Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-04-04
TELLS OF HIS. TESTS
Lieut.. HarboId Before the Sen.
ate Military Committee.
SEEING PEOPLE AT NIGHT
Determining the Possibility Of Recog-
nizing Soldiers.
SOME SURPRISING RESULTS
Value Of Testimony by the Citizens of
Brownsville Regarding the
Rioting Much Lessened.
SEEING PEOPLE At NIGHT
SOME SURPRISING RESULTS

SlDlHty OF recognizing those persons VINO
were engaged in shooting up Brownsville.
Tex. last August was given before the
Senate military affairs committee this
morning by Lieut.. Robert Patterson Har-
bold of the 25th Infantry, who had con-
Quoted experiments at Fort Macintosh in
order to determine to what extent soldiers
can be seen and recognized at night, and
also to determine whether the position Of a
marksman could be indicated by the pene-
tration of bullets fred from a Springfield
rifle. On the nights Of February 1s and
10 he had conducted these experiments
which showed that even on q moonlight
night. when he could read a typewriter
paper, 1t was almost impossible to recog-
nize a soldier or to tell whether he was
black or white. except by going extremely
close to him, and even then such recogni-
ton was not possible in every case.
He had a detachment Of men march into
the aroya, near the fort, where they were
~ feet below the officers and but four feet
away from them on horizontal line. The
officers could not distinguish these men.
could not tell what kind of clothes they
wore, whether they wore a SLOUGH hat or
cap, and even when the Springfield rifles
were fired the fash gave them no assist
ance. The only form of frearm that they
experimental with which produced a flash
that assisted in determining the clothing
OF the men was shotgun, firing black
powder.
Lieut.. Harbold conducted another expert
ment on March IL on a cloudless, starlit
night. On that occasion the men were
marched between the officers and a bar
racks lamp, the men being twenty-five feet
from the officers and the lamp ten or
twelve feet beyond. 1t was impossible
under those circumstances, to recognize
the men or to pick out the officers.
This line of investigation was undertaken
statements "
OF Brownsville concerning what they saw
on the night OF August Ii, when. accord
Ing to all the testimony that has been
given. it was very dark The effect of
these experiments Is to utterly vitiate such
testimony which was relied upon to
large extent in fixing the blame on the
colored soldiers for the shooting-up of
Brownsville.
Determining Bullets Direction.
Other experiments by Lieut.. Harbold and
other officers were to demonstrate whether
it would be possible to determine the direc
ton from which bullet came by the hole
it made in the houses at Brownsville. Very
many of the experiments which were re-
counted by him demonstrated that it would
be utterly impossible by such methods to
arrive at any trustworthy conclusion as
to the place from which bullets are fired.
He said that a bullet in striking wood might
go upward or downward. to the right or
at the moment 1t strikes the wood He
showed that bullets fired from high-power
rifles have an undulating motion which de-
termines the course the bullet takes
through an obstruction when the contact
Is made.
But even supposing that the hole through
the target would indicate the direction of
the bullet when fired, he said that at
tempts to sight through such holes gave
varying results as to the probable loca-
ton of the man who was firing the gun.
They had shown that the variation in cases
of bullets fired 300 yards from the board
amounted to as much as 100 yards-that is,
one officer would sight location at one
place and another would sight it 100 yards
away.
Testimony Made Valueless.
The bullet holes in the houses at Browns
vile had been carefully noted with the idea
that it would be possible to practically fix
the location of the men who fired the bull
lets. In the case of one of the holes the
testimony of Lieut.. Leckie tended to show
that the bullet had come from the direction
Of &c" barracks and that the gun had been
fired at an elevation of eight or nine feet
above the ground. The experiments made
by Lieut.. Harbold and Others if they are
accepted as conclusive, will practically rule
out all that line of testimony so far as any
importance attaches to 1t.
Maj. Penrose Cross-Examined.
Charles w. Penrose, who commanded the
battalion of negro soldiers of the 25th In
fantry charged with having "shot up"
Brownsville, was cross-examined by Sena-
tor Warner. The witness having testified
yesterday that on the morning following
the shooting he believed his men were
guilty, but that he was now convinced that
the men were innocent. he was asked:
when did you change your opinion on
the question of whether your men had been
implca ted in the shooting?"
''At about the conclusion of my court
Penrose.
Responding to a, request that he state
what fact caused him to reach the belief
that his men were innocent the major said
that few witnesses had been able to state
to his satisfaction that they had seen SOL
diers in town during the shooting. He said
that witnesses attempted to tell distances
at which they recognized soldiers and dis
tinguished uniformed men, which he de-
clared to be absolutely impossible on that
night, as 1t was very dark. The major
added to this explanation that his mind had
been undergoing a change for some time
before.
Couldn't Assign Motive.
In reply to a question by Senator Scott
the major said that he could conceive of
no motive for negro soldiers to 'shoot up
the town. and then, replying to a question
by Senator Warner. he said neither could
he conceive of a motive for citizens of
Brownsville to "shoot up their own town
From his experience as commander of
negro troops Mai. Penrose gave it as his
opinion that the race was secretive and If
there had been culprits In his command it
would have been impossible to have discov-
cred them while the negroes were under
pressure. He gave this as his reason for
having recommended to the War Depart
ment the removal Of restriction and the en-
listment Of negro detectives to ferret out
the guilty men. If there were guilty ones in
the command.
Concerning the Springfield shells found in
the alley outside the garrison wall by Cant
Macklin on the morning following the shoot
ing, Maj. Penrose said he took two of them
in his hand and they looked as If they had
been exploded recently, although he had
not made an examination with view to de-
terInining when the shells had been ex-
ploded. A great deal Of testimony has
been offered to show that II was possible
these shells might have been taken to
Brownsville from target practice at Fort
Niobrara. ....s
Maj. Penrose's Story.
Maj. Charles w. Penrose, who command
ed the negro soldiers composing the bril-
gade charged with shooting up Brownsville,
was before the committee yesterday after