Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 166, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1919 — CHARGE OFFICERS WITH CRUELTY [ARTICLE]

CHARGE OFFICERS WITH CRUELTY

YANKS TESTIFY MERCILESS ASSAULTS WERE PERPETRATED BY U. S. OFFICERS.

Washington, July 15.—Six former American soldiers testified today before a special house committee investigating alleged cruelties to military prisoners in France, declared that merciless assaults were committed without provocation on the prisoners by arrogant officers in charge of the prisons and camps. Only one of the witnesses, all of whom were charged with being absent without leave, was convicted, the others having been acquitted or the charges withdrawn. (“The bastile,” “the stockade,” “prison farm number two” and “St. Ann’s Hotel,” also known as “The Brig,” were the places named by the witnesses as the scene of - the alleged cruelties, which were said to ihave been extended over several months in 1918. Some of the officers in charge of the prison camps it was said, had been convicted by courts martial and others were awaiting trial. —— ———— , Lieutenant “Hardboiled” Smith, one of the prison camp officers, was mentioned frequently, while others named were Lieutenant Mason and Sullivan and Sergeants Ball, Wolfmeyer and Bush. “Did they try the general in charge of the camp?” asked Chair-; man Royal Johnson, who left his seat in congress To serve with the army board. “Not that anyone heard,” responded a witness. “When Lieutenant ‘Hardboiled’ Smith was tried at Tours early this year, a hundred witnesses appeared against him, and he was convicted,” testified Sidney Kemp, 479 West 146th street, New York City, who was a corporal with Company F, 102nd engineers, 27th division. “Fifty witnesses who !■ can name will verify everything said here, and tell more, too,” asserted Kemp. Several of the soldiers testified that in addition to being beaten, food in small amounts and of poor quality was supplied and that the bedding was poor, sometimes the mattress (being in mud under a small tent. “A prisoner was smiling and an officer says: ‘Take that smile off, or I will.’ ” A. H. Mendleburg, 1410 East Fayette street, Baltimore, who served with base hospital 42, testified. “The officer did so by rolling the man in the mud,” Mendleburg added. “Did you get that officer s name?” asked Representative Flood, democrat, of Virginia. “I’m too sorry I did not take his name,” answered Mendleburg. When telling of poor food, Mendleburg said that “if you asked for an extra piece of bread you were flat on your back.” Meals, he and others said, consisted of a stew, made from canned beef, one slice of bread and part of a cup of coffee. Sometimes only the stew was served, witnesses said. Charles Goldberg, New York City, a corporal in Company G 28th infantry, third division, said that while at the “Brig” he was knocked down by an officer and one of his teeth was knocked out when he refused to surrender his money belt. Drawing a black jack, the officer and Goldberg fought a few minutes but the witness said he was forced ’to surrender because of the pain he suffered from blows on the arms. “Once, when I was scrubbing a floor, a sergeant swung a club at my head every five seconds,” testified Goldberg. Paul Boggs, Baldwin, N. Y., 318th field signal battalion, said men at the farm were often so hungry that they were “glad to eat dirty potato peelings.” He said that he dipped a tincup into a swill barrel so as to get some grease that he would eat “with a relish.” “Instead of giving a command, it wan generally given with a club,” asserted Boggs, who said he saw at least fifty men beaten. Alvin Bates, Brooklyn, who was with the headquarters troops, second army, said whenever “there was !a formation, a man was beaten up .every five minutes” at the prison farm. He and Boggs said that a Pole serving in the American army was brutally beaten';‘"and soon afterward the prisoner cut his throat with a razor. “Medical inspection was a farce,” said Bates, referring to the farm. “You went in one door and were kicked out another.” George L. Pallitto, Newark, N. J., private in Company M, 113th infantry, 29th division, testified that ‘he became known as a “nut f/ patient after he had said that he did not like a nurse.” Pallitto also told of many cruelstiea in the prisons in France, and admitted that he was absent withI out leave, for which he was senjtenced. '

The others said similar charges against them resulted when they were trying to reach their units, and they were acquitted and the charges dismissed. - t G. J. Jessen went to Chicago today.