5. Following accusations of immoral conduct at naval installations in Rhode Island, the Navy became engulfed in a scandal concerning both the homosexual behavior of military personnel and the questionable manner in which subsequent court-martials took place
Following private disclosures of a homosexual subculture in February 1919, Chief Machinist’s Mate Ervin Arnold, a former state detective, undertook an investigation of his colleagues at Newport, Rhode Island in secret before presenting his detailed findings to his superiors. Provoking scandal, including allegations of effeminate behavior, cross-dressing, sodomy, and drug use, Admiral Spencer Wood, commander of the 2nd Naval District, ordered a full investigation. Arresting seventeen sailors between April 4 and April 22, these servicemen were coerced and pressured into incriminating each other further before a military tribunal.
Court-martialing the sailors, most were incarcerated for sodomy and “scandalous behavior” at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Maine, whilst two were merely dishonorably discharged. Subsequent coverage of the trials in the local press uncovered medieval tactics used to compel testimonies, including the torture and indefinite solitary confinement without trial of those who refused to publicly condemn their friends. Attracting national attention, the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs launched its own investigation. Denouncing Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt, the latter of whom was forced to resign as a result of the scandal, the committee strongly criticized the “immoral conditions” he had permitted to develop at the naval installation.