A Legal View of the Schley Inquiry. of millions of his countrymen. This view is according to the suggestion of the present President of the United States in his mem orandum on the appeal. But the last forty years have reminded us that even accommodating heroes cannot live upon victory alone; they desire promotion and other rewards more substantial than those of record and office. Thus by natural choice or the encouraging pressure of ardent friends, they permit their reputation as heroes to be used in competition for some other kind of success. Then they have to reckon not only with the multitude, but also with professional critics. As has happened after many wars in many places, the soldier or the sailor who is warmly greeted by the multitude may find the cold shoulder of his profession turned towards him. Every profession has a long memory, and though it can remain long silent, it is unut terably dangerous. If its feelings high or low are sooner or later aroused, they are sure to make themselves felt with precision and rapidity. Even men of high professional character join, for the good of their profes sion, with men who consciously or uncon sciously cherish a jealousy which feeds the small malice charged by Lord Bacon to small politicians. When the heroes in their lifetime enter that temple of ambition which is called his tory by those who write it, and by those whose statues are on its altars, they learn too late the fate of some of those whose remains are in its crypts. A historian of the past may disavow, as Hume disavowed, any spirit of faction, but he may lack the art of veiling the feelings of the present. The first of Mr. Blaine's two large volumes, entitled, " Twenty Years of Congress," was a brilliant party pamph let; the second was a debit and credit ac count with his political friends and enemies.
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Many a warrior would rather be shot at by guns than attacked by a " history," and it may be said to require almost a taste for martyrdom to volunteer an attack upon a historian. Yet the bitter must be taken with the sweet. Even fame has its shadow. Glory may be but the silver lining of a storm cloud. After Santiago and victory come historians with ambitious stories, and the puzzled hero, instead of meeting a writer by writing, is driven by the supposed demand of his own honor, or the agitation of his sen sitive friends, to invite the risk of a formal examination. Thus prudence may be worn out, -and imagination dictates that the only course left for self-respect or for friendship is to ask a patient administration which had closed the gates of a war, to open those of a court of inquiry. It is a new prop to the growing vanity of authors, when a veteran officer, with a com mission of rear-admiral granted because of his part in a memorable victory, finds it ap parently expedient for his reputation or ambi tion to complain to the Navy Department of a book. One is tempted to ask, cannot one book safely be left to be balanced by other books.1 No one, however, can be surprised that Rear-Admiral Schley did not wish to have midshipmen taught by a text-book that he had been a timid commodore. It would 1 Readers who like to read more than one side in the discussion of the facts which is not entered into here are referred to Mahan's " Lessons of the War with Spain" criticising Schley's campaign, and to an article on the Schley Court of Inquiry in the National Review of Lon don, for January, 1902, by H. W. Wilson, author of a part of "The Royal Navy," of which book Colonel Theodore Roosevelt is author of another part. Mr. Wilson is also author of " Ironclads in Action." In his article, published since the court's report, he criticises Schley, but gives him credit for personal courage, and says with regard to the "loop " — " the tum is perfectly defensible," and states his reasons : he also gives Sampson credit for his plans. Now that the record is being studied and the merely personal controversy wanes, the permanent military problems may be expected to be discussed from time to time as other historical matters are.
