The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1907-03-29

Major G. w. Penrose, who was in
command of the Twenty-ffth Infantry
stationed at Brownsville, Texas, at the
time of the famous raid" since his
acquittal by the military court that
ytried him for neglect of duty, has
something to say about the "affair,"
and that something is significant. He
is letting the cat out of the wallet"
in such a way as to make 1t decidedly
discomforting to those blatant muck
rakers who have rummaged the die
tionaries through for epithetical adjec-
tiyes to apply to the colored soldiers.
Listen! Maj. Renrose, few days
ago, in speaking of DR.. Fred Combe,
Mayor of Brownsville, Texas, said that
that courageous official and citizen of
the town put forth strenuous efforts
to stop a maudlin mob OF 300 from
making an attack on the United States
barracks occupied by three companies
of colored soldiers belonging to the
Twenty-ifth Infantry.
Mayor Combe, in pleading with this
hot-headed rabble not to precipitate
trouble, paid tribute to the intrepid
men in the barracks. He told the
rabble that their fury, If they per-
sisted in going to the attack, was In
sanity and suicidal He tried to inn
press them with the awful conse-
quences which would inevitably befall
their insane folly, by warning them of
the fact they would face in death |
l. ~ hAcf rrNf1itarxy
companies in the world. He told the |
mob that there could be one. ending to
the struggle and that would be their |
utter destruction.
Mayor Combe knew that the rabble
had not a ghost of chance to win
against those brave colored soldiers
trained to the minute-as great fight
ers, in his opinion, as could be found
anywhere on the earth. He was not
gushing over Negro courage, but was
telling those conceits whom he was
trying to dissuade from their foolhar-
dy impudence and imbecility plain,
unvarnished fact about those fighting
machines; for they were the same
men who swept up the hill at El
Carney and rushed the Spanlards' for
titled position at its summit and took
it, putting its defenders, those that
were not dead or wounded, to igno-
minious fight.
Mayor Combe succeeded in saving a
delicate situation by convincing the
bulk of that rabble that their "game"
meant suicide-utter annihilation.
That Mayor Combe saved the situa-
tion is to be inferred from what Maj
Penrose says: "If that mob had come
to the post that night, all could have
done would have been to defend my
self, and that would have meant the
ruin of Brownsville"
Mai Penrose says that he cannot
think of another man in Brownsville
who could have done what Mayor
Combe did, he was hampered from
start to finish.
If the soldiers "shot up" Browns {
vile, who were the 300 armed men
whom Mayor Combe met? Intent upon
what deviltry were they? Is it not l
more than likely that, though the ma {
iority of them was convinced that
they would be worsted in a fight with
he soldiers, some of the hotheads per
sisted in going on and doing some
shooting, despite all that had been
said and done?
What Mai. Penrose gives out through
The public press as having been told
1im by Major Combe is the strongest
possible circumstantial evidence that {
was raided by some OF
hose 300 hoodlums Of the town.
There was gang in Brownsville
who had made UP their minds that the
Negro soldiers must go; it mattered
not to what trickery they had to re-
sort, the soldiers must CO. and go they {
lid +
1t is a notorious fact that the white
man is a past master when 1t comes t
o making circumstances, conditions S
md situations fit his purposes.
Had 300 armed Negroes been met
md persuaded not to attack post oc-