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[[two printed articles or excerpts]]
[[begin first article]]
Mitchell
[[written by hand in pencil, ?]]
Progress in the art of war is usually made over the protest of trained warriors. Veteran soldiers and sailors as a class are standpatters. The control of military matters is usually in the hands of the old. The old are conservative. And yet the collapse of the military power of nations that have come to greatness because of tforce of arms is largely due to the improvement of the instruments of fighting by some hitherto weaker contender.
Men of the battleax and the shield and coats of mail and their bowmen scorned the cannon. Men of the wooden ship of line sneered at the ironclad. In our own day a junior naval officer showed how feeble was our naval marksmanship at Santiago. He would have been sent off to a place of silence except for Roosevelt who cared little for fixed customs or precedent if he thought what was before him was worth while.
Mitchell fell upon bad times for the innovator and the crusader. This is an age of "normalcy," (what a mullet-headed word!) of doing things as they were done yesterday, of staying in a rut. Wilson might have heeded Mitchell. Roosevelt might have saved him. They are dead.
Official Washington this year is looking backward in the morning, marking time in the evening, and glad when night comes. They are so cold and unemotional in Washington that the big wigs permitted a lot of navy officers to go out and attempt to influence the testimony of the chief victim of the Shenandoah disaster. Then they permitted these men to go unscotched, and when the poor woman was on the stand they treated her with such a cold courtesy that was almost hostile. They acted towards her like a lot of mumpers.
Mitchell is probably a sensationalist. Mitchell is voluble. He is also emotional, but he is brave and he is honest. He is not as canny as D'Artagnan, as self-contained and as cool headed as Athos, as crafty as Aramis. He is like Prothos, [[sic]] very brave, rather boastful, and very honest.
Mitchell violated the military law. The military law has nothing in it akin to democracy. It is the law of the supreme master over the inferiors. It is based upon caste and rank. We get it from the imperialism of Prussia which caught it from Charlemagne who, in turn, imbibed it from the traditions coming down from Caesar's occupation of Gaul. It came from Prussia to us through England. The French have none of it. It left France when the body of Louis XVI was made headless, and when Liberty, Equality and Fraternity became the watchwords under which French Republicans smashed foreign armies and carried on a civil war at home.
Mitchell criticised his superiors. The court martial said this was a bad thing because it might lead others to criticise their superiors. It is the law of the military regulations of the United States. Technically, the court was within the law and that court delighted to vindicate the military law because the members are above 50 and they like it. An old man likes the position as master. He wants the young bloods always to be obedient and subservient. Sometimes the young bloods are obsequious, hoping thereby to increase their rank. A lot of them who increased their rank by these methods got high commands in Europe, but when hell broke loose on the front they could not measure up and the way Pershing, Harbord, Bullard and Liggett hustled them out of the line was awful.
Mitchell has never been obsequious. He got what was coming to him under the military law. We think he got too severe a dose.
If we are to continue in the game of war, and probably we will for some time, Mitchell for those things he did and said rendered a distinct service to the American people. Maybe it will come about—through reforms forced by his exposure—that when we come to a war the next time the young boys will not be killed because of the lack of preparation and because of the inefficiency of the machinery of killing. So, maybe Mitchell has done service for the little boys of today and for the unborn boys of tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow.
[[end article 1]]
[[newspaper article]]
HENRY S. MANLEY WRITES ON MITCHELL'S SENTENCE
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Falconer Aviator Says It Keeps Him Under Restraint and Denies Him Freedom of Speech
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To the Editor of the Morning Post:
The tremendous outpouring of charges, counter-charges, statements, reports and bills in Congress all relative to the present status of military aeronautics in this nation, already affords a very complicated field for the functioning of public opinion. I hesitate to add a trifle to it, and at the same time feel that the correction of one misstatement in your editorial of December 18th, entitled "Martyrdom for Mitchell," may be worth while.
You say a court-martial has suspended Colonel William Mitchell from the United States Army for five years. Authorities on military law seem now pretty well agreed that the intent and effect of the court-martial sentence was not to suspend or discharge Colonel Mitchell, but on the contrary, while taking from him all rank and pay and authority and every satisfaction he could have in the military service, still to keep him under his restraints.
It is probable that the primary purpose of this extraordinary sentence is to deny him the freedom of speech and action a sentence of suspension or discharge would have given him. A secondary purpose is to impose upon him the greatest measure of humiliation, for which purpose dishonorable discharge would have been insufficient, since all the nation knows the facts and would reach an independent conclusion as to their characterization.
The verdict and sentence of the court-martial come now to President Coolidge for review. His responsibility in reviewing only the verdict would be heavy, partly because Colonel Mitchell's services in general and his offense in particular are much confused in the minds of our countrymen; it is most unfortunate that the Presiden'ts responsibilities have been increased by this unusual sentence.
For several years Colonel Mitchell has been a first-class publicity man for the army air service. It is quite true he has indicated at the same time due appreciation for the importance of the personal element in advertising. But the outstanding fact is that he has presented the case for the new arm of national defense with skill and persistency and daring.
All professions tend to be conservative, and the profession of arms most of all, because it acts with masses through uniformity and discipline. Chevalier Bayard was a great military leader in days of sword and armor; when gunpowder was brought to his attention he recommended that it be prohibited by law.
The Air Service is the most progressive branch of our army today. That fact is illustrated in the matter of uniforms. Not until a lot of rank outsiders came into the army during the World War was there advere comment on the choker blouse collars. Nothing was done about it then, for the army had more important business. After the war the thing was agitated, but it is doubtful if anything ever would have been done except for the Air Service. About six months ago that branch took the shockingly progressive step of changing from the choker collar to the ordinary turn down collar. Very recently it has been decided that the rest of the army shall do likewise.
Returning now to Colonel Mitchell, he has his satisfactions in the report of the Morrow committee, and the Congressional committee, and other even more pronounced tendencies toward the things he has urged. He has had a prominent part in bringing the problem of military aviation to a pace where it cannot be ignored. It is not surprising if he has tripped over a few regulations, probably with knowledge of his offense, a belief that the end justified it, and with uncomplaining resignation to any suitable and ordinary punishment, even discharge from the service to which he has devoted his unusual abilities.
I have imposed considerably upon your space and the time of some of your readers to point out that the punishment actually imposed on Colonel William Mitchell is not ordinary, but is in the nature of a gag and an extreme humiliation. It is not a dignified upholding of army discipline. Its form shows it to have been shaped in fear and in hatred.
HENRY S. MANLEY.
Albany, Dec. 19, 1925
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Without attempting to decide what the sentence really means, which seems to be a question of the interpretation of military law, there is no question that the court-martial sentenced Colonel Mitchell to suspension from the army for five years. There was no misstatement of that fact in the editorial under discussion by Mr. Manley, which merely repeated the language of the Associated Press in reporting the sentence pronounced by the court-martial. What the sentence will accomplish is another matter.—Editor Post.
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