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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 10, 1922
Washington, D. C. – President Refuses Petitions for Political Prisoners
From the Vancouver Daily World (British Columbia) of May 2, 1922:
From the Regina Morning Leader (Saskatchewan) of May 4, 1922:
From the Oklahoma Leader of May 9, 1922:
[-from page 1]
CREDIT CHILDREN FOR HARDING ACT
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President Calls For Reports On Politicals
———-By LAURENCE TODD
Federated Press Staff CorrespondentWASHINGTON, May 8.-President Harding has called for reports from the department of justice on the Philadelphia [?] I. W. W. cases.
News of this response to renewed pressure for release of the political prisoners was given by the attorney general’s office on Monday, to a delegation from the Women’s International league, which on Sunday adopted resolutions demanding general amnesty. Action by this national organization of women was prompted by the coming of the Children’s Crusade and the hostile reception given the children and their mothers by President Harding and his associates.
Credit for apparent anxiety on the part of the administration to get rid of the issue of amnesty is given to the children, who have touched the hearts of even the most hardened politicians and idlers in the capital. Something near indignation is manifested by the general public as it learns of the driving of these children away from the president’s church on Sunday on the pretext that the place of worship was already crowded to the limit of the fire regulations. Moving picture men pose the weary and work-bowed mothers and the tired little girls and boys, and local newspapers publish many groups of them with sympathetic comment.
The Crusaders are digging in to make the fight, however long, to change the attitude of Harding, whether they soften his heart or no.
[Reference to Philadelphia makes little sense here. Most of the families represented by Children’s Crusade were from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.)
[-from page 4]
CHILD CRUSADERS STAY AT CAPITAL
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President Refuses To See Petitions For Prisoners
———-WASHINGTON, May 9.-Even though President Harding refused to see Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare and the children’s crusade, the results of the trip will be far from in vain. When Attorney General Daugherty, to whom the President referred them, was seen he stated that there would no general amnesty decree, that each case would be considered on its merits and action taken only upon application for pardon being made by the “offenders.”
“We shall stay here on the doorstep of the federal government until the fathers of these children and all other political prisoners are released,” Mrs. O’Hare has announced. Living quarters have been provided by the Farmer-Labor party and the American Civil Liberties union.
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New York, May 6.-New York has witnessed a parade which will be historically more significant than the hundreds of thousands of marching soldiers who trod the city’s pavements on the way to war; which in the age-long struggle for liberty will be remembered. It had no bands, this parade; no pomp and panoply; no fever of hatred; no delirium of glory; and for spectators only those who happened to be passing.
The only thing that marked it as a parade at all were the banners:
My Mother Died of a Broken Heart.
My Daddy Didn’t Want to Kill.
I Never Saw My Father.
Is Opinion a Crime in the U. S. A?
We Bear the Punishment.
There were about 35, mothers and children, most of them children. They were tired and weary from their long journey from St Louis. But they trudged along bravely. Some were too small to walk, and their mothers carried them.
But for once the New York police, trained now for several years to club and kick their way through any parade or street gathering which questioned the divine right of American government to be Prussian, treated the marchers with respect. They looked puzzled, uncertain, but finally seemed to decide the government might survive even if the children and babies and their weary mothers were not dispersed.
Later in the day the amnesty crusaders were taken to Webster hall, where cheer upon cheer greeted them at a meeting. One by one they stood up on the platform as Mrs Kate Richards O’Hare presented them by name and told the tragic stories of their sufferings since their breadwinners had been imprisoned for daring to have consciences or convictions. When Mrs. O’Hare had finished, Clare Sheridan, English sculptress, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Mary Heaton Vorse, Crystal Eastman, Marion Sproul, Mathilda Robbins, Rose Schneiderman and others spoke. There were great outbursts of cheering when Mrs. Sheridan declared the political prisoners were the real heroes of the war. But not all the little crusaders heard the cheering. Some of them, tired and exhausted, had gone to sleep on the platform.
They had been about 10 days on their journey to seek justice for their fathers and husbands. They stopped at Terre Haute, Ind., Cleveland, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Rochester and Schenectady at each of which places they were cared for and cheered by friends and sympathizers. Here they were given every attention and assistance by workers’ organizations and several hundred dollars were contributed, mostly in silver and small pieces, toward paying their expenses.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Kate O’Hare re War Profiteers, Address to Court, Dec 14, 1917
http://womhist.alexanderstreet.com/kro/doc006b.htm
Vancouver Daily World
(Vancouver, British Columbia)
-May 2, 1922
https://www.newspapers.com/image/64714216/
The Morning Leader
(Regina, Saskatchewan)
-May 4, 1922
https://www.newspapers.com/image/493675031/
Oklahoma Leader
“Owned by more than 7,000 farmers and workers.”
(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
-May 9, 1922
https://www.newspapers.com/image/657264140
See also:
March 10, 1922-Circular
The Children’s Crusade to Free the Political Prisoners
https://mdh.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/overthere/id/8012
Tag: Children’s Crusade for Amnesty 1922
https://weneverforget.org/tag/childrens-crusade-for-amnesty-1922/
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Christians at War