Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 15, 1922 Eugene Debs Shares Letter from Inmate at Atlanta Penitentiary
From the Buffalo New Age of July 6, 1922
From Atlanta Prison: A Letter from a Prisoner with a Warning by Eugene V. Debs ———-
Eugene Debs Leaving Atlanta Penitentiary Christmas Day 1921
I have received a letter from a prisoner in the United States penitentiary in Atlanta that makes interesting and profitable reading. The name of the writer for the present at least must remain unknown. The letter would never have been permitted to go out of the prison in the regular way. Not a word of criticism of the prison, of anyone connected with its management is allowed to pass the censor. No matter what practices may prevail or what outrages may be perpetrated, no report thereof is permitted to pass the walls. The general public, which supports the prison, is not allowed to know what goes on there except as it may please the officers in charge to let the people known what a fine place it is and what a privilege to be locked up there.
Just at this writing a huge scandal has been uncovered at the United States penitentiary at Atlanta. A “dope ring,” headed by a prison physician and several guards, has been long operating there making dope fiends of young prisoners and supplying all who could pay for it at robber rates with the poisonous drug that would ruin them for life. And this is the benevolent United States government institution where drug addicts are sent to be reformed. And truly it is a fine bourgeois reformation they get at this walled-in inferno.
Underground Kite.
The letter, which follows, was sent out underground or it would never have left the prison. It is from a man who served a term of years in the navy and has been rewarded for his patriotism by a long prison sentence. There are several hundred inmates at Atlanta who were soldiers, marines, and sailors, some of them of many years standing, who for more or less trifling offenses were court-martialed by their “superiors” and sent to the penitentiary to contemplate the beauty of their reward for putting on a uniform and fighting to make their country “safe for democracy.” The writer of this letter is one of those victims and the letter speaks eloquently for itself. Here it is:
Through your many friends and comrades in prison here I have learned of your suffering for the noble cause of the human race. Your martyrdom will blaze the trail to the goal which the working class are destined to reach. With a few more such martyrs the cause will be won. Your undying devotion to your noble principles and your untiring efforts to secure liberty and justice for all, to make this country a fit place to live in, will be crowned with victory at last. From now on my life belongs to your cause.
Having thrown away 11 years in the navy, the lessons of experience have at last been a blessing to me. I have learned what our navy really stands for and that is not for the protection against invasion, but simply a school that teaches the doctrines of the rich.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 20, 1922 Chicago, Illinois – Socialist Party Sends Out Appeal for Political Prisoners
From the Washington Evening Star of March 9, 1922:
From the Buffalo Socialist New Age of March 16, 1922:
Terre Haute, Ind., March 4, 1922.
To All Labor Unions and Organized Workers. Dear Brothers and Comrades:
I am making this appeal to you in behalf of the political prisoners.These men are held simply because of their activities in the labor movement and for no other reason. Any other pretense is simply a lie. All other countries have long since released their political prisoners. The United States government, to its lasting shame, is the one exception that keeps men caged as felons for the expression of their opinions. These men, brothers of ours, committed no overt act, no crime of any kind. The court records will prove this. The infamous Espionage Law, under which these men were convicted, has long since been repealed [Note: a section of the Espionage Law, the Sedition Act, was repealed December 13, 1920], and there is not the slightest excuse to longer hold them in prison.
The simple fact is that the treason for which these men were convicted was their loyalty to the working class. Such loyalty, especially in a time of war when the workers are turned into butchers and set to slaughtering one another for the profit and power and glory of their masters, is always treason in the eyes of such masters.
If these men with union principles and union hearts beating in their breasts, had been scabs or gunmen or strikebreakers, they would have been cracked up as 100% American patriots, given hero medals, and assigned to posts of honor carrying high salaries and eminent respectability. But instead they refused to bow to the will of the brutal and impudent profiteers and stood up loyally for their own class and gave expression to the truth that was in their hearts, as it was not only their lawful right but their moral duty to do, and for this and this alone they are marked as dangerous and held and treated as criminals to the shame of the American labor movement and the infamy of the United States government, the most plutocratic government on the face of the earth.
Senator Borah of Idaho, be it said to his credit, introduced a resolution in the United States Senate on January 25th, directing the Attorney General to submit to the Senate all available information relative to the cases of persons convicted under the notorious Espionage Act. This resolution is most timely and the organized workers of the nation must bring all possible power to bear to force its passage. The plutocrats, profiteers, and pirates of Wall Street and their degenerate henchmen in all their servile capacities, who had the monstrous Espionage Law enacted to gag the truth and strangle free speech while they were putting over their criminal war conspiracy, will bring all their power to bear to defeat the Borah resolution.
Well do these knaves in high places know that if this resolution passes the Senate and the Attorney General is forced to reveal the court records of the political prisoners it will show that they are guilty of absolutely no crime whatever save only that of saying during war time, when the nation had been lashed into fury of blind hate, what the 100% Wall Street profiteers and their lackeys in and out of office did not want to hear. The Constitution, of which they had been in the habit of prating on every occasion, was summarily suspended, truth was exiled, and manhood and self-respect put in prison stripes.
Think of these innocent union men, these working class brethren of ours, being suffered to remain buried alive in the steel vaults of American prison hells, and then talk about being “the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave!” The very thought brings the deep blush of shame to the cheek of every decent American.
These men must be gotten out of prison to the last one of them. As long as one remains we are all in disgrace, and our country stands impeached before the civilized world.
There must be no discrimination among the class war prisoners, for that is what they are and nothing else.All spies and enemy agents, some of whom were convicted of the gravest charges, including the placing of fire bombs in ships and the destruction of life and property, were released years ago. Not one remains in prison. Not one of these belonged to a labor union. They were all readily forgiven as soon as the war was over.
But how different with the men who did belong to labor unions and who did not commit any crime or take any life or destroy any property, but who only stood up like men exercising their constitutional rights and telling the truth about the capitalist slaughter of the working class “to make the world safe for democracy!” It is for their benefit that the atrocious Espionage Law was enacted, and for the benefit of the Wall Street profiteers who coined the blood of the slaughtered workers into billions for themselves, that they are still festering in the hell-holes capitalism charitably provides for its victims.
In the relations of a weak Government
and a rebellious people
there comes a time when every act of the authorities
exasperates the masses,
and every refusal to act excites their contempt.
-Jack Reed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday March 16, 1918
From The Liberator: John Reed on the Russian Revolution
Correspondent John Reed was in Russia with his wife, Louise Bryant, during the amazing events of October and November 1917. In the latest edition of The Liberator is published Reed’s account of what he witnessed, and which we republish, in part, below:
RED RUSSIA-
The Triumph of the Bolsheviki
I.
THE real revolution has begun. All the swift events of the last eight crowded months–the sudden debacle of Czarism in February, the brief inglorious attempt of Miliukov to establish a safe and sane bourgeois republic, the rise of Kerensky and the precarious structure of hasty compromise which constituted the Provisional Government–these were merely the prologue to the great drama of naked class-struggle which has now opened. For the first time in history the working-class has seized the power of the state, for its own purposes–and means to keep it.
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday February 27, 1918
Buffalo, New York – Kate O’Hare to Speak on Thursday
From the Buffalo’s Socialist New Age of February 23, 1918:
Tribune of The People,
–Speaker at Music Hall
—-Faces 5 Years in Jail
—–
FIVE YEARS AWAY FROM HER CHILDREN
-KATHLEEN, JUST STANDING WHERE CHILD TURNS TO MAIDEN;
AFFECTIONATE, BROWN-EYED GENE, NOW NINE YEARS OLD;
KEEN, ALERT VICTOR, THE OTHER TWIN,
AND DICK, 14 THE ELDEST.
—–
Kate Richards O’Hare, who was considered the most powerful woman orator in the Socialist movement, and whose ability as a lecturer is comparable only with such men as Eugene V. Debs and William Jennings Bryan, will deliver one of her mastery addresses under the auspices of the Socialist Party in Elmwood Music Hall on the evening of Thursday, February 28th. Mrs. O’Hare is known throughout the length and breadth of the land as a most eloquent advocate of the cause of Socialism, and a fearless defender of the rights of the oppressed.
SENTENCED FOR
FIVE YEARS.
Recently she has been sentenced to five years in a Federal prison for alleged violation of the espionage law, in which she was accused of stirring up opposition to the draft in a speech delivered last summer in North Dakota. She is out on bail pending the appeal of her case.
It’s great to fight for freedom
With a Rebel Girl.
-Joe Hill
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday February 20, 1918
New York, New York – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Free on $25,000 Bond
In searching for the recent doings of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, we found her in the pages of the Chicago Tribune where we learned that she has posted $25,000 bond in the court of Federal Judge Landis. We next found her in New York City, where, according to the Buffalo New Age, she attended a lecture by Robert Bruere, one of the few defenders of the Industrial Workers of the World.
From The Chicago Daily Tribune of February 4, 1918:
I.W.W. LAWYERS READY TO
BEGIN DEFENSE TODAY
—–
Will Ask Landis to Quash Indictments
and Return Seized Papers.
—–
Attorneys for the 116 alleged members of the I. W. W., already under arrest, will open their first great offensive today. They have been laying their plans for weeks.
They are to appear before Federal Judge Landis and ask demurers, make mentions to quash the indictments, and demand the return of all documents in possession of the government by attacking the writs under which the seizures of evidence were made.
Array of Legal Talent.
Charles E. Whiteside of New York, who represents a little coterie of indicted ones, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, alleged author of a book on “Sabotage”; Joe Ettor of Lawrence strike fame, and Arturo Giovanetti, will ask a severance for his clients. He arrived last night. These three on almost an instant’s notice produced cash bond of $25,000 each.
Prominent in the defense of the other I. W. W. members will be Miss Caroline Lowe of Seattle, a Socialist author. She is credited with having one of the keenest minds among the legal forces of the organization. George [F.] Vanderveer, also of Seattle, will lead in the fight…
—————
—————
