Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1899 — HIT MILES AND EAGAN [ARTICLE]

HIT MILES AND EAGAN

BEEF COUTT MEMBERS FIND CHIEF IN ERROR. ' Declare that He Should Have Made Prompt Report-No Chemicals Used te Preserve Meat lix-Commlsaary Wrong in Buying Untried Ration*. The long-drawn-out inquiries of the military court appointed to investigate the charges made by Gen. Miles in regard to the beef supplied the army during the war with Spain are at an end and the findings have been submitted to the President and approved. In its report the court censures Gen. Miles for not reporting the unfitness of the rations at the time that the complaints reached him. It declares that the refrigerator meat was not chemically treated and holds that the canned beef was good. Gen. Eagan is severely scored for buying such immense quantities of an untried ration. The packers are exonerated, it being shown that they furnished the same goods that they put on the general market. The court recommends that no further action be taken in the matter, while it suggests that several persons have placed themselves liable to prosecution. The report is long and it reviews the conditions under which the army operated, but it finds no excuse for the charges of Gen. Miles. Briefly stated, the report not only finds that Gen. Miles made false allegations against the War Department and the packers, but that he furnished no evidence to show that he had any excuse for believing that these allegations were true. The court finds that there was overwhelming testimony to the fact that the refrigerated beef was not chemically treated, but was preferable in every way to the fresh beef killed in Cuba and Porto Rico; that this beef was not a serious cause of sickness; that the canned roast beef was not furnished under the pretense oj an experiment, and that it was not beef pulp, from which the nutriment had been taken for beef extract. It is admitted that canned roast beef was not intended for a field ration, and that the commissary general committed “a colossal error for which there is no palliation” in making such large purchases of this ration. In answering the questions propounded by the President to the court as to the character of the rations, and who was responsible, the report censures only Gen. Miles for allegations which were untrue, and Gen. Eagan for purchasing 7,000,000 pounds of canned roast beef, considering the use that had been made of it in the regular army. Regarding Eagan, the court finds no ground for any imputation of any other actuating motive than the earnest desire to procure the best possible food for the troops. The court was unable to find any worthy motive for Miles’ mistake in making such allegations or any excuse for his not reporting at once to the President or Secretary of War, if he believed his allegations were true. Throughout the fifty printed pages the report is a tempered scotching of the commanding general, showing him as an officer at the head of the army, who, without excuse, bore false testimony against the Government in its conduct of the war. The concluding paragraph in the summing up is in its mild phraseology, a severe censure upon Gen. Miles. The court says: “It has been developed in the course of the inquiry, as recited in this report, that in some instances certain individuals failed to perform the full measure of duty or to observe the proprieties which dignify high military command, but the court is of opinion that the mere statement in the official report of the facts developed meets the ends of discipline, and that the interests of the service will be best subserved if further proceedings be not taken.”