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Talking Points

Honesty & Public Officials

“A Mystery That Stirs The Navy,” New York Evening Journal, July 19, 1909

We need absolute honesty in public life; and we should not get it until we remember that truth telling must go hand-in hand with it, and that it is quite as important not to tell an untruth about a decent man as it is to tell the truth about one who is not decent.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Outlook, May 12, 1900

Roosevelt’s comment underscores a major theme in A SOUL ON TRIAL and an issue that preoccupies Americans—today even more than a century ago. It seems particularly important right now as our national discourse has centered on issues of honesty among public officials for much of the past five years. There is a certain irony to the fact that Rosa Sutton was not able to secure a second hearing during the Roosevelt administration; she and the president would have had an interesting dialogue with each other. In many ways she was just the type of feisty determined individual he respected; but she was taking on an institution that he admired and had a very personal interest in—America’s Navy.

The more documents I read related to this case, the clearer it became how complex it was to decipher the truth in the face of conflicting testimony from men and women who experienced the tragedy differently, and saw the truth through the lens of his or her own belief system. The dichotomy between reality and memory became critical in weighing the evidence—primarily the marines’ testimony—in this case. What motivates people to say the things they do or to refrain from saying certain things? Finding that out is part of the job of a historian as well as a prosecutor or a detective. And sometimes it’s impossible to do that without the perspective of time passing.

The Power of Public Opinion

The influence of a gaping and curious public can have no effect on the conduct of the Judge Advocate in this matter. . . . The hallowed grave of a dead son is no more sacred than the grave of a military reputation and there are a great many military reputations at stake in this hearing.

—Major Harry Leonard

Major Leonard proved to be a formidable judge advocate and an ideal one to handle Rosa Sutton in what began as an impartial investigation into the facts surrounding Sutton’s death. As it turned out, Rosa needed to be handled—she was strong minded and just as determined as he was to defend something sacred to her and to a large number of Americans. So Leonard had a plan to attack her credibility. But the curious public did have a strong influence on his actions at the inquiry in the summer of 1909. Both of his comments reveal his concern about his own reputation, and his awareness that his job was to be impartial; at the same time, as a Marine Corps officer, his actions were also driven by his loyalty to his Band of Brothers. This is a timeless conflict that has long governed the exigencies of military justice and it plays out here in a way that makes the subject fascinating and telling.

America’s service academies—then as now—are always scrutinized more than any other institutions of higher education in this country. And Americans have enormous respect for the men and women who serve in our armed forces. Because so many Americans had a stake in what happened in this case, the government’s representatives were forced to deliberately cultivate public opinion inside a military courtroom. The Marines’ code of conduct was just as sacred to them, as Rosa Sutton’s mission was to her. So the newspapers shaped the dialogue—including the lawyers closing arguments—within the courtroom and outside of it.

The Power of the Press

One of more than 57 articles and 6 editorials to appear in the New York Times

“Governmental actions should be neither secret nor unjust. . . . If we cannot get justice through the courts, every newspaper in the United States shall have the facts as we have them and then see what the opinion of the world will be.” 

 —Rosa Sutton

Rosa Sutton’s statement helps to explain why this story mattered so much a century ago—and why it should now. Secrecy is a different issue than honesty, although the two are obviously related. In this case the secret element was what was not examined and what was not said at the first investigation. Secrecy is often behind a person’s alleged failure of memory when that failure is convenient. And Americans’ weapons against government reticence have long been its journalists.

In this case, an unknown Oregon housewife had opportunities in 1909 that her mother would not have had a generation earlier. At the end of the nineteenth century, the nation had become a neighborhood, and its newspapers proliferated. New modes of transportation and communication led to the exploding population of American’s cities. “Public opinion” was no longer confined to the educated middle classes—a vast urban and immigrant population now turned to morning, afternoon, and evening papers for information and entertainment. For reporters, the story of a heartbroken mother confronting a military bureaucracy proved irresistible; the paranormal aspects of the Sutton story only added to its potential to fascinate.

It was the job of the papers—the only media at that time—to be guardians of democracy and the legal system that is key to making democracy work. A century ago, men and women, including public figures, depended on the newspapers for the most basic information—even information about their own family members. Telephones were still not used widely. In a very real sense, the press corps became a third protagonist in this story.

Rosa Sutton’s story would compete for attention on the new wire services with the Wright brothers’ daring flights, urban calamities, or any one of several grisly criminal trials. All the major New York papers followed her campaign, including respectable ones such as the staid Evening Post  and the New York Times. The case also stimulated the decade-old circulation war between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World  and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal.

For the American press and its readers, Rosa Sutton came to represent every mother who had lost a son in the military and sought the facts about his fate. This dilemma resonates as strongly today as it did in the decade before World War I.

There is an irony to the fact that citizens from patriotic military families are forced to confront an institution created to protect and defend democratic values—and yet one in which some of the privileges and guarantees of our Constitution are not applicable. Rosa Sutton and Pat Tillman’s mother, Mary, both made their case in the same way by going to the media and Congress. This is a quintessential American story and perhaps the first of its kind. There are other mothers who are fighting to get the truth from the military—in many cases from the army. The language these mothers are using and the hurdles they face exactly parallel Rosa Sutton’s challenges a hundred years ago. None of these mothers wanted to go to the media or to appeal to Congress.

The Military and the Civilian Justice Systems

Court Scene during Lieutenant Edward Osterman’s testimony as published in the New York American, July 21, 1909.
Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

With the Navy Department’s decision, Rosa Sutton would enter a forum—in fact, a separate subculture—that was as unfamiliar to her as it was to most civilians. Then, as now, Americans lived in “a democratic society committed to civilian control of the military.” From its educational institutions to its justice system, the U.S. military still tends to close ranks against outsiders in the face of criticism; this response may cause more public outcry than the original offense warranted.

The Constitution ensures that Congress and the executive branch of our government have power over the armed forces. But military society was and is separate from civilian society. Historically there has been a reluctance to interfere in the operations of military justice out of respect for the mission of our armed services, which exist in part to protect Democratic values.

Enlisted men and officers were subject to command authority of the most arbitrary type—to men whose primary goal was to make sure that order, discipline, conformity and loyalty to one’s unit were paramount. Innocence and guilt were less important than the good of the service.

Civil law provides for ideally impartial judges, indictment by a grand jury, due process—some of the debates going on right now in this country are related to how much command authority the executive branch of our government has over individual rights.

Many of our rights as civilians, including freedom of expression, are given up by those who join the military—and although there is a Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces with three civilian judges who do not have life tenure— before 1951 this court did not exist.

There are formal and unspoken rules about free expression for military personnel because the need for absolute loyalty to one’s leader is so essential for an effective fighting force. No disrespect may be shown to superior commissioned officers or to high-ranking government officials from the president on down.

So situations exist in which loyalty trumps truth. And many of these may come up inside courts—martial or courts of inquiry. The insularity of military personnel from the civilian world—considered necessary but now under increasing scrutiny—could certainly encourage military witnesses to justify either silence or secrecy during a court proceeding because it is best for their fellow officers or enlisted men. And then there is the situation of enlisted men and women under orders to be absolutely loyal to their superior officers. Testifying against them puts them in conflict with what they have been trained to do.

Gravesite of James N. Sutton, Arlington National
Cemetery, October 1907. Courtesy of the Harry
Ransom Humanities Research Center,  University of
Texas at Austin

Here is an amazing case in which spiritism charges murder though the verdict of the courts is suicide. . . . I am enabled here to give to the world for the first time the details of the part which spiritism has played in the affair from the beginning to the present time; a part so utterly astonishing that it is without a parallel in history.

—Edward Marshall New York Times

On November 12, 1911, a large feature story appeared in the New York Times—one of more than 57 articles and six editorials to appear in the New York Times about this case. Its paranormal aspects relate to other eternal questions of whether or not living people can communicate with the dead and whether or not there is life after death. After the Civil War, the number of people who wanted to contact their departed loved ones increased dramatically. And at the beginning of the 20th century there was a widespread interest in ghosts and the supernatural just as there is now.

Mourning locket worn
by Rose Sutton Parker,
Jimmie’s sister, at the
1909 inquiry. Contains
a picture of her brother  
and a lock of his hair.

 And then there was a hard-core group of scholars—psychical researchers—who believed that it was possible to study people who had apparitions using scientific methods. In order to save her own reputation, Rosa Sutton asked for help from America’s foremost psychical researcher, James Hyslop. Hyslop and his Oregon associate, George Thacher, ultimately found much could be learned from what Rosa called her visions— her postmortem visits from Jimmie.

This aspect of the case not only made it more riveting to readers across the country, it also gives this story another twist that resonates profoundly with people’s concerns today. In an age of mass violence, searching for something outside of life on earth, not surprisingly, has continued to preoccupy millions of people from all parts of the globe.

In the decade since I began working on this story of a mother’s effort to prove her son was not a suicide, the word has taken on a new significance. Daily headlines about suicide bombings would have been unimaginable 10 years ago. Even more ironic is the fact this type of suicide comes with a reward for those engaged in it rather than a punishment in the eyes of God.