The length of these sentences and also of many other sentences pronounced upon others who have broken the regulations of the military code has been made the special object of investigation by Congress. The excuse that some of these excessively long sentences were military bluff for the deterrent effect and were never intended to be carried out in full is irrational. If such statement is correct, our system of military court procedure ought to be overhauled and renovated. We are not contending that offenders should go unpunished, we are merely insisting that the penalties prescribed shall be commensurate with the offense, and shall be consistent with modern jurisprudence.
Let us be thankful that the instances of cruelty and preposterous punishments have been so few. Grant that some of the reported instances are a species of brutal hazing, that some few bone-headed young officials “drest in some brief authority,” with an overweening sense of their importance, have taken a narrow view of military discipline, still there have been sufficient complaints to elicit the following editorial in the sober Public Ledger of Philadelphia.
TORTURE FOR MILITARY PRISONERS?
“If any branch of the Government’s military activities calls for an instant and searching investigation, it is certainly the treatment accorded the “conscientious objectors” in the military prisons to which they have been sent by court-martial. Even if half the allegations contained in the complaints concerning the prisoners of this type, at Governor’s Island, New York, and at Fort Leavenworth, are true, the conditions demand instant correction and those responsible therefor summary punishment.
“In times of war severity of treatment, within the limits of humanity, is to be expected by those who refuse to fulfill their obligations to the nation; but the term ‘severity of treatment’ is an euphemism when used to describe the experiences of conscientious objectors, shackled, unclothed, for hours to cell doors, kept for days in dark cells, and forced for weeks to subsist under physical conditions which the law would not permit in the case of animals. If these charges are substantiated, and the outraged sense of justice of the nation demands that they be either substantiated or disproved, then the drastic revision of military law and practice is an imperative duty of Congress which it dare not ignore or neglect.
“There is abundant reason to believe, in the severity of the sentences permitted to be imposed by army courts-martial, that there is lacking in the military mind that sense of fitness and of humanity which is in accordance with the age in which we live. The United States cannot with clean hands ask the nations with which it is allied in the war to humanize the laws of war while it tolerates inhumanity in the enforcement of its own military regulations at home. Recalcitrant soldiers offer a difficult problem, of course; but the fact is a greater reason for dealing with such offenders with tact and, above all, with humanity. Torture has no place in the penology of the day, and least of all in the service which prides itself on its patriotism.”
The Acting Committee of The Pennsylvania Society, having been informed of some instances of punishment which seemed to resemble soulless European autocratic methods, sent the following remonstrance to Secretary Baker:—
“The Pennsylvania Prison Society learns with astonishment and a profound sense of sorrow of the brutal methods of punishment employed in some of our Federal Prisons upon military offenders—especially upon so-called “Conscientious Objectors” whose only offense is a consistent adherence to their sense of duty. The studied attempt to break the spirit of prisoners at Fort Leavenworth and elsewhere by unspeakable cruelty suggests the practices of a barbaric past rather than those of a civilized and enlightened people. Granting that a Nation must at times deal firmly with political offenders, can any crime ever justify the employment of cruel and inhumane treatment? If such barbarous punishment has the sanction of law, then an outraged sense of justice demands the immediate revision of our Military Code.”
The following note was received, which indicates that the War Department at Washington has taken measures to relieve the harsh conditions.
“February 6, 1919.
“... The War Department immediately upon having conditions at the Disciplinary Barracks called to its attention, instituted an investigation. The report of that investigation disclosed the fact that the trouble at Leavenworth was due, not at all to the administration of the prison, but to the regulations which were ill-adapted to the unusual type of prisoner that the Selective Service Act brought to military prisons. The Secretary at once made some appropriate modifications of those regulations and has called a conference to consider further changes in disciplinary regulations, not only to meet this unusual condition but to bring the Army’s disciplinary methods up to the most modern penological standards, in case they shall be found to be deficient. The conference will also consider ways of meeting the immediate emergency of the overcrowding of disciplinary barracks due to the increased size of the Army during the war. The conference will come to its conclusions in the near future and you may be assured that action leading out of its conclusions will be promptly taken.”
“Very truly,
“F. P. KEPPEL,
“Third Assistant Secretary.”
Confidential orders, recently made known, of the War Department, issued in October, 1918, prescribed that those conscripts, refusing on account of conscientious scruples to perform military service, should not be treated as traitors or as guilty of rank insubordination. The Government thus in some form recognized the validity of their scruples. As a rule such persons were entirely segregated from the other men. For a time solitary confinement was discontinued, but we regret to report that at the military prison at Leavenworth some 25 of these objectors have recently been remanded to cellular isolation. One of these men has for some time been engaged in Christian work under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. Very recently he received a visit from a gentleman in whose office he had often been a visitor, but his mind seemed a blank, as he did not appear to recognize his visitor who called to offer services. This mode of punishment was having its logical effect.
We fully endorse the attitude of the U. S. Government as indicated in its Official Bulletin, No. 113, page 5:—“Accustomed as these leaders have been for many years to universal military service, to a large standing army, ... to marked class distinctions, they have absorbed, and are now wedded to, certain notions which to us, who have grown up under very different conditions, seem like worship of constituted authority and the unwarranted surrender of individual responsibility. The gradual development of these very notions has brought about an inordinate influence of the military group in public affairs.”