE
Long Island Railroad officials De-
clare They Are Not Responsible
for Discomforts TO Which Troops
We're Subjected by Being Forced
to Wait for Hours at the station.

New York, Sept 9.-Whether railroad
officials or army officials are 10 blame
for the shameful way in which sick and
dying soldiers have been delayed in their
departure from Montauk Point, after or
ders were given to send them home, is
question that is likely to become very
prominent in the fixing of responsibilities
for the prosecutions TO which soldiers
have been subjected since they returned
from the war.
First, it was asked: Why was the great
army camp located at Montauk Point,
| the end of the Long Island Railroad Com
pany's single-track line?
Then will come the inquiry: Why, when
| the Long Island Railroad Company had
shown itself incompetent or unable 10
handle the business of the camp. was
there no attempt to utilize the superb
water transportation privileges afforded
| by the sound, the ocean, and the narOor
adjacent to the camping ground?
And after all this has been explained,
| will come the criminal inquiry: Was mon
ey paid and received to give this one
line of railroad monopoly which led
to torture, and sole rights which induced
| unnecessary death?
That there has been cruel misnanage-
| ment and brutal inefficiency the sicken-
| ing stories of every day amply prove
| The railroad company says the Govern
ment officials are to blame; the Govern
| ment officials point their accusing fingers
| at the railroad.
If the Long Island Railroad has beer
given monopoly rights in transportation
| and has a sneering disregard for the
| lives of those whom the nation delights
TO honor, the country wants to know
| why that monopoly exists. If there i:
no monopoly right. and such men are tor
| tured in box cars when they might bt
| comfortable in steamers. the people wan
| to know the stupid officials responsible,
| for the torture.
| 1--WE ordered them, is the excuse of tbs
| officers at Montauk, when they admit tn,
| lack of medicines and delicacies for tflt
| sick; of sufficient wholesome food for th'
| well.
| 1--WE sent them by the railroad" sa!
| the officers of the commissariat in thi
| city and Washington.
If, then, ice was left to melt, medi
cfnes to deteriorate, food to rot on tn
l
Island Railroad, while brave men droop
| ed and died in a camp almost in viev
| of the plenty, the bounty and the patri
| otic willingness of New York, where i
| the blame TO rest?
On top of this come the blood-chillin.
tales of dying men bundled into box cars
| of sinking heroes, left to drop and swell
| ter in the pitiless sun at the station: o
| the heartless piling up of horror upol
| horrors head. And the people suspec
that there is something worse thai
| brutal incompetency in all this, ant
want the blame fixed. They are tired o
the game of passing the buck"
There are dozens of craft in New Yorl
| harbor already under charter or cage
| for the chartering, and two fine piers a
| Montauk. extending into the deep waite
| of a sheltered bay. The waterway is al
open and unoccupied between thes
| steamers and those docks. The wonde
| is and still the wonder grows, that tn
manifold discomforts and multiform dis
tresses of transportation have not beel
relieved by the utilizing of the open wa
! terways. No man gives a satisfactor.
| answer.
Why, for instance. were the Massachu
setts soldiers brought clear up to Ney
York in steaming cars of the Long Isl
and Railroad, and then shipped in othe
cars to their New England home whe
the perfectly natural method of thei
shipment was to load them on a steame
l and send them across the few miles O
water intervening between Montauk an
Boston? - ~-~....,
y These are all burning questions tha
grow more potential at each days con