Evening star., 1898-09-12

ing without a murmur work which almost
any civilian would shirk II he couldAthese
men which one could see on all sides about
Santiago and Siboney. were regular army
officers. Their performances in battle are
better understood and considered only the
natural and proper thing. OF the hard
work and hards4lips generally which the
regular, both of the rank and file. performs
the public knows but little.
inexperienced stan OMcers.
A great deal has been said about the
mistakes made during the campaign and
efforts made to fix the responsibility there
for, but 1 have yet failed to see one most
fruitful source OF errors alluded to at ALL
This was the appointment OF civilians to
important stan positions. Now, the men
who are responsible for these appointments
are frequently to be found among the
noisiest detractors of those who are held
responsible for the conduct of the cam
paign. They are the politicians whose i'm
portunities forced lot of incompetentS on
the departments. and who now want to
know why mistakes were made. Men We're
appointed captains and Quartermasters who
did not know the difference between an am
bulance and a transfer box. There were
youthful commissaries who were are guilt
less as babes of any knowledge to how
rations are distributed, taken care Of, or
accounted for. There were assistant ad
3utant generals in Cuba who did not know
were simply in the way. l will cite one
illustration which came under my personal
observation. One of the regular army
quartermasters sent one of these young
men out to the captain of a transport In
the harbor with the request that he would
send one of his engineers ashore to run
tug or lighter during the temporary illness
of the regular engineer of the latter. The
youthful, inexperienced officer went to the
ship captain and told him that Col. -
directed or ordered him to send one of his
engineers: etc. The ship captain fumed
while Col. - had a perfect right to order
that ship anywhere he pleased, the said
colonel had nothing to do with his crew,
and sent back word to the colonel he might
go to the devil for an engineer. 1t hap
pened that the colonel was wise and ex-
perienced officer and knew about what had
taken place shipboard when his SUBJ
altern made his report. He explained the
difference between an order and a request
to the young officer and sent him back with
the result that an engineer was soon forth
coming. The mistake, though trivial,
caused delay, and delays were sometimes
fatal in Cuba.
The fact is. nowhere is practical army ex-
perience so much needed as in the staff Of
fcer They should always be appointed
from the line, from the first and second
lieutenants, who have seen considerable
efficient staff officers with the army in
Cuba were men who had won distinction
in the line. Colonel Humphrey. but for
whose untiring, intelligent work a good
part of the army would have been in Cuba
yet, had distinguished himself In the ar
tilery before he was made Quarterma ster.
Colonel Jack Weston was a gallant cav
alryman before he was made a commits
sary But for the infinite resources OF
these two men coming from their intimate
Knowledge of army affairs l don't know
what would have become of the army in
front of Santiago They had only one
motto, which was, Get there" l heard
Weston remark one day to an importunate
We're starving at the front and whose req
uisitons were all wrong: "All right, all
right: take it along: the boys in the
trenches will bless me, but I'll catch HI
in Washington
Inefficient Doctors.
Nowhere was the lack of army experience
more apparent than in the medical corps.
1 don't know where he got them, but of I'll
the aggregations of scientific freaks and
medical misfits that We're ever discovered.
the contract surgeons which Gen. Stern
berg sent to Cuba stand pre-eminent. OF
course. there were notable exceptions
NJ ny Of them wee men Of genuine ability,
ard this was. esprciallv true of the younger
men, But the experts-yellow fever ex-
ptTtS-lO pen can 90 1ull justice To thdt
body of distinguished medicos. They
sTooped down on a fever-stricken army
armed with trestises they had written on
yellow fever and a thirst for rum which
kept them on the verge of delirium tire
mems q good part of the time. / met with
half a dozen while I had fever in Span
ish hotel uptown. and no one Of them had
the faintest idea whether my malady was
yellow jack, typhoid or malaria. One oli
chap who made careful diagnosis of my
case winked at me and said, "Yush all
right. my boy ard then fell over in a fit
the result of hard drinking Another
frankly told me he was in his dotage now.
but boastfuly remarked that he was
corker when he was yonng, and handed
me his treatise on yellow fever as an evf.
dence of good faith. All this was very in
teresting a reminiscence, but furnishlne
little comfort to one who had fever If
there had teen more regular army sur
geons in Cuba there would have been less
failure on the part of the medical CORDS !
W hile in a hospital a Santiago | had an
to see an Illustration which
confirmed this belief. When / first went Ia
the hospital 1t was in charge Of young
man, contract surgeon, who had beer
educated IN Europe had theories of hls
own, knew all about germs and bacteria.
and who was more at home in a laboratory
with a microscope than in an army hos
p1taL Under his regime from two to three
men were dying every night There was
an air of gloom about the hospital which
seemed to depress the patients The at
tendants were almost in revolt a good part
OF the time, squabbling among themselves
as to the work
Practical Common Sense.
Then came DR.. Kennedy, regular army
surgeon, to take charge of the hospital He
Is typical American doctor. and mas the
bearing of a regular army officer Kenne
dy had no theories. He had no European
university ideas to handicap his usefulness
as an army surgeon. He is a martinez.
put sympathetic Sick men present some
thing more to him than a medium through
which to study disease. His methods would
probably be condemned at Heidelberg But
Dr. KENNEDY went at that hospital down
on Santiago bay like our men went at the
Spanfards on San Juan hill. He wore 2
blue flannel shirt. without a coat, but when
he came those attendants quickly felt the
force of his personality and stepped around
es they never had before. He worked like
a Trojan till he had found out to his own
what was the matter with
every patient there. He stayed there oil
the time and watched the more serious
cases with the closest attention. change
was soon apparent in the patients Men
VINO had given UP to die took heart of hone