Two years later it is charged that some soldiers of the 25th Infantry
fired into the town of Brownsville, Texas. No evidence fixing the
guilt upon any one has ever been found, and though investigation has
been had, it remains doubtful whether any of the soldiers, and if so,
who fired the shots. The whole battalion has for years maintained
its innocence. Yet the colored soldiers, each presumably innocent,
were discharged without trial, and the act has since persistently and
violently been defended by its author. Theodore Roosevelt was President
in 1904, as well as in 1906. Why did he not apply the same rule in both
cases? He who from an eminence some distance off saw the colored troops
charge and carry San Juan Hill, knew that they could fight and die
as well as their white comrades. What became of Mr. Taft’s doctrine,
“That no matter how guilty a man is, he is entitled to be defended
by counsel.” Why were the Brownsville soldiers not “wards of the
Government” as well as the soldiers who fired on Athens? The soldiers
of Brownsville were colored.