Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 20, 1922 Washington, D. C. – Women’s Amnesty Committee Pickets White House
From the Oklahoma Leader of December 19, 1922:
MAGON DEATH MAY HASTEN AMNESTY ———-
(By the Federated Press.)
Ricardo Flores Magón
WASHINGTON.-The ghost of Ricardo Flores Magon has appeared in front of the White House [Monday November 27th], demanding of his recent jailers that other friends of freedom still shut behind American prison bars be set free before they perish.
Magon still living, and racked by disease in his cell at Leavenworth, was no burden on the official conscience. But when death a week ago commuted his 21-year sentence for saying the war was an evil thing it released forces which brought embarrassment to the White House gates.
Outraged by the crucifixion of Magon, Mrs. Elizabeth Glendower Evans, Boston; Mrs. Nathalie B. Ellis, Baltimore; Mrs. Marguerite Tucker, New York, and Mary LaFollette Tucker, Washington, appeared before the executive mansion with banners which read:
Ricardo Flores Magon, Political Prisoner, Died for Freedom, Leavenworth Prison, Nov. 21, 1922.
Mr. President, Another Political Prisoner Released, Death Is More Merciful Than the Administration, Magon Died in Leavenworth, Other Political Prisoners Are Dying From Consumption.
Mr. President, Charles W. Morse Did Not Die in Jail, Harry M Daugherty Was His Attorney, Ricardo Flores Magon, Political Prisoner, Died in Leavenworth, Attorney General Daugherty Was His Jailer.
The only crime ever committed by Magon was the writing of an anti-war article for which he was given the maximum sentence by the federal court of the southern district of California. The reason given for the failure to consider this case was on the grounds that Magon was not repentant-in other words, that he refused to renounce his views.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 22, 1922 Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, Kansas – Ricardo Flores Magón Dead at Age 48
From The Leavenworth Post of November 21, 1922
DEATH COMES TO POLITICAL PRISONER
AT FEDERAL PRISON
———- Ricardo [Flores] Magon, Noted Revolutionist
Victim of Heart Disease Early Today. ———-
Ricardo [Flores] Magon, noted Mexican revolutionist and generally regarded as an anarchist, died in the Federal prison early this morning. The body was removed to the Davis Undertaking establishment awaiting word from relatives. Marie B. Magon, his wife, resides at 2132 Fargo street, Los Angeles.
Magon called an attendant at 4:30 o’clock this morning and said he was not feeling well. He had retired in bis usual health. A physician was called and it was discovered Magon was suffering with an acute attack of heart disease. While the physician was preparing a dose of medicine, Mason died.
Magon lad served terms in three penitentiaries. In 1912 he was arrested in Arizona on a charge of violating the neutrality laws. The trial resulted in conviction and he was sentenced to serve a year and a day in the Yuma state penitentiary. He was next arrested in June, 1916, on charges of obstructing the military service, violating the trading with the enemy act, mailing unmailable matter and conspiracy against the government.
The trial resulted in a conviction on all charges and he was given a total sentence of 21 years in the Federal prison at McNeil Island. On November 3, 1919, Magon was transferred to the Federal penitentiary here.
Since Magon has been in the Federal prison there have been several efforts to obtain his freedom by so-called radical organizations.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 13, 1922 Vera Cruz, Mexico – Maritime Workers Strike for Release of Ricardo Flores Magón
From El Paso Herald of November 9, 1922:
VERA CRUZ, Mex., Nov. 9.—(By the Associated Press.)—Workers belonging to the maritime league were on strike here today in protest against the alleged unlawful imprisonment of Ricardo Flores Magon, former Mexican rebel leader in Leavenworth, Kan., prison.
Magon in 1917 was sentenced to 20 years for complicity in a communist plot in Los Angeles.
Want Release Of Radicals.
The workers made a demonstration before the American consulate and presented a petition for the release of Magon and other Mexicans imprisoned in the United States as dangerous radicals. A cable message embracing the protest and the petition was sent to the Mexican charge d’affaires in Washington. Other demonstrations were held in various Mexican gulf ports.
A boycott against American ships in Mexican ports is being considered and other measures also are threatened if the United States government refuses to liberate the Mexicans.
—–
Magon was arrested in Los Angeles after he had been trailed for several months by government operatives. In his possession at the time of arrest was found circulars and other propaganda issued with intent of creating a revolution in Mexico.
Ricardo Magon and a brother, Enrique were prominent in a revolution in Sonora in 1910 coincident with the Pascual Orozco uprising in the state of Chihuahua. The Magon brothers several times were charged with conspiring against the Diaz government.
Los Angeles was used principally as headquarters by the brothers and it is said, that many attempts to foment revolution began there.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 14, 1922 Christmas 1920: Eugene Debs Denied Release from Prison by President Wilson
From the Appeal to Reason of August 12, 1922:
Christmas in Prison
By EUGENE V. DEBS
[Part I of II]
Eugene Debs Leaving Atlanta Penitentiary Christmas Day 1921
A nation-wide holiday campaign had been inaugurated for my release so that I might return home for Christmas [of 1920]. It has long been a custom with the pardoning power at Washington to grant a meritorious prisoner his freedom as an act of grace at the season of “peace on earth and good will among men.”
President Wilson granted the Christmas pardon as usual, but in this instance it was not in response to the numerously signed petitions representing every state in the union which had been presented to him-the boon was granted to an Indian serving a life sentence for murder.
Attorney General Palmer had finally filed with the President his long delayed and expected report on my case. Speculation was rife as to whether the recommendation would be favorable or otherwise.
The doubt was summarily dispelled when the report flashed over the wires that President Wilson had refused to grant the petition circulated and forwarded to him in my behalf, notwithstanding the Attorney General’s recommendation for my release.
Wilson Wrote Denial.
When Mr. Palmer’s report was placed before the ailing President, the latter had but one word to offer as signifying his attitude toward me. Over the face of the recommendation he scrawled, “DENIED.”
I have been a trifle more than casually interested in the reason that prompted Mr. Wilson to arrive at that state of mind and that reason is furnished by his former private secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, who, in his book, “Woodrow Wilson as I Knew Him,” sets down this record of the President’s comment in my case:
One of the things to which he paid particular attention at this time, the last days of his rule, was the matter of the pardon of Eugene V. Debs. The day that the recommendation arrived at the White House he looked it over and examined it carefully and said:
“I will never consent to the pardon of this man. I know that in certain quarters of the country there is a popular demand for the pardon of Debs, but it shall never be accomplished with my consent.
“Were I to consent to it, I should never be able to look into the faces of the mothers of this country who sent their boys to the other side. While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man Debs stood behind the lines, sniping, attacking and denouncing them.
Placed Incommunicado.
“Before the war he had a perfect right to exercise his freedom of speech and to express his own opinion, but after the Congress of the United States declared war, silence on his part would have been the proper course to pursue.
“I know there will be a great deal of denunciation of me for refusing this pardon. They will say I am cold-blooded and indifferent, but it will make no impression on me. This man was a traitor to his country, and he will never be pardoned during my administration.”
Personally I have no fault to find, nor any criticism to level at President Wilson for what he considered to be his proper course. But the interest is quite naturally aroused when we come upon an expression such as the following from Mr. Wilson:
“I have no fault to find, Tumulty, with the men who disagree with me, and I ought not to penalize them when they give honest expression to what they believe are honest opinions.”
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 23, 1922 Washington, D. C. – Matilda Robbins Arrives with Petition for Political Prisoners
From The Washington Times of July 20, 1922:
—–
This truck, in charge of Miss Matilda Robbins, arrived in Washington yesterday, bringing a petition signed by a million persons asking for the release of political prisoners.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 13, 1922 Mary Heaton Vorse on Children’s Crusade for Amnesty
From The Nation of May 10, 1922:
The Children’s Crusade for Amnesty
By MARY HEATON VORSE
A GROUP of travel-worn working women and their children paraded from the Grand Central Station up Madison Avenue. The young girls stared straight ahead of them; babies stumbled with fatigue. Women, carrying children, sagged along wearily. They carry banners. The little boy who walks on ahead has a firm mouth and holds his head up. His banner reads “A Little Child Shall Lead Them.” There are other banners, which read “A Hundred and Thirteen Men Jailed for Their Opinions”; “Eugene Debs Is Free-Why Not My Daddy?” One banner inquires “Is the Constitution Dead?” One young girl carries a banner, “My Mother Died of Grief.” One woman with a three-year-old baby holds a banner saying “I Never Saw My Daddy.”
Reporters, movie men, and members of the bomb squad accompany the band of women and children. This is a new sort of show. This is a grief parade. These are the wives and children of men serving sentences under the Espionage Act, the wives and children of political prisoners jailed for their opinions.Some of the men did not believe in killing, and some belong to labor organizations. Not one of them was accused of any crime. They are serving sentences from five to twenty years.
Their wives and children are on a crusade. They have come from Kansas corn-fields and from the cotton farms of Oklahoma, from New England mill towns, from small places in the Southwest. They have been through many cities. They are on the way to Washington to see the President of the United States.* They have come here showing their wounds and their humiliation. They have spread out before us their frugal, laborious days. With a terrible bravery they have displayed them so that you and I might see them and be moved—perhaps, and, perhaps, help.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 10, 1922 Washington, D. C. – President Refuses Petitions for Political Prisoners
From the Vancouver Daily World (British Columbia) of May 2, 1922:
From the Regina Morning Leader (Saskatchewan) of May 4, 1922:
From the Oklahoma Leader of May 9, 1922:
[-from page 1]
CREDIT CHILDREN FOR HARDING ACT ———- President Calls For Reports On Politicals ———-
By LAURENCE TODD Federated Press Staff Correspondent
WASHINGTON, May 8.-President Harding has called for reports from the department of justice on the Philadelphia [?] I. W. W. cases.
News of this response to renewed pressure for release of the political prisoners was given by the attorney general’s office on Monday, to a delegation from the Women’s International league, which on Sunday adopted resolutions demanding general amnesty. Action by this national organization of women was prompted by the coming of the Children’s Crusade and the hostile reception given the children and their mothers by President Harding and his associates.
Credit for apparent anxiety on the part of the administration to get rid of the issue of amnesty is given to the children, who have touched the hearts of even the most hardened politicians and idlers in the capital. Something near indignation is manifested by the general public as it learns of the driving of these children away from the president’s church on Sunday on the pretext that the place of worship was already crowded to the limit of the fire regulations. Moving picture men pose the weary and work-bowed mothers and the tired little girls and boys, and local newspapers publish many groups of them with sympathetic comment.
The Crusaders are digging in to make the fight, however long, to change the attitude of Harding, whether they soften his heart or no.
[Reference to Philadelphia makes little sense here. Most of the families represented by Children’s Crusade were from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.)
[-from page 4]
CHILD CRUSADERS STAY AT CAPITAL ———- President Refuses To See Petitions For Prisoners ———-
WASHINGTON, May 9.-Even though President Harding refused to see Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare and the children’s crusade, the results of the trip will be far from in vain. When Attorney General Daugherty, to whom the President referred them, was seen he stated that there would no general amnesty decree, that each case would be considered on its merits and action taken only upon application for pardon being made by the “offenders.”
“We shall stay here on the doorstep of the federal government until the fathers of these children and all other political prisoners are released,” Mrs. O’Hare has announced. Living quarters have been provided by the Farmer-Labor party and the American Civil Liberties union.
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:
(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.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 20, 1922 Children’s Crusade for Amnesty Heads to Washington, D. C.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of April 13, 1922:
MRS. KATE RICHARDS O’HARE, whose five-year sentence under the espionage act was commuted by President Wilson after she had served 14 months, greeting, at Union station today, the families of other prisoners similarly convicted and still imprisoned. Mrs. O’Hare will accompany them to Washington to beseech President Harding to release their husbands and fathers.
The woman at the extreme left is Mrs. Walter Reeder of Wilson, Ark., with her son, Don, 16 (rear row), and her daughter, Elbertina, 9 years old. The woman behind Elbertina is Mrs. Stanley J. Clark of Fort Worth, Tex. Next are Mrs. O’Hare’s son, Victor, and Mrs. O’Hare. Beside Mrs. O’Hare is Mrs. William Madison Hicks of Guthrie, Ok., with her son, Robert, 9, and her daughters, Rose Alice, 3, and Helen Keller, 6. The group at the right of the picture are Mrs. William Benefield of Saskawa, Ok., and her five children, Beulah, 12, Willie, a girl, 5, Dock, 18, George, 10, and Eugene, 6.
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
