"The Brownsville Affair":
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The results
When soldiers of the 25th Regiment were pressured to name who fired the shots, they insisted that they had no idea who had committed the crime. The soldiers were not given any type of hearing, trial, or the opportunity to confront their accusers (all rights guaranteed to U.S. Citizens in the Constitution). As a result, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered 167 of the black troops dishonorably discharged because of their "conspiracy of silence". This dishonorable discharge prevented these 167 men from ever working in a military or civil service capacity. Some of the black soldiers had been in the U.S. Army for over twenty years, while others were extremely close to retirement with pension. Since the 1970s, the story has spread that the discharged soldiers included six Medal of Honor recipients. Among the historians who accepted this story were Jack Foner, William Seraile, Louis Harlan, Garna Christian, H.W. Brands, and most recently Richard Wormser (cited below). The evidence does not support this claim. There were fewer than 40 black recipents of the award to that time. A check of any of the reference works listing recipients against the names of those discharged shows that none of the Medal recipients were among the 25th Infantry soldiers stationed at Fort Brown.
Even Booker T. Washington got involved, asking President Roosevelt to reconsider his decision in the affair. Roosevelt instead dismissed Washington's plea and allowed his decision to stand.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownsville_AffairBut here's another side of him:
"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918
pnorman