The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-18
BEEF FOR THE SOLDIERS.

1
would all blow over when new excite
ments in the Philippines attracted pub
lie attention, or when the rains and
SHOWS of a season or two had fallen
upon the graves of those who died in
the army as result of indifference, in
competence and criminal neglect.
But it won't blow over. The wires
are daily adding fresh chapters to the
volume of infamy and incapacity which
makes up Ayers record Of mismanage-
ment.
When the armies of invasion in Cuba
and Porto Rico turned deathly sick over
the food furnished by the richest gov
eminent on earth, General Miles in
quired the reason of it. His officers
told him that the meat supplied by the
commissary department possessed a
nauseating taste, and the odor of an
embalmed body. He made a personal
investigation. He directed the atten-
ton Of the army surgeons to it. He
was doing it in the interest of the SOL
diers. He was not interested in the
contractors. 1t was his business to pro-
purchase native beeves, but the war
department, in constant consultation
with the president, refused to grant it.
Chief Surgeon DAILY noticed that the
flies and especially the blow flies"
would not alight upon the so-called
refrigerator beef" Owing to the eli
mate and the way maggots Matched out
no haa WIFI
utes after the cans were opened, this
attracted his attention. He analyzed
the chemical preservative and found it
to contain boraX and salicylic acid.
These were to be used externally, and
also injected into the carcass
These chemicals were also discovered
by the chief chemist of the Smithsonian
Institute in his subsequent analysis
ordered and then repudiated by the
whitewash commission. But no one
doubts that they we're there Soldiers
who were almost famished after a day
of hard marching or fighting under a,
July sun in the tropics, were obliged to
turn away from this beef, hungry and
faint; if they tried to swallow some of
it they We're reduced to vomiting and
further weakening in consequence.
1t was indeed fortunate that the war
was short and decisive From all ac-
counts the food furnished the armies
of invasion by the war department was
more deadly than the bullets of the
enemy. Chemists and medical men in
formed the board Of inquiry that borax |
Caf 20 RI he
with food, nor for ordinary medicinal |
purposes, while the salicylic acid was
most nauseous, loathsome and disgust /
ing, almost always destructive of diges- |
ton
Now it is coming out that this en- |
balmed refrigerator beef was not the !
only sickening diet furnished the SOL
diers by the war department in which /
Mr. Mckinley takes such infinite pride |
and satisfaction. The canned beef has
been under the microscope of official
investigation. 1t has been proved that
1t was fy-blown and putrid as served
in the camps. The testimony admits of
no further withdrawing. The resDon-
slolllty is fixed. The president is to
blame for Alger-for his appointment.
for his retention, for his confidence
while these contracts were being car
ried out at the expense of the fighting
men at the front
There are witnesses living and wit
nesses dead. Those who fell in the
fever-laden, pestilential camps. or on
foul and infected transports, or who
were poisoned by the embalmed food
who persisted on the battlefield for
want OF adequate nourishment and
treatment after having received pain
full and weakening wounds are not less
witnesses than are those
who have an opportunity and an in
clination now to tell the facts thew
know
From one end of the country to the
other these irrefutable witnesses will
give new force to gathering waves of
popular indignation, which will not
wane as the truth comes out but which
threatens to overturn the frail craft of
Algerism in which the administration
s afloat
The evil results of Hannaism are
seen in the record made by Alger and
Mckinley, for Hanna says they ran the
var together. The subordination of the
people for the benefit of favored
'lasses was the predominant idea of the
st. Louis convention two years ago
md the acknowledgement of the war de-
1artment is only one of the intolerable
naturally and inevitably
'pringing from it. How long will Nc
Ainley defy public opinion and outrage
public decency by retaining Alger at
he head of the war department?