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[[something is written lightly?]]
COURT-MARTIAL AND INQUIRY.
The court-martial to try Colonel MITCHELL for insubordination and conduct to the prejudice of good order and military disciple accepted on Monday the view of his counsel that he should be allowed to submit evidence that the charges he made against those responsible for conditions in the Army Air Service were true. Thus the door was opened wide to the examination of witnesses to be called by both the defense and the persecution, and what was to be a trial on definite specifications alleging time and place of infractions of the Articles of War is expanded into an inquiry into conditions in the Army Air Service, past and present. On Sept. 29 Colonel MITCHELL went into every phase of those conditions from his point of view as a witness before the President's Aircraft Investigation Board, and on the following day he was orally examined at great length. The transcript of his evidence indicates the testimony that he will offer in the court-martial to support his plea of not guilty. While Colonel MORELAND, the prosecutor, may enter objections on the ground of irrelevancy, it seems to be the purpose of the military judges to depend mainly upon cross-examination and testimony in rebuttal. The body of the evidence will, in effect, constitute another aircraft inquiry.
Since the war there have been more than twenty investigations of the air services. Possibly nothing new can be brought out. However, it must be remembered that the public had paid little attention to previous inquires. It is intensely interested in the one going on at Washington, because the officer charged with insubordination has been an aggressive champion of reform in military aviation, and in criticizing his superiors has risked his commission. The popular feeling is that in defending himself he is entitled to plead justification and to summon witnesses freely. The public opinion is that the administration of aeronautics, as well as Colonel MITCHELL, is on trial. Technically that may not be true, but General HOWZE and his fellow-judges have decided that the short cut to justice in this case is a long way round; in other words, that whatever has any bearing upon the charges may go into the record to convince the American people that the accused officer has had a fair trial.
It is really as essential that the whole truth about the air services should be brought out as that Colonel MITCHELL should have his day in court. For once the audience includes the whole people, and they are paying strict attention to the proceedings. The defense of the administrators of army aviation will be put in as well as the personal defense of the accused. If Colonel MITCHELL has rendered a great public service by his agitation, he will get credit for it, even if he is declared insubordinate for language used toward his superiors. On the other hand, if in charging them with criminal negligence and almost treasonable conduct he has maligned them, he will surely suffer in public esteem. 

ONLY THEODORE.
Chicago Tribune—10-27-25
Theodore Douglas Robinson, assistant secretary of the navy, in passing through Chicago, said that Col. William Mitchell was "an impudent and wrong headed trouble maker." Mr. Robinson is assistant secretary of the navy because, as his first name, Theodore, is intended to indicate, he is a nephew of Theodore Roosevelt, a great President and a great friend of the navy who was assistant secretary of the navy himself. Mr. Robinson's importance in the decisions of his country is confined to the implications of his first name.
Col. Mitchell is a fearless soldier. He is to be tried by court martial, charged with conduct unbecoming an officer. Any one of his military judges would testify to his value as a fighting man to his country. He has taken a chance that he will be thrown out of the service to which he has devoted his life. He already has been demoted. His offense is that he tried to save his country from the consequences of what he regarded as grave and possibly fatal mistakes in aviation. Some of his ideas may be wrong. His methods may have been wrong. Possibly the discipline of the service will require, in the opinion of the military court, that he be further punished, but the sincerity and unselfishness of his motives protect him from Mr. Robinson's opinions. The impudence is in the other quarter.
If the post of assistant secretary of the navy is a reversion of the Roosevelt family, we hope the succession better luck another time.

Col. Mitchell's Broad Defense
Enough is known of the broad lines of the defense to be set up by Col. Mitchell at his court-martial, which began today, to show that he intends to insist upon all of his rights, both civil and military, and to attempt to justify every charge he has made and to show that he had only the worthy motives of promoting the aviation arm of the service and the good of the country. A military officer does not lose his constitutional right of free speech in time of peace, and if the article of war under which he is being tried is in conflict with the constitution, it is time it was changed.
In the matter of precedents, Col. Mitchell will attempt also to justify the course he pursued in bringing the condition of military and naval aviation to the attention of the public—and back of that is the good motive that impelled him to do it.
If he is permitted to go into details, and in justification of his acts, set up the truth of his charges, and present evidence in proof thereof, only good can result from the trial. Only arbitrary action on the part of the military officials composing the court-martial can prevent this, and in such an event only harm can result to all concerned.
As a matter of fact, it is not Col. Mitchell who is on trial, but the war department and the navy department. Other than the bureaucrats in these departments, there is no charge against the officers or the rank and file of the army and the navy.
The Mitchell trial involves one of the greatest and most vital problems of the government—adequate national defense. If the country is without adequate defense, and is not pursuing the proper policy to obtain it, the lives and fortunes of all of its citizens are endangered until and unless something is done to remedy the defect. If the nation has adequate defense, and its present policy is the proper one, then Col. Mitchell is a proper subject for discipline, unless his motives offset his offense. There is no way to determine this question in whole or in part in a trial of this kind, except upon the merits of the charges made. The gagging of Col. Mitchell would only exonerate him in the verdict of the public, and would convict the military bureaucracy of failing to provide the nation with adequate defense. This the people would characterize by a much harsher term than stupidity. Chicago Journal—10-28-25

U.S. WILL REAP THE BENEFITS
Whatever Fate Has in Store For Mitchell Good Will Come.
(By Ernest Sheehan)
Colonel "Billy" Mitchell, "Hell Cat of the Navy," on trial in Washington for court martial on a charge of insubordination because of charges of inefficiency against Army and Navy departments, especially pertaining to their operation of the air forces, is a martyr to the cause of the birdmen of the United States and a patriot to the development of all arms of defense of his country according to the rank and file in Washington. 
These are the observations made at the Mitchell court martial trial in progress in the dilapidated Munitions building, Washington, D.C. Mitchell will probably be found guilty of the charge under which he is being tried, however, the benefits that will be derived from the disclosures will be sweeping and will mean in part the re-establishment of the army and navy of the United States solidly upon the principles for which this nation stands.
Colonel Mitchell does not appear to be an egotistical, erratic, "windjammer" who is seeking publicity or political favors, but a man of honest integrity, an American who has been decorated for bravery and a soldier who is sacrificing the thing that is dearest to his heart—his service-record—for the future of his buddies in the service and the protection of their lives, by the reorganiation [[reorganization]] of the air forces of the country. 
"Billy" is without a doubt the idol of people in all walk of life in Washington and he has the whole-hearted support of those who compose America's strength in the air—the fliers. He has pledged himself to the cause of the airmen of the nation and is willing to make any personal sacrifice if the country he has served so faithfully for so may years reaps the benefit. 
Arrayed against Mitchell are the influential figures of the Army and Navy departments, while those behind him with every ounce of energy they possess are the men who actually furnish the strength of this nation against invasion.
It is openly hinted in Washington that Col. Mitchell is prepared to retire from the air services regardless of the outcome of the court martial proceedings. He has lost non of his youthful vigor and enthusiasm, although he is no longer a young man, and has many years of usefulness left. At present he is the central figure in the proceedings that have stirred political Washington and the public in general greater than anything since war was declared on Germany. 
Mitchell's court martial is the subject of discussion on every hand in Washington. Regardless of where the "Fighting Colonel" goes he is besieged by admirers, consequently he tries to keep in seclusion as far as possible. The exposures made in the testimony of the filers at the court martial hearing are appalling and the most proficient fliers America has in her service make no effort to conceal their feelings and have declared they intend to quit the government service unless conditions change and some protection is given them from the "graveyard of the air.". Mitchell's counsel is Congressman Frank A. Reid of Illinois, a tall Irishman, who is determined to carry the fight to "clean-up" the Army and Navy departments, to Congress. Reid is an able lawyer and an exponent of clean government. His handling of the Mitchell court martial case is primarily to disclose to Congress conditions as they exist in the Army and Navy departments.
The type of men supporting Colonel Mitchell in his fight against the Army and Navy beaurocrats [[bureaucrats]] evidence that a house-cleaning is necessary.