———-
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 14, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – Kate Richards O’Hare Visits Eugene Debs
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of July 12, 1920:
DRAMATIC VISIT PAID ‘GENE BY KATE O’HARE
—–
Two Comrades Meet in Atlanta Prison
After Long Separation;
Think of Others’ Suffering.
—–(By the Federated Press.)
Atlanta, Ga., July 12.-In a visit full of dramatic incidents, Kate Richards O’Hare visited Eugene V. Debs in the federal penitentiary July 3.
Mrs. O’Hare, recently freed from the penitentiary, was ushered into the prison. The two comrades embraced.
“How glad I am to see you free, Kate,” Debs said.
“I’m not used to being free yet,” she answered. They sat down, facing each other across the table. It was a fair afternoon and the rays of the sun filtered through the steel bars of the visitors’ cell, and lighted up the features of Debs, who smiled a smile of joy to see his old friend.
“Your coming here is like a ray of sunlight to me,” said Debs. “Tell me of your prison experiences.”
“I am not thinking of myself,” Mrs. O’Hare answered, “but of little Mollie Steimer, who now occupies my cell at Jefferson City, and of her appalling sentence of fifteen years. She is a little 19-year-old girl, smaller than my Kathleen, and her sole crime is her love for the oppressed.” At Debs’ questions, Mrs. O’Hare related the story of the girl. Debs’ lashes damped and his eyes were tear-stained, his face showed the emotion in his heart.
When Kate asked him how long he could stand this imprisonment, he replied:
I could stay here indefinitely, forever, if necessary; so long, as the cause needs me.
Then Gene told her how a few copies of her prison letters had drifted into the Atlanta prison.
[He said:]
You know, I think the tale of Dick’s playing his cornet for you outside the prison walls was one of the most dramatic tales I ever read in all literature.
Then they discussed the work of freeing the hundreds of poor political prisoners in the working class movement.
———-
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCES
Quote EVD, To Speak for Labor, from:
“The Canton, Ohio, Anti-War Speech”
of Eugene V. Debs, June 16, 1918
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm
The Butte Daily Bulletin
(Butte, Montana)
-July 12, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045085/1920-07-12/ed-1/seq-4/
IMAGE
Kate Richards OHare w Children, Chg New Day, July 10, 1920, MxOrg
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1920/0710-ohare-oharevisits.pdf
See also:
July 24, 1920-Appeal to Reason
“Dramatic Meeting of Kate O’Hare
and Eugene V. Debs in Prison”
From the Chicago New Day of July 10, 1920
“Kate O’Hare Visits Debs in Atlanta”
[possibly by Frank P. O’Hare]
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1920/0710-ohare-oharevisits.pdf
In Prison
-by Kate Richards O’Hare
Alfred A. Knopf, 1923
(search: Steimer)
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ky4rAAAAYAAJ
Molly Steimer/Mollie Steimer
(use both, separetly, when searching)
https://spartacus-educational.com/USAsteimer.htm
Debs Goes to Prison.
-by David Karsner
New York, May 1919
http://www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0500-karsner-debsprison.pdf
Walls and Bars
-by Eugene Victor Debs
SP Chicago, 1927
http://moses.law.umn.edu/darrow/documents/Debs_Walls_and_bars_1927.pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This Land Is Your Land – Pete Seeger
Lyrics by Woody Guthrie