The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-11
SENATOR FORAkER
 ON THE PRESIDENT I
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 Continuing the Senator said:
 Another session of Congress has just closed. There were numerous measures pending and acted upon with which the President was prominently identified. So far as I can recall, I supported every one of them. There was one matter, however, about which have taken a diff ferent view from him. I rezer to the discharge without honor of the members of Companies B c and D of the Twenty fifth United States infantry, on account of the shooting affray at Brownsville, Tex. This was an incident, not a policy. But it was an incident of such character I felt it my duty as a representative of the people of Ohio to do with respect to 1t what I have done
 'It was charged-and the President was made to believe-that certain men of the Twenty-fifth infantry had made mur- derous midnight assault on the sleeping citizens of Brownsville, Tex; that they had shot up the town, and that they had killed one man and wounded another, and put in jeopardy the lives of many He believed that this was done by a few but that others of the battalion knew and refused to disclose the>>identity of the men who did 1t.
 As result he ordered that the whole battalion should be dismissed without honor the innocent and the guilty alike; the guilty because they were guilty, the innocent because they could not be dis tinguished from the guilty.
 Among these men were old soldiers who had served many years; their service had been honest, faithful, gallant and dis tinguished. One of them had served con- tinuously for twenty-six years. In fifteen month more he could have retired on a pension for life. His service had been rendered not only on the frontiers of this country, but in Cuba and in the Philip pines. It had covered both war and peace. In all that long period not one single black mark had been registered against him. He had never been courtmartialed i, he had never been punished; he had never been even reprimanded
 His case is but an illustra ton, in a It. tie stronger degree, of many others All had acquired distinct and valuable rights and all these rights were swept away from them in an instant by an executive order which put them all alike in com mon disgrace, and sent them adrift among their countrymen, whom they had done so much to defend, branded as criminals who had either participated in the shoot ing or who had become accessories after the fact by protecting criminals who had
 "These men had been given no oppor- tunity to be heard. It seemed to me that no man in this country was so humble that he should not be given a day in court somewhere. or sometime. or some place to make his defense, confront his accusers and refute their testimony against him. end especially should soldiers have the benefit of such hearing
 "I believed that this was their right under the constitution. I did not be- lieve that even the President as com mander-ln-chief of the army had power to deprive them of this right.
 But, without regard to that question felt that they should have this opportuni- ty. I secured 1t for them.
 'I spoke repeatedly in favor of the proposition to have an investigation, but the record will be searched in vain to find one word of disrespect toward anybody from the President down to the humblest man figuring In any connection with the matter.
 Tt was with me simply a great, broad question of constitutional power on one hand and constitutional right on the other. It had been said that 1t was an effort to secure the negro vote It tries the pa tience to answer such charges-but that claim might be disposed of, one would think, by the simple statement that for more than thirty years have been hon. simply because, as in this case, I have always upheld their rights under the con- stitution and the laws.
 ''The Investigation has been in progress, 1t is not yet completed. I would prefer not to speak of the results until they have been fully determined; but chal- lenged as I am I do not hesitate to say that the testimony so far taken justifies the investigation. cannot here and now aualyze the testimony, but 1t is enough to say that the evidence already taken warrants the belief that not man in