New-York tribune., 1918-02-06
Signs !!

1t IS dangerous to say what we are about
to say; but as there is ''time to cast
away stones and time to gather stones
together, time to get and
time to lose. (, time to rend and
time to sew SO also there is a time for
speaking dangerously.
Consider what has happened
Three members of the Senate Commit
tee on Military Affairs-two Democrats
and one Republican-have reported to the
country on the conduct of the war. Their
conclusions are in substance alike and
unanimous, TO the effect, namely:
(l) That the government has not been
effective on the material side of war
(2) That the country's vast industrial
and mechanical resources have not been
properly synchronzed.
CD That the President. So wonder.
tully able ito inpart to the people the
emotion (which maketh the hand to war
and the fingers to fight" has suffered
himself to be overwhelmed by the physi-
cal problems of war itself as a vast
practical undertaking.
;. (Q That the war machine, for want
of great coordinating ability at it's heaG,
has been breaking down.
-. (5) That the situation is very serious
CO. That the Administration must be
made to see the necessity Of turning the
industrial part of the war over to men
4, proficient in industrial management.
- (7) That the President does not know
/. The truth, that his Secretary of Way
. does not know the truth, and that their
Joint optimism is misleading the country.
these conclusions are based upon what
Senators Chamberlain, Hitchcock and
Wadsworth believe to be facts, developed
IN regular manner in the course of weeks
ef original, non-partisan investigation.
One would think that only two ques-
tions could arise. Do the facts Justify
the conclusions? If SO, what can be done?
But the Administrations impulse is first
10 destroy its critics and then to answer
them in it's own way
Senator Chamberlain was the first mem
beI. of the committee to report. The Presi-
dent Immediately hurled at him this bolt
0f destruction:
Senator Chamberain's statement
is an astonishing and absolutely uniustifi-
able distortion of the truth. | am
bound to infer that that statement sprang
out of opposition to the Administration s
whole policy, rather than out OF any serious
intention to reform its practices
You have to read it second time to get
what it altogether means, for it is a mas
terly bit of phrasing.
The President tells the public that Scna-
tor Chamberlain lies, and that his lying
is to camounagc anti-war or pro-Gcrman
sentiments.
,ss"But what is more important still, the
president didn't mean it, His Secretary
" y" ar d LEW udyS IalCf, went and h3Q
trrvh in public with Senator Chamber
fpln; whereas if the Presidents denuH.
elatlon had been warranted the Senator
from Oregon ought to have been imme-
diately expelled from the halls of CONGRESS-,
Senator Hitchcock, of Nebraska, also a
Democrat, was the second member of the
committee to report to the public on the
conduct of the war. The Administration
ready weapon of defence appears now in
the hands of Senator Williams, the Presi-
dents friend and spokesman, who rises O.,
! the floor of the Senate and interrupts Sen
ator Hitchcock to say:
"Muck-raking the Administration is the
German game now"
Senator Wadsworth, of New York, was
the third. He reported yesterday. He
probably will escape the charge of pro.
Germansm. He is in the less odious cate
CORY of disloyalists. ; His crime is to he a
Republican.
We come now to the point of speaking
dangerously.
That we are not yet as effective in war
as we should and might be is narrowing
but if the Administration, under criticism.