ound
threatening to court martial his subordinates is merely avowing his
own weakness, and crying that he has lost all of his moral means. Even
the dullest men do not mistake vehemence and abuse for signs of
strength.

To punish a body of men, for offenses committed by two or three of
their number, even though the offense is obnoxious and it is
impossible to put the finger on the culprits, is the act of a sadist,
and is no more excusable within military organization than in civilian
society. Any officer who resorts to this stupid practice will forfeit
the loyalty of the best men in his command. There is no reason why it
should be otherwise.

As a general rule, it is a serious error to reprimand a subordinate in
the presence of any other person, because of the unnecessary hurt to
his pride. But circumstances moderate the rule. If the offense for
which he is being reprimanded involves injury of any sort to some
other person, or persons, it may be wholly proper to apply the
treatment in their presence. For example, the bully or the smart-aleck
who wantonly humiliates his own subordinates is not entitled to have
his own feelings spared. However, in the presence of his own superior,
an officer is always ill-advised to administer oral punishment to one
of his own juniors, since the effect is to destroy confidence both up
and down the line.

It is always the duty of an officer to intervene, toward the
protection of his own men against any manifest injustice, whatever its
source. In fact, this trust is so implicit that he should be ready to
risk his professional reputation upon it, when he is convinced beyond
doubt that the man is being unfairly assailed, or that due process is
not being followed. Both higher authority and civil authority
occasionally overreach; an officer stands as a shield protecting his
men against unfair treatment from any quarter. _But it is decidedly
not his duty to attempt to cheat law or thwart justice for the sake of
his men simply because they are his men._ His job, as Shakespeare puts
it, is "to unmask falsehood and bring truth to light, to wrong the
wronger till he render right."

Finally, the best policy on punishments is to eliminate the frictions
which are the cause of most transgressions. When a ship is happy, men
do their duty. Scarcely anything will cross them up more quickly than
to see rewards given with an uneven hand. Even the stinker who has no
ambition but to duck work can recogniz