744 ESTABLISHMENT OF MILITARY JUSTICE .

sure, the impossibility of such course . I think, however, that, resting unde r
the charge which you have made against me, I am justified in saying this ,
that on one occasion I well rememberand doubtless there are otherswhe n
four sentences of death were pending in the department for confirmation, an d
when this office had recommended execution, I went to the head of the offic e
and orally presented to him my views in opposition . I then filed with him a
memorandum in which I did my best to show what seemed to me to be obvious ,
that these men had been most unfairly tried, had not been tried at all, an d
ought not to die or suffer any other punishment upon such records . Discover-
ing that these memoranda had not been presented to the Secretary of War ,
and feeling justified by the fact that I had no other forum in this department,
I gave a copy of the memorandum to a distinguished member of the Judiciar y
Committee of the House, and was told by him that he could present the cases
to the President himself.
" I was compelled to do thisan act inconsistent with strict military pro-
prietyby the dictates of my own conscience, by my desire to serve justice,
and by my sense of duty to my God and those unprotected men that thei r
lives might be spared . "
These cases have been frequently referred to in the public press . The facts
as shown by the official records and the testimony follow :
On or about February 27, 1918, records were received in the office of th e
Judge Advocate General in cases Nos . 110751-2-3-4, tried in France, in whic h
the death penalty was imposed . Two men were tried for sleeping on post ,
and two for disobedience of orders. Upon receipt of these records, they wer e
reviewed by Maj . Rand, of the Division of Military Justice. He wrote a re-
view on each case, stating that the proceedings were regular, the verdict sus-
tained by the evidence, and recommending that the sentences be carried int o
effect. The records, with the reviews, then went to the desk of Col . Davis,
chief of the Division of Military Justice, and from his desk to the office o f
Gen . Ansell and his assistant, Col . Mayes . The exact date the reviews reache d
Gen . Ansell's office is not known . In forwarding the records of trial, Gen .
Pershing, in a letter to the Judge Advocate General, urged the execution o f
the sentences as absolutely necessary for the safety and success of the Arm y
in France . (Exhibit 114 .) Maj . Rand incorporated in but one of the reviews
the text of Gen . Pershing's letter. In the other three this letter was simpl y
referred to . The reviews were returned from the office of Gen . Ansell, through
Col. Davis, to Maj . Rand, with the suggestion that Gen . 'Pershing's recom -
mendation be incorporated in all four . They were accordingly rewritten an d
returned, through Col . Davis, to Gen . Ansell's office. Col. Mayes approve d
the reviews, concurring in the recommendation that the death penalty be exe-
cuted in each case, and the papers for the first time reached the Judge Advo-
cate General without either oral or written dissent from anyone . The usual
rule of the office, as testified to by Col . Davis, was that any paper tha t
passed Gen . Ansell and reached Gen . Crowder's desk had met with Gen.
Ansell's approval, unless the opposing view was indicated in a memorandum .
or verbally communicated . Whether, up to this time, Gen . Ansell had seen the
papers is not known .
Gen . Crowder, not being satisfied with the review by Maj . Rand, called upon
Col . Clark for an independent examination of all four cases and the preparatio n
of a review of each of them, indicating also the necessity for a study of othe r
similar cases from the American Expeditionary Forces .
On March 29 there was prepared in the Office of the Judge Advocate General a
four-page memorandum summarizing for the Secretary of War the very numer-
ous letters and petitions which had been received urging clemency . (Exhibi t
115 . )
The next step was the submission by Col. Clark of his reviews . Two bear
date of March 29 (Exhibits 116 and 117) and two of April 4 (Exhibits 118 an d
119) . Gen . Ansell was not in Washington when these reviews were submitted t o
Gen . Crowder. He was absent from the office from on or about April 1 until o n
or about April 6 . (Exhibit 133 .) Col . Clark's reviews stated the facts of eac h
case much more in detail than anything that had been submitted before . They
were without formal recommendation, and on April 5 were submitted by Gen .
Crowder to the Chief of Staff, accompanied by a memorandum of that date ,
which reads in part as follows :
" You will notice that I have not finished the reviews by embodying definit e
recommendation .