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Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 7, 1919
Poetry from Leavenworth Prisoner No. 13104, Ralph Chaplin
From the Leavenworth New Era of April 4, 1919:
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LIBRARY NOTICE
…..A donation of ten volumes of “The Wit and Humor of America,” edited by Marshall P. Wilder, has been added to the library by Ralph Chaplin. It is a fine set of books , filled with chuckles and laughter…..
From The Liberator of April 1919:
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Leavenworth New Era
“For the Encouragement and Educational
Advancement of Prisoners Everywhere”
-“Published…With the Permission of
the U. S. Department of Justice”
(Leavenworth, Kansas)
-Apr 4, 1919
“Prison Reveille” by Ralph Chaplin
https://www.newspapers.com/image/488895981/
“Library Notice”
https://www.newspapers.com/image/488895991/
The Liberator Internet Archive
-March 1918-Oct 1924
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/
The Liberator
(New York, New York)
-Apr 1919
“Stone walls do not a prison make” by Olive Weed
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/1919/04/v2n04-apr-1919-liberator.pdf
See also:
Note: The prisoner # from Weed’s drawing may have been chosen at random. This is the number for prisoner William Farley, not yet found on any list of political or class war prisoners that I have at this time. I believe that numbers in 10,000s would be from before the 1917-1919 period. More research needed.
See: Name Index to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary
Inmate Case Files, 1895-1931
Alphabetical by Surname – F, G
https://www.archives.gov/kansas-city/finding-aids/leavenworth-penitentiary/inmates-f-g.html
Re “Stone walls do not a prison make,” see:
“To Althea, from Prison” by Richard Lovelace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Althea,_from_Prison
Re Olive Weed:
Name appears on list of artist and writers
found in The Masses and The Liberator:
Writers on the Left
Episodes in American Literary Communism
-by Daniel Aaron
Columbia University Press, 1992
(search: weed; see page 437, note 35)
https://books.google.com/books?id=smr4WKZNUEMC
The Wit and Humor of America, Volumes I-X
-ed by Marshall P. Wilder
NY, 1911
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006104544
Wobbly
The Rough-and-Tumble Story of an American Radical
-by Ralph Chaplin
Chicago, 1948
https://books.google.com/books/about/Wobbly.html?id=n-ygPQAACAAJ
See: “Chapter 23. There Are Three Hundred and
Sixty-Five Days in a Year”
-pages 268-9
The night guard comes on duty. We hear him shuffling down the gallery in “sneak shoes.” The windows darken slowly until the bars are almost indiscernible in the blue-green gloom. The incandescent wall lamps in the corridor gleam from sickly yellow to white, throwing the faint shadows of bars across our bunks and upon the floors of our cells.
“13104!” It is the voice of Ira, the old orderly, and it sounds hollower than usual. He supports himself against the bars with his thin, hairy arms exactly as a monkey would do. The tops of his gaunt shoulders are even with his ears.
“Any mail tonight?” we ask.
“Nope, but I’ve got a court call for you. See deputy in the morning.” Then in a whisper: “‘Tennessee’ reported you for talking in the mess hall, but don’t say I told you.”
Taps sound somewhere, muffled by many walls. The incandescent cell lamp above us snaps out. The wall lights in the bull pen flare brightly, filling the cell with sharply accentuated shadows. We try to yawn but cannot.
There are three hundred and sixty-five days -and nights-to a year in prison, just as there are elsewhere. Maybe the lawmaker, the judge, and the good citizen know how it all adds up. Nobody else does.
Taps again! Guess we’d better turn in and try to get a little sleep.
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“Prison Song” by Ralph Chaplin
Tune: The Red Flag