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Where Trouble Started
Herald 11-3-25
[[PHOTO]] International Newsreel Photo
[[PHOTO]] COPYRIGHT BY HARRIS J. EWING

Texas Newspaper Men to whom Colonel "Billy" Mitchell gave the statements that have brought him to trial. At top are, left to right: A.H. Yeager, Captain B.V. Baucom, of the air service; L.F. Racinos; (standing) Lloyd Gregory, of the Associated Press; Keeneth McCulla, Bascom Timmons and Harry McChary. Below is Yeager and Colonel Moreland.

[[PHOTO]] Gen. Irwin

Newspapermen Witnesses at Mitchell Trial
[[PHOTO]] Copyright Miller
Newspaper correspondents who heard Col. William Mitchell make statements for which he isbeing tried confer with the defendant and his counsel. Left to right - L.F. Recinas, La Presna of Havana, Cuba; Kenneth McCalla, Houston Press; Lloyd Gregory, Associated Press; A.H. Yeager, San Antonio Light; Representative Frank R. Reid, counsel for the defendant; Joseph Davies, associate counsel; Col. H.A. White, military counsel for the defendant; Col. Mitchell, defendant; William H. Webb, associate counsel, and H.L. McCleary, San Antonio Evening News.

Editor, The Washington Herald-- Sir: If the recent statement given to the press by Admiral Moffett is to be taken as a criterion, it is evident that the charges made by Colonel Mitchell, relative to aviation in the army and navy, have the high officials running around in circles.

An assay of this statement shows that it consists largely of vituperation and epithets against some individual whom the public is presumably supposed to recognize as Colonel Mitchell.

This mass of vituperation is supposed to be the expression not only of Admiral Moffett but of the Secretary of the Navy and the President as well, as it appears that no officer of the army or navy dare make a public statement without the approval of the Secretary of War or the Secretary of Navy or the President. Inasmuch as Colonel Mitchell of the Army Air Service is now facing a court-martial for issuing a public statement on matters pertaining to the national defense, it must be assumed by the public that Admiral Moffett has not deliberately invited a court-martial for the same offense with which Colonel Mitchell is charged, and that his public vituperation of some unmentioned individual has been fully approved by both the Secretary of Navy and the President, and that they as well as Admiral Moffett are convinced that the exposures relative to the air service of the army and navy are the offspring of an "unsound mind."
J. Edward Cassidy.