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Chicago Daily Tribune
THE WORLD'S GREATEST NEWSPAPER
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29,1925

OUST 3 JUDGES AS MITCHELL'S DEFENSE OPENS

Coolidge Speech Is Colonel's Foil.

BY JAMES O'DONNELL BENNETT

[Chicago Tribune Press Service.]
(Pictures on back page.)
Washington, D. C., Oct. 28-[Special.]-Congressman Frank R. Reid Aurora, Ill., played the Count Monte Cristo with devastating effect in the Mitchell court martial drama which opened in an abandoned census bureau shack at the foot of Capital hill this morning.

He is Col. Mitchell's civilian counsel and he worked fast.

"One," said he, in the manner o the avenging Monte Cristo - and o the court went Brig. Gen. Albert Jess Bowley, 50 years old, veteran of the siege of Santiago de Cuba and her of the St. Mihiel and Muese-Argonn offensives.

[[bold]]Charge Bias and Prejudice.[[/bold]]

The population that sent him out into the sunshine resting softly on Capitol hill was the sustaining by his twelve brother officers on the court of Reid's peremptory challenge that Gen Bowley was unfitted by "prejudice, hostility, bias and animosity to the accused" to fairly and justly try the said accused.

"Two!" said the Aurora avenger - and off went Maj. Gen. Fred Winchester Sladen, 58 years old, superintendent of the U.S. Military academy at West Point and another hero of the Spanish-American war and the Meuse-Argonne offensives.

Propulsion and the reasons for it the same as in the exit just preceding. 
Now there were eleven officers left on the court.

[[bold]]Disturbs Their Poise.[[/bold]]

Rigid men, and accustomed to masking their emotions, they, nevertheless, moved a little uneasily in their places at the long table, paid the two empty chairs the tribute of furtive glances, and looked at Reid as at one possessing uncanny powers of probably an incorrect and certainly of a highly unmilitary nature.

"Three!" said Reid - and off went, angry through and through, and not concealing it, Maj. Con. Charles Pelot Summerall, 58 years old, who, at Soisons, kept his troops in battle for five days and that was two days longer than any other troops stayed in battle, who, in the Argonne, kept the first division advancing when it was the only division that was advancing, who, as commander of the 5th army corps, broke the German line on Nov. 1, 2918, and who wears today both the Distinguished Service Medal and the Distinguished Service Cross.

Propulsion the same as in the two instances preceding.

[[bold]]Named by Coolidge.[[/bold]]

But the amazement in the courtroom was now triple ply, because Gen. Summerall had been by the President of the United States designated as president of the court, and, for as much as half an hour, had been so acting.

The Dumas reincarnation briefly rested. Having reduced from 13 to 13 the court that is to try Col. William Mitchel, 46 years old, air service, "commander at St. Mihiel of the largest aero concentration in the history of the world" - his own words and he likes them - and wearer today of the Distinguished Service Medal and the Distinguished Service Cross, charged with "conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline," and with "a statement insubordinate," and with "a statement highly contemptuous and disrespectful" - having, to repeat, thus reduced the number of judges, Mr. Reid felt he had a right to rest - briefly.

[[bold]]Ask and Grant No Favors.[[/bold]]

Congratulated during the luncheon hour by Mitchell partisans, who are numerous and jubilant on this scene, his comment on his victorious skirmishing was characteristically gritty in tone and abrupt in phrasing. It was:

"Well that's the way we are going through with this thing. We ask no favors and we grant none."

In the afternoon Mr. Reid resumed, extracts from the speech of the President of the United States to the cadets at Annapolis last June being part of his ammunition. In that speech, Calvin Coolidge said:

"The officers of the navy are given the fullest latitude in expressing their views before their fellow citizens, subject, of course, to the requirements of not betraying those confidential affairs which would be detrimental to the service. It seem to me perfectly proper for any one, on any suitable occasion, to advocate the maintenance of a navy in keeping with the greatness and dignity of our country."

That passage is to be one of the pillars of the Mitchell defense structure.

Reid's contention is that Mitchell incited no soldier to mutiny, that he slandered no individual, and that he named no individuals in his charges of "incompetency," "ignorance," and "almost criminal negligence" in the handling of our air service.

In short, that he only exercised his inalienable and constitutional right as a citizen to talk with and plead with his countrymen that they see to it that the affairs of their country, military or civil, are properly conducted and adequately developed.

That much, Reid told the court, not only a citizen but an officer may do, "and," as the gritty lawyer put it to the array of bernedaled generals before him, "the President of the United States, who is my commanding officer and your commanding officer, says he may do it."

[[bold]]Cites Mitchell's Criticisms.[[/bold]]

Taking up again the tenor of the criticisms by Mitchell, which have startled the country for months, Held said:

"The utterances of the accused have create no disorder or disrespect within the area of his command, and it is only or such an offense that he could properly be tried. There are no charges by the commander of the corps area in which criticisms were uttered that the utterer of them had caused a breach of the peace. His statements constituted no offense, and, hence, they are not cognizable by this court.

"The accused was only exercising his constitutional right of freedom of speech, his right to express his views on public questions."

[[bold]]Manner Is Informal.[[/bold]]

Reid assured the court that it was "the most august tribunal that has been called on to consider a question of human rights since the Magna Charta," but his consciousness of the augustness of the occasion and the court did not cause him to change his style, which tends to the breezy and informal. He addressed the stately generals as "you people," and every time he did so they shivered slightly and en masse.

"You people." he said, "are called upon to decide whether soldiers are people within the meaning of the law.

"You are a criminal court, but what the accused has done and said is not a crime and has never been defined as such by anyone anywhere. "What he said has nothing to do with the camps. It has to do with the wide field of public questions.

[[bold]]Cities Air Board Quiz.[[/bold]]

"What has he done which they here claim was criminal? Why, the President's aircraft board was created to investigate and to report on precisely the conditions which Col. Mitchell had investigated and had reported upon to his fellow countrymen.

"There is no charge, not the hint of a charge, anywhere in these specifications that Mitchell has uttered words inciting to crime, or slanderous, or false, or libelous, or immoral, or creating anarchy, and you people know as well as I do that only by uttering such words that an American citizen can be deprived of the right of free speech."

At this point evening was drawing on, and the proceedings withing the courtroom were adjourned until tomorrow morning.

But not the proceedings and the high language outside the courtroom.

From Capitol hill to the White House the Summerall episode of the morning was on every lip, including the general's own.


[[bold]]Unfair, Mitchell Charges.[[/bold]]
The reason that Reid had challenged Summerall was that Mitchell had told his lawyer that he was certain Summerall could not give him a fair trial, because he (Mitchell) had in 1923 made a blistering report on Summerall's handling of affairs in the Hawaiian department, which he was then commanding.


Monte Cristo Reid promptly popped hat report into the record by reading out part of it to the court, 

These were the words:

"The air force under him (Summerall) and the whole system of defense was inefficiently handled and badly organized, and the ignorance of its application was manifested by him.

"Summerall and the admiral of the navy were engaged in a controversy as to who was the superior in rank. They would no attend any social functions together and in other ways made it practically impossible to obtain coordination between the land and naval forces."

[[bold]]Quotes General's Speech.[[/bold]]

Furthermore - and this also was read to the court - Gen. Summerall made a speech in New York City on Sept. 24 last, before the Military Order of the World War, in which he said:

"It seems to me that the public is being misled by fanelful and irresponsible talk emanating from a source either without experience or whose experience in war is limited to the very narrow field of aviation."
Another of Gen. Summerall's recent public utterances (the one he made before the President's air board of inquiry on Oct. 13), which was read to the court, ran:

"I know of no defect in our present military organization of the air service. ... I think it is unfair to the aviation service if anybody says or spreads the idea that it is low in morale or lacking in fighting efficiency."

[[bold]]Cells Charges Bitter.[[/bold]]

These statements having been read to the court over which he was at the moment presiding, Gen. Summerall flushed hotly and said:

"In view of the bitter personal hostility of Col. Mitchel toward me, which I here have learned of for the first time, I cannot consent to sit on this court."

Court then rose and clanked away to its private chamber, just as it had done when Reid had challenged Generals Bowley and Sladen. In that private camber it voted secretly and with written ballots as to the sustaining of the challenges.

[[bold]]Challenge Is Sustained.[[/bold]]

After they had briefly considered and voted upon the Summerall challenge the general returned to the courtroom and Maj. Gen. Robert Lee Howze, aged 61, veteran of two wars and of the Philippine insurrection, said:

"As senior member of the court in succession to Gen. Summerall, I announce that the challenge is sustained."

There was a gasp from the hundred or so spectators.

Evidently from the words, "challenge is sustained," in Gen. Howze's announcement, the demand of Gen. Summerall that he be relieved from serving had not been considered, but Reid's formal challenge of him had been voted on and sustained.

[[bold]]Summerall's Friends Rally.[[/bold]]

If there were Mitchell partisans to rally around Reid, there also were Summerall partisans to comfort the general in what he manifestly regarded as an affront.

Reporters closed in on him for a statement when he had reached the street.

He declined to make a formal one, saying:

"My record is a sufficient statement. I am willing to be judged on my record. Ask him about it."

With that the general pointed to a former comrade n arms who is now in civil life in Chicago.

[[bold]]His Brilliant Career.[[/bold]]

This friend rapidly described the general's brilliant services in France, which have already been touched upon in this dispatch, and he ended by saying, "We who served under him consider him the greatest living American soldier. He has had five citations for extraordinary heroism."

The public utterance which brushed Gen. Bowley off the court with a speed that obviously flabbergasted him was made by him to American Legion men at Greenville, S.C., eight days ago. It, too, was read out to the court and it contained these disqualifying words:

"There is no more reason for a separate air service than there is for a separate ordinance department or a separate medical service. But the public is prone to be carried away by exaggerated statements as to one branch of the service."

Gen. Bowley told the court that he had said "approximately that" to the Legionnaires, but that he felt "no prejudice or hostility toward the accused."

Court withdrew, leaving Gen. Bowley in somber meditation. When it returned with its announcement of "challenge sustained," the general's jaw dropped with amazement and he sepulchrally bade his comrades good-day.

Through the long wearing day which included hours of the reading and re-reading - eight times in all - of Mitchell's columns of criticisms of the air service released on Sept. 5 last and again on Sept. 9, Mrs. Mitchell, who is animated and decidedly lookable, sat by her husband's side, sometimes resting her arm caressingly against him.