the officers in charge of the camp, were told to train, stand formation and drill. They refused on the ground that army regulations forbid men under arrest to drill. They were sentenced from fifteen to twenty-five years.
Now, of course, in any system of criminal procedure, the punishment ought to bear some relation to the offense. Here were twelve officers who were illegally arrested, ordered to parade and drill while under arrest, by young, inexperienced officers, and they refused. Fifteen to twenty-five years. Is there any chance to defend any such thing? It is idle to say that these were times of war and military discipline must be maintained. It must be. But the maintenance of military discipline does not call for any barbarity like this and like what was commonly practiced in the sentences in the camps. Any number of these instances can be given. One only has to look them over, read the history of them, to find out what they mean.
In France, on one occasion, four boys, all under twenty, were sentenced to death, two for sleeping on their post, and two for disobeying an order to drill, because of cold and exhaustion. A man was appointed to defend them, another boy, absolutely inexperienced, and he plead them guilty. They were sentenced to death. News of it reached Washington. On investigation it was shown that the two boys who slept had been working so long that it was impossible for them to keep awake. The same has often happened to locomotive engineers who have been compelled to run day and night until exhausted. They could not help going to sleep. And the others were so tired out they could not march or drill and it should never have been asked of them. Mr. Baker pardoned two of these and reduced the sentence of death to three years in the case of the other two. And he did this against the protests of the army officers. Now, I am not criticising the army officers. Everybody has an extravagant idea of his business. Everybody thinks the world rests upon him and his profession, and the army is no exception to it. It believes in discipline though the heavens fall. Of course no one will question that a considerable amount of discipline is necessary; but they have overdone it. It is utterly unknown to the civil law. No free people could consent to it for a moment in times of peace, and yet the whole record of all these criminal trials was substantially the same. Fortunately, the news of these cases got to Mr. Baker in time, and he had the patience to examine the papers. Excepting for this accident and the humane action
