Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1899-02-23
THE DISCREDITED COMMISSION.
New York Evening Post.

N
New York Evening Post.
1t is safe to say that there will be no
general demand for copies of the full
report of President McKinley's in
vestigating commission. The abstract
given to the press this morning will
quite suffice. One needs to read only
that to see that the report is nine-
tenths whitewash to one-tenth apology.
Tho plain truth is that the commission
lost public confidence before it began
its work, and that it has since passed
through stage after stage of discredit,
until finally it had to suffer the awful
blow of having its creator disown and
| repudiate it, as respects the chief part
of its inquiries, by appointing q com
petent court of inquiry to do what it
had so signally failed to do. How can
the President expect the public to pay
any respect to his commissions report
on the great beef scandal when he him
self has practically shown that its con-
illusions on this subject are not worth
the paper they were written on?
The whole course Of the affair, from
| the appointment of the commission to
| its rather pitiful finale has been one
long demonstration of how not to do it,
When Mr.. Mckinley set about the
business, there was much firm talk
about his stern determination to secure
commission which would completely
command public respect and trust, and
which would Push the inquiry to the
bitter end without fear or favor. Some
of the eminent men first named seemed
to promise such result. But it was
an ominous thing that one after an
other of them declined to serve. The
significant thing was that they did it
in almost every case after comforting
with the President. This does not
necessarily imply that they found him
half hearted in the business. 1t does
surely indicate, however, that they
found the proposed method of inquiry
weak and vicious in method, and that
they were unwilling to have their
names associated with what was bound
to be fiasco. 1t was certain to be
that in any hands; in the hands of
the men who finally consented to serve,
failure was foredoomed. More than
one of them was an ayowed partisan of
War Department methods; others were
open to the suspicion of being pre-
.. JUDGED by personal favors received
the West carried little or no weight.
The result was inevitable A dawdlinG
inquiry, without power to compel the
presence of witnesses-fr which, in
fact, witnesses shrank rs from a pre-
, JUDGED tribunal-has issued in a report
in which the hair has grown in the
, shaving, SO portentiously slow has il
been in preparation, and which fell flat
this morning as a document in which
, the public will take but the most Ian
! guild interest.
But if the commissioners show them
selves feeble and almost unable to make
up their minds in nearly all matters
else, in one particular they are sus
| piciously emphatic and make theii
s animus clear. One great culprit they
have found, and he is Gen. Miles. Il
Z would be laughable, if it we're not 81
, despicable, to note how they go out o.
: their way to attack him. In the par
o of the report relating to the military
camps, for example, there is glarinl
a instance of their partially. Some o
s the sites they report to have been badl,
4 chosen. Chickamauga was bad, CAM
70 Alger was bad, Tampa was bad, Miam
u was bad. Yet the only instance il
Q which they specify an officer re
y sponsibe for locating camp in un
- favorable surroundings is the case o
u Miami. Why was this? Because tina
3 was recommended by Gen. Miles. N
: mention was thought necessary of tn
10 man who selected Camp Alger o
It Chickamauga or Fernandina, tu
is wherever they saw Gen Miles hea
II they showed their eagerness to hit il
So they tackled on his name, leavin
tho others to be brilliant by absence
1t is, however, when the commissio
approach the beef scandals that the
show most clearly their own incapacit
y and parti pris. They begin by severed
condemning Gen. Miles for not havin
!. run to the President with his first sus
~ picion that the meat was bad. Instea
y of waiting, as ho did, to get complei
= reports, he should have gone off on til
i, first hint he had that the rations wei
~ not what they should be. As militar
. procedure we do not comment upo
:, this; but that it was common sens
~ seems clear to the layman. Then I'll
" commission triumphantly fish out
~ the War Department records recon
~, ~ mendation by Gen. Miles in 1897 ,
~ "canned meats put up by reputab
- firms" as an army ration in Alaski
~ and seem to think, in their fuddle
NY, ~, way, that this is complete proof tn;
- putrid meat was a good thing for I'll
~ soldiers to eat in Cuba and Porto Rio
~ Then they VIGOROUSLY present pro
" that the refrigerated meat was, on I'll
~ whole, good, when the main charge
* that the canned roast beef, so calle
um was bad, But really it is not necessa
y. to dwell upon this part of the repor
r., The President himself has made Il
u" sufficient comment upon it by throwii
the whole of it into the waste bask
oII and appointing military court
, ai, do thoroughly the work which the
~ civilians have hopelessly bungled.
''h The really valuable part of the repc
"a is in danger of being overlooked in t
~. mass of irrelevant or preiudiced matte
ny This is the testimony of the comm
a nv sioners, unwilling witnesses as tn
~ are, to tho essentially faulty organic
" tion of the army in general and t
~ War Department in particular. Th
Ino point out how the various departmer
GA were continually at cross-purpose wi
each other and with their official hes
cry The result was delay and flounderir
~, ~ When these commissioners, who G
I'll tainly are entitled to pose as autho
WI WI ties on fioundering, assert this of [
oie operations of our military authoriti
under the present vicious system
.h organization, it may be taken to
.h true. Thus at whatever door we go
:no we always come out with the conclusi
liz that the army is badly organized, ii
a az it works under antiquated and confli
Wy ing laws, and that there is cryi
need of adopting new methods, so as
put our army into line with the tea,
:, ings of experience and the practice
H.. -. IN