The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-06-01
A PLAGUEY PRECEDENT.

The consequences Of a hasty act are
never quite appreciated at the time the
act is done Here. for instance, Presi.
dent Roosevelt is confronted with an
other conspiracy Of silence II will
/ be remembered that when the town Of
! Brownsville, Texas. was "shot up a
battalion of the Twenty Gfth infantry
Ga negro regiment) was charged with
| doing the villainous work. But when the
! War Department undertook to find out
about it, no member of that battalion
would admit that he had been engaged
! in the shooting or that he knew of any.
| body else that had been engaged in it.
So all efforts to get from the troops
of that battalion any information about
| the shooting at Brownsville utterly
failed. The President assumed, guided
by outside probabilities, that it must
have been the soldiers OF this battalion
! that did the shooting at Brownsville; I;
but as he could not prove it and as the
members of that battalion remained ob-
durate in their silence, none either con
( Tossing as to himself or testifying as
TO any other, the President peremptorily
! dismissed the battalion from the service,
accompanied with a long lecture in
which the refusal of the troops to tes.
! tify was treated In scorching language.
| IL may be added, by the way, that the
Senatorial inquiry into the facts of that
case is Just now under way, with fair
prospect of getting at the inside Of the
whole matter.
But now there is another case pre-.
cisely like il in principle. Major Ayres,
Of the Eighth United States cavalry,
! preferred charges of INSTRUMENTATION
and personal misconduct against five of
the officers Of that regiment just before
it sailed from the Philippines for the
| United States. The court-martial ap-
pointed to try these five officers was
met by the stubborn refusal of the en-
listed men TO give any testimony
against the officers charged by Major
Ayres with misconduct and military Of
| fenses The official report of that court
martial states plainly that the men Gre
fused under examination to disclose
facts supposed TO be in their possession,
aud the ceurt-martial had perforce to
adjourn And so the same blank wall
was run into by this court-martial that
stopped the procedure in the courtmar-
tial convened to inquire into the
Brownsville case.
The Eighth cavalry officers are now
III this country and still under arrest,
IL n
in their case and on the general PROPOSE
ton. is anxiously awaited by those con-
cerned, II is an interesting question
also TO the public; for if battalion of
colored troops can be peremptorily dis
missed in disgrace from the service for
refusing to ''disclose facts supposed to
be in their possession" how can the
President refuse to mete out the same
peremptory punishment to the organiza
tions in which are found these enlisted
men who, by thor conspiracy of ST.
lence,' hide the "facts supposed to be
in their possession" to the injury of the
live officers against whom Major Ayres
preferred the charges indicated?
There would seem to be no difference
whatever in the two eases, except that
in the one case the troops were black.
and IN the other they are white; and
the action of the President in the case
of the Eighth cavalry affair Will be
somewhat of test Of his consistency
and courage. If he treats the white
soldiers as he did Che black soldiers, Of
course there is only one thing for him
to do. II he docs not treat the white
soldiers as he did the black soldiers,
the question will naturally arise, why!
Their olfense is precisely tho same, the
principle involved is identical, and there
is no reason whatever, aside from the
question of color, why the identical of
fense in one set OF troops should be
ignored. and in the other case punished
with disgrace.
II is ease in which the square
deal Will be put TO Il square test.