Perth Amboy evening news., 1907-01-15
NOSEVEL1
, is DEFIANT
Special Message on Shooting Up
at BrOWMiIIe --RelOkes Bar
IltOsCiViI EMPLOY nent.

WASHINGTON, jam Is. Taking
but a brief time to pass the legislative
executive. and judicial Appropriation
bill, carrying nearly $31 100000, the
senate devoted the remainder of the
session to the Brownsville affray.
President Roosevelt's message, ac-
companied by many additional afida-
Wits, a ~bandoleer. a cigar box of bullets
and empty cartridge shells, was receiv-
ed, read and ordered printed.
Senator Mallory, indorsing the action
of the president, opened the discussion.
He held that the president might have
gone too far in preventing the re-en-
llstment of the soldiers involved, but
otherwise he approved the presidents
order of discharge.
When Senator Clay, who followed,
took the floor the debate was given a
lively turn by Mr., Tillman's Interrupt
tons. Mr.. Clay said the people of
Georgia heartily Endorsed the presi-
dents order. Senator Bacon followed
with what he said was reported as a
precedent for the Brownsville disorder
in the discharge of a company Of
South Carolina national guardsmen by
Senator Tillman wban he was gov
ernor. This involved Senator Tillman
again in the debate.
president Roosevelt's special message
deals with the Brownsville incident
and gives the additional evidence col
lected by Assistant Attorney General
Purdy and Major Blocksom, who were
sent to Texas by him to investigate
the affair. midnight assessing the
president calls the negro troops accus-
ed of shooting up the town on the
night of Aug. 13, and he declares not
only that the evidence is positive that
the outrages were committed by some
Of tie colored troops of the Twenty
fifth infantry, but that some oil all Of
the members of the three companies
discharged without honor had knowl-
edge of the deed and have shielded the
guilty ones.
That part of the order which bars
the soldiers from all civil employment
under the government is revoked by
the president on the ground that it was
lacking in validity. The discharged
troops, however, will be forever barred
from re-enlisting in the army or navy,
and as to this the president says,
There is no doubt of my constitu-
tional and legal power"
After rehearsing the various out
RACES, including murder, assault with
intent to kill, shooting into houses and
at women and children and the wound
ing Of a citizen, the president cites the
probable motive of previous trouble
between citizens and soldiers, COM
plants against the latter and the con-
sequent confinement of the soldiers
within the limbo of the fort on the
evening of the day in question.
''The evidence shows beyond any pos
sibility of honest question that some in
diyiduals among the colored troops
whom l have dismissed committed the
outrages mentioned and that some of
all of the other individuals whom l
dismissed had knowledge of the deed
and shielded from the law those who
committed it.
1.-The only motive suggested as posi-
bly, influencing any n else was a de-
sire to get rid of the colored troops, SO
strong that it lmpelled the citizens Of
Brownsville to shoot up their own
houses, to kill one of their W number,
to assault their own police. wounding
the lieutenant, who had been an officer
for twenty years-all with the purpose
of discrediting the negro troops. The
suggestion is on it's face so ludicrously
impossible that it is difficult to treat it
as honestly made.
This theory supposes that the assail-
ants succeeded in obtaining the uni
form of the negro soldiers; that before
starting on their raid they got over the
fence of the fort unchallenged and
without discovery by the negro troops
opened fire on the town from within
the fort; that they blackened their
faces so that at least fourteen eyewit-
nesses mistook them for negroes; that
they disguised their voices so that at
least six witnesses who heard them
speak mistook their voices as being
those of negroes.
1.-The ammunition used was that of
the Springfield rifle and no other and
could not have been used in any gun
in Texas or any part of the Union or
in Mexico or in any part of the world
save only In the Springfield, now used
by the United States troops, and by
no other persons save those troops
Ia weapon which had only been in use
by the United States troops for four
or five months prior to the shooting in
question and which is not in the pos
session of private citizens.
1.-The cartridges used will go into one
other rifle used in the United States
when specially chambered-the Win
chester of 1895 model-butit will rare
ly If ever go off when in 1t, and, more
over, the bullets picked out of the
buildings show the markings of the
four SO called lands which come from
being fired through Springfield army
rifles. This of itself establishes the
fact that the a%ssailants were. United
States soldiers and would be conclu-
sive on this point If not one soldier
had been seen or heard by IL resi-
a--k- - n.-.~.ffo -. A. .s-tA -