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Show Schley Has His Innings. THE TESTIMONY offered to establish estab-lish the "reprehensibility" of Admiral Ad-miral Schley is closed. The defense de-fense now has its inning, and the prospects are that it will be a month yet before the case goes to the court of which Admiral Dewey is head; or, in other words, the "foreman of the jury." Such of our readers as subscribe sub-scribe for daily papers and have not grown tired of reading the columns of biased and embittered testimony, will concede that this is a waste of time, as the other side has made no case. The witnesses brought forward by the department de-partment have not only contradicted each other on various occasions, but have disagreed on leading facts and have impugned the accuracy of nearly every chart, document, dispatch and vessel log by which the charges against the admiral were to be established. estab-lished. Some of the specifications have been absolutely disproved by the department's depart-ment's own witnesses, others have been explained away, and while as to others oth-ers errors of judgment may be charg-ed, in case they are not explained away hereafter, still as no harm whatever what-ever resulted from them, and as various vari-ous charges made against Schley could be made with equal force against Sampson, it is not apparent what the department has established except an occasional "might have been." Even if Admiral Schley did give the Span- j iards a chance to elude him, they failed j to do it. Even if he were wrong in j making the loop which Captain Cook , says he ordered it did no harm. Even if Admiral Schley erred in making the retrograde movement, it had no unfortunate un-fortunate result. The Spaniards were attacked at the first opportunity and defeated by the fleet with Schley in command, and Schley's flagship led and forced the fighting and was in it to the finish. The charges themselves were not only weak, but they have been weakly supported. One after the other they have been disposed of, the only one left with anything like a prop under it being the retrograde movement. If Admiral Schley's witnesses wit-nesses can set forth satisfactory reasons rea-sons for making it they will clear him of all serious accusation. Even if they should not the charge will amount merely to a "might have been." "When the farce is over and Admiral Schley comes out without blemish, what a sorry spectacle his accusers and maligners will present to the American Amer-ican people and to the Spaniards who surrendered to the man who won that memorable naval fight! Who will ever hear again of Commander 'Wain-wright, 'Wain-wright, the pet of the "strategy board"? Will "Fighting. Bob" Evans hide his head in the sand like the ostrich, or write another book explaining explain-ing what he explained? It must be that he acquired the title of "Fighting Bob" because, according to his own story, he shot the bow off the Pluton, put his helm to starboard and raked the Theresa, jammed the helm hard aport and dismasted the Oquendo, J threw the wheel over again and set the Vizcaya afire, and then, lashing himself to the wheel, shot the stern off the Terror and blew the Colon out of the water. -Commander Wainwright, however, insists that his ship blew the Spanish torpedo boat Pluton out of the water. Presumably after "Fighting: "Fight-ing: Bob" had shot its bow. "Fighting Bob," forsooth! The wonder won-der is that he is not known as "Demon Bob." because the latter expresses his great prowess better, at least to his own notion. |