nt would
not only have meant better weather but it would have given time to teach
the new officers their duty in safeguarding the health of their men as
far as possible, and this precaution alone would have saved many lives.
Owing to the greater practical experience of the officers in the regular
regiments, the death rate among the men in their ranks fell far below
that among the volunteers, even though many of the men with the regulars
had enlisted after the declaration of war. On the other hand, speed as
well as sanitation was an element in the war, and the soldier who was
sacrificed to lack of preparation may be said to have served his country
no less than he who died in battle. Strategy and diplomacy in this
instance were enormously facilitated by the immediate invasion of Cuba,
and perhaps the outcome justified the cost. The question of relative
values is a difficult one.

No such equation of values, however, can hold the judgment in suspense
in the case of the host of secondary errors that grew out of the
indolence of Secretary Alger and his worship of politics. Probably
General Miles was mistaken in his charges concerning embalmed beef, and
possibly the canned beef was not so bad as it tasted; but there can be
no excuse for a Secretary of War who did not consider it his business
to investigate the question of proper rations for an army in the tropics
simply because Congress had, years before, fixed a ration for use within
the United States. There was no excuse for sending many of the men
clad in heavy army woolens. There was no excuse for not providing a
sufficient number of surgeons and abundant hospital service. There was
little excuse for the appointment of General Shafter, which was made in
part for political reasons. There was no excuse for keeping at the head
of the army administration General Nelson A. Miles, with whom, whatever
his abilities, the Secretary of War was unable to work.

The navy did not escape controversy. In fact, a war fought under the
eyes of hundreds of uncensored newspaper correspondents unskilled in
military affairs could not fail to supply a daily grist of scandal to
an appreciative public. The controversy between Sampson and Schley,
however, grew out of incompatible personalities stirred to rivalry by
indiscreet friends and a quarrelsome public. Captain Sampson was chosen
to command, and properly so, because of his recognized abilities.
Commodore Schley, a genial and open-hearted ma