Sunday Washington globe., 1902-04-06
The Presidents Vetos and Evans
Rulings.


fusing TO extend clemency IN two cases
where Congress passed bills to remove the
charge OF desertion in one case, aud to re-
move the charge of mutiny in another case.
Roosevelt vetoed the bills on the Southern
school book propaganda. The record in
those cases gives the President away,
whether Congress passes the bills over his
head or not. After forty years of severe
punishment inflicted on those bows for their
indiscretion in cases where the officers were
more 10 blame than the men, the Presidents
ranting indignation and cant, assumed in
his veto, sounds like horseplay. II is about
on a par with the execution (the semi
official murder of those nine Tennessee
volunteers, in profound peace in Alabama,
after the close of the war of 1872, because
they claimed thar their time was out A
wicked court martial ordered them shot and
the commanding general, without referring
il to any body, carried out the sentence.
Subsequent investigation showed that the
boys were entitled to discharge The
humane aud proper course would have been
to put the boys in the guard house for being
stubborn about their demands for a dis
charge This would have subserved all
discipline and justice The affair almost
cost Jackson his election; there was such a
storm. Jackson got out by being absent at
the time
The case Of the Tennessee boys was al
most parallel with the mutiny case which
Roosevelt vetoed last week. The officers
were in a quarrel with the boy, and
stubbornness was up on both sides. The
boy claimed that his time was out and
refused to go on dress parade, and re.
fused to hear the Lords Prayer read or
something liketh It was a case for the
guardhouse for both the officer and the boy.
He has been too severely punished already;
but granting all was regular il is high time
10 extend clemency and give the boy and
his descendants the benefit of any doubt in
the case. The records Of the Civil War
cOurt-martials disclose the most sickening
cruelties that can be found in our annals.
The facts are often disclosed in pension
cases where the most uDjustifable and
wicked course was pursued against mere
boys. Take the case at sea where the cap
tain of a war vessel hung a young boy
(Only son of the Secretary of the Treasury
on trumped up charge of mutiny within
eight hours sail Of our own port The boy
was twelve years old, aud the captain, after
condemning him TO death, put him in a
straight jacket over night in a bunk where
the temperature was II2, and the next
noruing told him to write farewell letter
to his mother. The captain supervised it,
and blue penciled every word about his in
nocence, and required the boy ,more dead
than alive with his nights tortured to re-
write the letter Then the boy was hung at
the yard arm with all the guns of the shin
manned and turned on him as measure of
precaution!
Take the recent case of cruel torture to
death of the soldier in the Philippine
Islands by military satrap, related in the
GLOBE last week. What would have been
done to that boy had he lived to be taken
before military court with that lieutenant
as the prosecuting witness. Roosevelt's cant
about Lincoln and all that is clear bosh
Lincoln would have signed the bill for
clemency. Congress got the better Of
Roosevelt on his own showing, and if
Roosevelt cares for a record, he has made
grave one against himself in that matter
He even takes false grounds against the
authority of Congress to pass a bill reliev-
ing against a judgment Of court-martial
An act Of Congress approved by the Presi-
dent or passed over his head, in the consti-
tutioual way, is the supreme law of the
land. Congress has power to interfere even
with the validity of contracts. No other
legislature in the United States has that
power. Courts cannot The President
cannot. State legislatures cannot The
Constitution gives Congress power to pass
bankrupt laws. This does not interfere
with the Presidents pardoning power The
power of the President to pardon does not
give him power to prevent the exercise Of
elemency by Congress.
These fads against the legal rights or mag.
nifying the peccadillos or petty faults OF
volunteers and other soldiers into heinous
crimes and pushing the soldier to the wall.
and getting into a quarrel with him, should
not be encouraged in the army nor tolerated
outside Of it. Take the rules in the Pen
sion Department to-day against re-enlisted
deserters. They violate every principle of
law in the United States Government and
in the laws of every state in the United
States Each administration takes the
privilege Of changing the legal rights OF
these re-enlisted deserters Of the Civil War
We have heretofore stated the civil or com
mon law of contracts which is the only
legal rule on the contract Of enlistment.
I The War Department holds these re enlist.
ments valid, as valid and binding as if the
soldier had not been deserter, where the
United States did not disafirm the enlist
ment before the second term expired.
That is the legal rule to day in the United
States and in every state of the United
States. It is the we'll known rule of void
able contracts. Take the Norton case, one
of the most wonderful of the many wonder.
full Of the Pension Department and was
clearly made 10 Evans order because the
decision is wholly in the syllabus, not