Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1901-08-01
WASHINGTON LETTER.
IFrom our Regular CORRESPONDENCE
WASHINGTON. July %. 1901

| WASAlNGTON LETTER.
From our Regular Correspondent.
WASHINGTON, July 20, 1901.
Secretary Longs order for a Court Of
Inquiry into Rear Admiral Schley's conduct
during the war with Spain, to meet il
Washington, Sept. ID, next, is in effect
equivalent to Grand Jury Indictment Of
ten counts against Schley-the Navy De.
partment Clique, which formulated the
counts standing for the Grand Jury. The
Court has no authority to punish, yet the
order converting it, directs that it shall
render an opinion and make recommends
tions, after hearing all the evidence. The
makeup of the court is beyond criticism
Admiral Dewey and Rear Admirals Kim
berly and Benham have never been con
nected even in the slightest way with the
clique which has done so many dirty under.
handed things to injure the reputation Of
Admiral Schley, nor has Capt. Lemly,
Judge Advocate General of the Navy, who
will serve as Judge Advocate of the Court
All this seems to point to fair play for
Schley but he and his friends will do well
not to count too much upon the magnanim.
ity Of his enemies. 1t is public opinion
that has forced the formation of court
OCJO1A0 GIopiCiOn, Oub, cto 0Ch- uAhOe
could testify, if he were disposed to reopen
the Eagan mess, evidence can be juggled
with and manipulated even before the
fairest courts 1t behooyes Admiral Schley
and his friends to see that no important
witness shall be left uncalled or unheard.
Better late than never can be applied to
Secretary Longs order against Naval
officers publicly discussing this case.
Az, Trich n
O'Leary, of Limerick-has been surprising
not few Washingtonians by presenting
some not generally known facts about the
industries of the Emerald Isle. He said :
sit surely makes me laugh every time |
hear or see in print anything about Eng
land, the great ship-building nation.
Why, the ship-builders of Ireland can buy
and sell the ship-builders of England and
Scotland. Neither the Tyne nor the Clyde,
nor the Mersey show anything equal to the
building concern of Hirland and Wolff
at Belfast. Yet there is nothing the Eng
fish and Scotch are so proud of as their
ship building. For years this firm has held
the highest place in the world SO far as ton
mage launched is concerned. The yards
employ 5000 men and support a good
sized town. The works cover eight acres,
anu GllC lGuOOllC Ou1tlcoOlC3 pNO VI oiC
most famous ocean greyhounds, were built
there. It's by-word in the British Navy
that no breakdown of machinery, a thing
so frequent, has ever occurred in any
British Naval vessel built in the Belfast
yards Ireland has the largest brewery in
the world. Ireland supplies half the Brit
ish Empire with handkerchiefs, collars
table cloths and shirts, and puts on British
tables the choicest breakfast bacon ard
butter The English usually conceal the
identity of the two last-named, under the
brands of wiltshire and Dorset, but they
are Irish, as the Treasury officials can
testify. Nothing shoddy ever comes from
Ireland. That is why balbriggan is so
largely initiated by British and German
manufactures.
Even an army officer does not dare to per-
form his sworn duty, if it happens to be
against the interests of one of the big
trusts, unless he is prepared to be punished
therefor. This is broad assertion, but a
case has just happened in Washington
showing it to be strictly true. The Engi-
neer Commissioner of the District of Column
bia, is always an army officer, and, OF
course, all street Improvements are under
his supervision. Capt. Lansing III. Beach,
who has been Engineer Commissioner for
several years, has made himself very
popular official by the fearless performance
of his duties and by his intelligent appre-
citation of the needs of his branch of the
local government, but he would not shut
his eyes to the greed Of big trust and
that trust went to the War Department
and had an order issued assigning another
officer to the duties of Engineer Commits
sioner of the District of Columbia. At the
beginning Of the fiscal year, there are
always some big contracts to be given out
for Asphalt paving, in Washington. These
contracts have been monopolized for long
time by the Asphalt trust, either in its own
name or in the name of dumy contractors,
who are merely its agents. This year there
was an outside bidder for these contracts,
and the bid was well below that of the
trust or any of its agents. Capt Beach, as
it was his sworn duty to do, investigated,
and finding the new bidder responsible and
able to perform the contract according to
specifications, recommended that the bid
be accepted, and it was Then Gen.
Francis Greene, now one of the Asphalt
Trust magnates, who resigned from the
army while connected with the Engineer
branch Of the government of the District Of
Columbia, to join the trust, hurried to
Washington and had another man put in
Capt. Beach's place.
Representative Patterson of Tenn, who
is now in Washington said of the political
outlook ''The Democratic party is now
looking to the future, and the next CAM
paign will not be fought on dead issues.
The best evidence of this is the Ohio State
platform. I heartily endorse that platform
because it presents to the people live issues.
believe the Democratic Conventions in
other States will do as the Democrats in
Ohio did, and adopt platforms to meet the
issues of the present instead Of the past.