The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-08-17
Baltimore SUM-

AbdlliIIlOTt sum-
Martin E. Pew, a writer for the News
Enterprise association, has recently
made personal investigation of the
conditions under which Colonel W. F.
Stewart, Coast Artillery corps, United
States army, is now living at Fort
Grant. Arizona, and in one article says
he wonders what crime this man could
have committed to merit such a pun
ishment inflicted upon him.
Mr.. Pew has, written several articles
on the subject that have recently been
published in California papers, and the
picture he draws of this officers life in
dilapidated building, with a negro
and sick white man for his only COM
panions, who share his quarters with
him, is sorry commentary on justice.
1t would seem from what Mr.. Pew
writes that convicted felons. the GRIM
inal insane and public indigents are
better housed, fed and generally cared
for than this army officer, who, to all
intents and purposes, is kept in close
confinement deprived of the enjoyment
of his office and rank without trial and
without even charges of any kind hav
ing been presented against him. This
situation has been caused presumably
at the instigation of a fellow officer,
now his senior in rank, who for many
years was outranked by Colonel Stew
art
Were Colonel Stewart convicted of
crime by a court-martial and sentenced
to confinement the designation of Fort
Grant, under the conditions there now,
as the place for the carrying out of the
sentence would be an inhuman act and
unexpected in our present civilization.
The conditions, of course, would be
different We're the post garrisoned.
Il I'D h.
driving twenty-six miles over the des
ert in a broiling sun, with tempera-
ture in the shade at Grant the day he
arrived there of III degrees; the build
| ings, long since abandoned, are rotting
and tumbling to pieces, the place is in
| tested with rattleSnakes and venomouS
| spiders and animals, and no surgeon is
at the post or in the vicinity to attend
! Colonel Stewart in case he meets with
| injury or sickness of any kind. The
absence of people in the neighbOrhood
makes it impossible to obtain proper
food or the ordinary comforts and ne
cessities of life A life of idleness in
such a place with no proper compan-
ionship of mankind is certainly a heavy
punishment to one who has been active
all his life and living in civilized COM
munities with his wife and family about
him, whose companionship he is now
deprived of
The reasons publicly given for de-
priving Colonel Stewart of his proper
! command and his exile from the world
are puerile, and are unworthy of no
tice in any public document. One rea-
son mentioned is that Colonel Stewart
| is a man who in civil life would under
no circumstances have. risen to any
position of authority over his fellow
men. Such a statement, of course,
must be but an opinion, and if suscep-
tible of proof. which it is not, it could
| have no bearing on Colonel Stewards
efficiency as an officer. 1t is seldom
that an army officer does make a sue
cess in civil life. For instance, it is
well known that General L. S. Grant
met with no success in civil life, yet
he was one of the greatest soldiers pro-
duced by the American armies.
Again it is stated that when in COM
mand of Fort Williams Maine, in 1905,
Colonel Stewart became embroiled with
"A civilian, a Mr.. Cushing, and that the
war department was obliged to inter-