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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 9, 1919
I. W. W.’s Languish in Kansas Hell Holes, Part II of Series by W. D. Lane
From The Survey of September 6, 1919:
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—–[Part II of VI.]
II
To begin with the Shawnee county jail at the state capital of Kansas, Topeka. Ten members of the I. W. W. were confined there at the time of my visit. These were held under what has come to be known as the Wichita indictment. Their original arrest had occurred in November, 1917, so that they had been continuously confined in one jail or another for a year and two months. All of this time they were awaiting trial.
The Shawnee jail is a typical county lock-up in structure. Its outer walls are of brick. Men are confined in a sort of room within a room, formed by constructing a rectangular stockade inside the brick walls. The walls of this stockade are of steel lattice work, the bars of the lattice being about two inches wide and the holes about two inches square. It is through these holes that light and air enter. The cells are built in two facing rows inside the stockade. Their rear walls are the walls of the stockade itself and they open toward its center. In length the stockade is about thirty-five feet, in width twenty-six.
There are five cells in each row. Each cell is seven feet wide, seven feet long and seven feet high. Ordinarily two men are placed in each of these, but when the jail is crowded additional bunks are slung from the sides and four men sleep in this space. The central part of the stockade, that not occupied by cells, is thirty-five feet long and twelve feet wide. This is the prisoners’ livingroom, the only area besides their cells to which they have access. Light enters the jail proper through windows in the outer brick walls. These windows are frosted. The light must, therefore, pass through these frosted windows, through the steel lattice work and travel the length of the cells before it reaches this inner space. The result is that no daylight ever reaches this part of the stockade. The sun was shining brightly on the day of my visit, but its rays did not penetrate to this central area. A single electric bulb burned in the ceiling and shed a ghostly glimmer over the faces of the men; this bulb is kept lighted day and night. It was possible to read in only three of the cells and then only by standing close to the latticework. On cloudy days the men light candles.
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