The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-01-02
WAR DEPARTMENT
ATTACKED AGAIN
BEFORE SENATE
Delay in Casualty Reports
Criticized by Weeks-ln-
formation Often Wrong.
fRy Associated Press)

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2.-The war
department was sharply criticized In
the senate today by Senator Weeks,
Of Massachusetts, Republican. for de-
lays and errors in compiling casual
ties among the expeditionary forces
and for failure to cooperate with the
Red Cross in the matter OF forward
Ing letters from wounded soldiers to
relatives in this country.
Criticism was directed especially
at the office Of the adjutant General
of the army. Senator Weeks saying
that Major General Mccain, the ad-
jutant general who retired last sum-
mer to command a division, and who
was succeeded by Major General Har-
ris.should have been retained. He
would not believe. he said that a
change in the office during the war
was businesslike or desirable.
Senator Weeks declared that the
war departments information as to
casualties often had been wrong.
Miraculous Number Of Errors.
During the week ending December
H." he stated. "the Red Cross receiv.
ed an average Of twenty letters a day
from parents who had been advised
by the war department that their sons
had been killed on specific date In
every one Of these cases the parents
wrote that they had received commu.
nications from their boys subsequent
to the date given by the war depart
ment. 1t seems almost miraculous
that so many errors could have oc-
CURED in cases of this kind.
ut was also worth noting" the
MQCC0chllGoffS
that in sending notices of casualties
to families. the department simply
stated that the individual had been
Killed or wounded, without further ex-
PLANTATION, and that so far as he knew,
ton on the subject.
THAT work. he added, has very
properly been taken up by the Red
Cross, and is testified that in the
nefghborhood of ten thousand letter
a week have been sent to the families
OF those killed or injured, giving the
iacts relating to the death or condi-
ton of the injured man.
Lacked Cooperation.
Describing Red Cross methods, Sen
ator Weeks said that agency in Aug
ust located In French hospitals two
hundred American soldiers reported
missing by the war department. These
men. he declared, had communicated
with the Red Cross. believing that
through 1t their relatives would learn
OF their condition. but the information
never was transmitted because Of an
order by the department prohibiting
tGe mailing Of such letters. Mean
while the relatives had no knowledge
as TO the location Of the men, though
later. the order was modified and the
agency permitted to forward the let
ters entrusted to its care.
The theory under which the order
was issued, Senator Weeks said, was
that the department wished absolute
accuracy, which was desirable, but he
it did not follow that such
would be any more accu-
rate, or as accurate as information OBJ
tened by the Red Cross through its in
representatives.
Adjutant General Harris, he ex-
planned, was not responsible for the
order.
"One of the most glaring errors
shcwn in the lack of coordination be-
tween the war department and the
Red Cross service" the senator said,
rs found in the fact that hospital lists
were not, until the latter part OF No
vember of this year, furnished the
Red Cross. although in the possession
Of the war department"