Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1899-02-23
Tells a Straightforward Story
Before the Court of In
quiry on Beef.
THE ALLEGED INTERVIEWS
Did Not Represent Exactly what the Gen.
eral said e He was Not Obliged to Re-
port to Any Commissary Depart
ments-Court Blame Witnesses
for Not Reporting.


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l,lli- ad h,.t ~ ,t pa, u. ~ -
torr,. ~ tb. ca,,r, IL .,,t,.,t..l1 -, ~
questioning Of col DaNis rerori,l,, of the
,io,I,t wiz ,on1nir,itv nyc,,,, fr. . an
of r,inerIrd inlie,nl,tio,, .,,1d i,o,. ,,,,,' 10
info,mc5 ia. yerordcv IN, n" ,.as NOT
,ounclleC to "ronort" f. ,be n,nn,i.sar,.
general ot tho army, .rhi. ,r,. Ia .or,i,. 70
:. question as 10 v.bcti,nr ~ n,,t be- i.1
reported to tho commi.sarv dennrtmnnt
The fact thnt comnIaints hyd boon ,nadc
10 MN as 10 the quality OF meat being is
sued to the troops. An instant later Gen.
sideted ,anIi4s to tho inouiris. Of ~.
,oIrt
AS lhdicated by a letter of the adjutant-
SeheIdl' redd ny the recorder Tor the IN
formation OF the court the scope of the
inquiry was limited to the allegations of
General Miles before the war commission
as to the quality Of the army beef, and
the matter purporting to haze been fur
nlShed to the public press by the same Of
HclaL only two interviews We're called
up by the court the first an interview
win a New YORK 'JournaI' representa-
tive carly in the beef controversy in which
Gen. Miles was quoted as charging that
certain chemicals were used in the pre-
serNdtion of the army meat and another
OF the New York Herald under date of
February |, covering about the same
ground.
Gen. Miles was very slow and careful
in his replies to the recorders questions
on this point. He called attention to the
TACT That IN both instances he was credit
Ell IN the interviews with refusing to an
kWer certain questions and insisted that
these refusals should be given due weight
IN considering the questions to which he
did reply. He said in the case of the in
terNleW OF Feb. | that he had n letter
from the man who wrote the story offer
ing to swear that Gen. Miles had refused
10 be interviewed and that the whole
story was made up in the Office frsm the
writer's general knowledge of the facts.
Notwithstanding this when his final an
fWer was asked DIS to the authenticity of
the Interview Gen. Miles did not specih-
cally deny it but merely said that it did
not quite fairly represent his own opinion
f. the case The same qualified denial as
10 the "JoUrnal' interview of Decem-
her 2"d WaS made, leaving the witness on
record as not assuming any responsibility
Tor the ncWSpa pCrs' statements but tacit =
y admitting that there was a good deal
in them with which he agreed
The trend of questions put to the other
witnesses of the day indicated that 30 long
as they agreed with Gen. Miles as 20 the
quality of the meat furnished the Iroops
IN the field the only criticism of their PC
stion the court had to make was why
they had not taken some official steps TO
have the matter remediod vt the time. In
every instance the reply was that the cir
uumstances in which the army was placed
IN sickly country with a large amount
uf lighting and A great scarcity of trans
lOrtatiop al hand precluded the possibil-
ity of any such action In each ease the