The age-herald., 1901-12-28
THE NAVY IS NOT THE ARMY.

From the New York World.
 In his extraordinary letter of censure to Lieutenant General Miles the Secretary of War says: Your conduct was in violation of the regulation above cited" And the regulation thus referred to is in these words: "Dellberations or discus slons among military men conveying praise or censure or any mark of appro- bation toward others in the military ser vice are prohibited"
 Here is a clear issue. Was the con- duct of the comm ander of the army in contravention of this rule? We say that it was not Perhaps we may put aside as a mere piece of slovenly language the use of the word conduct since objec- ton is made not to any point of military conduct but to mere spoken words We reterate that the commander of the army did not by his words or by the utterance of those words violate the cited rule in any way whatever. either in letter or in spirit.
 Let us examine this rule. It prohibits something What does it prohibit? De Alterations or discussions among military men," Not all deliberations, since some are evidently necessary, but those specifi- cally conveying praise or censure or any mark of appreciation" of whom? Of other military len towards others in the military service"
 Now the utterance of an ordinary opn- ion to a newspaper reporter or to any person who may give it to a reporter is not "deliberation, nor is 1t discus slon," nor is 1t "among military men," since such case could not imply more than one military man. Where there has been no .'deliberation'' and no discus sion." and where whatever there may have been has not been ''among military men," there has been no occasion for the application of this rule, and nothing can have happened that this rule pro- hibits unless a rule may be applied to cases which 1t totally fails to describe or even to indicate. And If that may be done, what is the use of any rules? Why not leave all cases to the unrestrained impulse and absolutism of Presidential caprice?
 But at the other end of the rule the case is equally faulty, because of what General Miles said he did not convey any "approbation' or any praise or even any ''censure'' toward any other militia ry man; not the remotest reference to the army or to anybody in it was made by him. Here Is a rule made for the pro- lection of soldiers from one another in the same service. h ss an army rule, made to restrain that censorious spirit has been a gross evil in our army since the days when three notorious military adsenturers endeayored by a vile intrigue to 6isplace General Washington. And ihis rule made for the protection of the { army from a specific evil is protection of the army from a Presidential Rough Ri- der that it may be applied to words that have no relation to anything that has happened in the army or to any man in the army.
 Another charge made against General Miles is that he ''has violated the rules of official proprietyp But the Ameri- can people will judge on which side of this case there has been the greatest failure to observe those limitations of good manners, good taste, right feeling and polite language which arc essential clements of this nice abstraction called official property"