SECRETARY BAKER’S GENERAL DENIAL
February 2, 1918
Secretary Baker’s denial of any serious shortcomings in the administration of the War Department comes under several heads. Part of it is prophecy, which we all hope will turn out to be justified. Part of it is explanation or denials of facts, as to which it is easy to get first-hand information. With this part I shall deal in my next editorial. Part of it relates to allegations as to which it is almost impossible to get first-hand information except from officers whose names cannot be quoted, because this would probably entail punishment upon them. It is with this part that I now deal.
General Wood two years ago, before the congressional committee, and again one year ago, before the congressional committee, set forth in detail our unpreparedness. Every fact he stated has proved to be true and to be but a small part of the truth. Yet he has been singled out for punishment because of thus having told Congress the truth, and this although we and our allies are now paying dearly for our failure to act on the truth which he thus told. Under such conditions it is impossible to make public the names of the officers and enlisted men through whom we occasionally learn of abuses. Nevertheless, it is imperative to try to correct the abuses. If the Administration had not punished General Wood for telling the truth, the complaints would be at once laid before the department and the wrongs remedied. Under existing conditions it is imperative to call public attention to them.
A major-general informed me in October that he had one hundred rifles for twenty thousand men, and most strongly felt that these men should not have been brought to the camp until the hospitals, barracks, heating arrangements, clothes, and arms were ready for them. Another major-general told me, in explanation of the shortage of supplies abroad, that one shipload of big coast defense guns had to be returned because when they reached France it was discovered that there were no carriages for them. Hundreds of officers and non-commissioned officers have told me of lack of overcoats, of winter under-clothing, of heavy socks. One quartermaster, being unable otherwise to get woolen gloves for the men in cold weather, finally got them from the Red Cross and was officially reprimanded for so doing. Two officers informed me that when in France there was a shortage of shoes. They were told it was due to a shipment of coffins, one being told that they were not regular coffins, but boxes containing grave-clothes. The newspaper correspondents repeatedly have told of the shortage of shoes, one recent statement being that a shipment of clay pigeons, not coffins, was sent over, while Mr. Caspar Whitney recites that the surplusage was a large shipment of hospital cots. At any rate, the shortage of shoes is unquestioned, whether their places were taken by coffins, clay pigeons, or hospital cots. A leading New York business man has just written me of the complete lack of hospital and medical facilities in one camp. The superintendent of a Bible teachers’ training school writes that his son volunteered, leaving a wife and two little children; that his pay was over a month in arrears, and that at Christmas time he wrote as follows:
We have not yet received our November pay. At this time of the year the boys don’t want it for themselves; they want to send some little thing home to their mothers or wives or sweethearts, and in lots of cases to their children, to whom just a little something from daddy means so much. Yet even that little pleasure is denied us. Can you not bring this to the attention of the people who are supporting this Government?
I have received many hundreds such appeals. To give the names of the writers would insure their punishment. To pay no heed to their appeals means that the abuses go unremedied. Doubtless an occasional informant is in error in his statement. But Senator Chamberlain’s speech and the testimony taken before his committee prove that the important statements I have made during the last few months as to the shortcomings in our army have been more than warranted by the facts.