The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-10-16

their duty to inform. the American
people. who are footing the bills and
furnishing the blood that a campaign
like this requires in abundance, that
the plan pursued is one of folly. and
the Commanding officer incapable of
controlling the island When Mir. Col
Inns triad to send out such a COMMUNE
cation some time ago, the censor fatty
told him, as he relates in his widely
published letter.
OF course we all know that we are ina
terrible mess out here but we don't want
me people TO get excited afJOut it, If YOU
fellows will only keep quiet now we VIII
pun through IN time without any fuss at
nome My instructions are TO let moth
ing go. tnat can hurt the administration.
No matter what happens. the report
must bear the Otis tint and please the
generals. in Washington IN this way
writes Mr.. Collins. the entire Amer
lean press was made the personal or
gan of Otis; we were compelled to send
nothing but the official view OF al
events and conditions, even when the
official view controverted the opinions
of the great mass. of the officers in the
field and of intelligent residents, and
was a Justification of events which
passed before our eyes. In this way
every fight became a glorious American
victory, even though everyone in the
army knew it to have been substan-
tally failure, and we were drilled
into writing quite mechanically wholly
ridiculous estimates of the numbers of
FilipinOs killed, knowing that if we
wrote any other description than the
sort being telegraphed to the war de-
partment, our work would be wasted
Is it possible to conceive of anything
more disreputable than the prostitu-
ton Of the news service for the Dur-
pose of Systematically deceiving the
public in order to bolster up an adj
ministration so weak. that it is obliged
to resort to such trickery? Here is an
other matter to which Mr. Collins
makes reference that shows how par
tisan and deceitfui the administration
is even in the prosecution of war: RE
Gently I filed what Thought a most
inoffensive statement that the business
men who had appeared before the COM
mission had advocated the retention of
the existing silver system of currency.
The censor said: I ought not to let
that GO. That would be a lift for Bryan.
My instructions are to shut off every
thing that could hurt McKinley's ad-
ministration. That is free silver
explained that the silver system here
was not IS to l. and with seeming re
luctance he o I'D the Item
From interviews and communications
with soldiers, civilians and correspond
ents, it would seem that Mr.. Collins
sums up the situation as it is when he
says: A'The secree of the whole trouble
here is that the government has left a
small MAI 10 deal with the most deli
cate problems requiring broad states
manship. Everyone agrees that Otis
is honest, and that counts for much in
a position affording such chances for
dishonesty; but everyone agrees. also.
with most remarkably unanimity. that
he has bungied affairs from the be-
ginning; that the war might have been
avoided by tact and might have been
ended before now by ssome other
plan of campaign than sloshing
aimlessly about, taking a town today,
deserving it tomorrow, retaking it the
next weel-and by diplomacy"
In the language of one who must
have known an Otis, or Mckinley, or /
an AIger. or an Eagan in his time |
it is an army Of lions led by an ass