Hellraisers Journal: Debs Released from Atlanta Penitentiary, Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer for His Freedom

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 27, 1921
Atlanta Penitentiary – Debs Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer His Release

From The Indianapolis Star of December 26, 1921:

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(Special to The Indianapolis Star.)

ATLANTA, Ga. Dec. 26.-Eugene V, Debs left prison today. His going was the occasion of the most unique demonstration in American prison history.

Twenty-three hundred men, convicted of crimes unnumbered, their faces pressed against the bars of the windows on three floors of the big Federal penitentiary, shouted and cheered him and before them all, in the great foreground, he broke down and cried like a child.

Recovering himself, he stepped into an automobile and was driven off, the voices of the 2,300 following him for half a mile. As this is written, on a train bound for Washington, with Debs as a passenger in a day coach, the mystery surrounding the celebrated convict deepens. Why is he going to the capital? He refuses to say, but he has admitted he has a mission there. Whether or not the trip is a condition of his release he declines to say, but the fact that he was driven to the station in the automobile of the warden, four of whose deputies are aboard this train, would indicate that while Debt is out of prison he is not yet free.

“Citizen of the World.”

So far as he himself is concerned, however, he construes himself a liberated “citizen of the world,” the phrase having to do with President Harding’s refusal to grant a pardon which would have restored the prisoner’s civil rights.

Newspaper correspondents who have awaited Debs’s release for two days would be surprised at nothing when he reaches Washington tomorrow morning at 8:40 o’clock. While opinions are many, and none has the authority of Debs’s confidence, it is figured that either Debs intends to demand from President Harding the release of the remaining political prisoners or that the President or Attorney General Daugherty have held up completion of his release until they have had some word with him.

Happy, of course, that he should leave the prison where he has spent nearly three years, and joyous in the company of his brother Theodore and the friends gathered here to welcome him, Debs expressed a sorrow that he could not be entirely frank as to his immediate future plans to the newspaper people. He neither accepted personal responsibility for the reticence nor did he lay it to the government.

Acting Under Orders.

All he would say was that he could say nothing. Those who know Debs, however, say that nothing except orders he could not defy would keep from going straight to Terre Haute, Ind., where his wife is waiting for him.

Debs, in a suit made at the prison tailor shop, is making the trip to Washington in a day coach by his own choice. The money that would have gone to the Pullman company for a seat and berth, Mr. Debs has given to Lucy Robins for the Russian famine relief commission. The $45 given him as a released prisoner he turned over to Miss Robins with instructions to the Sacco-Vanzetti defense fund. While there seems to be no doubt but that a condition of silence has been imposed on Debs, at least during the trip to Washington, he refuses even to admit this to be true.

Debs is in good health. He looks ready for any kind of a campaign. He was buoyantly happy, and after the flood of tears at the prison gates had subsided, he said,

That’s the first time I have wept in years. I am leaving 2,300 men, every one of whom loves me, and every one of whom I love. They are all men, good men, and I think it would good for the country if the judges would take their places for a while, possibly thereafter they would not pass out sentences of ten and twenty years so frequently.

Would Clean Up Prisons.

I have made a pact with God today. It is to clean up the prison system. There are better men in prison than I have met on the outside. They had the misfortune of being poor or being caught, and the bankers in prison are bankers who are broke. I know a boy [who] is doing five years for stealing an automobile and taking it over a state line and a reporter on this train admits he was a party ten years ago to an automobile theft and nobody ever knew about it.

Let those in prison have a man’s chance. That’s what I shall struggle for.

Here Debs recalled his promise to say nothing to newspaper men and the jaw closed….

[There was a man at the prison] serving life. He killed a man in prison. He has served thirty years. Until Debs came he was incorrigible. Debs made him think himself a man. Warden Dyche asked Debs if he had anything to ask on his last day in prison.

“I want to see Sam Moore,” said Debs. Moore was brought out into the corridor, then a most dramatic thing occurred. Debs threw his arms about Sam and Sam nearly collapsed. He recovered himself and Debs kissed him. Sam wept and both shook hands. Debs said then: “If I never do another thing I’m going to fight for one more chance for Sam Moore.”

Waves to Prisoners.

Debs paused in the gateway and waved his hat to a group within the prison before entering an automobile, in which he was taken to the station. Friends of Debs said he planned to go to his home in Terre Haute, Ind., as soon as the business which necessitated his visit to Washington was concluded. There was no information as to now long this would take.

Debs was accompanied to Washington by his brother Theodore, who had been in Atlanta for several days making arrangements for the trip home; Miss Lucy Robbins of the American Federation of Labor; Miss Celia Rotter, a member of the Debs freedom conference, and a number of newspaper men.

For the past forty-eight hours friends of Debs had kept a ceaseless watch over the prison, expecting his release at any moment, despite reports from Washington that his commutation of sentence did not become effective until after Saturday midnight. Warden Dyche and Debs had breakfast together at the warden’s residence and Debs later returned to the institution.

Just before Debs was formally released the warden issued orders permitting newspaper men to enter the prison, where they were shown the great dining room and kitchens and the Christmas dinner being spread for the 2,300 inmates. They entered the warden’s private office and greeted Debs before he left the institution.

Debs was convicted in September, 1918, for obstructing the draft, and was sentenced to serve ten years in the Federal penitentiary. He made no effort to prevent the imposition of the penalty, but his friends carried the fight to the United States Supreme court, which, in March, 1919, upheld Debs’s conviction, and the Socialist leader was taken to the Moundsville (W. Va.) penitentiary. A few months later he was transferred to the Atlanta prison. Last spring he made a trip to Washington without escort for a conference with Attorney General Daugherty in connection with efforts to obtain his pardon.

Debs was frequently praised as a model prisoner at the Atlanta institution. Warden Dyche and ex-Warden Zerbst both referred to him “as an influence for good” in the prison.

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DAUGHERTY EXPECTS DEBS.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25.-Attorney General Daugherty said tonight he expected Eugene V. Debs, who was released from the Atlanta penitentiary today, to call at the Department of Justice to discuss the commutation of his sentence by President Harding. When Debs was in Washington recently, it was decided, Mr. Daugherty said, that in the event Debs was released or his sentence commuted it might be well for him to come to Washington for final conference. There was no reason, however, the attorney general added, that Debs should be formally obliged to come here as was indicated by the released Socialist leader when he stepped from the prison at Atlanta.

Local Socialists expressed surprise that Debs was coming to Washington. Mrs. Bertha Hale White, assistant national secretary of the Socialist party, who headed the committee which worked for his release, evidently was not expecting him to come this way, for she left Washington to spend the holidays at her home. It is presumed here that Debs is coming to make a plea for other political prisoners, though there are no advices here on the subject.

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TERRE HAUTE DELAYS PLANS.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind., Dec. 25.-Tentative plans for celebrating the home-coming of Eugene V. Debs will be delayed until word is received announcing the time of his arrival from Washington where he went today for a conference with Attorney General Daugherty. Leaders of Socialistic parties, including C. W. Irwin, editor of the New York Call, will remain until the return of Mr. Debs.

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[Emphasis added.]

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SOURCES & IMAGES

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/612855160/

The Indianapolis Star
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-Dec 26, 1921, p1&2
https://www.newspapers.com/image/7072756/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/7072791/

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 5, 1921
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary – Debs Returns After Unguarded Visit to Washington

Debs Goes to Prison
-by David Karsner
Irving Kaye Davis, 1919
https://books.google.com/books?id=j0hYAAAAMAAJ

Debs
His Authorized Life and Letters
-by David Karsner
Boni and Liveright, 1919
https://books.google.com/books?id=FEdRAQAAMAAJ

Debs and the Poets
-ed by Ruth Le Prade
pubd by Upton Sinclair, 1920
http://moses.law.umn.edu/darrow/documents/Debs_and_the_Poets_Upton_Sinclair.pdf

Talks with Debs in Terre Haute
-by David Karsner
New York Call, 1922
https://books.google.com/books?id=ykhYAAAAMAAJ

War Shadows
A Documental Story of the Struggle for Amnesty
-by Lucy Robins
Central Labor Bodies Conference
for the Release of Political Prisoners, 1922
https://books.google.com/books?id=6VE2AQAAMAAJ

Walls and Bars
-by Eugene Victor Debs
Socialist Party, 1927
http://moses.law.umn.edu/darrow/documents/Debs_Walls_and_bars_1927.pd

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We Will Sing One Song – Six Feet in the Pine
Lyrics by Joe Hill