Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1919-01-21
Tuesday, January ~, 1919.
The Day Of Accounting to Come.

The Day Of Accounting to Come.
Is the day Of accounting at hand?
Are exact and detailed stories Of ad-
ministrative inefficiencies to be made
public?
Is the casualty list bungle in all its
horrors to he described?
Is the soldiers mail atrocity to be
set forth. and the people Of America
told how their letters and gifts have
been dumped?
Are we to be told in plain language
how the soldiers pay has been held
up?
Incompetence. utter heedlessness.
and political profiteering have caused
the people of this country more bit
terness and woe than all of the wars
in the republics history. and some of
the guilty in office should reap as
they have sOwn.
Although more than two months
have elapsed since the arimstice was
declared and all fighting ceased on
European battlefields, the American
people are still in doubt as to the
personnel of the casualties of the
american Expeditionary Force. Daily
papers are still publishing long lists
of dead. wounded, and missing, and
the second week in January, two
months after the signing of the
armisticc, it was announced that the
War Department had put on an extra
fore of one thousand 10000 clerks in
order to compile the casualties which
had not yet been made public.
Not only have not all of the casual
ties been printed. but much space is
being devoted in the newspapers to
corrections in lists formerly printed.
Men previously missing. are now re-
ported killed. Many men previously
reported killed are now reported
wounded. and scores Of instances are
on record where men reported killed.
have arrived in this country in good
physical condition. In every state,
families who have men abroad in the
American forces are being kept in
suspense due to the bungling manner
IN which casualty lists have been
handled
This subject was discussed very
thoroughly in recent address in the
United States Senate by Senator
Weeks of Massachusetts, and in all
probability. there will be an investi-
cation of the War Department in this
particular. Senator Weeks read the
records to show that during one week
in December the Red Cross received
on an average Of twenty letters a day
from parents who have been advised
by the War Department that their
sons had been killed on a specified
date. In every one of these cases.
the parents wrote that they have re-
ceived communications from their
boys subsequent to the date given bv
the War Department" This is only
one Of the many glazing errors and
inexcusable delays in compiling and
publishing casualties cited by Senator
Weeks. The Senator attributed much
OF the trouble to the fact that the War
Department refused to Cooperate
with the Red Cross in the matter of
collecting data regarding casualties
and forwarding same to the families
OF wounded soldiers. 1t was brought
out in recent INVESTIGATION before
the Senate committee on military
affairs that the Red Cross had been
in possession of thousands of names
or men wounded or killed which it
rould have. and would have forwarded
Immediately to the relatives of the
men. had not the War Department
forbidden the Red Cross doing so.