OCR Text |
Show Gen. Ainsworth Case Is Leading Up to a Probing Washington, Feb. 16 While no order or-der of military arrest was Issued today, to-day, the status of Major General Frederick Fred-erick C. Ainsworth was that of ah officer of-ficer under suspension and under orders or-ders to remain iu Washington pending pend-ing tho adoption of disciplinary measures meas-ures by the department. This is un. derstood to mean that General Ainsworth, Ains-worth, Is to be, tried by court martial on a military chargo ln that he Ib alleged al-leged to have been guilty of disrespect disre-spect to General Leonard Wood, the chief of staff, and to Secretary of War Stlmson. The war department officials are selecting se-lecting the court and formulating the charges Necessarily several retired officers of high rank must be used and the department Ib communicating with some of these who are not now in Washington to ascertain if the3 would find It feasible to serve. The court probably would be one of tho most notable In army history It may be several days before the Issue Is-sue of the formal order creating the court and citing General Ainsworth before iL Although the issues are exceedingly Important, InvoMng the old rancorous rancor-ous disputes that hae been waged between the line and the staff for 25 years, officers of the department believe be-lieve that the trial will .not consume much time. It Is believed the evidence will be principally documentary, including in-cluding the orders and reports issued from the adjutant general's office within the last four years and especially espe-cially the lottor mado public yesterday from Secretary Stlmson to General Ainsworth, formally charging him with disrespectful conduct In view of the limited accomraoda. tions at the department, the court probably will assemble at the war college col-lege or at Port Myer, across tho Potomac. Po-tomac. General Ainsworth maintains the reticence he has stondfastly occupied since Secretary Stimson's letter was made public. It Is understood he is now arranging for counsel and preparing prepar-ing his defense. It Is fully expected at the depart-' ment that the case will figure exte,n-slvoly" exte,n-slvoly" before congress aud that, perhaps per-haps the Democratic house may take steps to investigate the whole de partinent and especially the relations between the genera staff and the adjutant ad-jutant general's off!co Officials of the department profess no concern at this, taking the ground that the president, as commander-in-chief of the army, is the only constitutional consti-tutional authority used to deal with the issue presented In the casQ and no congressional interference would be tolerated. |