Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-12-14
Brownsville Again.

The Brownsville special message of the
President reports to the Senate in sub
stance that a confession of guilt has been
secured from Boyd Conyers soldier OF
B Troop, which duplicates in the crime
several other soldiers who are named
The President believes that all OF the
discharged colored soldiers had knowledge
of the criminals and concealed this knoWl-
edge. In respect to them he says:
II believe we can afford to reinstate
any of these men who now truthfully tell
what has happened. give all the aid they
can to fix the responsibility upon those
who are really guilty and show that they
themselves had no guilty knowledge be-
forehand and were in no way implicated
in the affair, save by having knowledge
of 1t afterward and falling and refusing
to divulge it. I recommend that
law be passed allowing the Secretary of
War to reinstate any of these
soldiers whom he, after careful examfna-
ton, finds to have been innocent and
whom he finds to have done all in his
power to help bring to Justice the guilty
In other words the President suggests
that those soldiers who will now confess
that they were accessories after the fact
to the Brownsville murder, and were
perjurers in their previous denials of
guilty knowledge. and will, turning states
evidence. swear to the guilt of those whom
they designate as the actual murderers.
should be reinstated i'm the United States
Army.
This procedure would be as unfair to
the public as the original wholesale dis
charge without honor was unfair to an
unknown percentage of the soldiers.
The President claims to have put his
hand upon the actual Brownsville muir
derers. Discharge from the army is not
sufficient punishment for these men. When
duly convicted, they should suffer the ex-
IRENE penalties of the law
No soldier who by proof or confession
is shown to be perjurer and accessory
to murder should be reinstated in the
United States Army. The penitentiary is
for such men.
The only negro soldiers who should be
reinstated are those against whom there
Is no proof either of participation in MUIR
der or of perjury to shield murderers. But
the burden is not upon these men to prove
their innocence. theoretically legal i'm
possibility. To justify their punishment
In any way their guilt should be demon
strated in accordance with law and not
merely by executive proclamation.
The President contends that this is not
guilty. but of separating the less guilty
from those whose guilt is heinous. If
Congress finds no colored soldiers in re-
spect to whom the presumption of inno-
cence is not overthrown or shaken by evil
dence, there should be no reinstatements.
If. however, Congress finds one soldier
who swears to his absence OF guilt both as
principal or accessory and against whom
there is no evidence or accusation whatso-
ever, he should be reinstated, and in JUS
tice the reinstatement should take effect
from the date of his discharge.
The only issue is as to the number of
such men whose discharge was an injus-
tice. The President thinks there are none
of them. Others think that there are
many of them; others still that there
are few of them. The exact number
is to be determined. 1t should not be
left to the entertainment of the exc ,u-
tive, who is committed to the theory that
the only acceptable evidence of innocence
OF the heinous crime is confession of guilt
Of a less grade.