Arizona republican., 1901-12-15
The naval board of inquiry-or rather Rear Admira;s Benham and Ramsey

Cretired) of the board THE have found against SCHLEY Rear Admiral Schley on VERDICT. most of the specified
 tions upon which the in quiry was conducted. That is. the board finds that Schley did not proceed with the utmost dispatch to Cienfue- gos: that the blockade maintained there was not the closest that was pos sible to make; that he did not take the necessary steps to ascertain whether Cervera was in the harbor of Cienfue- gos; that the retrograde movement was not justifiable; that the fleet did not proceed to Santiago with all the speed possible; that the utmost efforts were not made to destroy the Colon in Sam tiago harbor. and that in the famous engagement some distance was lost and the Texas was forced ito pause mo- mentarily in its pursuit of the Spanish ships This, in substance, .s the sum of the findings against Schley. On the other hand, the board finds that Tn the battle off Santiago, in which the Span- ish fleet was destroyed. in which the Brooklyn did half of the execution and received more than half the Spanish shots that hit. Schley's conduct was self possessed and that he encouraged in his own person his subordinate offi- cers and men,"
 The country will not approve the ad- fs.e of the majority is signed by Admiral Dewey, president of the court, in ac- cordance with naval regulations, but the hero of Manila returns a minority verdict.
 At the beginning of the inquiry The Republican stated that while nine tenths of the people were unquestion- ably partisans of Schley. nearly every body would accept as just the verdict rendered by George Dewey. whatever that verdict might be, owing to the uni versal confidence in the fairness and in- telIigence of the great admiral
 Admiral Dewey's own findings traverse the verdict of the majority. and they make a summing up in Schley's favor which will be accepted as the findings which should have beer rendered by the entire court Admiral Dewey finds that the passage to Glen fuegos was made with all dispatch, ia view of his coal supply. and that the blockade of Cienfuegoes was effective; that he allowed the English ship Adula to enter the harbor of Cienfuegos to get information, and that his passage to Santiago was with as much dispatch as possible, keeping his squadron to- gether; that the blockade of Santiago was effective; and, finally, that he was the senior officer off Santiago. in abso- lute command, and entitled to the credit due for the glorious victory which resulted in the total destruction of the Spanish ships"
 Good for gallant Dewey. We expect ed that the admiral would find that Schley was possibly censurable for too much caution in the retrcgrade move ment; but, be that as it may. the Amer ican people care little for the fact that maybe Schley was over cautious in pro tecting the American fleet, in view of the brilliant results finally achieved under his command. It is not explained in the dispatches how the court arrived at the conclusion that Schley was to blame for the loop, in face of Captain Cooks tes- timony that he alone was responsible for that maneuver. and that it was nee essary to protect the Brooklyn from the torpedo zone of the Spanish ships. The people of the United States care nothing about Schley's failure to de- stroy the Colon when f was first sight ed inside Santiago hsrbor. Most of them are newspaper readers, and they remember quite we'll that beth Sampson and Schiey were instructed tsuhstan- ttallyD that inasmuch as the United States had but five battleships, and one of them (the Oregon) then unavailable, and as the whole Atlantic coast was in terror of a raid by the Spanish war ships, it was necessary to observe great caution in exposing the American ships to the fire of land batteries. And. indeed. had Schley in that preliminary engagement with the Colon run in close enough to have sustained material damage to the American fleet from the shore batteries, who doubts that he would have been forever condemned and disgraeed? He had the Spaniards penned up and could safely await the day of battle on the seas. In the subse- quent bombsrdments of the Santiago batteries by Sampson, he also with commendable caution kept out of dan gerous range.
 The worst that can be said Of Schley