The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-05-14
ADJUSTMENTS TODAY.
THE METALS
Mr.. RAYNER's SPEECH.

One of the neatest bits of irony that
has adorned the senate records in
many a day was Senator Rayner's
speech on the presidents exile of Col
onel William F. Stewart TO an aban-
doned army post in Arizona, because
Stewart would not apply for retirement
before he reached the age limit Sen
ator Rayner is particularly interested
in the case because Stewards wife is a
daughter of the late Senator WHITE of
Maryland, and he had had some cor
respondence with the president about
the case.
The presidents objection 10 Stewart
is that he has "temperamental infirmi-
ties" likes to have his own way, and
insists on discharging his duties as an
officer without interference Nothing
i'm the charges reflects on Stewards
character as a man or officer, yet he
has been sent into Arizona TO a post
where he has no cOmpaniOnship, where
the abode provided for him is unfit for
comfort and is Unsanitary. In reply To
applications for a board of inquiry.
Colonel Stewart has been advised thai
he is not entitled 10 such a board, that
he is subject to the arbitrary will of
the president. and that so long as he
refuses to apply for retirement i'm his
present rank he will be subjected To
such treatment as the president sees fit
To give him.
presidents charge of temperamental
infirmities, said: He (StewarD has
not the temperament of the president.
that fine system of adjustment that al
ways suggests restraint, caImness and
moderation. He thinks Colonel Stew
art should yield as he, the president
has done on similar occasions. 1t is
known the president never INDUCES in
forcible and vehement excelsior, either
in oral or written communications:
that he is free from many of the faults
Of the race, and that he has given US
the most serene and placid presidential
epoch we have ever been blessed with"
Blt, aside from the question of tenn
permanent, the presidents assumption
that he can do what he pIeases with
officers. unrestrained by constitutional
limitations; that an officer, situated as
Stewart is, has no means Of redress
when he suffers wrong at the hands of
the executive, is the real question at
issue. The president thinks il would
demoralize army discipline to grant
courts OF inquiry to contentious" Off
GERS. There have been innumerable
courts of inquiry, not only for officers
but for privates, in army history, and no
one before has ever advanced the no
ton that they demoralized discipline.
AS a matter of fact, if men are to have
no opportunity TO prove guilt or inno-
cence of charges made by superiors i'm
the army, then the army is on the same
autocratic footing the Prussian army
occupied when Old Friedrich William
was wont TO rap his officers over the
head with his rattan or poke them in
the nose playfully if they happened TO
displease his notion of military pro-
priety. That an American army officer
should be subjected to indignitv. his
personal rights denied, his constitu- |
tiOnal liberties abridged TO please the
executive temperament, would be ingl
credible if it were not a matter of pub /
lie discussion and record
Stewart may be 'temperamentalIv |
unfit" to command troops: he NAV be /
crotchety, he may have quarreled with /
a plumber and displeased his subordi- /
mates in army life He might have all !
these handicaps and yet he is an Amer
lean citizen, supposedly guaranteed the /
right of trial for wrongdoing, certainly
entitled to the fair play which is the /
common heritage of the American peo-
pie. He has had neither fair play nor
justice at the hands of the president: !
and the case is aggravated by the ex-
eeutive's assumption that his own |
opinion and will are superior to the |
laws of the nation governing the army |
and navy of which he is commander
in-chief.