The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1919-01-30

ton dailies, showing the breakdown in
the Ordnance Department. The gen.
eral charge made in these articles was
verified in General Pershing's report
at the close of hostilities, in which he
said that among our most important
deficiencies in material were artillery,
| aviation and tanks" and that even at
the close of war, there was no heavy
artillery of American make upon the
battle fields of France, and the Amer
lean troops had been supplied with
heavy artillery by the French Govern
ment, which "has always taken most
+; liberal attitude and has been most
anxious to give US every possible as
sistance in meeting our deficiencies in
this as well as in all other respects"
Soldiers Mail Undelivered.
The most recent development of the
breakdown of the War Department
was furnished the Senate Post Office
Committee on January 9th by Second
| Assistant Postmaster General, Otto
Praeger. He informed the committee
"that thousands and probably millions
of letter" addressed to men overseas
had never been delivered to them, and
that there are at present in France
from eight to ten carloads of first
class mail for American soldiers that
are undelivered and that this mail
will be returned to this country and
sent to the dead letter office. Mr..
Praeger specifically states that this
trouble was due to the ineffciency of
the War Department. He said that
the War Department had no system
of keeping names, and that the same
inefficiency which had brought about
this condition with the soldiers mail,
was also responsible for the War De-
partment's delay in sending our allot-
ments to soldiers and their families,
and in reporting casualties.
The question of allotments to SOL
diers' families and pay to the soldiers
themselves is another problem which
the War Department has not met, and
which is causing such storm of pro-
test to come from practically every
section of the country and from SOL
diers themselves, as to warrant an in
vestigation of that phase OF the War
Departments work.
On top of all this, the New York
World, an administration paper, has
issued a sensational expose of what it
terms a breakdown of the shipping
hoard. 1t charges that our entire
shipbuilding organization has failed
to function, and that the output OF the
shipbuilding yards of the United States
in the year 1918 was less than one-half
the output that was scheduled for
1918, despite the fact that the expense
on these various yards exceeded by
many millions of dollars the estimate.
Ford's Eagle Boat" Plant.
In this connection, Senator Lodge,
of Massachusetts had placed in the
Congressional Record of January End,
reprints of articles appearing in the
Daily Iron Trade, a technical
trade paper issued at Cleveland, Ohio,
in which it was alleged that the
Henry Ford "eagle boat" plant, which
has been the "show" plant of the Navy
Department, has been failure from
the standpoint of it's output, despite
the fact that it has been amply
financed.
In the joint statement which former
Presidents Roosevelt and Taft issued
to the country, just prior to the last
Congressional elections appealing for
the election of Republican Congress,
occurs the following:
"The debts which have been
created by this war the people
will be paying to the third and
fourth generation. They have a
right to know how these enormous
sums have been expended. Only
Republican Congress will have
the courage to exact a detailed
and accurate story of that stew
ardship."
The response of the American peo-
pie to this appeal commissioned the
Republicans in Cngress "to exact
detailed and accurate story" of the
Democratic stewardship. All these
investigations and activities which are
now going on would indicate that the
day has arrived when the present Ad-
ministration will have to render an &C
counting to the American people for
its management of the war.
Urge GOVERNMENT TO PAY 81
nIND DIfSuEI To RREAK