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Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 8, 1919
I. W. W.’s Languish in Kansas Hell Holes, Part I of Series by W. D. Lane
From The Survey of September 6, 1919:
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—–[Part I of VI.]
I
EARLY this summer, a dozen lines in an eastern news paper conveyed the news that a hundred members of the I. W. W., migratory workers in the oil fields and wheat belt of Kansas, had been locked up in the jails of that state, and that more would be locked up as soon as they came out of the “jungle” into the towns and cities. This information was significant for reasons not appearing on the surface. It meant, if the experience of other members of the I. W. W. during the two years preceding was any guide, that these men faced an indefinite confinement in Kansas jails awaiting trial; that they would be kept in semi-dark and disease-breeding cells; that they would be fed insufficiently; that they would live with rats and vermin; that they would be crowded into quarters too small for them and would spend their days within smell of their own excreta; that they would be kept absolutely idle and that their faculties would suffer from disuse; that at times their only protection against physical abuse would be the strength of their own numbers; that for months at a stretch they would not see the real light of day, much less be allowed out-of-doors; and that some of their number would in all probability go insane or attempt suicide or die.
That is what it is to live in many Kansas jails today.
The evidence for these statements is to be found in the conditions under which other members of the I. W. W. have lived in Kansas jails for two years past. I went to these jails last January and saw the conditions under which these men lived with my own eyes. My purpose was not to befriend the I. W. W., with the philosophy or tactics of which I had no personal concern, but to answer the question: What kind of jailer is Uncle Sam?
For the men whom I visited were prisoners of the United States government. They were indicted under a federal statute, held under the custody of United States marshals and lodged in county jails under contracts made by the Department of Justice; inspectors of the department visited these jails. The conditions surrounding them, therefore, were conditions for which the United States government was ultimately responsible; their jailer, in the last analysis, was the attorney general of the United States.
Another circumstance attended the confinement of these men. They had not been proved guilty of any crime; they were merely awaiting trial. Legally they were as innocent as the attorney-general himself. For aught anybody knew, they might ultimately be acquitted. How, then, would the United States make up to them what they had lost?
Before I describe the conditions under which these men lived let me say that this was not my first acquaintance with county jails. In common with other observers, I had long known what these pest houses of confinement are like. But since federal prisoners were not to be found in all of them, I had to go to jails containing federal prisoners in order to learn what kind of confinement the United States selects. It is clear, therefore, that my observations are not the result of surprised ignorance or naive indignation.
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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
“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
“No Admittance”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=xmc6AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA807&pg=GBS.PA807
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”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=-_xHbn9dtaAC
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The Commonwealth Of Toil – Mat Callahan & Yvonne Moore
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin