The times., 1899-02-15
The AIger Commission Report.

| When the soldiers began to return from
! Santiago they shocked and mortified the
/ country by tales of suffering, paralleled
/ only in the history of European armies
under peculiar conditions armies that
| source of supplies. There were times in
our Civil War when defeat and disaster
made it impossible TO provide for the
pressing wants of bodies of Union or Con-
| federate troops In the case OF the corps
at Santiago, however, there was nothing
! apparently 10 warrant the privations de-
! scribed By the returned soldiers and con-
frmed by the wasted forms of young men
who had been exceptionally robust a few
weeks before.
They were the soldiers, regular and vol
country with unrivaled resources of all
kinds and noted for its manufactures and
its transportation facilities; a country
whose people and government desired 10 be
generous beyond precedent in the treat
ment of the gallant sons in arms.
The expedition was carried only to Cuba,
within easy reach, by water and rail, of
every section of the Republic. To mobil-
ize, equip. transport, feed, ard in every
way care for some twenty thousand men,
most OF whom were already in the regular
army and the rest nearly all members of
the National Guard was simple PROPOSE
tion. For in this extraordinary country
there are men of genius employed by the
great railway corporations to solve trans
portaticn problems; Our surplus products
feed large part of Europe; our Industrial
enterprises engage the services of millions
of skilled workers and are capable of run
ming day and night. Clearly it only re-
quired the right men to clothe, arm, and
otherwise equip, move, and feed a number
of soldiers not greater than the crowds of
people frequently carried across the con-
tinent on excursions and well cared for on
the way and at the end. The men expe-
rienced in handling large bodies were
ready TO respond to any call OF the nation.
Hence any defect in the expedition to Cuba
must be referred to the ineficiency or neg
lect Of those in charge of the different de-
partments.
The confusion at Tampa, the inadequacy
of the transports. the lack of lighters for
landing men and materials-about which |
there is not the least doubt-meant that |
the men of genius who are the wonder |
and despair of European observers, were |
not enlisted in the service of the Govern |
ment; nobody laid hands on sufficient |
number of the thousands OF steamships |
along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and |
nobody impressed scores OF the countless
craft that might have served for lighterage
when the shores of Cuba were reached.
OF the hunger and privations suffered
by the soldiers in the trenches as a re-
suit of this, the country has heard the
truth, and It is appalling The people
know, too. that there was no hospital sys-
TEN and thar our wounded soldiers were
brutally neglected, some of them losing
their way in the tall grass where they
starved or mercifully bled TO death They
know that the incompetent commander of
the expedition rebuffed the surgeons who
applied for sanitary police force and that
no steps were taken to drive away the
refugees from the infected city, who ming
led with the soldiers and spread the germs
of yellow. malarial. and typhoid fever.
The transport horrors, which no attempt
has been made 10 deny or explain. revealed
an incompetency or Indifference so excep-
tional as 10 merit the amazement and al
most incredulity with which the accounts
were heard.
We are to remember that the War De-
partment was ignorant OF the situation of
the army at Santiago until the receipt of
the Round Robin of the division. brigade.
and regimentaI COMMANDERS document
that was bitterly resented by the Secre-
tary Of War. What possible explanation
can there be OF such ignorance, in the
case of an army within easy reach by
cable and with no hostile warships TO men
ace dispatch boats?
1t is in the light of these things, thus