Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 6, 1909
John Murray on the Horrors of the Private Prisons of Diaz, Part III
From the International Socialist Review of April 1909:
[Part III, Conclusion]
[John Murray’s interview with the escaped prisoner, Antonio, continues:]
The sick man’s pauses in this narrative were frequent. At times the old lady give him water to drink, and then again he would take two puffs at a cigarette rolled by the president, all of which kept him going to the end of his story.
We were accused of participating in the rebellion started in September, 1906, by the Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana in Jimenez, and in Acayucan. Chained in gangs with two hundred others, we were brought to the fortress and political prison of San Juan de Ulua.
Some of us were betrayed by that Judas, Captain Adolfo Jimenez Castro, an officer of the post at Cuidad Juarez, while others were betrayed by Trinidad Vasquez at Cananea.
Among the number were persons entirely innocent of any participation in the rebellion, but they received neither consideration nor mercy, and, like many of us, saw their homes burnt by the soldiery and their families left to starve.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 5, 1909
John Murray on the Horrors of the Private Prisons of Diaz, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of April 1909:
[Part II]
[John Murray at San Juan de Ulua Prison, continues speaking with the sympathetic soldier…]
Without a word the soldier turned and walked towards the archway. I followed at his heels and we made our way around outside the walls, entered the arsenal and climbed an inner staircase to the battlements of the fortress.
Pointing out to sea, my guide showed me a small man-of-war coming into the harbor.
“That’s the ‘General Bravo’—look at it. Keep looking at it, senor, and while we are here alone I will stand behind your back and tell you all I know of the martyrs imprisoned in Ulua.
“The friends of Magon in the army are many. Here, in Ulua, all would be glad to see a way out of this hell—but will it ever come?”
I answered as I believed, in all sincerity, “It will come,” and with a look of encouragement the young soldier went on:
Six months ago I came to Ulua from Sonora, and never once have I seen the political prisoners. But this I saw with my own eyes:
Late on a Sunday afternoon, a boat with two occupants came rowing towards the guardhouse of the west side landing. I saw it before the others, being far-sighted, and this my first day of guard duty on the island. As the boat touched the pier, a white-haired lady wrapped in a black shawl, and trembling with age, was just able to mount from the rocking gunnel to the first stone step, where she sank down, panting and exhausted. The oarsman was a small, black Indian from the mountain tribes near Orizaba. Martin Jose Pico, our hook-nosed, thief-of-a-sergeant—ration-robbing is his trade-roughly demanded her pass, but she had none.
This was such a strange occurrence—a white-haired woman of over eighty years trying to gain entrance to the prison without credentials—that the officer of the day was summoned.
Captain Garcia likes not old women, and to the black figure seated at his feet on the stone step, his words were short and sharp:
“Speak! What do you want?”
“To see a boy who is imprisoned here,” replied the trembling, low-toned voice of the old lady.
“A boy? We have no boys. Who is he?” testily demanded the officer.
“Juan Sarabia,” replied the white-haired woman.
At this name the captain took a sudden step back, for of all the prisoners most strictly kept “incommunicado” is this famous revolutionist, Juan Sarabia. Even to mention his name is forbidden the soldiers of Ulua.
White-faced, the officer gripped the old lady by her arm and stuttered a rasping question:
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 4, 1909
John Murray on the Horrors of the Private Prisons of Diaz, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of April 1909:
—–
[Part I]
S soon as we were alone at the end of the pier breasting the Vera Cruz harbor, the little, pock-marked secretary of the revolutionary group pulled from his pockets a piece of grey stone and held up before my eyes.
“Look at that!”
I took the fragment from his slim, brown fingers and turned it over curiously. It was a piece of coarse, grey coral.
“See! It’s porous. Now do you understand? The whole prison’s built of it.”
With an upward jerk of his hand he leveled an accusing finger at the white-washed walls of the fortress-prison shining in the sun across the waters of the blue bay.
“There it stands! On that island, yonder! San Juan de Ulua! The foulest spot in all Mexico—Diaz’ private prison for his political enemies!”
The corners of the man’s mouth drew down into a snarl and his eyes narrowed to burning slits of hate as he gazed in the direction of the fortress.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 26, 1919
Leavenworth Prison – Stanley J. Clark Confirms Brutal Treatment
From The New Appeal of January 25, 1919:
I.W.W.’s Beaten Up, Says Stanley Clark
International Socialist Review February 1918
Confirmation of the story of brutalities inflicted upon political prisoners in the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kans., published in a recent issue of The New Appeal, has reached us in the form of a letter from Mrs. Dorothy Clark, wife of the well-known Socialist lecturer, Stanley J. Clark. Clark was convicted of having violated the Espionage Act and is a fellow prisoner of the I. W. W.’s and other radicals at Leavenworth.
Mrs. Clark, hearing of the occurrences at the federal prison and anxious to learn whether her husband had been injured, came to Kansas City, Mo., which is within an hour’s car ride of the prison doors. While learning that Clark had escaped maltreatment she also learned that The New Appeal’s report of the manhandling of other prisoners was not exaggerated. In a letter to The New Appeal Mrs. Clark says:
I came here because I had heard of the inhuman treatment that men were receiving in this prison at Leavenworth and I knew that I should go insane unless I could see Stanley and know just what had happened. I was relieved of course to find that nothing had happened to him personally, but I found him terribly stirred up and in a perfect frenzy of indignation over the treatment that the other prisoners had received.
It seems that they have a new warden, who at once began to lengthen the hours of work and to cut down food rations. Some of the poor boys, not realizing that they were buried in there and by the world forgotten and absolutely at the mercy of their captors, attempted to strike to enforce the old and regular system of hours of work.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 18, 1919
Chicago, Illinois – National Labor Convention for Mooney Hears from Radicals
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of January 16, 1919:
—–
(Special Dispatch to The Bulletin.)
Chicago, Jan. 16.-At this morning’s session of the Mooney Labor Congress Ed Nolan scored the capitalist press on its criticism of the invitation of Debs and its attempt to give a sense of dissension among the delegates. Debs’ name was again greeted with tumultuous applause. It was moved that the Nonpartisan league be given the floor. The motion was defeated. Dunn of Butte moved to give the Detroit delegate the floor. The Detroit leader clearly outlined the program before the convention as follows:
No political begging, a general strike to free Tom Mooney and also to take a stand to free political prisoners and recognize Russia; reorganize the American Federation of Labor on an industrial basis.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 15, 1919
Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas – Brutal Treatment of Prisoners Reported
From The New Appeal of January 11, 1919:
[Part 1 of 2.]
In its issue of last week The New Appeal reproduced a report of conscientious objectors at Camp Funston, Kans., detailing the brutal treatment to which they were subjected at the command of certain officers, contrary to the express directions of the war department in Washington. This report was published primarily as a matter of record, the guilty officers having been dismissed from the service and the conditions complained of corrected.
We are now in the way of making a more important exposure-an exposure of brutalities committed upon Socialists, I. W. W.s. and others imprisoned in the Federal penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., brutalities that we have reason to believe have not been brought to the notice of the higher authorities since the efforts of interested persons to investigate these brutalities have been baffled at every turn by prison officials. Enough evidence has been dragged into the light, however, to make it shamefully plain, to use the words of Mrs. Floyd Ramp, wife of a Socialist prisoner, “that things are occurring in this penitentiary which citizens of a democracy should not knowingly countenance.”
Could Not Question Prisoners.
On December 12, F. H. Moore, a Chicago attorney, went to Leavenworth to discuss certain legal steps with the group of prisoners sentenced under the Chicago indictment of the I. W. W. alleged anti-war agitators. He also desired to make personal inquiry of the treatment the prisoners were receiving, disquieting reports of which had reached him through “underground” channels. In company with Miss Caroline A. Lowe, who assisted in the defense of the prisoners at the trial, Mr. Moore called upon the warden. They were told by the warden that they could talk over legal matters connected with the case, but they were absolutely forbidden to question the prisoners as to conditions in the penitentiary.
Mr. Moore, in a somewhat lengthy communication sent to The New Appeal, repeatedly emphasizes this autocratic censorship of the warden. As they interviewed, separately, each one of twenty-two prisoners held in solitary confinement with unusual punishment, the deputy warden, who was present during the interviews, sternly suppressed every attempt to question the prisoners as to the manner in which they had been handled and as to their physical condition at the time. Nor were Mr. Moore and Miss Lowe, when they met and conferred with the majority of the prisoners in a body permitted to refer to the condition of their fellow prisoners who were “in solitary.”
While there is a soul in prison
I am not free.
-Eugene Victor Debs
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 9, 1919
America’s Political Prisoners by Floyd Dell
From The Liberator of January 1919:
“What Are You Doing Out There?”
[by Floyd Dell]
THIS magazine goes to two classes of readers: those who are in jail, and those who are out. This particular article is intended for the latter class. It is intended for those who wish to prove themselves friends of American freedom rather than those who have had it proved against them.
The relation between these two classes of people is embarrassingly like that in the old anecdote about Emerson and Thoreau. Thoreau refused to obey some law which he considered unjust, and was sent to jail. Emerson went to visit him. “What are you doing in here, Henry?” asked Emerson.
“What are you doing out there?” returned Thoreau grimly.
That is what the people who have gone to prison for the ideas in which we believe seem to be asking us now.
And the only self-respecting answer which we can give to this grim, silent challenge, is this: “We are working to get you out!”
That is our excuse, and we must see that it is a true one. We are voices to speak up for those whose voice has been silenced.
There are some silences that are more eloquent than speech. The newspapers were forbidden to print what ‘Gene Debs said in court; but his silence echoes around the earth in the heart of workingmen. They know what he was not allowed to tell them; and they feel that it is true.
It would be wrong to think of this as an opportunity to do something for Debs; it is rather our opportunity to make ourselves worthy of what he has done for us.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 7, 1918
Canton, Ohio – Ohio Socialist Released, O’Hare Schedule to Speak
The town of Canton was the scene of joyous celebration on December 2nd when Comrades Ruthenberg, Wagenknecht, and Baker were released from the Stark County Workhouse. On hand to greet them was none other than Eugene V. Debs, along with several prominent Ohio Socialists.
Canton will be visited on December 9th by Kate Richards O’Hare who is expected to begin serving her prison term shortly thereafter.
From The Ohio Socialist of December 4, 1918:
FREE THE
POLITICAL PRISONERS
Within the walls of American prisons are held many of the noblest men and women of this land. Many others, men and women with the highest attributes, which characterize true and noble manhood and womanhood, are under indictment and facing charges as political offenders. Men and women with the highest ideals which human beings are endowed are today rotting in American prisons.
For expressing an OPINION at variance with that which the law stated may be expressed these men and women are paying a penalty out of all proportion to their offenses. The espionage law has produced a crop of jail sentences in America absolutely undreamed of even in Germany under the rule of the junkers and their kaiser. Compare the four-year sentence of Liebknecht for “high treason” to that of ten years for Debs, for Kate O’Hare and Rose Pastor Stokes.
If we have been able to surmise correctly the reason (or excuse) for the passage of the espionage law, if punishment was not the purpose of the law then the further confinement of our political prisoners is an atrocity.
If to silence opposition to the war was the purpose of this law, there is now no longer any necessity for their confinement. The war is over. Liberties under which we formerly thrived should be returned to us.
Those in power today have nothing to gain by longer jailing political offenders. On the contrary they stand to lose considerable. This is no time to preach the gospel of hate nor to practice it. It is a false gospel at all times. Now that peace has come its teachings and practices are criminal.
The movement to free our political prisoners is gaining momentum. The great mass of the people, as well as liberal minds among the bourgeoisie, favor it. Those who oppose an early liberation of political offenders are of a class and character with those whom the workers of Europe have lately shorn of power. Let every worker’s voice rise in protest against the longer confinement of political prisoners.
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday March 30, 1918
From The New York Call: A Letter from the Atlanta Pen
The New York Call on March 24th published a letter written by Ammon A. Hennesey who, having been convicted of distributing literature against the draft, is now serving a two-year sentence at the Atlanta Federal Prison. Hennesey began serving his sentence on July 31, 1917. He hales from Columbus, Ohio, and is described as an “Irish America Socialist.”
Imprisoned with Hennesey is John T. Dunn, a Socialist from Providence, Rhode Island, who was sentenced to twenty years having been convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917.
Described also is William V. McCoy, a “Virginia mountaineer” from big Stone Gap, West Virginia who was convicted of conspiring to seize U.S. property and oppose the government. McCoy was sentenced to five years in prison and began serving his sentence on August 17, 1917. Despite the fact that he is sixty-one years old Mr. McCoy was sent to “the hole” in January and remains there at this time.
———-
———-
———-[Part II]
———-S soon as we were alone at the end of the pier breasting the Vera Cruz harbor, the little, pock-marked secretary of the revolutionary group pulled from his pockets a piece of grey stone and held up before my eyes.
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