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6 The Literary Digest for January 2, 1926 to have ended in tragic failure. Two days later Mitchell, already demoted for talking too much, undertook to explain these and other disasters in the Army and Navy Air Services. "'These accidents,' he told the world, 'are a direct result of incompetence, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the national defense by the War and Navy Departments.' "That was the accusation which brought Mitchell before a court martial- not a repentant or hesitant figure, but the figure of a man who appeared to think himself the hero of the whole proceeding. He was hailed by thousands as a man of vision and courage, who had bearded a lion and was entitled to keep the trophy." Colonel Mitchell's trial by Army court martial began on October 28. It was charged that in making the statement of [[image - cartoon]] Court-Martial Verdict Mitchell Army Discipline SYKES Copyrighted, 1925, by the Public Ledger Company [[caption]] 'TWAS LOADED -Sykes in the Philadelphia Public Ledger [[/caption]] September 5 he conducted himself "to the prejudice of good order and military discipline"; that he had been "insubordinate" to the Administration of the War Department and "highly contemptuous and disrespectful" of the administration of both War and Navy departments, "with intent to discredit the same to the prejudice of good order and military disciple." In a statement made on the final day of the trial, Colonel Mitchell told the court: "My trial before this court martial is the culmination of the efforts of the General Staff of the Army and the General Board of the Navy to depreciate the value of air power and keep it in an auxiliary position which absolutely compromises our whole system of national defense." For the prosecution Major A.W. Gullion summed up by asking Colonel Mitchell's dismissal "for the sake of the Army whose discipline he has endangered and whose fair name he has attempted to discredit"; "for the sake of those young officers of the Army Air Service whose ideals he has shattered and whose loyalty he has corrupted"; and "in the name of the American people whose fears he has played upon, whose hysteria he has fomented, and whose confidence he has beguiled, and whose faith he has betrayed." On the same day, December 17, Colonel Mitchell was found guilty. But after all this dramatic shattering of precedent, editorial observers agree, nothing is settled except the technical fact of Colonel Mitchell's insubordination. The case of Colonel Mitchell verses the General Staff and General Board, instead of being ended, seems to have only begun. According to Representative Frank R. Reid, the Colonel's counsel: "Col. William Mitchel is a 1925 John Brown. They may think they have silenced him, but his ideas will go marching on, and those who crucified him will be the first to put aviation suggestions into use." Turning to the press, we find both the champions and the critics of Colonel Mitchell agreeing that technically the verdict of guilty was inevitable. But there are sharp differences of opinion about the justice of the sentence and about the bearing of the case upon the interests of the public. The five years' suspension without pay, it is pointed out, is equivalent to a fine of $50,000. The restrictions placed upon Colonel Mitchell by his sentence are tabulated as follows by a Washington correspondent of the New York Herald Tribune: "No right or duties as a military officer. "Remains subject to military law, but unable to exert any military authority. "Receives no pay or allowances, altho still retained in the military service, subject to call. "Can not take any active part in any military service. "Can travel or reside anywhere in the United States, but must obtain permission of the Secretary of War to travel or reside abroad. "Can engage in business, but can not hold public office. In another dispatch to the same paper we read: "As to the possibility of modifying Mitchell's sentence, it was held in Army circle that some action may be necessary to clear up the airman's status for the next five years. The constitutionality of the sentence was raised in another quarter, where, it was argued, if the punishment is carried out to the letter, the personal welfare of the officer would be vitally affected. To deprive him of pay and allowances for five years and still retain control over him as an integral part of the Army, altho without rank, command or duty, could not be sanctioned, it is claimed." The New York World detects Machiavellian cunning and craft in the sentence of the court martial. We read: "To have fired Mitchell out of the service would have made a martyr of him, and no doubt a very vocal martyr at that. To have kept him in the service would have given him a chance to resign with a blare of trumpets and become a martyr on his own motion. They have avoided both pitfalls. They have suspended him for five years, leaving him neither in the Army nor out of it; they take the wind out of his sails if he resigns, and they pose him like a schoolboy in a corner if he doesn't resign." While the press as a whole upholds the conviction, if not the sentence, of Colonel Mitchell, the great majority of our newspapers take the view that, despite his technical guilt, he has done the country a service by focusing the attention of Congress and the public on the needs of American aviation. Let us hear first, however those that are not sympathetic toward his activities. "The Colonel has been not only a troublemaker in his profession, but also a loosely grounded and regrettably visionary strategist," says the New York Herald Tribune. "He has been fairly tried, justly convicted and leniently sentenced," thinks the Boston Herald. "The general view was that he would be cashiered, the eagles cut from his shoulder-straps, and his name struck from the Army Register," remarks the New York Evening Post. The New York Evening World reminds us that "no military organization can tolerate insubordination and remain much better than a mob." "Mitchell lost the faith of the public because he ignored and defied the obviously necessary rules of the game," remarks the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. As the Chicago Daily News sees it, "Colonel Mitchell destroyed his whole case when he admitted on the witness stand that his
