Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-12-21

cisms to make they must submit the
same to their superior officers. and
when they come TO the Secretary of
War he In turn ia the only one who
can fight 1t out with another cabinet
officer. This means that the President
is the final arbiter. Congress, of
course, can summon officers of the
Army and Navy, and by questioning
and cross-examining bring out facts
which in themselves may disclose
criticism, but the initiative must come
from Congress.
Fries Calls Policy Mistake.
Gen. Fries thinks a mistake in
policy has been made and he is APP
pealing to the public through the
press TO persuade Congress TO take d
contrary view of chemical warfare
ment of State. Gen. Fries in his cir
cular letter to Washington cor
respondents said:
LAS YOU doubtless know, chemical
warfare will be the subject OF much
public interest during the present
session of Congress. An international
conference which met at Geneva,
Switzerland, April to July, 1925. which
was called to consider the supervision
of international trade in arms and
ammunition, adopted a second and I'M
expected protocol dealing with
chemical warfare. The United States
sent delegates TO this conference. The
chairman of this delegation signed
the chemical warfare protocol which,
as stated, is a separate protocol from
the one dealing with the other I'M
Elements of warfare.
doubtless this protocol will come
before the Senate for ratification dur
ing it's present session. Therefore the
truth about chemical warfare is OF
great interest to the public at this
time. The public is not informed as
to the facts. either regarding chemical
HarfareS use in the world war or as
to developments since the war The
use of chemicals in war has been
pictured as one of the major barbara
ties of modern war. Sensational
stories have been written about phases
of chemical warfare by uniformed
persons. Highly imaginative pictures
have been drawn of its possible future
developments with utter disregard of
known facts, and without any effort to
obtain the facts from those who know
them.
Wants Truth Known.
The Chemical Warfare Service
desires to have the entire truth plac-
ed before the public and is ready at
all times to place its records at your
disposal for this purpose. We will
gladly furnish authentic information,
and we solicit your inquiries. This
Is a matter of vital Importance TO
the national defense. l am sending
with this letter a paper headed The
Truth About Chemical Warfare, In
hn 70
and facts with which to refute the
many wild misstatements that have
been published. Other information
is available and will be promptly
sent you on request. You are NJ
liberty to use any of this informa-
ton, and I wish to repeat that l
offer to furnish you facts about
chemical warfare at any time and
to any extent"
The Enclosure Is an analysis of gas
warfare and the attempts at treaty
making that have accompanied it. 1t
concludes with this query: with
all these facts in mind, shall we to-
day be so utterly foolish as to do
that which John Hay and Admiral
Mahan refused to do % years ago?
Shall we tie our hands by a treaty
whose fallacy was SO wonderfully
foretold in 1899? What we have got
to do is to teach the world that gas
warfare is perfectly logical; 1t is
humane it Is powerful; and that
the only sensible thing to do Is to
prepare to use 1t to the limit on the
armed forces of the enemy. When
we let the enemy, know that we will
be able to pour down upon him ten
tons of chemicals to one that he can
pour down on us, we won't have any
war"
This method Of argument by some
one other than the Secretary of War
may be applied equally to aviation.
cavalry uses, tank corps and artil-
lery. Will the Secretary of War muz-
Zle them all as he did Col. Mitchell?
The Army and Navy are all agog
over the settlement of the issue