Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1882 — THE CASE OF CADET WHITTAKER. [ARTICLE]

THE CASE OF CADET WHITTAKER.

[From the Chicago It is now two years since the memorable day on which the ears of Cadet Whittaker were out; it is about a year and a half since they were entirely healed and since the last traces of the bungling tonsorial operation performed at the same time disappeared. His case has just been decided by the court of last resort —namely, the President of the United States. The sentence of the court martial was dismissal and imprisonment for self mutilation and perjury. The President saves the feelings of the frenzied philanthropists, who have been insisting that Whittaker ought to be allowed to mutilate himself because his people were formerly enslaved in this- country, by setting aside the finding of the court on a technicality which the Attorney General was fortunate enough to discover, but secures substantially the ends of justice by dismissing him from the academy for deficiency in his studies. Dr. Cuyler and the Rev. Congressman Hyatt Smith, and those whom they represent, will probably reply that, being a colored vouth, Whittaker had a perfect right to be deficient in his studies, and that, as negroes were kept in slavery in this country for many years, Whittaker was not deficient in his studies. But it would seem that about enough has been conceded to those gentlemen, and Whittaker will be allowed to depart Self-mutilation is so rare in Europe and America that the public was naturally indisposed to believe that Whitaker could have committed it The fact |hat he is a colored brother, and that he was at West Point, will continue to convince a certain class of persons, who are hunting up reparation to be rendered to the negroes, that his story was perfectly true, and that three white cadets did perform the outrage charged. As these persons start with a complete theory on the subject, there is no use in calling their attention to the evidence. Some fustian about the atonement that the white race should make to the colored race and some sneers about the “snobbery of West Point” are to their minds overwhelming refutation of all the evidence that could be brought forward. When Whittaker was found in his room after the alleged outrage he ap - peared to be insensible, but he resisted when the surgeon attempted to raise his eyelid, and when he did recover consciousness he recovered it all at once; not for a moment was he dazed, or bewildered ; the condition of his pulse and his skin was not indicative of a swoon. The surgeon who examined him, and two other persons, testified that in their belief he was feigning insensibility. He made no outcry while the alleged outrage was committed; some locks of his hair were cut off, but the work was done awkwardly and incompletely; his hands were not tied, according to his story, until after his hair and ears were cut, and when they were tied it was in front instead of behind his back. He said his nose bled as one of the results of the outrage, but no trace of such bleeding was found. He said a looking-glass was broken over his head, but Iris scalp gave no evidence to corroborate that statement. There was some blood on an Indian club, but there were no bruises on him serious enough to suggest that they were made with the club. There were on his head and in his ears some small cuts, and nothing more. The letter of warning found in his room was written by himself, or by some one who imitated his handwriting; there is no reason why his enemies should have sent him any warning, or why a friend should have tried to imitate his chirography. The letter was written on one part of a sheet of paper on another part of which he wrote to his mother that he had received this note of warning. His testimony on various points was confused and contradictory. The note of warning and specimens of the writing of all the cadets was submitted to five experts, and the overwhelming weight of testimony was to the effect that Whittaker wrote the note himself. The expert who was most certain of this was selected by Martin I. Townsend, the District Attorney, who informed the Court of Inquiry that West Point was on trial, and demeaned himself throughout toward all the officers of the Military Academy as offensively as possible. The ground on which the finding of the court was set aside was one that does not in any dfegree impair the convicting force of the evidence. The Attorney General is of the opinion that the specimens of the writing of the student cadets, which were submitted to the experts, not being a part of the evidence, ought not to have been submitted. But there is no question about the fact that they were specimens of the writing of all the cadets, that the experts did compare them with the note of warning, and did, as a body, come to the conclusion that Whittaker wrote the note himself. Immediatefy after the discovery of Whittaker, an investigation was made by the Commandant and the Surgeon, and they arrived at the conclusion that Whittaker did the work himself, or was a party to it. When the result was reported to him he demanded, as it was proper that he should, a Board of Inquiry. The three officers composing this board arrived at the same conclusion. In order to give him another chance, a courtmartial was ordered, and to protect him from that bugbear, “West Point prejudice,” half the members of the court were officers who were not graduates of the Military Academy, but had entered the regular from the volunteer army. The court-martial reached the same conclusion as the Surgeon and Commandant and the Board of Inquiry. Whittaker’s motives were not so obscure as some would suppose. The year before he had been found deficient in philosophy, but had another chance given him by being dropped into the next class. He was in April, 1880, likely to fail at the examination to occur two months later. He knew the kind of fuss that would be made over him by a large portion of the community if he could pose as the victim of “West Point prejudice.” One of the first persons who knew of the alleged outrage was a colored friend of the cadet, who immediately afterward announced that “ this would make a great fuss, and Whittaker would graduate.” It did make a great fuss, and it gave the cadet —what Guiteau so hankered for—a national reputation, but he will not graduate.