Military Justice Establishment Overview
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EsLebeDeutschlandMilitary Justice Establishment Overview
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EsLebeDeutschland820 ESTABLISHMENT OF MILITARY JUSTICE .
martial had at first found the ease not guilty, but afterwards, a consideratio n
being directed by the commanding general, the court had found the accuse d
guilty . This intervening stage in the action of the court was therefore per-
fectly well known to the Senator, for he himself had stated it ; in the draft of
the reply, therefore, the full description of the case was not thought necessary .
On February 12, Wednesday, at 10 a . m ., Gen . Crowder informed me that a
meeting of the Senate committee had been suddenly appointed for the next da y
and asked me whether I could complete the draft in season to assist him et th e
hearing . I replied that the draft must be completed, and I worked with tw o
stenographers until 1 o'clock that night to complete the draft . It was pre-
sented to Gen . Crowder the next morning at 8 .30, February 13 . In the fina l
draft, which he went over with me, he noted the above p issage and remarke d
that it omitted to state the intervening finding of the court . I explained t o
him how the omission had been made and he directed that in the subsequen t
copies the omission be restored. He then, as the hearing was coming on tha t
day, signed and sent the letter to the Secretary of War for transmission to th e
Senator. In the meanwhile I returned to the office and caused four new set s
of carbons to be made of the letter with the omission restored . That afternoon
Senator Chamberlain telephoned the Secretary of War concerning this omission,
and upon my meeting Gen . Crowder later that afternoon he remarked, " It ha s
happened just as I told you . This omission has been noticed and should no t
have occurred in the first draft of the letter." The second series of copies wer e
dated February 13 . Thursday, the day of the hearing, and carbons were dis-
patched to the Secretary of War and the original containing the omission wa s
withdrawn . As Senator Chamberlain was already aware of the omission, an d
as it was not deemed to be material in any event, no further notice was sent t o
Senator Chamberlain.
As to the second alleged erroneous statement referred to by Senator , Cham-
berlain in his recent letter, it consisted in the statement, on the same age o f
the draft letter of February 12, that the review of the case in question wa s
prepared by judge advocates " who were not commissioned in the Regula r
Army, but were experienced lawyers fresh from civil practice ." This sentenc e
was inserted after the first above draft dated February 8 and during the secon d
revision in the intervening days . I had received from Maj . Rigby a state-
ment of the ease and returned that statement to him, but I recall in completin g
the dictation of the draft that the judge advocate at Camp Gordon was name d
Taylor and I immediately inferred that it must be Maj . Orville J . Taylor, o f
Chicago, who was known to me to be a reserve officer recently commissioned .
I inserted the above sentence in the draft provisionally, knowing that if th e
fact were otherwise the sentence could be deleted before signing, but that if
the fact were as stated it would be too late afterwards to insert the sentenc e
in the signed letter . Meanwhile I made a memorandum to verify the fact b y
telephoning Maj . Rigby. Owing to interruptions of telephone service, the repl y
did not cone until Wednesday afternoon, February 12, in the midst of th e
final rush of preparation and the memorandum was mislaid and failed t o
attract my attention . The sentence therefore remained in the draft as pre-
sented to Gen . Crowder Thursday morning, February 13 . But on my return to
my office on that same morning I found the memorandum from Maj . Rigb y
replying to my telephone, reporting that the judge advocate's name was Willia m
Taylor. Upon referring to the Army directory I discovered that Lieut . Col.
William Taylor was a commissioned in the Regular Army . I therefore deleted
the sentence and in the copies which were then being made, dated Februar y
13, that sentence was omitted . I also immediately dictated a correction to b e
sent to the Secretary of War. A copy of this correction has been placed in '
your hands by Maj . Rigby. It did not receive Gen . Crowder ' s signature unti l
February 17, on the succeeding Monday, and was forwarded to the Secretar y
of War. On February 21 the Secretary of War forwarded the correction t o
Senator Chamberlain in a special letter .
EXHIBIT 22.
WASHINGTON, D . C ., March 18, 1919 .
Lieut. Col. Robert W . Millar, Judge Advocate General's Department, bein g
first duly sworn, was interrogated by Maj . Gen . J . L . Chamberlain, Inspecto r
General, and testified as follows :