The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1899-07-28
THE scHLEY CONTROVERSY.


| lAG QCSLl VI A6lFCLd ACCL I'll
Santiago. So brilliantly complete and
rapid was the victory and SO far-reach
| ing in its effects, for it fastened greatly
Santiago Citys surrender to the army
that the Administration, putting aside
all cause for fault finding, determined tc
make the occasion one purely of praise
and reward. 1t selected the members of
the navy whose good parts and good
fortune had made them specially deserv-
ing of consideration, and commended
them to the Senate for promotion
Strange and repulsive as it was, poll
teal partisanship regularly opposed to
the Republican party, aided by the anti
Administration faction of Republicanism,
in its search for opportunities to obstruct
or confound the Administration thought
it saw in this promotion list the oppor-
tunity desired. A PopuIist Senator be-
gan the effort to exalt Schely over
Sampson, and then there began an attack
upon the Administration and upon Ad-
miral Sampson which, for recklessness
and meanness of denunciation and for
perversion and even suppression of the
controlling facts, both on the part of the
newspapers engaged and on the part OF
Admiral Schley himself, has not been
equalled in any public controversy with
in our memory.
The battle in the Senate brought out
from the Secretary of the Navy clear
and conclusive statement of the reasons
why the highest honors of the naval cam
paign had been awarded to Sampson and
why they had not been awarded to
Schley. In this Secretary Long laid bare
for Schley a record of egregious incom-
petence, as fleet commander, adopting
and putting opposite Schley's name his
condemnation for ''reprehensible con-
duct" by his superior.
Schley's reply to the Senate, instead of
being a demand for Court of Inquiry,
tribunal that any officer capable of feel
ing the smart of censure and sure of its
being unmerited would have called for,
was himsy, sentimental. and evasive,
but cunning apology, which Secretary
Long in his second communication to the
Senate proved by the official records to
be marked with pivotal misstatements
Capt. Sigsbee was compelled to add .testi-
mony to the same effect. Then the
Schley press grew venomous.
Recital of the facts left them with mis-
representation as the sole weapon for
carrying on their campaign, and they
welded it with fury They denounced
the President and Secretary of the Navy
for systematic persecution" of their
adopted favorite. They accused Samp-
son of ''trumping up" the complaint Of
reprehensible conduct made against
Schley, and. inspired by Schely's own
misleading use Of letter to himself
from Sampson, they charged Sampson
with actually s'suppressing" from his
official report this letter, alleged to be
vital, but ABSOLUTELY without pertinence
And neither record nor reason, nor the
authoritative protest of Capt. Mahan,
could stay the mad rush of Islander on
the one hand and of false glorification
on the other.
Finally proof came to the Sun that in
telling the Senate that the need to avoid
blanketing the American fire had caused
the Brooklyn's peculiar loop at Santiago,
Schley said the thing that was not so.
This loop, purely negative in result, a
mere avoidance of an alleged danger that
there could have been no possible excuse
for mourning at all, Schley coolly de-
scribed as the ''crucial and deciding
feature of that combat" He might as
well have claimed the victory as his be-
cause he hadn't turned his guns on our
fleet point blank. The Sun reported the
incident through this form Of colloquy
between Schley and Hodgson:
''Schley-Put your helm hard a-port.
"Hodgson-You mean starboardf
"Schley-No don't. We are near enough to
them (the Spaniards) already.
"Hodgson-But we'll cut down the Texas.
"Scsley-Let the Texas look out for herself"
If true. this stamped as falsehood
Schley's blanketing story, through which
he ridiculously sought glory for simple
non-interference with our fire. 1t show
ed that Schley had turned to avoid get
ting nearer the Spaniards, and that he
had so turned in direct conflict with the
navigating officers judgment and against
the warning that a collision with an.
other American ship, the Texas, was
likely.
Schley knew that the exposure of him.
self as a person ready to prevaricate
would open the eyes of the publicto the
propriety of the Navy Departments
criticisms and to the hollowness of his
own defence. So at last, after some
months of deliberation, not venturing
himself to deny the Suns statement he
wrote to Hodgson and asked for denial,
not denying the thing himself, but mere.
ly saying that he did not recollect the
circumstance. Hodgson, having NO
quibblein his mind replied that the thing,
being substantially true, could not well
be denied, or to that effect, as shown by
his official report to Capt Chadwick.
Again Schley started worming along the
same path. Having before him Hodgson's
assertion that it had occurred, he saw
that his only chance of getting what he
wanted lay in raising in Hodgson's mind
fear lest he had exceeded the limits OF
discipline. Schley undertook to persuade
Hodgson that the conversation as it ap.
peared put him at fault as subordinate.
On its face. of course, it did nothing of
the kind, but in making him think that
it possibly might 80 do Schley saw his
only chance.
''There is much in your letter." wrote
Schley to Hodgson-we quote again from
Hodgson's report to Chadwick (which ]
would not like to use, as 1t would provoke
assault upon you, which | would not like
to happen" For Hodgson's sake, not
for Schley's, the Admiral advised his
| friend to write him another letter. Oh
course, the letter desired was to be
shorter and simpler, saying that "the
dialogue did not occur" II then wrote
denial of the colloquy," says Hodgson
explaining to Admiral Schley that the
letter of denial was a denial of the
dialogue as it appeared in the Sun. and
that the substance of the Suns story wat
correct"-the substance, of course being
that Hodgson warned Schley not to turr
to starboard because of danger of col