Evening star., 1925-11-23
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC HILLI4N VILE.

However and whenever the Mitchell
affair ends. one thing is already
foregone conclusion. 1t is going 70
leave many and deep scars through
out both the Army and the Navy. IN
the fierCeneSs of combat old friend
ships have been disrupted, lOyaltieS
shattered, suspicion aroused ana bad
blood generally diffused among men
and among women, too, for the service
wives become magnifcently partisan
on controversial occasions. 1t was
many years before the animOSities en-
gendered by the Sampson-Schley
fracas were buried. If we still lived
in the days of Aaron Burr and Alex
ander Hamilton. it is almost certain
that Billy Mitchell would have his
hands full fighting duels. One OF the
first challenges would probably reach
him from Mai. Gen Charles Pelot
Summerall, who retired from the court
martial after one of Mitchell's opening
thrusts. Admiral William s. Sims,
who had a large crop of them before,
has acquired a new batch of enemies
because of his testimony in the Mitch
ell case The old sea dogs allegation
that half a dozen high rankin ad-
mirals are unfit. hide bound and I'M
educated" has churned up bitter re
sentiment in the Navy, eSpecilly among
some of Sims wartime associates.
"A Leonard. a Leonard, My king
dom for a Leonard might we'll be
the War Department paraphra,Se of
King Richard Ills prayer, in the
light of current events. Professional
observers say that if the general staff
had a ''two-fiSted, one-armed marine
like Maj. Henry Leonard, L. s. NJ. c.,
retired, to function as judge advocate
at the Mitchell court-martial some
recent painful history might have
gone unrecorded. Maj. Leonard is
the pinch hitter the Navy threw into
the breach the other day as judge
advocate at the Shenandoah inquiry,
to supersede Capt. Paul Foley
year after Leonard, native son of
Washington, D. c., joined the Marine
Corps in 1899 he had his left arm
shot off in action during the Boxer
rebellion in China. But he remained
a leatherneck until his formal re-
tirement in 1911. When the World
War broke out, despite physical dis
ability, Leonard sought active Serv
ice and was commissioned as morale
officer among our forces in the Eu-
ropean battle zone on land and sea.
Being minus an arm doesn't particu-
larly bother Leonard. He can do
almost anything a two-armed man
Cdn uO, lHCluulnS lIic ulINllS VI a
high-powered automobile.
X X X
Representative Meyer Jacobstein,
Democrat, of the Rochester, n. y,
district, which recently tried to con-
vert him from a Congressman into
mayor. is house hunting in Washing
ton. The other day Jacobstein asked
Coolidge to designate Hoover as set
tier of the coal strike. The Congress
man was reminded of that while in
specting an apartment in the Capital.
The landlord was anxious to do bust
ness with Jacobstein and as a special
argument, assured him that there
was plenty of coal in the building 3
bins to keep tenants warm all
Winter.
X !: * x
Fifth avenue had one of the rudest
shocks in it's luxurious existence when
1t learned, last week, that Mrs. Cool
idge was going to spend her after
noon in New York looking at old fur
niture at the Metropolitan Museum
instead of new clothes in the shops.
The whole retail organism of the
metropolis, from proprietors to bob
bed-haired. saleswomen, was set" for
the Firss1 Lady Of the land. They