Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-11-17
THE S'R[EY Controversy.
Mr.. Graham. Who Was on the
Brooklyn,
AS ASSOCIATED PRESS CORES
PONDENT, ANSWERS SECRE-
TARY LONG-A VERY INCISIvE
REVIEW.

dent, attacking Admiral Schley and
his friends and asserting that the lat
ter are the ones responsible for the
controversy and that their attacks are
uncalled for, as the department has
not prosecuted the admiral, but treated
him better than he deserved. That
the letter was never intended for pub
LEGATION, but that it was to be covert
attack for the Presidents eye only, is
evinced by the fact that the New York
organ of the Navy Department, which
has been kept well supplied with ma
terial for it's venomous attacks upon
Schley ever since it decided to apostate
itself and renounce its opinions as ex-
pressed in its early stories Of the cam
paign off Southern Cuba, was COM
PEELED to translate the document from
a Southern German paper.
'.Schley's friends says the Secretary,
are responsible. Indeed, Mr.. Secretary,
you must have sadly misjudged who
Schley's friends were and are.
Was it Schley's friends who took out
of the list of captains the second man
down on that list and promoted him
over the heads of seven commanders
and two captains, many Of them men
who had performed conspicuously GAL
liant services?
Was it Schley's friends who shipped
to China the present hero, Admiral
Dewey, to get him out of the way of
SIMPSONS promotion?
Was it Schleys friends who planned
the abortive attempt to find the Span
ish feet at Porto Rico and induced
Sampson, without learning definitely
of it's whereabouts, to turn tail and
run for home, dragging at the stern
of the Iowa and Indiana huge useless
monitors, running these two ships for
future rapid service during the war?
Was it Schleys friends who prevent
ed Sampson from coming around the
south end of Cuba with his feet at the
time of his return from Porto Rico,
and SO intercept the Spanish feet?
Was it Schley's friends who induced
Sampson to insist that the Spanish fleet
would make for Cienfuegos, and who
after a peremptory order from the de-
partment sent Schley merely tenta-
tive order intimating that he still be-
lieved his judgment correct?
Was it Schley's friends who, in the
face of Brassey's naval record that the
ships in Santiago harbor had greater
speed than any of our ships except the
New York and Brooklyn, induced
Sampson to leave the line daily, using
the New York to chase unarmed
schooners and run errands down the
coast?
Was it Schley's friends who led
Sampson, in the face of the objection
of Schley, to risk seven human lives in
an attempt to bottle up a fleet so that
they would be in comparative safety
from our superior force outside and our
own fleet unable to force an entrance
and aid the army?
Was it Schley's friends who made
Sampson, after Notifying the fleet that
for the first time in weeks there were
suspicious movements in the harbor,
send away the battleship Massachu-
sets, the cruisers Newark and
Suwanee, and later to take the swift
New York and himself far from the
line of battle?
Was it Schley's friends who induced
Sampson to send out after the big
fight for an alleged Spanish battleship,
the Brooklyn with damaged guns, dead
and wounded aboard and men tired OF
the fray, when his own flagship, filed
with fresh men and with unexpended
ammunition, could have done the duty :?
And yet no friend of Schley's has init
mated cowardice on SIMPSONS part.
Was it Schley's friends who dictated
the bombastic dispatch of the victory
that has so disguised the American
people?
Was is Schley's friends who compeli-
ed Sampson to leave out of his official
report any mention by name OF the
man who, spattered with the life blood
of the killed on the Brooklyn, coolly
directed the fight and the long chase?
Is it Schley's friends who furnish
the partisan and alleged facts for the
weekly, bitter, vicious and disreputable
attacks by a New York paper on
Schley, or is it Schley's friends who
keep Secretary Long from throttling
the controversy by preventing the bu-
reau-favored captains from carrying
out their vindictive fight?
Is it Schley's friends who keep in the
background the names of the heroes
among the captains in that fight-Cook,
of the Brooklyn; Clark, of the Oregon,
and Wainwright, of the Gloucester
and make prominent the only captain
whose ship was hanging ten miles
astern and the other one with war
like cognomen, who was the only cap