[276]. For minor offences an enlisted man is tried by summary court-martial before a single officer. For more serious offences a special court-martial of from three to five officers is convened. If the offence is very serious, or if the accused person is a commissioned officer, the trial takes place before a general court-martial of from five to fifteen officers, who must be, wherever possible, at least of equal rank with the accused. The verdict, or finding, of the court-martial, together with its recommendations for punishment in case of conviction, is transmitted to the officer by whose order the court was convened. This officer has power to diminish but not to increase the punishment recommended by the court-martial.
[277]. There is still another phase of military jurisdiction which must be distinguished from both military law and martial law. This is called military government. It may be explained as follows: When any territory is conquered and held by an invading army it must obviously be given some temporary form of government. The former government usually flees and something must be put in its place. Under such conditions the commander-in-chief of the occupying force sets up a temporary administration. In 1919, when a portion of the American Expeditionary Force advanced into German territory under the terms of the armistice, a military government with its headquarters at Coblenz was established for the area occupied by the American troops. A military government may even be set up in home territory during a civil war or insurrection. After the fall of the Confederacy military governments were maintained in the South until the state governments were reconstructed, hence we commonly speak of the “reconstruction” period. Military government is always a temporary arrangement, never intended to be permanent, although it may last for several years. It does not, like martial law, supplant the ordinary laws of the occupied territory, but merely means that the occupying army, through its commander-in-chief, takes over the administration.
[278]. The beginnings of the American Navy go back to the time of the Revolutionary War, when a few frigates were placed in service; but when the war was over these ships were sold and the navy abolished. In 1794, however, Congress authorized the building of six new frigates, and four years later a Department of the Navy was created, with a member of the Cabinet at its head. The number of vessels increased very slowly and when the War of 1812 began the United States had only sixteen war vessels, some of them too small to be of great usefulness. This small navy, nevertheless, gave a good account of itself during the course of the war at sea. From 1815 to the outbreak of the Civil War little attention was paid to the upbuilding of American naval strength, but during the course of this struggle a great expansion took place. The invention of the iron-clad Monitor revolutionized naval construction. But when the South had been subdued the Navy was once more allowed to dwindle and it was not until after 1885 that the United States again made a serious attempt to build up a strong naval establishment. Since that date naval progress has been steady and today the United States navy ranks second in point of size among the sea forces of the world. By the terms of the agreement concluded among the chief naval powers of the world at Washington in 1922 it has been arranged that the United States, Great Britain, and Japan shall each destroy certain war vessels now built or in process of building, and that each shall refrain from building new capital ships (except for purposes of replacement), during the next ten years. At the end of this period the navies of the United States and Great Britain will be approximately equal in strength, while that of Japan will be about three-fifths as strong. See also p. 577.
[279]. For the action of the conference with reference to matters in the Far East, see p. [619].
[280]. Brigadier-General Mitchell of the United States Army Air Service, in his testimony before a committee of Congress in 1920, declared that a few planes could visit New York City and rain down enough phosgene gas to kill every inhabitant “unless we provide some means of repelling them.”
[281]. See the quotations from various military authorities given in The Next War, by Will Irwin, pp. 46-66.
[282]. There is a tradition in England that if a person goes into Hyde Park, London (a large open space in the center of the city), he may gather a crowd around him and say anything he pleases, subject only to the chance that he may be roughly handled if his hearers do not like what he says. For this reason, Hyde Park is sometimes referred to as the “safety valve” of the English government. Anyone who has a grievance, real or imaginary, can go there and blow off steam. Having had his say, without let or hindrance, the speaker feels better about it. Somewhere in this country we ought to have a Hyde Park.
We must be careful not to judge the liberties of the citizen and the severity of a government by what may happen in war-time or in time of civil insurrection. War inflames popular passion and impels both the officers of government and the people to do unwise things, sometimes to violate the laws of the land in the name of patriotism. An excited nation, like an excited man, is entitled to some allowance. Nevertheless, it is the duty of all who understand the meaning of free government to stand firmly against the wrongful curtailment of personal rights at any time; for the true interests of free government are never promoted by resort to injustice or oppression.
[283]. This is a great and fundamental weakness of international law, that there is no executive authority to apply it and there are no courts to enforce its rules when nations disobey. During the World War the rules of international law were violated on many occasions, for example, in the use of poison gas, the bombing of hospitals, the sinking of hospital ships, the forcing of prisoners to labor on military works, and the illegal detention of neutral ships. Yet in spite of these violations international law emerged from the war stronger than it was before. The nations which violated international law most shamelessly were the ones that lost the war, and their defeat was due in no small measure to the resentment which was aroused throughout the world by reason of these violations.
[284]. Illustrations are too fresh in everyone’s mind to require any extended comment. In 1918 President Wilson took with him to the peace negotiations at Paris no member of the Senate. He did not keep in touch with the leaders of the majority party in this body. But in 1921 when President Harding appointed the four American delegates to the Washington Conference he named two of them from the Senate.