The larger proportion of those imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth belong to the peace-loving, inoffensive, industrious Mennonites. Take the case of the Amish Mennonites. Last summer 45 of these quiet people were sentenced to life imprisonment for refusing to obey the orders of their inferiors in many points of view except that of military rank. This sentence was commuted to an imprisonment of 25 years. Twenty-seven of the same sect were sentenced from 10 to 20 years each for a similar offence. Virtually in every one of these 72 cases, the crimes consisted in a refusal to don uniforms. Most of them have longer sentences than are usually dispensed for manslaughter. The length of these sentences and also of many other sentences pronounced upon others who have broken the regulations of the military code has been made the special object of investigation by Congress. The excuse that some of these excessively long sentences were military bluff for the deterrent effect and were never intended to be carried out in full is irrational. If such statement is correct, our system of military court procedure ought to be overhauled and renovated. We are not contending that offenders should go unpunished, we are merely insisting that the penalties prescribed shall be commensurate with the offense, and shall be consistent with modern jurisprudence. Let us be thankful that the instances of cruelty and preposterous punishments have been so few. Grant that some of the reported instances are a species of brutal hazing, that some few bone-headed young officials “drest in some brief authority,” with an overweening sense of their importance, have taken a narrow view of military discipline, still there have been sufficient complaints to elicit the following editorial in the sober Public Ledger of Philadelphia. TORTURE FOR MILITARY PRISONERS? “If any branch of the Government’s military activities calls for an instant and searching investigation, it is certainly the treatment accorded the “conscientious objectors” in the military prisons to which they have been sent by court-martial. Even if half the allegations contained in the complaints concerning the prisoners of this type, at Governor’s Island, New York, and at Fort Leavenworth, are true, the conditions demand instant correction and those responsible therefor summary punishment.