The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-03-03

was at the close of the Civil War.
And any political party which fails to
take them into account win bite the
dust.
The present administration isn't
going unscathed. The boys have put
up with some pretty raw treatment at
times, but their turn is coming at the
ballot boxes. Somebody's going to
catch it for the unjust punishments
especially which have been metered
out under the excuse of military nee
essity. This is still free country
even if 1t does have to raise an army
occasionally to help make the world
behave.
Here's some mighty interesting
reading on this subject:
Two days before the publication of
Mr.. Lanes account of the uprising at
Fort Leavenworth, excerpts from
which are given in the preceding ar
ticle, Brig.-Gen. Samuel T. Ansell,
Acting Judge Advocate of the Army,
gave testimony before the Senate Mil
itary Committee that strongly favor
ed justice for the Hundreds of men
who have been unjustly sentenced. .
He is quoted in special despatch to
the New York Times, under date of
February 10:
NThe sentences imposed for slight
ofenses by the courts-martial have
shocked every sense of JUSTICE" said
General Ansell. "They have reached
the heights of injustice. The sem
fences in many instances bore no rea-
sonable relationship to the offenses
committed.
"For forty years the Army has been
cursed with red tape in its court
martial proceedings" said General
Ansell. "Terrible injustices have been
inflicted upon small offenders. The
whole system is wrong.
81 realize that / am arraigning an
institution to which / belong. But
| am doing it so that ample justice
may be done the men in the ranks.
We need more humanity in our judg-
ment Of their offenses. We have not
shown it. For the sake of our men
and their families we must put an
end to this cruel system, and we must
do it at once"
As result of General Ansell's evil
dence, says The Times, Secretary
Baker will be called before the COM
mittee within the next few days. He
will be asked, for one thing, as to his
attitude regarding conscientious OBJ
jectors, who, it was intimated at
the hearing, had been treated with
extreme leniency by the Secretary,
while men in she Army were being
heavily punished for offenses such as
declining to- drill when tired out. The
account continues:
Senator Frelinghuysen, of New Jer-
sey, brought up the Secretary's atti-
tude toward conscientious DIRECTORS
when he asked General Ansell why
the Secretary of War had agreed to
their being honorably discharged
from the Army at the same time that
men on the firing line were being
committed to long terms in Jail for
trivial lapses.'
MAY I be excused from answer
ing?" asked General Ansell. at
might embarrass me"
eve will have the Secretary here y
said Senator Chamberlain Gle can
tell us about it."
General Ansell undertook the pow
er Of review over court-martial, he
said, after the case had come before
him of twelve non commissioned Off
GERS who had been dishonorably dis
charged from service and had been
sentenced to from three to seven
years for "lainor disagreement" in
one of the army camps with some
West Point soldiers. He found au-
thority, he said, under the law of
1862, to review the court-martial ver-
dict, and, after going into the evil
dence, set the sentences aside and
restored the men to duty.
81 wrote the Secretary of. War
about it, said General Ansell. 81