Article 62

An Article of War, the 62nd, prescribes such punishment "as a court martial may direct" for "contemptuous or disrespectful words against the President, Vice President, the Congress of the U. S., the Secretary of War or the Governor or Legislature of any states."

Last week, Private Walter Trumbull, No. 6,112,765, Service Co., 21st Inf., was sentenced to dishonorable discharge and 26 years at hard labor by a court martial in Honolulu, for breach of Article 62, and also participation in a communist plot which was said to have collided with the general "good order"* clauses of Article 96.

Previously, Private Paul Crouch, No. 6,346,392, Service Co., 21st Inf., had been sentenced to dishonorable discharge and 40 years at hard labor.

The chief witness at both trials was an army intelligence officer, Col. Eugene Fisher, who testified that Crouch was the ringleader in organizing "the Hawaiian Communist League," and that both Privates Crouch and Trumbull had asked him to join the League.

Col. Fisher quoted Private Trumbull as saying:

"The President may be all right as an individual, but as an institution is a disgrace to the whole God-damned country."

And again: "I'm sick and disgusted with the whole damned country, everything and everybody in it. I wish I could get where I would never hear the name of the United States again. Flag and country are a disgrace to humanity."

He quoted Crouch: "The majority of the common people are hard to swing into the Red column. I favor overthrowing the United States Government by peaceful means if possible; if not, by any other means, including revolution."

He also produced a letter intercepted on its way to Moscow in which Privates Crouch and Trumbull had asked admission into the Third Internationale.

Most of the men who, during the War, were sent to jail for the irregularity of their social ideas, have eventually been let off lightly. The severity of the two Honolulu sentences will come under five reviews; it is predicted that both sentences will shrivel either in the reviews or at the White House.

"Three years will probably be as long a sentence as I shall give to Crouch and Trumbull," said William R. Smith, Major General commanding.

*"All disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the military service. ..."