Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/395

1899.] should be about 57,000 and the maximum 95,000 men, and the President at his discretion could fix the strength of the regular Army at any figure. In the Senate Mr. Gorman proposed an amendment to reduce the strength of the Army after July 1, 1901, to its numbers before the Spanish-American War, i.e., about 27,000, and the bill finally passed the Senate by 55 votes to 13.

An act passed (March 2), authorising the President to appoint an admiral of the Navy, who should not be placed on the retired list except on his own application, the office to expire at the admiral's death.

Among the bills before the fifty-fifth Congress which failed to become acts was one to establish a territorial government in Hawaii. The fifty-fifth Congress expired at noon, by statutory limitation, on March 4.

A military court of inquiry met in Washington, D.C. (Feb. 17), to inquire into the charges made by General Miles and others respecting the supply of improper food to the troops operating in Cuba and Porto Rico during the war with Spain. The report submitted to the President (April 29) censured General Miles for not instantly taking the most effective measures to correct the wrong, censured Commissary-General Eagan for buying enormous quantities of a food practically untried and unknown, and censured the assistant commissary for recommending it. All others were exculpated, including Mr. Alger, the Secretary of War. The President recommended that no further proceedings should be taken, but the people generally condemned the findings of the court and its attempt to whitewash incapable officials.

Secretary Alger resigned his office on July 19, and was succeeded by Mr. Elihu Boot, of New York, on July 22. Commissary-General Eagan was suspended for six years from the Army.

One of the largest and finest hotels in New York City—the Windsor Hotel, in Fifth Avenue—was consumed by fire in an hour on Friday afternoon, March 17. Many were at the windows to witness the procession on St. Patrick's Day, and in all about forty-five persons lost their lives.

The bodies of the 336 Americans who perished in the Cuban and Porto Rican campaigns were brought to New York in April and interred at Arlington Cemetery, near Washington, with full military honours in the presence of President M'Kinley, the members of the Cabinet, and a numerous assembly.

Lynching of negroes in the South was increasing rather than diminishing. In the former slave States there remained a black population of nearly 7,000,000. The violent and illegal means taken to punish criminal negroes for their outrages on white women was increasing a disregard for law and order in the Southern States, while many whites were deterred from