Newton D. Baker to Woodrow Wilson

The so-called Houston Riot took place on August 23, 1917. From the time of arrival of these colored troops at Houston until the day of the riot there was more or less continuous trouble over the enforcement of so-called Jim Crow laws, provisions for separate drinking water facilities, and other race differentiations. There were some instances of assaults committed upon colored soldiers by Houston policemen and, generally, verbal disputes and clashes were of frequent occurrence. On August 23 two police officers raided a crap game in the colored section of the city, the game being in process among some colored boys who fled for refuge into the house of a woman. One of the officers undertook to arrest the woman, but a negro soldier nearby interfered and was arrested by the officer, with perhaps unnecessary violence. Some controversy arose later in the day between the officer who made this arrest and Corporal Baltimore, a negro member of the Military Police stationed in the city of Houston, which resulted in Baltimore being shot at, struck over the head with a revolver, and arrested. The news of this incident reached the camp and spread among the colored soldiers, with the result that later in the day a mutinous brand of colored soldiers, seeking revenge on the police of Houston, left the camp, armed, approached the town, and committed the various murders, assaults, and acts of terrorization which characterized the riot. In all, fifteen persons were killed and twelve others were feloniously assaulted and wounded. An investigation was of course at once ordered by the Department Commander, and I sent the Inspector General from Washington to investigate the matter, with the view to assuring prompt, but fair and just, trials of all persons implicated in the mutinies and murders. The persons arrested were tried in three groups, and the records of their trials are in my office and are known, respectively, as the Nesbit Case, the Washington Case, and the Tillman Case. In each instance the Court was properly constituted, was composed of officers of long experience and sobriety of judgment, and in each case the defendents were represented by able counsel. The Nesbit Case was concluded on the 30th of November, 1917, the defendents being charged with sedition, mutiny, murder, assault with the intent to commit murder, and wilful disobedience of orders with regard to ammunition. Five of the defendents were acquitted; four were convicted of wilful disobedience and sentenced to brief terms of confinement in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; fifty-four were convicted of murder, mutiny, assault with intent to commit murder, and disobedience of orders, and of this number forty-one were sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States Penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth and thirteen were sentenced to death. Within a very brief period thereafter the Commanding General of the Southern Department having reviewed the record and confirmed the sentences, the thirteen men sentenced to death were executed by hanging. This order was wholly within the power of the Commanding General of the Southern Department under the Articles of War, which in time of war do not require death sentences to be forwarded for review by the Judge Advocate General and confirmation by the President. The record, however, was filed in the War Department and has been examined by the Judge Advocate General; it is without prejudicial error in matter of law and the evidence overwhelmingly sustains the judgment of guilt as to all the defendents, alike as to those who were capitally executed and those who were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. There can, therefore, be no question but that the law of the land prevailed and that justice was done to the defendents in the Nesbit Case, and in dealing with the matters hereinafter to be stated it is my judgment that in whatever action you take there should be a memorandum setting forth the proceedings in the Nesbit Case, the care with which the trial was surrounded, its freedom from error, and the justice of the conclusion reached.In view of the speed with which the death sentences in the Nesbit Case were executed, some feeling was aroused in the country, based upon the fear that such expedition was inconsistent with that opportunity for careful review which our laws ordinarily accord in cases where the death penalty is imposed. I therefore directed that in all subsequent cases where the death penalty is imposed in the limits of the continental United States, as distinguished from the area of conflict in France, sentence should be suspended, the record reviewed in Washington, and the sentence submitted for your action. It is for this reason that the records in the Washington Case and the Tillman Case are now presented to you.
The Washington Case involved fifteen persons. The trial was concluded on December 22, 1917. Five of the fifteen were found guilty of all specifications and sentenced to death; three were found guilty of all specifications with minor exceptions and sentenced to ten years imprisonment; and seven were found guilty of the specifications with other modifying considerations and sentenced to seven years imprisonment.The Tillman Case, concluded March 26, 1918, involved forty persons, of whom eleven were sentenced to death, twelve to life imprisonment, nine to fifteen years imprisonment, five to two years imprisonment, two were acquitted, and as to one the charges were dismissed. The prison sentences imposed in the foregoing cases are not required to be reviewed by the President; there are, therefore, presented for your actions in these cases sixteen death sentences. Because of the very great gravity both of the offenses and the penalties in these cases I have caused the voluminous records to be examined independently by several members of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps and by the Judge Advocate General himself. I have also personally gone over much of the record and I am obliged to concur with the unanimous judgment expressed by all who have examined these records, that they are without serious flaw as to matters of law, that the Court in each instance was properly constituted and composed of men of the highest character, that all rights of the accused were safeguarded, and that in spite of the fact that there were manifest evidences of a concert of agreement among the accused not to testify and to withhold material facts from the Courts, nevertheless the judgments are sustained by the overwhelming weight of the testimony.While these cases were still pending on review a formidable petition was presented to you, signed by many members of the colored race, urging clemency, and letters came from all parts of the United States, some addressed to you directly and some through the War Department, the purport of which were to urge you to regard the provocation of race discrimination as a ground for the exercise of the commuting power, and urging further both that an adequate penalty had been exacted in the executions of those convicted in the Nesbit Case and that the people of the colored race in the United States are manifesting so loyal an attitude toward the Government in the war and are giving such repeated evidence of patriotic devotion to the national cause both by their service in the Army and their purchases of Liberty Bonds and patronage of other patriotic causes, that the Government ought to recognize their loyalty by a concession against the extreme penalty executed upon so many members of the race. In the meantime, many months have elapsed since the beginning of these trials, months which have for the most part been consumed by the excess of care with which the trials have been surrounded to ensure against accidental error or injustice. Nevertheless, the time has passed and the execution now of these death penalties, it is said, would come as a shock and re-open an old race wound. Admittedly, the offense of which these soldiers were guilty is one of the greatest gravity. When the Government places high-powered weapons in the hands of soldiers and gives them thereby the power of life and death over the civilian population of the community, the responsibility of those so entrusted is manifoldly increased, and unless the Government sternly requires respect for the lives of the civilians at the hands of its armed soldiers the principles of liberty themselves would be menaced by the forces organized for their preservation. Among those killed by these mutinous and riotous soldiers were innocent bystanders and citizens of Houston who with the utmost good will sought to quell this unhappy riot. In some instances perfectly harmless persons having no relation whatever to any of the wrongs of which the rioters complained were shot in cold blood, simply because they came within the reach of the frenzy of this mob. With this sense of duty and responsibility I have still sought in my examination of these cases to distinguish and discriminate as to degrees of guilt among these maddened men, with the thought that while it will be necessary for you, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, sternly to uphold the principles of discipline which ought to make this sort of outbreak impossible, nevertheless it might be possible for you to discriminate and, by commuting the sentences of those associated in these acts of violence but not directly shown by the evidence to be individually responsible for murder, to make a merciful concession to the considerations which have been urged upon you in the letters and the petition above referred to.
In the Tillman Case this principle of discrimination would show that Private William D. Boone deliberately shot an already wounded man who was on his hands and knees, killing him under circumstances of great brutality and barbarity; but the remaining men in the Tillman Case, while deeply engaged in the riotous assemblage, are not shown by the record actually and with their own hands to have killed designated individuals.
In the Washington Case, Privates Babe Collier, Thomas McDonald, James Robinson, Joseph Smith, and Albert D. Wright were accused and convicted, in addition to the charges of mutiny, rioting, etc., alleged in the other cases, of the murder of E. M. Jones, and the record shows that while Mr. Jones was driving along the road in an automobile he was halted by Collier, McDonald, and Wright, whereupon the whole five fell upon him, shooting him from both sides of the road and killing him. These are the five as to whom the death penalty was imposed in that Case, and the evidence obviously justifies the conviction.My recommendation, therefore, is that the five sentences of death in the Washington case be confirmed, and that the death sentence in the case of William D. Boone (Tillman Case) be confirmed, that the remaining ten death sentences in the Tillman Case be commuted to life imprisonment, and that this action be taken by you in a comprehensive memorandum reviewing all the cases, pointing out the gravity of this occurrence, the propriety of the result in all these cases, and the fact that the action taken by you as a matter of clemency in the ten cases in which commutation is granted is not to be regarded as expressive of any doubt on your part that full justice was done in the trials, but is a recognition of the fidelity of the race to which these men belong, a recognition of the valiant military service which colored soldiers are now rendering in France, and an expression of your hope that no such incident will ever again disgrace the military service of the United States.
If these recommendations meet with your general approval, or if you will indicate to me any modification of them which you desire to make, I will be glad to prepare for your signature such memoranda and orders as will carry them into effect.