Another Chapter In Career Slain Negro Soldier

It has developed through the discharge papers of Festus Crummie, the colored soldier who was killed at Holt last Thursday, that he had been discharged from the army because of mental deficiency. This fact only developed today when the sisters of the dead soldier brought his discharge papers to the headquarters of the Red Cross. The papers show that Crummie enlisted on April 15, 1917, for a term of seven years, and he was discharged at Nogales, Ariz., Jan. 4, 1919, and sent to Cincinnati. The discharge papers also show that the government paid Crummy $137.46 on the day of his discharge, yet he became a public charge soon after reaching Cincinnati. A letter from Red Cross authorities of Cincinnati shows that Crummie was kept at the colored Y.M.C.A. in Cincinati, and that his expenses were paid by the Red Cross. He was not maintained at the white Y.M.C.A, as he claimed when he arrived in Tuscaloosa. The sisters of Crummie say that they would have kept a closer watch upon his movements had they known what the words “Mentally Deficient” meant. A brother of Crummie was recently discharged on the same ground, and was sent home under guard and the guard demanded a receipt for the safe delivery of his charge.