Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1906 — DEATH THEIR DESERT [ARTICLE]

DEATH THEIR DESERT

So the President Beys of the Negro Soldiers Who “Shot Up” Brownsville. Washington, Dec. 20. Words are not minced by President Roosevelt In a strong message on the Brownsville, Tex., incident sent to congress. The president justifies his discharge of three companies of colored soldiers on the plain ground that they are guilty of murder and of shielding murderers, and declares he could not do anything but dismiss them all. “The soldiers were the aggressors from start to finish,” declares the president after giving his own resume of the various official reports on the affair. The president goes over all the testimony nnd declares the investigation was fair and the evidence conclusive of the guilt of the soldiers. He declares the later investigations by friends of the soldiers have suggested explanations that are absurdities. He also cites several precedents for his action during the civil war, and declares that so far as the discharge of these soldiers being called punishment Is concerned that Is a mistake, for It Is utterly Inadequate; the only punishment need for such men being death.