Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1919 — “INVESTIGATIONS” DISCOUNTED [ARTICLE]

“INVESTIGATIONS” DISCOUNTED

•Republican “investigations” into the conduct of the war have progressed far enough to admit of an assessment of their value either as correctives or deterrents. They have covered a good deal of ground and filled many thousands of pages with testimony and documentary materials.’ They have furnished texts for news and comment. They have served some partisan uses. The inquiries have been made largely by Republicans and with a Republican majority to give what authority and moneys were needed by the inquisitors to journey here, there and yonder inquest of evidence. What has been adduced in the way of facts to convict any single important official of the government of dishonesty or dereliction? Any person of fair mind, whatever his political creed, will agree that even the record which these Republican committees have produced from the mouths of many witnesses fails to show worse than waste that was Inherent In the rapid preparations for the biggest war of all times, or errors of judgment ot less consequence in America’s first few months of belligerency than those made by some of the allies which had three years’ experience in the conflict. Much of the testimony which these committees have taken was that of (persons with grievances—concerns which failed to get con- ' tracts; military officers whose plans ■or suggestions had been 'vetoed; •subordinates with grudges against superiors; men with partisan or personal animus. -Of the statements

that were true only a few were new; a great deal of what was new Is under suspicion as to Its accuracy. Before the “investigators’’ began Secretary "of War Baker and Democratic leaders in congress frankly conceded that in the emergency of turning the industries of peace to the making of munitions on a vast scale, time was a more important element than money; that between losing days and losing dollars the war department and the other branches of the government did not hesitate to choose. It was Democratic officials that detected and ousted incompetents and proceeded —with the help of Republicans like former Justice Charles E. Hughes —against delinquents. It is notable that even Republican newspapers which have a sense of news values are devoting little of their space and none of their editorial columns to these "Investigations.” They are showing hardly any interest in last year’s history even though congressional partisans seem to think it has a bearing on next year’s campaign.