Page:Max Eastman's Address to the Jury in the Second Masses Trial (1918).pdf/40

 magazine along and ordered a lot of books. And let me say this as to the character of those books: We were not running a book store. We were merely advertising to all our readers that they could help us support the magazine by buying their books through us. And we stated in every issue of the magazine that we would get any book they want, and we would receive the commission on it. And so he sent us $18, because as a Lieutenant who was going to be a captain, he liked our magazine, and wanted to help us.

And then he brings the Judge Advocate over here who sentenced a man named Henkes, about whom I suppose we have all read in the press, who wrote a letter to the Secretary of War after he got over in France, stating that his father was a German and his mother was a German, and that he has relatives in the German army, and that he was afraid that if he went into action he might do something to the detriment of the military forces of the United States, and would they please either accept his resignation or give him service in some other field. And that was all he did.

His father was a confederate soldier.

Well, that is irrelevant, That was all he did. And when Mr. Barnes tried to persuade the Judge Advocate to say that there was something else involved in that trial, the Judge Advocate could not do it. He simply repeated the fact that this man had given that statement to the War Department. And in that little circular there which is in the evidence, that fact, and that letter of his, is repeated at least six times with the statement "This is all he had to say. He has nothing to add and nothing to offer." So all he had to say was, "I am of German descent, and I cannot help my feeling, and I am afraid at a critical time I might do something to the detriment of our army." And he was