The times., 1899-05-04
THE coaH1AN INCIDENT.
No Further Action Expected In HI.
Case.

Case.
The suggestion. at the end OF Secretary
Longs announcement the other day con-
cerning the reprimand of Captain CoghIan.
that something more was In store. has
kept public curiosity agog and the Navy
Department is pestered with enquiries when
the further punishment is to be admins
tered, and what its character will be. II
is fairly safe to predict now that nothing
more VIII be done to make Captain Cogh-
Ian uncomfortable. a person high in au-
thority in the Administration made the
significant comment the other day that the
attention paid to recent verbal outbreaks.
and the disposition to give them impor-
tance as international incidents, had been
little overdone.
After ALL" said this dignitary. the per-
scr to blame in these affairs is not the one
who makes the offending remark. but the
one who gives It to the world. IL the
occurrences OF the last fortnight are to
set the pace for the future treatment Of
careless comments by public officers. We
shall have to put our military and civil
servants under a special censorship, ex-
tending even TO their private correspond
eDce and conversation. Generals and ad-
mirals are no less human than other peo-
pie, and although their education Is sup
posed to include some serious studies in
self-disciplIne. they do. and viii continue
to, say things to their friends which they
would not care to have published, and
which anyone with a proper sense OF the
amenities would not repeat to the world
at large III an officer sees fit to write.
as Rear Admiral Kautz did, to a relative
in the same jocular terms that he would
use in talking across private dinner table.
1t seems TO me it is the fault OF the rela-
tive and not OF the admiral II the matter
comes out inopportunely. and to keep rep
rimanding or admnnishing our public ser
wants for such things would place our
Government in the position of interfering
in the domestic affairs of It's employees to
an extent which must soon cross the
bounds of popular liberation. Sometimes
the fault in such cases passes beyond the
friend who betrays confidence. and lodges
with the newspaper, which. for the sake
OF n sensation. Is willing to print matter
which 1t knows will get the principal actor
or speaker. and possibly the country, into
serious trouble"
1t is a notable fact that a member of
the Cabinet who is represented in the
Washington dispatches as preferring not to
speak about this or that matter when Il
is in delicate situation, goes to New
York or Boston and suddenly figures in
the local columns of the newspapers there
as saying some very startling things. The
secret Of this apparent incongruity is not
that he has changed his purpose. but that
he has changed his environment In Wash
ington he has been accustomed to speak his
mind freely among his friends, all OF WHOM
are familiar with official etiquette and the
rules of confidence; but when. among per-
sons not thus trained, he speaks with equal
freedom. somebody in the party will be
very liable to blurt the whole thing out an
hour afterward. Captain Ccghlan or Rear
Admiral kautz might have said what he
pleased about Germany and the Germans
in this city. and the facts he mentioned
might have been spread on the printed
record later. but not with his name at
tachet-that would have been considered
gross breach Of faith