Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-01-12
GEN. EGAN
RoASTS MILES
Calls Him a Malicious and
Wilful Liar
AND DENIES ALL CHARGES
Says the Commanding General Should
Be Drummed Out of the
Army in Disgrace
AND DENIES ALL CHARGES

Washington, Jan 12.-Commissary
General Egan. in the course of his testi-
mony before the war investigation COM
mittee this afternoon, called Major Gen
Miles, commanding the army, a
liar who had lied in his throat, lied in his
heart, He'd in every part of his body; who
perpetrated gross scandal and who
should be drummed out of the service and
imprisoned and should be avoided by
every honest man and barred from every
club He characterized his interviews az
filth" Egan's testimony on this point
was:
miles was asked by your commission
how timed fresh beef may be part of
army rations. His answer is: You had
better ask the secretary of wal or the
commissary general. 1 think they can
tell you. l know it was sent to the army
as food and it was sent as an experiment.
miles in saying this food was sent to
the army as a 'pretense for experiment
says that which implies corruption which
80 out of every 100 people will understand
to mean corruption, because it was "a
p%retense of experiment" He says, not
even giving credit to me for furnishing it
as an experiment, but that 1 furnished it
under 'pretense of an experiment. This
is a serious charge and should not be
made by any man lightly-not without
ample evidence to support it. Taking the
statement in the sense it was probably
intended, the sense that will be accepted
by the country at large, the sense tina al
ready the press almost wholly in the
United States has accepted it, indeed
some of the press because of it called for
my dismissal from the army and my
court martial answer it was not fur
nlShed under pretense of experiment nor
even as an experiment, and when Miles
charges it was furnished as a "pretense
of an experiment" he lies in his throat, he
lies in his heart, lies in every hair of his
head and every pore of his body, He lies
wilfully. deliberately, Intentionally and
maliciously.
"If his statement is true that this was
furnished under 'p%retense of experiment.
then I should be drummed out of the
army and incarcerated in prison with
other libelers. His statement is a scan
dalous libel, rejecting upon the honor of
every officer in the department who has
contracted for or purchased this meat,
and especially and particularly on the
commissary general-myself. In de-
%nouncing Miles as a liar, when he makes
this statement, I wish to make it as en-
phatic and as coarse as the statement
itself. 1 wish to force the lie back into
his throat, covered with the contents of
a camp latrine. l wish to brand 1t as a
falsehood of the whole cloth, without a
particle Of truth to sustain it, and I'M
less he can prove his statement he should
be driven out Of clubs, barred from the
society of decent people and so ostracised
that the bootblack would not condescend
to speak to him, for he has fouled his
own nest, he has aspersed the honor of a
brother officer without a particle Of evil
, dence or fact to sustain in any degree
a s~candalous, libelous, malicious false
hood, viz, that this beef or anything
whatever was furnished under 'p%retense
of experiment."