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Show BAKER'S DEFENSE. Secretary Baker's story is reassuring, if not absolutely convincing, but it is a story he should not have been forced to tell. The American people can thank Theodore Roosevelt, Senator Chamberlain and the National Security league for this unprecedented revelation revela-tion of military secrets to an enemy. Every word that Secretary Baker uttered ut-tered will be recorded at the Wilhelrn- i strasse before many hours. Exports will study each bit of information and by comparing it with other bits of information in-formation already collected and by making the proper inferences and deductions de-ductions they will be able to form a better idea of what the United States . is doing in a military way than has been formed by any of the lawmakers ! ; who listened to the secretary's address. i In fact, they will know more about our preparations than is known by any ji ! body of men outside the administration, our general staff and the inter-allied ; ' war council. ! The senate's preliminary investiga- tiou, when taken in conjunction with j the confidential information given the ; committee, was sufficient to acquaint ! : the inquisitors with the state of our preparations and the efficiency of the ; ! war department and army heads. But' ' nt tho rtrti,,,. .... .jiv Luuuujiuil Ui LUC CUUHIIJLlce S i inquiry Eoosevelt and Chamberlain be-j be-j gau a violent political propaganda, which had all the power of a fire started start-ed in an ammunition magazine. The president tried to prevent the explosion, but simply added fuel to the flames. Chamberlain, in an impassioned, emotional aud cunningly biased speech, increased the conflagration, and Roosevelt Roose-velt stood by, pouring on oil. If Secretary Baker had sealed his lips with tho patriotism of a martyr he could not have prevented the public i from obtaining the information which j he has given. There would have been a furious clamor all over the country for a statement, and if the secretary had maintained silence, the people, spurred on by Roosevelt and his clique, would have wrung the information ! piece by piece from other officials, j The Germans know just how many j Americans will face them in the spring, ; and make their preparations according-! according-! ly. For months the German officers i have been telling the private soldiers ! that the Americans were bluffing, that we could not put an army in the field in France, and they even went so far as to say that British soldiers were dressing dress-ing in American uniforms. And now, os result of the inquiry at Washington, we know that there are so many American Amer-ican soldiers in France that they are dressing m British uniforms. For months the Germans have been trying to find out how many men we were putting into France. Now we ; have told them. We have informed them that early in the spring we shall have 500,000 men in France. It will not require much intelligence to figure out j how soon 500.000 more . can "be sent over. Those who attacked the administration administra-tion because we were obtaining our j heavy artillery from the British and ! French, declared that we were forcing j the French to keep in their factories men who should be at the front fight-! fight-! ing. Secretary Baker shows that the : French and British military experts proposed the plan and argued that, so neing a burden to France, it ' would be an actual benefit to the allies ail around. Some months ago The Tribune point-j point-j cd out that tiie manufacture of guns in France saved ship tonnage for the I transport of troops and supplies. Sec-1 Sec-1 retary Baker made a special point of tit is and called attention to the undisputed un-disputed fact that shipping is the crux of the war. The secretary's explanation regard-1 regard-1 ing machine guns and rifles was nut to satisfactory as some of his other testimony. tes-timony. There was too much delay and led tape, but tho Ain'riraii people" huvu I ho consolation of knowing that their army will have the Iiet machine gun in the world ami a rifle that it; excelled !;.' none. It v. ill occiii to sonic thai, Secretary Baker concealed one fact of absorbing interest, but perhaps Roosevelt will force it from him before the political drive ends. We have not been told why our army took no part in the operations of 1917. The answer probably is that they were neither adequately trained nor equipped. Most of the regular army Tegiments consisted of newly enlisted en-listed men who were as unfamiliar with modern methods of warfare as were any of the men who were drafted for the national army later. And when our insufficiently trained men had been in France long enough to warrant their . taking part in the fight, they probably did not have the necessary war materials. mate-rials. Secretary Baker says that General Gen-eral Pershing did not want the Lewis machine gun, and we may assume that there was no other machine gun being produced in sufficient numbers to equip our army for the fighting of 1917. The secretary hints that weapons devised a few months ago are even now obsolete, and it may be that the British Brit-ish and French were able to make only enough of the newer devices to supply their own armies. |