Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-06
WAS NOT A PUNISHMENT
Men Dismissed for the "Good of thu
Service"
REGARDED AS DANGER0U!
Claims That the Battalion Could Not
Be Assigned for the Protection
Of Any Community.

In his annual report Secretary Taft de-
votes considerable space to a defense and
explanation Of the course Of the President
in connection with the discharge without
| honor from the military service of the bat
talon of the 25th Infantry, which was sta
toned at Brownsville, Texas, last summer.
| The Secretary details the events OF the
night of August 49, involving the "shoot-
ing I'D of the town of Brownsville by
anywhere from nine to twenty members OF
this battalion. He is very severe in his
| condemnation of the commissioned Of
fcers of the battalica for failing to dis
cover and report the perpetrators of the
outrage and of the enlisted men of the
battalion who. by maintaining silence.
when, as lie says. they should have known
the guilty parties, connived at the crime.
He details the events at brownsville as
revealed by the Darlington and Blocksonl
investigations and says in part:
Under these circumstances the question
arises. Is the government helpless? Must
1t continue In its service battalion many
of the members of which show their will
ingness to condOne a crime OF capital
character committed by from ten to TWEEN
ty of its members and put on a front OF
silence and ignorance which enables the
criminals to escape just punishment?
These enlisted men took the oath of alleg1-
ance to the government, and were TO pc
used under the law to maintain its su-
premacy. Can the government properly,
therefore, keep in it's employ for the pur-
pose of maintaining law and order any
longer a body of men, from to 10 per
cent of whom plan and commit murder
and rely upon the silence of a number of
their companions to escape detection?
Why the Innocent Suffer.
1T may be that in the battalion are a
number of men wholly innocent, who know
neither who the guilty men are nor any
circumstances which will aid in their de-
lection, though this cannot be true of many.
Because there may be innocent men in the
battalion must the government continue
to use it to guard communities of men.
women and children when it contains SO
dangerous an element impossible of detec-
ton? Certainly not. When man enlists
in the army he knows that. for the very
purpose of protecting itself. the government
reserves to itself the absolute right of dis
charge, not as a punishment, but for the
public safety and interest. In such case
as this the inconvenience and hardship to
those innocent of participant ton or knowl-
edge. arising from arbitrarily terminating
the contract of enlistment in accordance
with the right which the government by
statute reserves, must be borne by them in
the public interest. 1t goes without say
ing that if the guilty could be ascertained
they should and would be punished but
the guilty cannot be ascertained and the
very impossibility of determining who are
the guilty makes the whole battalion use
less to the government as an instrument
for maintaining law and order. The only
means of Kidding the military service of a
band of would-be murderers of women and
children. and actual murderers of one man.
is the discharge of the entire battalion
Dangerous Men.
Might not any community into which
the War Department should send this bat
talon, in which 1t is known that there are
from nine to twenty murderers, justly
complain that the battalion is not a proper
instrument for maintaining the supremacy
of the law? Could we properly send such
a battalion to the Philippines or Cuba to
maintain peace or furnish an example of
orderly conduct? If a similar outbreak
were there to occur, could we relieve our
selves from responsibility for it on the
theory that we could not detect the par