Arizona republican., 1919-08-02
FEWWESTERNERS IN PRISON CAMP
 ASSERTS WRIGHT
Westerners cry Few in Pris- on Camps =. Fasteners Gave Trouble-Lieut. F. J. Wright Charges 45,0O0 A. w. O. L. During Ar gonne Drive

to the men who passed through the prison farms declared Lieutenant Fred J. Wright yesterday when inter viewed as to his experiences in the vicinity of prison farm No. ?, com manded by Lieutenant F. H. Hard Boiled" Smith. "Of all the thousands of men who same through my hands at the receiving camp where we sorted out various offenders. probably less than 100 were from the west. It was the men from the east, the ill-nourish- ed, poorly educated product of the slums, who gave Smith his trouble.
 q am positive Colonel Grin
 stead's statement was never meant
 to apply to the stalwart patriotic
 westerners, 99 per cent of whom
 did their duty and never heard of
 prison farm No. 2
 Lieutenant Wright was formerly an intelligence officer of the 15Sth in- fantry, the regiment Colonel Grinstead commanded and of which Smith was a member. During the time of the prison farms Lieutenant Wright was in charge of the receiving and evacuat- ing station, through which all men being sent to the various prison farms passed. At this station all men were sorted and checked up as they came from the military police of Paris, and then sent to the different farms. Those charged with desertiJn or with being A w. O. L." (absent without leave). were sent to farm No. ?. commanded by Lieutenant Smith, who is now serv | ing an IS months sentence on Gov ernor's Island, New York.
 Deserters at Farm
 Farm No. ?, in charge of Lieutenant F. H. Hard Boiled Smith" said Lieu tenant Wright was designated to re- ceive men charged with desertion and A. w. O. l.. (absent without leave). That was the type of men sent there. I saw them all, checked them up as they came from the military police at Paris, and sent them to the various farms '
 Most of these men were the product of the slums of eastern cities, caught in the draft. Easily 75 per cent of them were either foreigners of one | sort or another, or men of the malcon- tent type, I. W. W.s and the like. They were not westerners; the west erners were not that kind of men. Of all the thousands that passed through my hands I am confident that less than 100 were from the west, and most of them, believe, were picked up by mis- Jdhe DN lfe M- r. Tn fdTlS Wnlie they were transferring from incoming to outgoing trains. Most of the men sent to that farm were bad.
 There are a lot of things the public does not know about this mans army continued Lieutenant Wright. For in stance, I know of one man who passed through my hands and was sent 10 the farm II times. He would be caught A. W. O. L., sent to the farm, re-equip ped and sent to join his command. He would throw away his equipment. jump off the train and beat it. only to be picked up again. He simply would not fight. He was not d fighting man, not a patriotic American. And there were hundreds, thousands. like him. But they were not the type of men we took from Arizona
 Fortyfive Thousand Ran Away .J Many people never heard that
 there was an official statement is-
 sued from headquarters that at one
 time, in the Argonne drive, 45,o00
 men from the A. E. E. were A. w.
 O. L., which simply means that
 45,000 men had slipped away from
 the front in one of the most criti-
 cal periods of the war, to avoid
 doing their duty, to avoid risk.
 because they were afraid. But
 they were not Arizonans."
 Lieutenant Wright described the re ceiving and evacuating station as be ing merely the space be tween railroad tracks. Here, 15 miles from Paris. at Chelles and Vaers Torsi, he received from SO to 200 men 6 night. listed and classified them, and sent them to the different farms. He had, he states. practically no trouble with them. As the men came back from the farms. equipped for service, he shipped them out. and states unequivocally that he never saw any evidence of mistreat- ment of the men, regardless of their hard boiled character
 'I saw the farm and it's occupants many times" continued Lieutenant Wright and never saw any evidence of anything worse than general dis comfort, This applied equally to the soldiers and guard and the men in con finement. In my opinion the whole thing was a matter of lack of person. ' mel to handle the large number con- siantly being sent to the farm, and of lack of equipment. The equipment was ! requisitioned all right, but it was dreadfully slow in arriving At one time the place got so congested that General Strong got permission to ship
 out 1000 of the men to their own units without equipment, as he e;d not 2 have it and the various headquarters | did.
 , Defends Smith , AS to Smith, do not know wheth- ! CT he. was or was not guilty of mis-
 conduct, but this I do believe. that D whatever he did was the thing he was : convinced should be done. I myself
 started the Investigation of Lieutenant D Red" Mason, one of Smiths assis- tants, that resulted in his dishonorablc
 :,sel-rge. He attempted to assault f two of my sergeants while intoxicated. l They evaded him and went to their ' billets. and he followed them and tried to break into the house, cursing and villifying them. They reported the v matter to me and I had the investiga- . tion started that got him out of the s service. One of these men lives right n here in Phoenix and will corroborate |; this statement. As to Smith robbing the men. in . my opinion he never had a chance If
 anybody robbed them the M. P.'s did that. They were bad bunch. Many r times envelopes came down with the e prisoners marked as containing many