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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 11, 1919
I. W. W.’s Languish in Kansas Hell Holes, Part V & VI of Series by W. D. Lane
From The Survey of September 6, 1919:
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—–[Parts V & VI of VI.]
V
Several times in this account I have referred to the jails described as having been “chosen” by the United States government for the confinement of prisoners awaiting trial. Let us see what justification there is for the use of this word.
The thirty-four men held under the Wichita indictment were originally taken into custody November 21, 1917. These men were all engaged in the oil industry in Kansas. They were, for the most part, young men, some of them married, some not. Judging from their names-Anderson, Boyd, Gordon, Forbes, Stark, Sapper, Barr, Poe, Gossard, Davis, etc.—many of them were of American or Allied extraction; some foreign names were among them, but only five, so far as I learned, were accused of being enemy aliens. The indictment against them charged violation of the espionage law, the food control law and the selective service law.
On March 10, 1918, a motion to quash this indictment was filed by their attorneys. No ruling on this motion was ever made. The attorneys stood ready, therefore, to go to trial on September 24, the day set. To their surprise, a new indictment was returned on that very day. This was drawn on lines similar to the previous Chicago indictment, which had resulted in sending nearly a hundred I. W. W.’s to prison for terms varying from a few days to twenty years. The attorneys could not at once accept trial on this new indictment, and so they were granted until March 10, 1919, in which to plead.
The men who, in September, had already spent ten months in jail awaiting trial, thus faced another five and a half months of confinement. Miss Lowe, their attorney, undertook to find as comfortable jails as possible, in which, she hoped, they might be allowed to spend the winter. They were then in the Sedgwick county jail, having been transferred to it for the trial. Sheriff Sprout, at Hutchinson, agreed to take twelve of the men, and the sheriff in Winfield, where there was a modern, sanitary jail, agreed to take sixteen. Thinking that she had thus arranged accommodations for twenty-eight, Miss Lowe reported her action to the United States district attorney, Fred Robertson, who was prosecuting the case. Mr. Robertson turned a deaf ear to her plea. In vain did she dwell upon the physical condition of the men and the consequences of spending another five months amid overcrowding and filth. Mr. Robertson said that prisoners had no voice in choosing their places of incarceration, and declared.that he intended to ask Judge John C. Pollock, judge of the United States district court for Kansas, to have all of the men placed in the Wyandotte county jail in Kansas City. This was one of the worst in the state.
In due time Judge Pollock made his decision. Eight of the men were left in the rat-infested Sedgwick county jail; six were transferred to the Wyandotte county jail, where Mr. Bagley would have charge of them; the remainder were put either in the Hutchinson jail, under Sheriff Sprout, or in the small but modern jail at Newton.
This arrangement was not so bad as might have been expected. Unfortunately, it did not last long. Without warning, six weeks later, a United States marshal appeared in Hutchinson and took all of the men confined there to Topeka, where they were lodged in the overcrowded ” tank ” of the Shawnee county jail. This placed them, with the exception of six who remained at Newton, in three of the worst jails in the state. No use was made of the excellent Winfield jail.
That no other outcome need have been expected from Mr. Robertson may be judged from a remark that he made to Miss Lowe. “I have never been inside a jail in my life,” said Mr. Robertson. “What!” said Miss Lowe. “You undertake to tell the judge where to put these men and yet you have never been inside a jail in your life!”
“Not only have I never been inside a jail,” said Mr. Robertson, “but I never permit a prisoner to come to me.”
Mr. Robertson, some weeks ago, announced his candidacy for the governorship of Kansas.
There is hope for some improvement in these conditions from present efforts inside the state. Henry J. Allen, who became governor January 1 of this year, has directed Dr. S. J, Crumbine, secretary of the State Board of Health, to send an inspector to every jail in the state and to report conditions directly to Governor Allen. The proof sheets of this article were sent to the governor on July 28. On August 4 the Topeka State Journal carried on its front page a story declaring that Governor Allen had on that day ordered Dr. Crumbine to take this action. On the same day Governor Allen wrote about his order to the editor of the SURVEY. He said:
“When this report is made, if it shows a bad situation I can then require the county officials, whose duty it is to keep the jail in proper condition, to fulfill their duty under the prospect of ouster unless they give obedience to my commands. It is a roundabout sort of way to get at it, but it is the only way I can proceed under the present law and I believe it is going to create an improvement in the situation.”
Governor Allen also mentioned a new building program with respect to county jails:
“The ancient structure at Wichita [containing the “ rotary tank “] is going to come down and a modern prison farm located outside of the city will take its place. I don’t know how extensive our rebuilding program is going to be, but we are going to have a general clean up….There is a growing appreciation of the fact that the state ought to have a modification in its county jail system, and when Mr. Lanes article has been published in the SURVEY I intend to give it some added publicity in Kansas.”
Expressions from former Governor Capper and William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette, also are published on preceding pages.
VI
Let the reader now prepare himself for the greatest surprise of all. On June 6, after eighteen months and a half of confinement, the indictment against the members of the I. W. W. was quashed. They were not even compelled to come to trial. Their imprisonment had, therefore, apparently been wanton: they were guilty of no offense; and, presumably, they were entitled to their freedom.
But were they set free? Not so long as Mr. Robertson could hold them. Within twenty-four hours he had gathered together another grand jury and had reindicted the men on substantially the same charges as before. They continued to be held in jail, still awaiting the trial that had been nearly two years in taking place.
This trial is now set for the term of court that convenes September 22, The persistent efforts of their attorneys have at last won the acceptance of bonds for some of them, so that all but sixteen are out either on bonds or their own recognizance. These sixteen are still in jail; the government authorities have refused to accept Liberty bonds for the release of any of them. During the summer the men were scattered to new jails; at the present moment six are in Ottawa, nine in Leavenworth and one in Hutchinson.
What is the net effect, upon the men themselves, of their confinement?
Jack Caffray, who is in the jail at Ottawa, is at last admitted even by Mr. Robertson to be insane; he will be removed to a state hospital if room in one can be found for him. Stephen Shuren is an inmate of the state insane asylum at Osawattomie. James Gossard died in the Newton jail, allegedly of influenza.
[Writes Miss Lowe:]
There is no question in my mind that Peter Higgins is afflicted with tuberculosis, although the state doctor reported differently. I think there is no question that Gresbach and Blumberg have tuberculosis also. All of the boys are greatly weakened. Francik was a physical giant when arrested and he is, as the result of his long confinement, a wreck today, and is at last released upon his own recognizance. Another one of the boys, whose name I shall not mention, was released upon his own recognizance as having contracted a bad case of syphilis due to the vile conditions in the Topeka jail. Harry McCarl, upon his release, after walking from Union Station to Twelfth street, which is not a great distance, almost collapsed from physical exhaustion.
This does not tell the story of shattered nerves and tortured minds. If the government had set out to make these men doubt its fair purpose, it could not have chosen a better way. If it wants to cure I. W. W.ism let it begin with its county jails.
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NOT in many a long day has the light been turned upon our federal prisons. State and local institutions, closer to the people, have been the objects of inquiry, but hardly anyone has asked what you on in the prisons of Uncle Sam. The island prison in the Pacific, in the dungeon: of which the Hofer brothers contracted the disease that ended in their death; the fortress bastille on Governor’s Island, New York; the-archaic civil penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas; McNeil Island in Puget Sound—these are among the places for confining men that Mr. Lane will discuss in future articles.
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Ralph Chaplin, When we claim our Mother Earth, Leaves 1917
https://archive.org/stream/whenleavescomeou00chapiala#page/4/mode/2up
The Survey, Volume 42
(New York, New York)
-Apr-Sept 1919
Survey Associates, 1919
https://books.google.com/books?id=xmc6AQAAMAAJ
Survey of Sept 6, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=xmc6AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA787&pg=GBS.PA787
“Uncle Sam: Jailer” by Winthrop D. Lane, Part I
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=xmc6AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA806&pg=GBS.PA806
Parts V & VI
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=xmc6AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA806&pg=GBS.PA812
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=xmc6AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA806&pg=GBS.PA834
See also:
Tag: Wichita IWW Class War Prisoners
https://weneverforget.org/tag/wichita-iww-class-war-prisoners/
American Political Prisoners
Prosecutions Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts
-by Stephen Martin Kohn
Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994
(search: “the trial in wichita”)
(search separately with last names of prisoners mentioned above)
https://books.google.com/books?id=-_xHbn9dtaAC
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-The Commonwealth of Toil-Pete Seeger
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin