Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 24, 1918
Harvey County Jail, Newton, Kansas – Fellow Worker James Gossard Dies
From New Solidarity of November 16, 1918 comes the sad news that another Fellow Worker has died behind bars. The headline reads:
Member Dies While Incarcerated
I. W. W. member jailed in the raids of the Butler county [Kansas] oil fields died of influenza and pneumonia while incarcerated.
From the Newton Evening Kansan-Republican of October 30, 1918:
FEDERAL PRISONER PNEUMONIA VICTIM
—–
James Gossard, I. W. W., at Least
Passed Last Days In Good Hands
—–
James Gossard, aged about 25, whose home is at Urbana, Ill., died at the county jail this morning about 5 o’clock, and he was turned over to the Duff undertaking firm, pending instructions from the federal authorities.
And herein lies a human interest story of unusual setting.
Gossard was a federal prisoner, being held here at the expense of the government, pending trial in court as an I. W. W. disturber, having been arrested in the raids of the Butler county oil fields. When the recent term of federal court was adjourned and seven of these men were sent here for safe keeping, five of them were ill with colds. Gossard was not sick then. The five recovered under treatment of Dr. Bennett, government physician. Then Gossard became ill with influenza and pneumonia set in. Sheriff Smith and wife forgot that he was one of the despised I. W. W. gang. He was given the best bed in the jail building, and placed to himself on the second floor. Dr. Bennett visited him several times daily, and nothing that could be done to relieve him was withheld. His fellow prisoners nursed him with the greatest care and devotion, taking turns at watching at his bedside and giving the medicines.
“You don’t need to bother about doctoring me,” he said. “I feel just like my time had come, and I am certain I am going to die.”
He made good on his hunch. His relatives live at Urbana, and the disposition of his body is up to them and Uncle Sam.
———-
[Photograph added.]
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SOURCES
New Solidarity
(Chicago, Illinois)
https://libcom.org/library/new-solidarity-newspaper
http://depts.washington.edu/iww/yearbook1918.shtml
-Nov 16, 1918 (scroll way down to date)
http://depts.washington.edu/iww/persecution.shtml
Evening Kansan-Republican
(Newton, Harvey County, Kansas)
-Oct 30, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/96196762/
IMAGE
WWIR, In Here For You, Ralph Chaplin, Sol Aug 4, Sept 1, 1917
-p323
https://libcom.org/files/rebel-voices-2_0.pdf
See also:
American Political Prisoners
Prosecutions Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts
-by Stephen Martin Kohn
Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994
-p185-6 & 189(12)
https://books.google.com/books?id=-_xHbn9dtaAC
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