John Graham Brooks – WE NEVER FORGET

Quote EGF, re Sacco at Dedham Jail, Oct 1920, Rebel Girl p304 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 14, 1921
Boston, Massachusetts – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks for Sacco and Vanzetti

From The Boston Daily Globe of March 12, 1921:

MISS FLYNN RAPS “RED” HYSTERIA
———-
Criticises Method Used in
Prosecuting “Holdup Men”
———-
Asks Twentieth Century Club if
Justice Is Being Done Immigrants
———

In defending Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the two Italians who are to be tried for the murder and robbery of a paymaster in East Braintree some months ago, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, at the Twentieth Century Club last night [March 11th], denounced the methods used in prosecuting them, warmly upheld the foreign born workmen, or their children, as the victims of gross misconceptions among the so-called “American” population, excoriated this same attitude as unjustified, stupid and cruel-the product of fear and the “Red” hysteria.

Miss Flynn spoke before the New England Civil Liberties Committee.

[Said Miss Flynn:]

If a man is active in the labor movement and is trying to bring about better working conditions in industry, we have been taught to look behind charges brought against him. The Mooney case taught us to investigate before conviction, not afterward. We are willing to assume that men interested in labor movements are not of the criminal type.

That may not be a good reason in law, but it is perfectly true. No one with a studious, thoughtful mind can on the spur of the moment plan a crime requiring the skill of practiced criminals.

Touching on the popular prejudice against the alien element, she said she had read a sketch by Owen Wister, in which Mr. Wister compared aliens to guests within our house, who. if they did not like our ways, are privileged to leave, but not privileged to break up our home.

[She said:]

Yes, but they are not guests who sit in the parlor playing the piano while we are out in the kitchen doing the work. Not by a good deal. We are sitting in the parlor and they are washing the dishes, scrubbing the floor, fixing the furnace and doing all the drudgery we can load on them. If they were really guests we might expect them to reciprocate; but we expect them to do all the work and have nothing to say about the conditions under which they do it.

John S. Codman presided.

———-

[Invitation and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Miss Flynn Speaks before New England Civil Liberties Committee on Behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti” →

Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 25, 1920
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary – Norman Hapgood Interviews Eugene Debs

From the Appeal to Reason of October 23, 1920:

Did you ever enter the strong gates of a prison? Has your mind ever pictured the sinking heart of a man who hears those heavy iron doors clank behind him? Wife and child, perhaps, are shut from him in the outer world. And inside? The lost are there, the despairing, the destroyed. Leave hope behind, ye who enter. And yet it is not as bad as it was, some centuries ago. The harmonious and austere building at Atlanta is infinitely superior, in what happens inside of it, to the prisons of Lincoln’s day. God knows it is bad enough.

Partly, it is bad because we in truth do not know what to do with certain types of dangerous depravity. Give us time, a century or two, and we may learn the alphabet of treating such aberration. Granted we are ignorant about crime — what about prisoner 9653? Why is he in this place?

To see prisoner 9653 we go only so far as a reception room, and Eugene V. Debs, four times nominee of a great party for the Presidency, now No. 9653, steps forth eagerly to meet me. How warm his grasp! How pure and sunny his smile! How his face carries the record of his 40 years of service, of forbearance, of hope of a great belief.

Debs’ Warm Cordiality.

We sit down on opposite sides of a long table. Debs’ lawyer is there and so is the prison attendant. Neve mind; Debs doesn’t mind. He leans across, his face alight, his speaking and delicate hands at play. He will not let me get in my question. His warm cordiality prevents. He knows I am not a Socialist and that I am not going to vote for him. He knows all about it. But what is that to him? I am a human being, which is enough. But there is more. I have recently chosen the unpopular course on a great subject — Russia — and Debs knows all about that also, and pours out an overgenerous appreciation until, afraid of that man at the end of the table, who is responsible for the allotment of time, I see a chance to turn the switch and I suddenly ask the most dangerous question I know.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From Appeal to Reason: Eugene Debs Interviewed by Norman Hapgood at Atlanta Prison” →