by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

The Capital Journal’s headlines for the day:

CONDITIONS AT THE FRONT ARE BEYOND ALL DESCRIPTION
Trenches Are Filled With Water and Many of Them Have Caved In
SOLDIERS GUNS ARE OUT OF COMMISSION
English Eye Witness Sees Many Things Probably Through English Glasses

TENNESSEE ON HER WAY TO ALEXANDRIA
Is Taking Refugees Mostly British and French from the Danger Zone

Washington, Dec. 28. – Captain Decker, of the United States cruiser Tennessee, cabled Secretary of the Navy Daniels today that a he was transporting 500 refugees of different nationalities from Jaffa to Alexandria. No mention was made by Captain Decker of a report that an American cruiser had threatened to bombard the port of Tripoli, Syria.

On the editorial page, the comments by Captain Collins, published on the 26th confirm the
editor’s opinion of militarism:

Captain R. W. Collins, of the U. S. Coast Artillery corps, in his report to Adjutant General Finzer, shows that he is himself an example of the danger of militarism. He asserts that those who do not believe in bigger armies and preparing for war are undesirables, and intimate they should be run out of the country. It is inferred from the tone of his remarks that he would like the job of doing the running. The doughty captain overlooks the fact that in this great land there are men of all beliefs and the same division of opinions. His rabidness shows that he is of the most dangerous class of these, for he would deprive the citizens of having or expressing an opinion about military affairs, and probably about any others unless they did their thinking with the captain’s thinker.