Tag: Amnesty Movement

Hellraisers Journal: Ben Fletcher, John Walsh and Walter Nef, IWW Class War Prisoners, Freed by President Harding

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Matilda Robbins ed, Ben Fletcher, p132 PC—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 3, 1922
Fellow Workers Fletcher, Walsh and Nef Freed from Leavenworth Penitentiary 

From The Washington Times of November 1, 1922:

THREE I. W. W. PRISONERS
PAROLED BY PRESIDENT

IWW, Ben Fletcher ed, 13126 Leavenworth, Sept 7 or 8, 1918
Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher

The sentences of Walter T. Nef, Ben Fletcher and John Walsh, political prisoners, have been conditionally commuted by President Harding, it was announced at headquarters of the amnesty committee here today.

The men are from Philadelphia, but were sentenced with other I. W. W. members from Chicago.

The commutation is conditional upon their future good behavior. They must be law abiding in future and “not encourage or be connected with lawlessness” of any sort, otherwise they can be recommitted to prison by the President without hearing. The fact that the men were given such conditional pardons was criticised by the amnesty committee in making the announcement.

Fletcher and Walsh were serving ten years and Nef twenty.

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IWW, John Walsh, 13147 Leavenworth, Sept 7 or 8, 1918Fellow Worker John Walsh

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Walter T Nef, Lv Pen 13110Fellow Worker Walter T. Nef

[Photographs and emphasis added.

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Hellraisers Journal: Justice Dept. Considers Amnesty for Nef, Fletcher, Walsh and Doree of Philadelphia Marine Transport Union

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Matilda Robbins ed, Ben Fletcher, p132 PC—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 22, 1922
Washington, D. C. –  Amnesty Possible for Fletcher, Nef, Walsh and Doree

From the Baltimore Sun of April 20, 1922:

HdLn Amnesty Move for Fletcher Nef Walsh Doree, Blt Sun p13, Apr 20, 1922

(From The Sun Bureau.)

Washington, April 19.-In the face of a renewed effort, led by the American Civil Liberties’ Union, to secure the pardon or commutation of sentences of 113 so-called political prisoners who still are in Federal prisons, it was learned today that the Department of Justice has no thought of recommending amnesty for the group. It is willing, however, to take up individual cases in the usual way, it is said. Apparently only Presidential intervention can accomplish general amnesty, and of that there is no sign. 

Four cases are now concretely before the department-those of Walter T. Nef, Ben Fletcher, John J. Walsh and Edward F. Doree. They were members of the Marine Transport Workers’ Union, of Philadelphia, which is affiliated with the I. W. W. They were sentenced to prison by Judge Landis, in Chicago, because of their activity in the I. W. W., although, it is asserted by their friends, they had been wholly loyal to the Government in their work at Philadelphia.

No Evidence Yet Of Disloyalty.

Investigation made thus far by the Department of Justice has failed to disprove contentions of champions of Nef, Fletcher, Walsh and Doree that the Transport Workers’ Union in Philadelphia, which Nef, dominated and which embraced practically all of the dock workers in Philadelphia, performed its work with complete loyalty to the Government.

Dr. Frederick Edgerton, of the University of Pennsylvania, a champion of the men, has said that the Philadelphia dock workers did better than those anywhere else. 

Dr. Frederick Edgerton has said that enormous quantities of munitions were shipped from Philadelphia during the war without a single accident at the dock or on any ship loaded at the dock; that many accidents occurred at other ports, and ships loaded elsewhere were taken to Philadelphia and reloaded. He also asserted that there was no strike in 1917 among the Philadelphia longshoremen, although strikes occurred elsewhere; that Nef used his influence against a strike, and also intervened against strikes in Boston and Baltimore; that many of the members of the Philadelphia union entered the service and that the members of the union bought $115,000 of Liberty bonds.

Thinks Record Should Count.

All of this, according to Dr. Edgerton and others, should outweight any significance that may attach to the activity of the four men in the central organization of the I. W. W., which led to their indictment and conviction with a large number of others, under the Espionage act, on charges of conspiracy. And it seems that Government officials, so far as they have gone into these cases, have no evidence that the men were not helpful to the Government at Philadelphia or that they were guilty of any overt acts elsewhere.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Wichita Class-War Prisoners & “Hell Holes in America” by Upton Sinclair

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin, Mother and Boy, Lv Nw Era p4, Mar 14, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 14, 1919
Upton Sinclair Exposes the Barbaric Sedgwick County Jail

From the Appeal to Reason of May 10, 1919:

Upton Sinclair Page, AtR p4, May 10, 1919

Hell Holes in America

In the Amnesty Edition of the Appeal I reproduced a circular sent out by the I. W. W. boys, describing the terrible conditions in the Sedgwick county jail at Wichita, Kans. I made no investigation of their statements, but acted on my general impulse to believe the worst about American jails. Those which I have investigated in past times have disposed me to believe that nobody could possibly exaggerate their evils. But soon after this article appeared in the Appeal I received letters from several correspondents who reported that they had complained to the Governor of Kansas about the matter, and had received from him a report of a confidential investigation which he had had made into this Wichita jail. The report stated that conditions in the jail were excellent, and that all the accounts sent out by the I. W. W. were false.

Now the Governor of Kansas, Henry J. Allen, is a progressive politician and a gentle man. I feel acquainted with him from reading “The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me,” by William Allen White-Governor Allen being the Henry” of that book. So I began to feel real bad about what I had published, and made ready to apologize to Governor Allen, and also to the readers of the Appeal for the blunder I had made.

But I studied that report again and noted that the Governor’s investigator denied that the I. W. W. boys had been arrested for trying to call a strike of the oil workers. He said they had been arrested for hindering the prosecution of the war. I have encountered that official bunk so often that I know the type of mind that swallows it.

And then I recalled the many, many times in my life when I had followed the work of official investigators, in cases with which I myself was entirely familiar. I recalled, for example the statement given out about the county jail here in Los Angeles, that the prisoners had had lice brought in and put them on their bodies prior to my inspection! I recalled Major Louis L. Seaman of the United States army, who investigated the Chicago stockyards for Collier’s Weekly, at the time when the Appeal to Reason was publishing “The Jungle.” Major Seaman was a gentleman of undoubted integrity, and he reported that everything was lovely in that inferno of graft. You see, these gentlemen of undoubted integrity have their class point of view, and they let themselves be escorted around, and they only see what they are shown-and even then, most of the time they don’t realize what they are seeing!

So I decided that before I apologized to Governor Allen, I would inquire a little farther. I wrote to Caroline Lowe, a woman who has interested herself in the defense of political prisoners, and asked if she happened to know anything about this particular jail. In reply came a letter which speaks for itself and which I quote:

Regardless of any denial made by the Governor of the State of Kansas, I can testify of my own knowledge that the conditions not only in the Wichita jail but in the jail at the State capitol at Topeka, Kans., beggar description. The rotary tank in the jail at Wichita is a relic of barbarism. I have been in the jail many times and have seen this tank in operation.

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Hellraisers Journal: The Appeal to Reason Returns to Its “Good Old Name” with Issue No. 1213, the Special Amnesty Edition

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Here’s to the “little old Appeal”!
———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 9, 1919
Appeal to Reason Returns to “Good Old Name”

From the Appeal to Reason of March 1, 1919:

AtR Back to Good Old Name, p1, Mar 1, 1919

Back to the Good Old Name

Beginning with this issue, No. 1213, the Special Amnesty Edition, this paper will be known as the Appeal to Reason. In returning to our old name we are doing nothing but accepting the judgment and wishes of our readers. Ever since December, 1917, when the old name was changed to The New Appeal, we have been receiving letters from our workers and subscribers urging us to go back to the good old name. In addition we have been impressed with the fact that in spite of the many months that have passed, half of our mail today is addressed, “Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kans.” Not only does the Socialist world stick to the old name, but even capitalist newspapers and magazine in referring to us either name us by the old title or speak of “The New Appeal” formerly “Appeal to Reason.” When, after a year’s use of a name, it is necessary to identify it, plainly the best thing to do is to go back to the good old, familiar name, Appeal to Reason. Of your practically unanimous approval of this change we are confident. Here’s to the “little old Appeal”!

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “A Rebel in Jail” – Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner No. 13104, Writes to Upton Sinclair from Leavenworth

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin, No Yellow Streak, AtR p4, Feb 15, 1919—–

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 18, 1919
Leavenworth Penitentiary – Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin Pens a Sonnet

From The New Appeal of February 15, 1919:

A Rebel in Jail

Ralph Chaplin, Leavenworth 13104, Sept 1918
Fellow Worker Ralph Chaplin, Prisoner #13104

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[Note by Upton Sinclair]

Recently I was addressing the ladies of one of the large clubs in Los Angeles, and they were much amused when I told them that whenever I was in jail I found myself irresistibly impelled to write poetry. Moreover, that was my one chance to get poetry published; newspapers were ready to give it space, because it had been written in jail! You will note from the following letter that others also make verses in captivity. You see, there is nothing else you can do; and you have an irresistible impulse to tell the people outside what is happening to you!

Wherever you live in America you will read in your daily paper about those desperate criminals called I. W. W.s, who want to destroy society, but whom a wise government has put behind bars where they cannot do harm.

From this letter you may see exactly what desperadoes they are. They write sonnets, and beg you to send them good literature to read!

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