11:11, VINDICATION OF ADMIRAL Ems.
ALTHOUGH the whole report of the Naval Committee appointed by the American Senate to inquire into Admiral Sims's charges must be of deep interest to British readers, we shall try to refrain from dealing with its political sides. That the report is political in many senses is proved by the fact that the division of the Committee into a majority and a minority strictly followed party lines ; the large majority was Republican and the small minority was Democratic. English men and women would be less than human, however, if they did not feel great satisfaction from the personal point of view in the vindication by the majority of one who proved himself so good and valiant a friend of this country during the war. Admiral Sims's accusations against the Navy Depart- ment are an old story going back to December, 1919, when he refused to accept, the Distinguished Service Medal from Mr. Daniels, on the ground that Mr. Daniels had done great injustice to officers and men by overlooking many of those who had been recommended for distinction by the Special Board and awarding medals to others for " merely ordinary services." The Senate Committee was appointed to inquire into this minor " battle of the medals," and it was before the Committee that Admiral Sims made a great many further charges condemning the whole policy of the Navy Department during the war. He declared that on the eve of America coming into the war he was warned against allowing the British " to pull the wool over his eyes "—a phrase which was at first attributed to Mr. Daniels himself, but which was actually used by Admiral Benson. Admiral Sims next declared that the Naval Department was guilty of all sorts of administrative delay, and that these delays cost half a million lives and some £3,000,000,000. The Majority Report says that if delays had not occurred in the naval operations the American Expeditionary Forces might have brought about the Allied victory earlier than they actually did, though the majority admit that the extent to which the Report, on the other hand, finds that there is very little indeed in Admiral Sims's complaints, and that generally all was for the best in the boat of all possible naval worlds. But what instructs us most of all is the passage in the Majority Report which purports to describe how far naval warfare was the plaything of politics :- " The conclusion seems unavoidable that, for many months after the United States had entered the war, the primary motive of the Administration was not to do everything possible to help to win the war, but rather does the predominant purpose of the Administration seem to have been to look to the future of the United States apart from the Allies in case the latter might be defeated, or in case a peace without victory might be made."
Again, the majority remark that the principal cause of the delay (we are quoting throughout from a summary in the Times) was " the self-defensive, non-aggressive, non-helpful policy imposed on the Navy by the Admin- istration." If these words are a fair conclusion from the evidence we have before us, an extraordinarily interesting picture of President Wilson when he reached the point of admitting that war was inevitable. Even then, it seems, though he saw that it had become easier to declare war than to refuse to declare war, he harboured a delusive hope that his country could go to war without in all respects being at war. We remember that at the time we suspected from many of Mr. Wilson's statements that this was his plan, and we described it as going to war on the principle of " limited liability." When America actually entered the war, however, all our misgivings dis- appeared. We confessed that they had been unfounded, for it seemed to us that the Americans were making war with all their heart and with all their resources. If it be true, after all, that our fears had some foundation, we need not, of course, go back upon our second thoughts ; we need not reconsider our conclusion that America once in the business made war to great purpose. All we have a right to say, if the new evidence is fair, is that a great many Americans believe that well though their country did it they could have done much better if from the first moment Mr. Wilson and his colleagues had gone " all out " to win.
We are inclined to think that this portrait of Mr. Wilson —though here we are drawing near to delicate political ground—is a true one. We make bold to say as much as this because, after all, it is open to any man to judge the character of another man on the evidence of that person's own words and acts ; and it would be ridiculous to attribute to the Democratic Party as a whole foibles and delusions which were peculiar to the mind of their chief. When, in fact, the Republican majority of the Committee condemn the Democratic conduct of the war, they do so because the Democratic party was necessarily identified for the time being with Mr. Wilson. The finished portrait of Mr. Wilson, then, shows a man who was very far from being a neck-or-nothing ruler who went to war for the unanswerable reason that all the principles upon which, in his opinion, the relations of civilized people should be conducted were being trampled underfoot by Germany. He could not see, as Lincoln would have seen, that horrible though war is, there may be worse evils. If Mr. Wilson did not prefer peace to his principles, he at all events temporized hoping that an attitude of only half committing himself would still save a good deal of peace and a good many of his principles. His role was made for him by events. He did not make things happen. When, in due course of time, he discovered that war for such objects as Americans declared themselves to be fighting was popular, and that the war promised decisive success on sea and land, he became indistinguishable from a leader who had brought about such events out of his own con- viction and strength. Events took him much further than he had ever contemplated. In his secret thoughts he would probably admit that he did not understand himself. He was like a man who went to meeting because he liked the singing, or because the door happened to be open, and who ended up on the stool of repentance. We have heard it said that when Admiral Sims was recently recalled to the United States because he had indiscreetly told the truth about Sinn Fein, many thousands of letters were received at Washington " stating in emphatic language what they'd be before they'd stand it," if Admiral Sims were punished. It seems that Ameri- cans like sailors as much as we do, and they do not even mind indiscretions when they come from sailors, because they expect sailors to be indiscreet—that is to say, to tell the plain truth as they see it, without caring for political results. Thus the 50,000 Americans, or whatever the num- ber may have been, rose in the spirit of the " twenty thousand Cornishmen " who, according to the song, would " know the reason why " when Trelawny, Bishop of Bristol, was committed to the Tower. The fact that Admiral Sims was recalled not by a Democratic but by a Republican Minister made no difference. Apparently the authors of the protest were as innocent of politics as the Admiral himself, who has no liking for the kind of speech that cannot be correctly interpreted till one has dived into that ever- changing dictionary of political language which requires a new edition for every shift in political fashions. The little storm in America will pass away and be forgotten when present political motives have lost their force ; but Englishmen, whatever their politics, will never forget the true and brave services of Admiral Sims in the war, and will always thank America for having sent him.
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