Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-20

Our recent progress toward embattlcd
commissions, indignant courts of inquiry and
dramatic probes, while perhaps inevitable,
has been abnormaly slow. More than a year
after the last shot in the universal conflict
Admiral Sims speaks out frankly and Fame,
who might have been under the erroneous
impression that everything was settled, is
forced to withdraw to "a back seat until all
| the returns are in-until they are duly
, analysed and rendered scandal proof.
1t was not always thus. In the Spanish
War of 9S there was not even any illusory
period of calm preceding exposure. The bat
tie of regulations began in the very midst
of the actual fray of the armed belligerents.
WHO won the sea fight off Santiago?
w Three years after that sweeping victory
the point was still officially undecided, and
| when the court of inquiry did enter a verdict,
in 1901, the average civilian in this nation
was thoroughly displeased. What nobody
| could stand, however, was more argument
on the theme, and John D. Long, secretary
of the navy, unquestionably echoed public
| sentiment in urging that no further pro-
| cCedings be held
The majority report had called Winfield
| Scott Schley 'self possessed in the famous
| battle and had commended him for encour
agement to his men, but every specific charge
raised against him was officially reiterated.
He was accused of ''vaciation, dilatoriness
and lack of enterprise in his conduct of the
campaign prior to June /, 1898. He was
ccnsured for the much discussed "loop' of
the Brooklyn in the engagement. for ''inac
curate and misleading reports and for fail
urc to do all in his power to destroy the
Spanish cruiser Colon on May 81.
What the court might have done to Ad
miral William 7. Sampson had he not gone
to Siboney on that thrilling July to talk
over the general situation with Shafter it
is, of course, impossible to postulate. His
chance absence from the battle had given
Schley the victory-and the blame. The
Sampson partsans could adduce negative
| virtues, always unassailable in a controversy.
Henry Cabot Lodge, as historian, was
| categorically among the champions of the
superior officer. Schley, he declares, twas
never technically in command for single
moment adding that the commodore (as
he then was) never controlled or directed
i'll the slightest degree the movements of any
ship but the Brooklyn and exercised no
general command whatever. 1t was a cap
tains fight without single fleet movement
directed by anybody"
The prominent author touches lightly on
several of the other feuds Of the war, much
more lightly, indeed, than they were regarded
at the time. Miles and Shafter were princi-
pals in one of these disputes. Senator Lodge
merely mentions that General Miles took
part in the negotiations which resulted in
the surrender of Santiago. AS a matter of
fact the situation was extremely delicate.
Skaters somewhat panicky dispatch after
El Caney and San Juan Hill confirmed the
supporters of General Miles in their belief
that the head of the army had been side
tracked in costly fashion.
But Senator Lodge, in his entertaining
volume. THE War With Spain" was in
generous patriotic mood. Apropos of the
dispute over the peace treaty concluded in
Paris on December 10. 1898. he averred that
the good sense of the American people
made two points clear to them. One was
! that peace treaty ought to be ratified"
| L1XCEPT for the Sampson Schley ructions
1.-the navy was fairly exempt from criticism
during the brief brush with Spain But the
army was continually in critical hot water
Denunciation ragged particularly about Rus
sell A. Alger, secretary of war. He was
blamed for bad sanitary conditions, almost,
it seems. for bad weather, and surely for
'embalmed beef
Moreover, although it was the corps COM
mander to whom the 'round robin" de-
nanding the removal of the army from
Santiago after the surrender. was addressed,
it was Alger. who suffered largely by the
exposure Wheeler, Chaffee, Lawton,
Wood and Roosevelt were among the army
officers sgnatory to the sensational com
munication forecasting the destruction of
our troops by yellow fever unless they were
| quickly transported to heathier--climate
| TNHE Spanish War looms large in sean
| l. dals, possibly because the comparative
! brevity of the conflict was favorable to
| alarms. 1t is more difficult to launch SEN
| sations when the nation is actually in grave
! peril. They are concomitants of peace after
! a major crisis. Nevertheless Mcclellan
made things lively for the probers in the
midst of the great rebellion. George, whom
| Providence helps according to his nature
| raved Horace Greeley in 1862, "has got him
| self one side of a ditch 1.-THE Potomac
| river which Providence had already made
| for him, with the enemy on the other. and
! has no idea ~of moving. Wooden Head
! (Halleck) at Washington will never think
| of sending a force through the mountains to
! attack Lee in the rear
Lincoln, though less violently acquired
something of the Tribune's viewpoint after
| Antetam, and Mcclellan, after his second
| trial, was removed. The controversy moved
/ into politics with the result that Little
Mac, the peoples pride adopted the plat
| form 1.-THE wars failure ran against the
occupant for the White House for president
! in 1864 and was overwhelmingly defeated
But the almost interminable wrangle
arising out of Civil War campaigns con-
| cerned General Fitz John Porter, accused of
fatal delay before the battle of Second Bull
Run. Porter was court -martialed on No
vember 81, 1862 and was sentenced Ito be
cashiered and to be disqualified forever from
holding any office of trust or profit under
the government of the United States.' The
President approved the sentence
Porter frequently appealed for review
of his ease a board of army officers headed
by Schoield eXonerated him in 1873. Con-
gress took no action. In 1886 Cleveland ap-
proved an act for the relief of Fitz John
| Porter and he was reinstated in the army
with Il rank of colonel of infantry
Earlier wars brought their regulation
crops of scandals. Washington was almost
ousted from command by the intrigues of
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