The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-20
nL.-ADvpsED eLEMENCY.

From a Republican contemportry, The
 New Bedford Standard. we take the following:
 the urgent personal recommendation of President Roosevelt, passed | special
 act restoring to duty three midship-
 men of the naval academy who had dismissed under the provisions of law which provides that there shall be no appeal from such sentence. As we of the president and congress are to be | summed up in the old saving that boys | will be boys" and that therefore they
 an outburst of youthful animal spirits. The tenderness and leniency shown l were purely sentimental. Yet a bad practical result followed. Reduced to its cold details. the three young men were guilty of wilfui dis- obedience to a thoroughly well unasT tstood rule Of the academy---a rule which
 bounS o so rsspee They were dubftably guilty. and the consequences which they must have fully known: them had taken a hatchet and chopped off his hand. This dismissal from the academy was no arbitrary punishment | inflicted by power which had rign. came in the natural and regular course ! of events, and the president and con. gress intervened exactly in the role or the good genii,, who might be possess ed of whim to restore the severed hand. Naturally. the young men must have congratulated themselves nightly
 on thsir escape iron aa pbnm nSst baWe decided that their offense was not so criminal, after all. This seems to have
 been the impression that has prevailed no surprise at the stories which come
 of revival of hazing. and that of the
 most brutal type. MT: Roosevelt and and encouraged the practice by their in. tervention in behalf of tho convicted midshipmen.
 It matters little what motives gov
 erned the President and Congress, so far as results are concerned, for both
 were guilty of an actual wrong. and, as The Standard says. evil consequences followed, as might have been expected. No spacious reasoning can justify haz-
 ing or make it anything but brutal and cowardly practice. It is brutal be- cause it generally results in serious injury to the victim. and often in death. It is cowardly because number of men or boys attack and mistreat single one. If crowd of men should set on another in the street or on public highway and seriously injure him there would be no question in any mind as to the cowardice and brutaii- ty of the act, for all would admit it. Hazing. in most instances. has the same features and clements that such an act as we have intimated would have. In both the strong take an un- fair advantage of the weak
 But, as The Standard points out, there is another feature that should not be lost sight of. If these young men
 had been dismissed for robbery or other crime the President would not have recommended their re-instate- ment. nor would Congress have pass ed bill for that purpose, but in one respect the cases are similar. They were guilty of wilful disobedience of
 the regulations of the college. in ad- dition to their brutal hazing act. Their punishment was necessary for the good of discipline and for the mainte- nance of the standard of honor demand ed in the positions they are expected to occupy in future. The intervention of the President was ill-considered and the act of Congress improper and in- furious