necessary amendment to existent courts-martial law is, therefore, a provision that, upon the request of accused for counsel in a general court-martial case, the commanding officer shall not detail an officer below the rank of captain, unless such officer is a graduated and licensed lawyer. The suggestion that a civilian lawyer be detailed for every general court is absolutely impractical. First, American civilian lawyers are not available in many places where troops serve and courts-martial convene; second, the payment of fees would create a job-seeking, wire-pulling class or at least the feeling that such a class existed; third, the civilian frequently rubs a military court the wrong way by his ignorance of military life, and cannot possibly work as effectively for the accused as can an officer who knows the members of the court and is on terms of often intimate friendship with them. A finding of acquittal by the court should terminate the proceedings: the present right to change to a conviction is really intolerable. The writer defended the cases of two men, separately arraigned, who had participated in the same transaction. The specifications were badly drawn, and the men were not guilty of the offense charged, although possibly guilty of another minor offense. After considerable effort, the court acquitted the first man, the finding being, according to regulations, a profound secret, although, of course, everybody knew what it was. The second case came on. The accused did not create a favorable impression, and, although the facts were identical and the law had not changed in half an hour, the court convicted him. Then, to make it unanimous, the court went back to the first case, struck out the acquittal and entered conviction there. This case was stamped upon my memory by a subsequent letter from the mother of the onceacquitted man, then in the Naval prison, stating that she was dying and wanted to see her son. The thing to be emphasized is that the court acted within its rights: the court is not to be blamed, but a particular feature of the system, for which public indifference to military affairs is largely responsible.

An acquittal may be disapproved and the case sent back for revision by the convening authority. The court theoretically cannot be compelled to change its finding, but practically the feature of compulsion is there. The same thing applies to proceedings in revision. looking to a heavier sentence. No one wants to have his actions disapproved by his military superior, particularly if such disapproval may be accompanied by nasty comment which will injure his military record. The writer is firmly convinced that the severity of many sentences is due to the natural, human feeling of courts, that they are only safe

from criticism if they lay it on thick, in which case the convening authority can mitigate without returning the case for revision. The opinion that this is the only practicable course to follow under the system, is so often expressed by experienced officers, and the cases are so often illustrative of such course, as to offer no escape from this conclusion. As one illustrative case, an officer, who had served many years without a spot on his record, participated in several expeditions with honor, distinguishing himself particularly at Vera Cruz, who was in addition one of the most valuable technical men in the service, was tried for a casual affair with a woman. The writer does not believe that a single member of the court thought this man should be dismissed from the service, or that, if their judgment had been free, they would have considered for a moment a penalty greater than fine and loss of numbers. But they voted unanimously for dismissal simply because they knew the extreme opinions of the Secretary of the Navy on such matters, and that they would only succeed in hanging themselves also if they refused to sacrifice the required victim. Again, neither are the members to be blamed for having the normal instincts of self-preservation, nor is the Secretary to be blamed for having private opinions; but the system, which masks personal views as final arbiter under the guise of a judicial proceeding, is in that respect a mockery and a farce. The appropriate remedy for this serious defect is a provision that a finding of acquittal shall be final, and that proceedings in revision shall not lie to revise a sentence upwards.

The secret finding and sentence is closely akin to the practice of convicting acquitted men and revising sentences upward. Indeed, that practice is the only excuse ever offered for secrecy; although the connection is difficult to understand unless the system is ashamed to let it be known that a man has been first acquitted and then convicted. In any event, this gum-shoe, hush-hush proceeding should stop. In the first place, it is a joke. Of course, everybody is solemnly sworn to secrecy, but everybody also knows that it is a lot of monkey-business and that strict secrecy is of no practical importancé. In consequence, anybody who has sufficient curiosity, can nine times out of ten get a hint which discloses what the finding was. If the accused has a previous conviction, which often is the case, no hint is necessary, his record is read if he is convicted, but not read if he is acquitted. In such cases, we have therefore the solemn comedy of a court, sworn to secrecy on its verdict, disclosing by its next act exactly what that verdict is. To repeat, court-martial secrecy is a joke; but a very bad joke. It casts a twilight haze over the proceedings, which encourages members to find

verdicts and impose sentences that they would hesitate considerably about if they had them to proclaim face to face with accused, counsel and spectators. It is unmanly, unfair and archaic, and serves no useful purpose whatsoever. Both Gen. Crowder and Col. Ansell agree that convicting acquitted men, revising sentences upward, and secret findings and sentence should be abolished.

A limitation should be imposed upon trying a man at the same time for all sorts of different offenses. An accused was tried on three charges: (1) Theft, (2) Unlawful possession, (3) An insubordinate remark about a sergeant. He was acquitted of the first two charges, convicted on the third and sentenced to two years. Without the shadow of a doubt, the court was punishing him for the theft of which they had insufficient evidence, but believed him guilty. This system of heaping up entirely disconnected charges is vicious in the extreme, and offers an opportunity to convict anybody by raking up all of his past delinquencies and heaping them upon him. The limitations of joinder in the Federal Criminal Code permit sufficient latitude to the prosecution in allowing joinder of acts arising from "the same transaction," "or connected together," or comprising "the same class of crimes," in the latter case discretion to compel election resting with the trial court. These provisions ought to be incorporated in the military law and thus prevent the possibility of trying a man at the same time for murder in Alaska and chicken-thieving in Texas.

The rigidity of the proceedings and record, the insistence upon the most trivial matters, is a noticeable feature of the court-martial system. The reformers do not make much of this, apparently because it favors the accused, and no popular gnashing of teeth can be aroused over the escape of military offenders on technical grounds. The charges and specifications are often very badly drawn, indeed the draughtsmen in the department seem at times to have a positive genius for charging everything else except what the man is guilty of. This may be due to misconceptions arising from the papers submitted, the draughtsmen having no opportunity to interview the witnesses personally. I speak now only of general courts-martial originating in the department at Washington. In every case, the trial judge advocate should have more authority and responsibility. If he interviews the witnesses, he should prepare the charges and specifications and forward them with the statements of the witnesses. Before and at the trial, he should have the power, subject to the court's approval, to amend the charges and specifications not merely in trivialities but in substance, reserving to the accused, if taken by surprise, the

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right of postponement. The idea, that the trial judge advocate and the court are not competent to do this, is simply typical of the old military style which is not satisfied unless it has a colonel doing a second lieutenant's job. No record should be sent back for revision. except for errors in substance; any inartificial statement that conveys the appropriate meaning should suffice. The writer has seen a case returned because the sentence was to perform extra "police duty," instead of "police duties." This is typical also.

The practice of clearing the court to rule on all objections to evidence is impossible. This unduly protracts the trial. I have known instances where all participants cooled their heels for over half an hour outside while the court discussed simple objections, such as "leading." The result is that counsel has to pass up all sorts of improprieties in order to get through at all. The President of the Court. should rule on all objections to evidence, unless other members indicate a desire to participate, and then the discussion should be informal, unless a majority of the court votes to clear the court room. There is nothing to prevent this practice being now followed, but it is not and will not be until some law or regulation makes it mandatory.

In spite of the several glaring defects pointed out in the courtmartial system, the writer's experience is that substantial justice is done by courts-martial about as well as by civil courts. The army, by virtue of its stupendous increase and total re-organization, was up against a much stiffer proposition than the Navy, and its courts-martial problems were proportionately more difficult to solve. For this reason, temporary and abnormal conditions may have in some cases produced abnormal results. But the wholesale indictments, the frothing and raving, the appeals to popular prejudices about martinets and Prussian militarism and all such buncombe, with which the reform agitation has been accompanied, cannot be regarded properly as other than barren and disgraceful. This arouses the same ignorant prejudices that have killed any attempt to improve the military establishment in the past, and by catering to such influences makes a pretty poor start towards improving it in the future. The defects in the system are plain, and most of them easily identified. Bills to remedy them were before Congress in the early part of last session, and, if Congress had attended to its business, they would have been passed before the court-martial fanfare started. Thinking men do the country a great disservice when they encourage Congress in its preference for investigation and raving and its dislike of work.

WHAT MINNESOTA HAS DONE AND SHOULD DO

FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED

WILLIAM HODSON1

In 1879 the State of Minnesota established a commission to visit hospitals for the insane for the purpose, among other things, of selecting idotic and feeble-minded persons to be transferred from the hospitals and placed under the control of the institution for the deaf, dumb, and blind at Fairbault. The trustees of that institution were authorized to establish an "experimental school" for training such patients, and an appropriation of $11,000 was made available for the years 1879 and 1880. In 1881 the beginning of our present school for the feeble-minded was authorized by the legislature as a "Department for Training Imbeciles." The growth and development of the school, which began with less than a hundred patients to its present size and usefulness, with a population of 1,664, is familiar history. Minnesota has often been congratulated for its early recognition of the problem of feeble-mindedness. From 1879 to 1917 the course of legislation has been on the side of developing the school-increasing its physical accommodations--the addition of a farm colony-in 1909 the establishment of the highly important and valuable research department. The legislation of 1917 marks the beginning of a new state policy with respect to the feeble-minded. As that legislation has been operative for a year it seems worth while at this time to consider its purposes and results.

The new law provides for compulsory commitment of feebleminded persons to the care and custody of the State Board of Control. Heretofore it has been impossible to place feeble-minded persons under state care so long as they or their parents or guardians objected. Admission to the school at Faribault was voluntary and the length of detention a matter of the will of the patient or of those in authority over him. Manifestly the well-being of the community required permanent control by the community of those who, because of mental defect, are a menace and a constant source of actual and potential danger. The principle is so well recognized where crime and insanity are concerned, that one is at a loss to explain the delay in applying it to the feeble-minded. The terms of our present law constitute a complete

State Board of Control, Children's Bureau, St. Paul, Minn.