From <a href=”http:\/\/www.davidpietrusza.com\/1920.html”>1920: The Year of Six Presidents<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0 (a book I’m having difficulty sticking on the sidebar for some strange reason),\u00c2\u00a0 culled from pages 386 – 396:<\/p>\n
In July 1917, Rhode Island Governor Livingston Beekman provided\u00c2\u00a0Josephus Daniels with a letter from Providence Journal publisher John R\u00c2\u00a0Rathom, alleging serious problems.\u00c2\u00a0 “The situation inNewport is about as bad\u00c2\u00a0as can be,” the rotund, Australian-born Rathom wrote.\u00c2\u00a0 “These places\u00c2\u00a0have been recognized by the police for years; they have been allowed to\u00c2\u00a0operate without any hinderance whatever, and orgies of the most\u00c2\u00a0disgraceful character have been carried on for the benefit of sailors, and\u00c2\u00a0frequently witnessed by police officers themselves as spectators.”\u00c2\u00a0 Not\u00c2\u00a0all the prostitutes were women.\u00c2\u00a0 And not all the homosexual sex was paid\u00c2\u00a0for.\u00c2\u00a0 In early 1919, Lieutenant Erastus Mead Hudson of the Medical\u00c2\u00a0Corps, a Harvard graduate, was assigned to look into not only homosexual\u00c2\u00a0prostitution at Newport but also ordinary consensual homosexual laisons.
\n[…]
\nBecause civilians were involved, local naval authorities thought the\u00c2\u00a0Department of Justice should investigate.\u00c2\u00a0 Accordingly, on March 22,\u00c2\u00a01919, FDR wrote to Attorney General Palmer:<\/p>\n
The Navy Department has become convinced that such conditions of vice\u00c2\u00a0and depravity exist … as to require a most searching and rigid\u00c2\u00a0investigation with a view to finally prosecuting and clearing out those\u00c2\u00a0responsible for it… “fostering dens where perverted practices were carried\u00c2\u00a0on.” … This department, eager for the protection of its young men\u00c2\u00a0from such contaminating influences, desires to have the horrible practices\u00c2\u00a0stopped.<\/p>\n
While Roosevelt, Palmer, and the court of inquiry dithered, Newport’s\u00c2\u00a0naval personnel took action — ill-advised, stupid action, true, but\u00c2\u00a0action nonetheless.\u00c2\u00a0 In February 1919, forty-four year-old Chief Seaman’s\u00c2\u00a0Mate Ervin Arnold arrived from San Francisco.\u00c2\u00a0 The rough-hewn, poorly\u00c2\u00a0educated former Connecticut detective possessed a keen interest, verging\u00c2\u00a0on obsession, in investigating homosexuals, boasting that he could\u00c2\u00a0“Tell them a mile off.”\u00c2\u00a0 At Newport, Arnold would investigate both\u00c2\u00a0homosexual prostitution and purely consensual sex.<\/p>\n
On March 15, 1919, Arnold, with Lieutenant Hudson’s backing, recruited\u00c2\u00a0thirteen newly enlisted sailors to entrap homosexuals.\u00c2\u00a0 “You people\u00c2\u00a0will be on the field of operation,” Arnold instructed them.\u00c2\u00a0 “You will\u00c2\u00a0have to use your judgement whether or not a full act is completed.\u00c2\u00a0 If\u00c2\u00a0that being the fact, it might lead into something greater.\u00c2\u00a0 You have got\u00c2\u00a0to form that judgement at the time you are on that field with that\u00c2\u00a0party.” On May 1, Hudson, Arnold, and FDR<\/span> conferred.\u00c2\u00a0 Hudson and Arnold later claimed that they discussed the situation at length; FDR<\/span> claimed that they spoke for five minutes, without discussing how to proceed.\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever transpired, four days later Roosevelt assigned Hudson and Arnold to Naval Intelligence to investigate “moral perversion and drugs” at Newport<\/span>.\u00c2\u00a0 “It is requested,” FDR<\/span> wrote to Chief of Naval Intelligence Rear Admiral Albert P Niblack, “That this be the only written communication in regard to this affair, as it is thought wise to keep this matter wholly secret.”<\/p>\n To Hudson, FDR<\/span> also provided a letter addressed to “Whom it may be Concerned” stating that the lieutenant was “engaged on important work in which I am interested and any assistance you can render him will be appreciated.”<\/p>\n […] Reverend Kent boasted excellent education and reputation.\u00c2\u00a0 His arrest outraged his fellow Episcopal clergy.\u00c2\u00a0 At Kent’s August 23 trial — and acquittal — two sailors testified that they had been authorized to go “to the limit” to obtain arrests.\u00c2\u00a0 The notion outraged just about everyone who heard of it.<\/p>\n On September 3, […] complained bitterly over the Navy’s treatement of Kent.\u00c2\u00a0 Roosevelt defended Kent’s prosecution and further slammed the judge who had dismissed the charges against Kent as a political hack.\u00c2\u00a0 But he also vowed, “If anyone has given orders to commit immoral acts, someone will swing for it.”<\/p>\n […] The Journal, responded to what it termed FDR<\/span>‘s “wild and clumsy attack” professed puzzlement:\u00c2\u00a0 Mr Roosevelt’s political loyalty to his \u00c2\u00a0pussy-footing chief has lead him into a bog of falsehood and unfairness, where he does not belong, either by training or inclination.\u00c2\u00a0 Why this outburst on the eve of a senatorial investigation?\u00c2\u00a0 Would it not have been more politic, and certainly more just, to have waited in an orderly fashion for the evidence, without this preliminary shriek of alarm?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is it because Administration officials have come to consider themselves so immune from criticism that they think all they have to do in their own defense is to shout “Liar.”<\/p>\n On January 22, Rathom telegraphed FDR<\/span>, alluding to FDR<\/span>‘s personal involvement:<\/p>\n Many boys wearing the uniform of the United States Navy<\/span> have been forced into the position of moral perverts by specific orders of officers in the Navy Department, and these conditions were known to the Secretary of the Navy and yourself months ago.<\/p>\n On January 22, however, FDR<\/span> caught a break, when the skittish Ball<\/span> Subcommittee voted to conduct hearings in secret.\u00c2\u00a0 The Dunn Inquiry, meanwhile, opened proceedings in late January.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a classic case of military cover-up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From <a href=”http:\/\/www.davidpietrusza.com\/1920.html”>1920: The Year of Six Presidents<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0 (a book I’m having difficulty sticking on the sidebar for some strange reason),\u00c2\u00a0 culled from pages 386 – 396: In July 1917, Rhode Island Governor Livingston Beekman provided\u00c2\u00a0Josephus Daniels with a letter from Providence Journal publisher John R\u00c2\u00a0Rathom, alleging serious problems.\u00c2\u00a0 “The situation inNewport is about as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-regurgitates-forward"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n………
\nIn April 191, the Hudson – Arnold<\/span> operation arrested eighteen offending sailors.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n
\nHudson and Arnold recruited forty-one sailors — ten of whom were mere boys between sixteen and nineteen — and ordered them to entrap homosexuals by whatever means necessary.\u00c2\u00a0 In July 1919, they netted sixteen Newport<\/span> civilians, including the forty-six year old Episcopal chaplain of the Naval Hospital, Samuel Neal Kent, arrested as “a lewd and wanton person.”<\/p>\n
\nOn January 10, Bishop Perry and twelve clergy from five different Protestant denominations wrote President Wilson.\u00c2\u00a0 “It must be evident to every thoughtful mind,” they protested, “that the use of such vile methods cannot fail to undermine the character and ruin the morals of the unfortunate youths detailed for this duty, render no citizen of the community safe from suspicion and calumny, bring the city into unwarented reproach, and shake the faith of the people in the wisdom and integrity of the naval administration.”\u00c2\u00a0 They “solmnly request[ed]” that Wilson “at the earliest moment … eliminate from the navy all officials, however hightly placed, who are responsible for the employment of such execrable methods — contrary alike to the dictates of morality, patriotism, and religion.”
\n[…]<\/p>\n