The Cordova daily times., 1922-11-21
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1922
LANE IN A BAD LIGHT

Recently there have been published letters written by former Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane to his brother detailing conversations and transactions that took place in Cabinet meetings while Lane was mem ber Some of these letters reflect no credit either upon President Wilson or some of the other members of his Cabinet but the facts they disclose are interesting. Incidentally It is pertinent to remark that the letters bring no credit to Mir Lane himself, for they admit tedly portray him as disclosing to an out sider information that was supposed to be secret While there is no intimation that anyone profited by the disclosures, one can not help remembering that during the Wilson regime there were some very dlsquletlng 1n- dcations that men close to the Admlmstra- ton made huge profits out of advance infor- nation concerning Administration policies. That no advantage was taken of the Lane letters does not change the fact that he had no right to make the disclosures. His brother had no right to information that was with held from the general public.
 Coming now to the substance of some of the more important disclosures It is stated in one of the letters that Secretary of the Navy Daniels once a leading pacifist and enemy of large navy, opposed conveying merchant ships on the ground that it would be "dan- gerous'' Mir. Daniels resents the inference that he was afraid, and denies the accuracy of the statements made by Lane Admiral Sims comes to the front with corroboration of Lane. e----~''~~- | ---s irt~~~
 This corroboration was hardly necessary. The whole record of Daniels so far as known to the public, accords with the Lane state ment. He was politician, not a fighting man. One of his first acts as Secretary of the Navy was to visit the fleet and make an address to the men assembled for the occa- sion, in which he told the sailors, in effect, that he was their particular friend and that if they didn't get the proper treatment from their superiors to come to him. This was step toward disorganization and overthrow of discipline.
 The fact is that up to the time of the en- trance of the United States into the war, Mr. Daniels did nothing that gave evidence of fitness for his job When we entered the war, he adopted a policy of "hands off, ," leaving the management of the Navy to men who understood what they were doing. He displayed his good sense in this respect, and in this alone
 But MT. Daniels was not the only man in the Wilson Cabinet who was afraid. Early in the war the Senate called the attention of Secretary of War Baker to the fact that the United States was supplying its troops with ammunition of size not interchangeable with the Allies, so that if our men ran short of ammunition, we could not use allied ammuni- tion, nor could we supply with ammunition from our stores Baker admitted that this was a disadvantage but remarked ttIn case of any enemy, this lack of interchangeability of ammunition may be of material advant- age.''
 See the point? MT. Baker figured that it was likely that the enemy would capture our ammunition and use it in their guns against us, unless we made it of different size He never for moment considered the possibility of capturing any enemy ammunition and using 1t in cur guns against them.