The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-14
BEHIND THE TIMES.

Secretary Alger ana MS crOnleS are
trying to defend the gross incompe-
tency which has marked the present
administration of the war department,
by challenging comparison with the
conditions at the close of the civil war.
This is a confession of judgment. 1t
should De duly entered up against the
present incumbants, and execution
should issue against the responsible
party at an early date.
All who make such pleas are forty
years behind the times. Alger is re-
ported to have remarked the other day
that the soldiers in Cuba and Porto
Rico Jared as we'll as he and Wheeler
did in the war of the rebellion. We
don't know anything about Wheeler,
but Alger refused to remain at the front
to see what kind of grub the Union SOL
diers ate. He put in his time at Wash
ington City begging Lincoln for soft
snaps. This sort of thing continued
until every officer in the corps to which
he had been assigned regarded Alger
with undisguised contempt. 1t became
unbearable in time and, on Sep
TENDER 16, 1854, Generals Merritt, Sher-
idan, Custer and Torbert joined in rec
ommending Ayers dismissal from the
service. General Merritt endorsed the
official report in these words:
The case mentioned within is the third
in which Colonel Alger has absented him.
self from mis- command without proper
authority since the commencement of the
present years campaign. Severe measures
should be taken TO prevent recurrence
of this evil
This is the man Mckinley placed in
charge of the American army. This is
the chief of our war department, the
valiant leader to whom the president
has entrusted the lives and care of the
regular and volunteer armies of the
republic, the patriot who insists that
the soldiers Jared as we'll in the war
with Spain as he did in 1861.
Probably he doesn't know enough of
either war TO make a fair comparison.
The civil war lasted four years and en-
pioyed more than a million men. The
war with Spain lasted less than four
months and employed less than 100000
At the beginning of the civil war we
had no general staff. That, as we'll as
the line, had to be constructed out of
raw material. When the organization
was completed the army was we'll
clothed, armed and fed, was moved
with promptness and CELEBRITY. and the
inevitable hardshipS of camp and field
were reduced to the minimum permit
ted by the medical and sanitary science
of that time. And health arrange
mentS, like the wealth and capacity Of
the country, have improved two hun
dred-fold since then. a million men in
the smoke of battle for four years, Al
ger always excepted, Jared as we'll, he
in four months of intermittent warfare
with a VIGOROUSLY inferior foe.
Then, it must be remembered, to ap-
preciate the secretary's comparison the
better, that the resources Of the coun-
try from 1861 to 1865 were divided, as
well as undeveloped. The trials of the
civil war furnished an experience by
which it was supposed We had profted,
as well as by the large advance of adj
ministrative and technical science.
Nominally, the magnificent staff Great
ed by the civil war was maintained.
The bureaus and places in the war de-
partment were kept up, millions of dol
lars were appropriated to support the
staff, and brave show of efficient or
ganization and improvement was made
for thirty years.
1t was the boast of the American peo- |
pie, as of the department when it asked
for large appropriations for small |
army, that in its staff and regimental
skeleton of one four times as great;
that the rank and file could be in
creased at any time to 100000 men or
more without eXhausting the trained |
officers in the army or at command of !
the department, or without eXhausting !
the administrative resources Of the gen
eral staff. And only a few months be- |
fore the war broke out Secretary Al |
ger solemnly assured congress and the |
public that within thirty days he could |
raise and thoroughly equip and pro- |
vision an army of 100000 men.
Yet before half of 100000 men We're in |
The field, The boosted general staff. |
maintained for thirty years OF peace to |
hold the country ready for war. broke |
down more entirely than the British |
commlSSarlat IN the Crimea, and the |
war would have been suspended. in
Cuba by disintegration of our own
forces had it not been brought to an end
everywhere through the operation of
our forces at sea Nor was congress
close in its allowances, for, without
one dissenting voice, every dollar re-
quired for the prosecution of the war
was voted.
But the expensive department, filled
with political sinecures. and the costly
general staff, which has been MAIN
tanned for a quarter of a century to or
ganize and build upon the Skeleton in
time of emergency, all went TO pieces
at the first blare of a hostile trumpet,
the fact that the chal-
lenge came from superannuated and
decrepit Spain.
The nation has grown it is united;