Grossest Incompetency

So far as McKinley's ndministration bad to do with the war in Cuba it blündered through a series of acts thai can hardly be called mistakes, they have every apearance of being dam nable crimes, conceived in partisandsm and brought forth in corruption. The delay in bringing on the war foi montlis after tlie explosión of the Maine was in itself a blunder thai iindefensible. Everyone kriew thc wat was inevitable after the Maine was wrecked. Tlie appointment to staff poKirious ol young men with a politica! pull, but no expérience, was a crime against thc men who faced the enemy on llie fir ing line. They had a right to expert effective service from the eommissary, quartermaster and medical branches of the service, but they were cruelly betráyed by base partisan selections ol Incompetente. Krya.n Lighton, a captain of cav alrj' in the British army and wlw was an observar at Santiago, blames all the errors of tlie eanipaign on Shafter. "One-thlrd of tbe men who died might have been saved if there had been enougli physicans,' says Oapt Lighton. "All Shafter saw of the battla was balloons. They were visible at a ditance of miles. Shafter came to the firlng line in a buggy six days after it was all over. Tuis is the saine Shafter of whom tliis is related by Fltzgïbbon, the highly reputable and intelligent war correspondent of the Detroit News: "A brigade surgeon told me that one day an appeal was made to Gen. Shafter personally for relief for the Sick men of a certain regiment, and thai Shafter's reply was: "God damn them, let them die. What dicl they enlist for, anyhow? I've got other things to attend to besides sick soldiere." Another distinguished writer says of Shafter: "He is not only rude in ner but ignorant, and as to moráis is unspeakable." Tuis is the man Secretary Alger selected to eommand the brave men sent to Santiago, including two heroic regiments from Michigan. It is an open secret that on the evening of July 2d he wanted to retire the American lines and would have done so had it not been for General Wheeler. The destruction of Cervera's fleet struck terror to the Spaniards and bastened a surrender in the nick of time for our gallant army. The loss by disease in the army is a fearful testimony to the incompetency of the McKinley administraron. The Chicago Tribune estimates the deatha from disease alone at 2,000. Wüile deaths on the battlefield and from wounds number only a bout 350. The most of the blame for the deaths from disease and neglect is traced to the incompetent Btaff offlcers appointed for their father's sake.. Out of 633 1 pointments from civil life 400 were men with a political backing. "'JLo-day the public reads with growing horror of the ghastly blunders committed by these officials at Santiago and Montauk Point, of soldiers stai-vetl on shipa loadod wilh, rotting provisions and of patients allowed to die of brutal neglect. Erery shrunken form in blue from the pes't camps of ths south adds another chapter to tliis pitíful serial story of peace - not war- tliat ha for its plot a combination of con-uption, incompetence, petty jealousy, greed and red tape." Tliink of the well established instanee of a Michigan soldier, John Reardon, of Co. M, 33d Regiment, neglected in a hospital where he was suffering from throat disease until hls swollen throat pi-evented him from closing hls mouth, in consequence nis mouth, throat and glands became flyblown and maggots ate away the roof of his nioufh and palate and so injured hls vocal chords that he can scarcely speak. A very similar case was that of Prívate Nann, of the ambulance corps, transferred from the Xintli New York and reported by Capt. O'Connor of Co. A. Xinth New York. He found this soldier's body íying naked in a hospital al Chiekauiauga two'days after death. infested with maggots. Gravo intimations are made against the officials who located the camps The campa u Tampa, Miami and Fernandina iu Florida are particularly condemned. Col. Stndebaker, of the 157th Indiana Regiment, said his men, when he returned with them to Indianapolis, "hart fever in their very bones, they are hungry and their strength is wasted. It is all due to the cesspool Inwhich we lived in the south." It is directly charged, to the shame of the administration, that these camps were located in the interests of transportation linos whose millionaire owners contributed to Mark Hanna's campa iern corruption fund. The Cbicago Record, a paper of high character, conservativo in lts statements and taaving a strong Republican leaning, pnblished a cartoon representmg Secretary Alger in the act nf nan. ing a large poster lo tlie door of the war department with tlie legend■Wanted, a scapegoat One who will adinit that he is responsible for unsanitai-y military camps; one who will say that he is to blame for Iack of mediemos, nurses, sm-geons, hospital cots and food for sick and woimded soldiers. Oue who will announce that he arranged to have returning troons starved on transporta. Wanted also more red tape to tie tip the mouths of army officers, inchiding the commanding general. Wanted at once: Gd reasons for court martialing generáis and others who are offensive to the Secretary of War!"