The daily Alaska citizen., 1919-08-22
BLAChJACkS IN AN ARMY OF FREEDOM
lChristian Science MOnitor.D ]

NIlI lNlItI ,NNItIlNt NlOIlllOl.
 It is not at all pleasant, for Americans who take a proper pride in the work of the hundreds of thousands of young men who served with the cOIoro in the European war, to be told that conditions of discipline for those young men were not all that they should have been. 1t is somewhat di,heartening for any body of people who felt that the American army was bieng used in the cause of world justice and world liberty to hear that the conditions within that army itself were not altogether such as accord with liberty and justice. Yet if there was anything Wrong if there is anything tangible vchind some of the complaints that are being brot back from over seas by the American soldiers, it is only fitting that somebody should do just what Congress- man Frederick w. DaIIingcr. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is now doing in the United States house of representatives and bring the facts before the public.
 Apparently the Massachusetts congress- man is satisfied with the good faith of those who have brot this army situation to his at tentlOn. He appears to feel that his inform ants have spoken from some motive vastly more considerable than any feeling of petty malice or revenge And where there is so much smoke as now appears to be rising from the neighborhood of these charges, 1t would not be surprising to discover more or less tire.
 From all that can be gathered so far, certain officers of the American expedition ary force in France allowed their efforts to enforce discipline to lead them into practices of such cruelty and brutality as merit, in Congressman DaIIinger's opnon characteri- zatlon as "horrors that hark back to barbar- ism.' It is charged that men were whipped beaten with "blackiacks" for comparatively tritling oflenses that soldiers in the prison camps were pounded ill the face for such a matter as being out Of line; that men were herded ln stables, so closely that in some in stances as many as sixteen were forced to sleep within the confines of a tWO-horse stall It IS charged also that money and personal possessions were taken from the men with lit tie or no pretenst of accounting therefor by any record and that 1t was a common thing to "see a sergeant knock man down or beat him up on the slightest provocation"
 Perhaps there would be somewhat less readiness to give Credence to statements of th1s nature Ii they were the first that had been made with respect to the methods and praC- tees ot American officers ln their dealings with enlisted men during the period of the war. But, unfortunately, these things are no novelty. The disclosures in connection with court-martial procedure were sufficient to un- settle the national confidence with reference to the conduct of officers, if they were not enough actually to give the impression that, amongst a large number of relatively young and inexperienced men, the sudden opportun- lty to exercise authority in large way led swiftly to the abuse of that authority.
 If the disclosures as to courts-martial were not the whole story, if there is more and worse yet to be told, let Us, in spite of the shame of 1t, have it all now. Without any question, the people of the United States want to know the worst that their boys in service had to put up with. They want to know it without delay, and without regard to the per- sons that may become involved Things are at sorry pass, indeed if an army of free men in this day and generation must still be saddled with the disciplinary notions of bar barrie past.