Establishment of Military Justice - Q - Your Idea Is That They Were Not Called To His Attention Until Gen - Crowder
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EsLebeDeutschlandEstablishment of Military Justice - Q - Your Idea Is That They Were Not Called To His Attention Until Gen - Crowder
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EsLebeDeutschlandESTABLISHMENT OF MILITARY JUSTICE .
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Q . Your idea is that they were not called to his attention until Gen . Crowder
called upon him for a review?A . Yes ; unless I talked with him when he cam e
back. I was trying to refresh my memory by talking to him, and he think s
that I told him about these cases then, and that he disagreed with mefro m
what I told himand that is probably true, because I know we disagreed, an d
in some way or other they were turned over to him to examine, I thought b y
Gen . Crowder's initiative . It may be I asked Gen . Crowder to turn them over ,
but at any rate they had gone to Gen . Crowder before Gen . Ansell had anything
to do with them and had gone to Gen . Crowder with the prepared review .
Q . Then it is your belief that Gen . Ansell never examined those cases him -
self until after he had been requested by Gen . Crowder to do so?A. That i s
my recollection . I don't know about the request of Gen . Crowder .
Q . Was not that a case which, prior to the time it came up to your desk th e
first time, had been the occasion of a lot of talk in the office?A . I can't say
as to that . I think I had discussed the case with Davis and Clarke, as I fre-
quently did with important cases, but could not say whether Gen. Ansell had
talked about it or not .
Q . You are confident in your own mind that at no period during the handlin g
of these cases he expressed or even entertained the views that the sentence s
should be executed?A . I am quite sure that he did not ; that is, upon th e
merits of these particular cases . We might have talked about the abstract
question of whether a man who went to sleep on post in the presence of th e
enemy and endangered the command should suffer the death penalty .
Q . Have you any reason to believe that about this particular time he did o r
may have expressed himself that way?A . That is a general supposition on
my partarising out of the fact that I often discussed abstract questions o f
that kindespecially with Gen. Ansell.
Q. You spoke the other day about the Camp Grant cases . Were those case s
especially conspicuous?A . Yes, sir.
Q. Briefly, what was the point?A . Those are the cases of, I think, 21
Negroes who assaulted one woman and were separately charged with the offense
and jointly tried, there not being even an allegation of conspiracy or join t
action in any of the charges. The records had to be disapproved . A numbe r
of them were sentenced to death and deserved itbut all were disapproved .
EXHIBIT 21.
WASHINGTON, D. C., March 18, 1919.
Col. John H . Wigmore, Judge- Advocate General's Department, being firs t
duly sworn, was interrogated by Maj . Gen . J . L . Chamberlain, Inspector Gen-
eral, and testified as follows :
Q. What is your name, rank, and organization?A . John H. Wigmore ;
colonel ; judge advocate, United States Army .
Q. Have you any means of fixing the date upon which Gen. Ansell's memo-
randum of November 10, 1917, came into the possession of Gen . Crowder?A. I
being then on duty in the office of the Provost Marshal General, the genera l
called me into his office and showed me a memorandum which he stated ha d
been handed to him the night before by the Secretary and that it had give n
him a most extraordinary shock at the doctrine contained in it . He asked m e
to look it over and give him my informal opinion, which I did within a day o r
so. The day was a Saturday ; this is the only positive item as to the date tha t
I can contribute ; but I know that thereafter Col . Easby-Smith and Col. Johnson,
at Gen . Crowder's direction, worked upon the materials for a brief in reply t o
the memorandum and that this work extended over the succeeding Sunday an d
Monday. The identification of this Saturday with November 24 is made ou t
by other data contributed by the other officers .
Q. Did you assist in the preparation of the letter of February 13, 1919, sub-
mitted by Gen . Crowder to the Secretary of War?A . I did .
Q. Referring to that letter, charges have been made in the public press tha t
it contained certain misstatements and misinformation . What information hav e
you in regard to that?A. The first draft of that letter is dated February 8 .
On page 2 of the draft occurs the sentence, " The story was disbelieved an d
he was found guilty ." This sentence occurs in a concise allusion to a cas e
cited by Senator Chamberlain, the allusion being prefatory to a full explana-
tion. The Senator ' s description of the case had already stated that the court-
