| Show I 1 so 2 M A 11 di n 11 A I 1 ft I 1 i 12 B A 11 n I 1 MIDNIGHT Z 4 at INS A S i I 1 I 1 9 sa s1 R am I 1 I 1 M U 11 T U r N 3 I 1 1 T 1 11 TH I 1 I 1 M Is U in I 1 WN of 0 rt n UK of r 0 dl W n V I 1 i A IF 9 TI T I 1 X I 1 I 1 1 president sends a message to con congress gress in support of his action in Di discharging the co colored ored troops stor story y of the attack on defenseless i women and children is confirmed in every detail I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 washington Washing tou jan jaa 14 president roosevelt atoo evelt today sent to the senate a special message regarding the browns ville incident which gives gines the adal additional evidence collected by assistant attorney general purdy and major blocksom who were sent to texas by the president to investigate the affair he submitted with his message various i exhibits including maps a bandoleer three empty shells seven ball cartridges picked up in the streets a few hours after the shooting three steel jacketed bullets and some soma scraps of the casings of other bullets picked out of the houses into which they had been fired the president says the evidence Is positive that the outrages of august were committed by some of the colored troops that have been dismissed and that some or all of the members of the turee three companies of the twenty fifth infantry bad had knowledge of the deed and had shielded the guilty ones the negro troops are referred to by the president in his message as midnight assassins and he declares that very few it if any of the soldiers dismissed without honor could have been ignorant of what occurred that part of the order which bars the soldiers from all civil employment under the government is revoked by the president this clause the president says was lacking in validity the disparaged troops however will be forever barred from re enlisting in the army or navy As to this the president says that there othere is no doubt of my constitutional legal power secretary taffs report gives the sworn testimony of witnesses and Is transmitted with the message to the senate in my message to the senate treating of the tho dismissal without honor of certain named mem MF m lera bers of the three companies of the twenty fifth infantry I 1 gave the re ports of the officers upon which the dismissal was wag based these reports report were made in accordance with the custom in hsuch such case for it would of course course be b impossible to preserve discipline in the army save fay by pursuing precisely tho the course that in j s case was pursued pur inasmuch however aa as in the senate question was wal 1 raised as to the sufficiency of the evidence I 1 deemed it wise to to send major blocki i 1 and assistant to the attorney purdy to brownsville Browns ville to make i TIP n 4 on n the ground in reference to the matter I 1 here herre diw I 1 a i eulalai eu aLai laats and an d the testimony taken under the oath of the various witnesses examined in the course of the investigation 4 I 1 aleo submit various arious v exhibits ex including maps of f brownsville Browns ville and fort brown photographs of various buildings a letter from judge parks to his wife together with a bandoleer thirty throe three empty shells seven ball cartridges and four clips picked up in n the streets of brownsville Browns ville within a few hours after the shooting three steel jacketed and some scraps pf af the casings of other bullets picked but of the houses into which they had been fired A telegram from united united states commissioner TL R B D creager creagar at brownsville Browns ville anA announces ounces that six additional bullets like the others frum frim springfield rifles taken from buildings in brownsville Browns ville with sup gup porting affidavits have auve since bleen sent to 0 the secretary of war lf lt appears from the testimony that on the night of august 1906 several crimes were committed by gome some person or persons in the city of Browns Br onsvIlle ville among these were the following a the murder of frank natus b the assault with intent fo to kill the lieutenant of police domangue Domi lIgUeZ whose horae horse was killed under him min and aboa whose e arm vas was shot so 0 o s severely that it had to be amputated the assault with intent to kill mr ami and mrs halo odin and their thel three little boys who were in the window of the filler miller hatel 11 11 J d the T he shooting into several private residences of the city at browns I 1 ville three of them containing women and children ae e the shooting at and slightly wounding of Pre cedlo these crimea crimes were certainly committed by somebody AB As to the motive mottro for tho the commission of the crimea crl raea it that trouble of a more or less serious kind had occurred between individual members of the company and individual citizens of brownsville Browns ville culminating lin in complaints which resulted result ed in the soldiers being confined within the lalle of the garrison on the evening of f the day lay in question the evidence ag as wih will bo be seen shows beyond any possibility of honest q question estion that some individuals among the ote colored troops wham wh tri I 1 had dit wiped committed the out and that some or all of the other individual st whom I 1 dio tn rais laBed sed had knowledge of the iho deed dafid and an d shielded from the law those who committed it thy the oaly only motive suggested tod as 1 pcs pos sibly influencing any one else erse W wt aa 8 4 lestre to get rift of the colored troops so ao strong glat it Im impelled polled the citizens ef brownsville Browns ville t shoot up u their own hou lt emea to mil ope ne of their own euln br to ais aswelt their 01 own 7 11 bouce wounding tc 11 yip aa gj beai t an officer for twenty yeara ff alah att wab the purpose of an n ieno troops the suggestions as ao jo ludicrously I 1 0 ocote 04 itis difficult to treat it wk oon bon im y r 1 amide made this theory sul k i a 1 C t that the assailants succeeded in obtaining the uniforms of the negro sol diem that before starting on theli theft raid they got over the fence of 0 the fort unchallenged and without discovery by the negro troops opened fire on the town from within the tort fort that they blacked their faces so that at least fourteen eyewitnesses eye witnesses mistook them tor for negroes that they disguised their voices so that at least six witnesses who heard them speak mistook their voices as being those ot of negroes neg roea they were not mexicans for they were heard by various witnesses to speak in Rn english glish the weapons they used were nvere springfield gitles tor for the ammunition which they used was that of the springfield rifle and no other and could act wot have abeen been used in any gun in texas or 1 inny any part of the union or in mexico bior j or in any other part of the world save only in the springfield now used by the united states troops in 1 1 clu eluding ding the negro troops in the garri i ison son at pt brownsville Browns ville and by no other persons save theae these troops a weapon which had only been in us by the united states troops tor for some four or five months prior to the shooting in question and which Is not in the possession of private individuals the cartridges used will go into no other rifle used in the united halted states unless specially chambered the winchester Vin chester of the 95 model diode but it will viii rarely II 11 ever go off when in it and moreover the he bullets picked out of the buildings show the markings of the four so called lands blands which come from being fired through the springfield but not tb through rough the winchester the latter I 1 showing six the bullets which I 1 herewith submit which were found in the houses could not nol therefore ther fore have been ailred from a winchester or any other sporting drifts rifts although the cartridges have been put into a winchester moel 95 the bullets might have been fired from a krag but the cartridges would not have gone into a krag taking the shells and the bullets together the tho proof is con conclusive elusive that the new springfield sprine flold rifle was the weapon used by the midnight assassins and could not by any possibility have been any oar other rifle of any kind in the world this of itself establishes the fact that the assailants were united states soldiers and would be conclusive on tills this point if not one soldier had been seen or heard beard by any residents in browns ville on the night in question and arid if nothing bothin were known save tho the finding of the shells clips and bullets fourteen eye witnesses namely charles R chase amado martin martanez Martl nez 0 z mrs kate leahy palermo Pre clado ynacio dominguez macedonio Mace donlo ramar I 1 ez george W randall joso jose martinez Martl nez J P mcdonald P F H sanborn herbert elkins hale odin mrs airs halde odin and judge parks park testified that t they saw the assailants ants oe or some of them then at varying distances and that they were negro troops most ot of the witnesses giving their testimony in such shape that there Is no nd possibility of their having been mistaken two other witnesses joseph bodin audi and genero saw some of the assailants and testified that they were soldiers the only soldiers in the neighborhood being the colored troops four pour other witnesses namely S C moore dr thorn thom charles S and charles T hammond testified to hearing the shooting aud and hearing tho the voices of the men who were doing it and that these those voices were those of negroes nog roea but did not actually see the men who were doing the shooting about 25 other witnesses gave testimony esaf corroborating to a 11 greater or less degree the testimony of those who thus saw tho the shoot shooters eps or hea heard rd them the testimony ot of these eye andi antl oar ear witnesses would establish beyond all possibility of contradiction the fact that the shooting sho wag was committed by ten or fifteen or more morg of the negro troops from the garriton garrison and this tea tes of theirs theara would be amply sut suf 1 in itself if not a cartridge or a bullet had bad been found exactly as the bullets and cartridges that were found would have established the guilt of the ahe troops even had not a single eyewitness eben them or any witnesses hard board them I 1 the testimony of the witnesses on tho the position of the bullet holes show that fifteen or twenty of the negro troops ga gathered therel inside th the e fort and that the first shots fired into the town were fired from within the fort some fit of abern at least from the upper gal lories of the barracks the testimony mOrLy further shows that the tho troops then came out over the walls w 1 s I 1 some of them perhaps going t through 41 1 gh the gate and advanced a dis alice of yarda yards or there about into the town during their advance they shot into two hotels hotel and some wine nine or ten other houses three of the private hoilko into which they fired contained women and v children hildren they deliberately killed frank frany natus the bartender otanm him down from ja A distance of bout 15 yarda yards they shot biot at a man and conin mr and mrs odin and little boy as they sto odIn ln the window of the miller millet hotel the bukiet 1 gad less than two inches from head oft he ho woman they shot hot 3 down the f lieutenant 1 glenan gt enan atif police who was on hr b iak killing his horse and wounding hi him 0 jo o that his als arm hjul lied to be sra aidt iti dajad ad they rhey attempted to kill the two policemen who were his companions one through the hat they slid at least eight bullets bullet 5 into the 1 vi f I 1 I 1 cowen house putting out a lighted lamp on the dining room table mrs M rs cowen and her five children were w er e la in the house they at once threw themselves prone on the floor and were not hit tho they N fired into the stark house the bullets going through the mosquito bar of a bed from IS 18 to 20 inches above where little children were sleeping the shooting took place near midnight tl TI j panic caused by the utterly unexpected attack was great tho the darkness of course increased the con fusion there is conflict of testimony on some of the minor points but every essential point la is established beyond possibility pov ability of honest question the careful examination of mr purdy assistant to the attorney general resulted merely in strengthening the reports al already readi made by the regular army authorities the shooting it appears occupied about ten minutes although it may have been some minutes more or less it is out of the question that the fifteen or twenty men engaged in the assault could have gathered behind the wall of the fort begun firing some of them on the porches of the barracks barrac lB ls gone out into the town fired in the neighborhood of two hundred shots in the town and then returned the total time occupied from the time of the first shot to the ime of their return being somewhere in the neighborhood of ten minutes without many of their comrades knowing what they bad had done indeed the fuller details as established by the ad dit ional evidence taken since I 1 I 1 last ast communicated with the senate make it likely that there were few if any of the soldiers dismissed have been igno ignorant ramt of what occurred it ie Is well nigh impossible that any of the commissioned noncommissioned non officers who were at the barracks barrac kg should not have known w what h I 1 t occurred the the evidence thus taken renders it jin in my opinion impossible to question the conclusions upon which my order was based I 1 haye gone most careful ly over every issue of law and fact that that has been raised raisel I 1 am now satis fled that the effect of my order dismissing these men without honor was not to bar them from all civil employment under the government and I 1 therefore that the part of the order which consisted of a declaration to this effect was lacking in validity and I 1 have directed that such port portion fion be revoked As to the ret rest of the order dismissing the individuals in question without honor and declaring the effect bof of such discharge under the law and regulations to be a bar to their future re enlistment either in the army or the navy there Is no doubt of my constitutional 1 and legal power the order was within my my discretion under the constitution ind and the laws and I 1 cannot be reviewed or reversed save by another executive erder the facts did not merely warrant the action I 1 I 1 took th they rendered such action imperative pera tive unless I 1 was to prove false to my sworn duty if any one of the men discharged hereafter shows to my satisfaction that he is clear of guilt or of shielding the guilty I 1 will take what action is warranted but the circumstances I 1 believe above detailed in most ost certainly 1 put upon an any such man the burden of thus thua clearing himself signed theodore roosevelt the white house jan 1907 |
