The Pittsburgh Press (April 30, 1941)
JOHNSON LOSES RANK IN ARMY
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Roosevelt denies personalities are involved
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Washington, April 30 (UP) –
President Roosevelt has refused to renew the Army Reserve commission of Brig. Gen. Hugh S. Johnson, newspaper columnist, administration critic and one-time chief of the NRA.
Correspondence in the case disclosed that Mr. Roosevelt, through his secretary and military aide, Maj. Gen. Edwin M. Watson, assured Gen. Johnson that personalities were not involved in the decision.
The commission was not renewed, the letter said, because of Gen. Johnson’s age, his physical condition and the fact that he has not been in active service or training for many years. Gen. Johnson will be 59 in August.
War Department overruled
Mr. Roosevelt’s action overruled a recommendation of the War Department that Gen. Johnson be reappointed.
White House Press Secretary Stephen T. Early said the Johnson case and the resignation of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh from the Reserves could not be considered analogous.
He said no abridgment of free speech could be construed from either action, because as civilians no longer in the Reserves, both Gen. Johnson amd Col. Lindbergh would have greater liberty of expression than would be possible in active service.
‘Gagging’ recalled
Mr. Early said:
It used to be a practice for the War and Navy Departments to call men to active service and thereby gag them.
As a newspaperman covering the War and Navy Departments, I have seen cases where men thus called were assigned on active service to posts in very remote places.
In contrast to this policy, Mr. Early said, the action in regard to Gen. Johnson and Col. Lindbergh permits them utmost liberty of expression.
Gen. Johnson had asked that his commission be renewed. Col. Lindbergh submitted his resignation as a result of the President’s criticism of his views about the war. Col. Lindbergh’s resignation was accepted yesterday, but the War Department could have refused it and, instead, assigned him to active duty.
Writes to Roosevelt
General Johnson, a West Point graduate and administrator of the World War draft, severed his active Army connections in 1919. He subsequently held the rank of brigadier general in the Reserve Corps for three terms of five years each. The last expired April 10.
During his terms in the reserve, Mr. Early said, Gen. Johnson underwent no training of any sort and had no direct contact with the Army.
Despite this fact, the War Department waived the question of Gen. Johnson’s physical fitness and recommended his reappointment. That recommendation reached the White House, but was not acted upon and on April 16, Mr. Early said, Gen. Johnson wrote to Mr. Roosevelt reminding him that the recommendation had been made and inquiring why no action had been taken.
That letter was referred to Gen. Watson, who referred it to the War Department. Upon hearing from the War Department, it was decided not to reappoint Gen. Johnson, and on Monday, Gen. Watson wrote the columnist as follows:
The President has read your letter and has asked me to say that personalities had no place in his decision not to reappoint you to a reserve commission.
The President feels very strongly that in the present emergency reappointment of general officers who are eligible by age to perform active service should be restricted to those whose employment on such service is anticipated, and that only after the physical fitness of the officer has been investigated to the satisfaction of the Army medical authorities.
The War Department does not plan to place you on active duty and, in view of this fact, your reappointment would be to no purpose.
The question was simply whether in the present emergency you and others within the age limit for active duty should be reappointed to what would amount to a purely honorary rank without actual significance.
Mr. Early admitted that Gen. Johnson had asserted that his rejection was due to personalities, but insisted that there was no basis in fact for this charge.
Mr. Early pointed out that, unlike the Navy, the Army has no retired list of reserve officers.
The President feels that this is something that should be corrected. However, that takes an act of Congress.