The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-15

sent and the other not being fecos- nized by the captains of the vessels. He declares Tt was captains hght' That remark has been favorably re- ceived by those who have not borne III mind that for captains to ignore an or ficer ranking them on an occasion or battle is an insubordination for which they should be brought to book by and in conceivable cir cumstances of disaster shot or hanged. A captains fight" with an admiral present, Is an anachronism and ought to be an iripossibility. The declara- ton of it by a present is recognition of insubordinate conditions In the navy, and his failure to rebuke such condl- tions is almost a bid for their renewal or an indorsement of them In the same impetuous and short-sighted way, President Roosevelt condemned the loop of the Brooklyn, ignoring the fact that the Brooklyn and the oregon. vessels of speed were fortunately, ana, many think, wisely kept out of reach or collision with the enemy, to pursue him in a battle in which their speed. and theirs alone. prevented the escape of some of his ships.
 The time has come when the exact truth. in part creditable and in other part dscreditable to both these admi- rals, should be told. Sampson was 8 pedagogue, faithful precise, marrow, honorable, yet with a side for snop- bishness which badly showed Nself more than once He was the faVorlte of a system which ought to be rooted out of the navy department. but which is. we fear, more firmly estapnsned there now than it ever was before' Schley is a valiant magnetic, vain, un- ouenchable and well-nigh ubiquitous demagogue He will throw his arms around your neck and call you by your first name the second time he ever saw VOL. if you are a man of power or ln- fluence. But neither braves nor blow CTS nor gasconaders are always or ne- cessarily towards and this agile, artful and expert gallery -stimulator ana grand-stand performer is not a coward ar a wedding. The endeavor to make him out to be such has been an effort which has played itself into the hands of his partisans, and he has played his nartisans with a skill politicians might envy prestidigitateurs covet ana Ia kirs despair to equal Accloeh' brought him into better relations to op- portunity, on critical occasion, than Sampson could attain, and the etfort to capitalize, for Sampson that to Whlch Schlev was entitled, has been con- +er,rtihle and nauseating effort Whlcn has led the American press, the Amerl- can congress and the American people to do something more than Justlce to ScbIey and to give something less thah his relative due to Sampson.
 The whole controversy-an It IS a hitter one-the whole scandal-foi scandal 1t was-may be said 10 pe chargeable to a bureaucracy Of faVorit- ism in the navy department, which controlled those who should have crushed it out and which sowed all the seed that naturally grew to fruit o1 fraud of folly and of shame. Ihe ocaptajns' who have reaped the re- wards of their course, who have dis honored the function of testimony ano
 who stained with partiality and pre]u- dice the estutcheon of the navy, set ur sampson as their leader, but really wade him their tragic victim. TheS i,,tandad to make Schey that victim
 but they have, by natural recoll
 oyey.n,ade him, far overmade him. into
 a hero or martyr, or into an lipmor'
 ta1 or into miracle of ProVloentla
 ,,;ndication or into any like thing
 rrbicb he is not. We do not believe the
 harn, to the navy will be repaired in
 generation.- Brooklyn Eagle.