Tag: U. S. Department of Justice

Hellraisers Journal: Winthrop D. Lane for The Survey: “Uncle Sam: Jailer” – IWWs in Kansas Hell Holes-Sedgwick County Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin, When we claim our Mother Earth, Leaves 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 10, 1919
I. W. W.’s Languish in Kansas Hell Holes, Part III & IV of Series by W. D. Lane

From The Survey of September 6, 1919:

IWW KS, Uncle Sam Jailer by WD Lane, Survey p806, Sept 6, 1919
—–
IWW KS, Investigation by WD Lane, Survey p806, Sept 6, 1919
—–

[Parts III & IV of VI.]

III

Another jail chosen by the United States for the confinement of its prisoners awaiting trial is the Wyandotte county jail at Kansas City, Kan. I shall not go into detail about this. As at Topeka, the men are kept in an inside stockade or “tank;” this has fourteen or sixteen cells and a somewhat larger bull pen than the other. The pen is artificially lighted. Little attention is paid to ventilation. Although there were upwards of thirty men in the jail at the time of my visit, only one of the thirty-six windows was opened wide and another was opened about two inches. The men complained bitterly of the cold nights, a complaint that I could readily understand when I saw what was provided them for covering. For two nights I had been cold underneath three thicknesses of blanket and a spread, and on one of these nights had got up and placed my overcoat over me. Yet these men had a single blanket apiece, which they could fold at most into two thicknesses.

The toilets, located in an end cell, were dirty and had broken seats. The men ate their meals in their cells, after wards washing their own pans and dishes. The only places where they could wash these were in the bathtub or in the tub in which they washed their clothes. The smell of garbage was almost constantly in their nostrils, since the can for the refuse from their meals was kept inside the tank and was emptied only two or three times a week. It was full when I saw it and gave off a strong odor.

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Hellraisers Journal: Winthrop D. Lane for The Survey: “Uncle Sam: Jailer” – IWWs in Kansas Hell Holes-Shawnee County Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin, When we claim our Mother Earth, Leaves 1917———-

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:

IWW KS, Uncle Sam Jailer by WD Lane, Survey p806, Sept 6, 1919
—–
IWW KS, Investigation by WD Lane, Survey p806, Sept 6, 1919
—–

[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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Hellraisers Journal: Winthrop D. Lane for The Survey: “Uncle Sam: Jailer” – IWWs Locked Up in the Hell Holes of Kansas

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin, When we claim our Mother Earth, Leaves 1917———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 8, 1919
I. W. W.’s Languish in Kansas Hell Holes, Part I of Series by W. D. Lane

From The Survey of September 6, 1919:

IWW KS, Uncle Sam Jailer by WD Lane, Survey p806, Sept 6, 1919
—–
IWW KS, Investigation by WD Lane, Survey p806, Sept 6, 1919
—–

[Part I of VI.]

I

EARLY this summer, a dozen lines in an eastern news paper conveyed the news that a hundred members of the I. W. W., migratory workers in the oil fields and wheat belt of Kansas, had been locked up in the jails of that state, and that more would be locked up as soon as they came out of the “jungle” into the towns and cities. This information was significant for reasons not appearing on the surface. It meant, if the experience of other members of the I. W. W. during the two years preceding was any guide, that these men faced an indefinite confinement in Kansas jails awaiting trial; that they would be kept in semi-dark and disease-breeding cells; that they would be fed insufficiently; that they would live with rats and vermin; that they would be crowded into quarters too small for them and would spend their days within smell of their own excreta; that they would be kept absolutely idle and that their faculties would suffer from disuse; that at times their only protection against physical abuse would be the strength of their own numbers; that for months at a stretch they would not see the real light of day, much less be allowed out-of-doors; and that some of their number would in all probability go insane or attempt suicide or die.

That is what it is to live in many Kansas jails today.

The evidence for these statements is to be found in the conditions under which other members of the I. W. W. have lived in Kansas jails for two years past. I went to these jails last January and saw the conditions under which these men lived with my own eyes. My purpose was not to befriend the I. W. W., with the philosophy or tactics of which I had no personal concern, but to answer the question: What kind of jailer is Uncle Sam?

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Hellraisers Journal: Strikebreakers Return to New York City from McKees Rocks with Tales of Imprisonment and Abuse

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege, Ab Chp III———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 2, 1909
Strikebreakers Return to New York City from McKees Rocks with Tales of Abuse

From The New York Times of August 28, 1909:

RETURN FROM McKEES ROCKS.
—–
Strikebreakers Who Enlisted Here
Come Back with Tales of Abuse.
—–

McKees Rocks Strike, Stockade, Loco Fmen Mag p715, Nov 1919 —–

Five white-faced, sunken-cheeked men got off a train at Jersey City yesterday and disperse, wearily and in silence, to their east side tenement homes.

They were James Gottfried, Alexander Friedman, Joseph Diamond, James Graden, and Joseph Bredes. They had been taken to Schoenville, near Pittsburg, with more than a hundred other machinists from this city two weeks ago to break the Pressed Steel Car Company’s strike [at McKees Rocks]. They had been hired for the job through the activity of Leo Bergoff’s “Service Bureau” ” of this city.

According to the story told by the five men yesterday, they spelled out an advertisement for “machinists” in the “help wanted” columns of a Manhattan newspaper about two weeks ago. All five had recently come to this country and wanted work. They went over to the basement at 205 West Thirty-third Street, as the advertisement directed. They were met there by Bergoff, “Sam” Cohen, and their lieutenants. Cohen told them that he wanted ” 1,000 railroad car truck builders,” and that he was willing to pay $3 a day. He said the “job” was in Pittsburg, and that it was a “good one.” To impress the men with its excellence he had them sign their names to a piece of paper, on which there was some writing which they could not see, because, the men said yesterday, his hand was in the way.

The men agreed to go, and on July 16 they were taken to Jersey City by Cohen and put on a train. Getting off at Pittsburg, they were herded on a big transport and taken up the river to the Pressed Steel Car Company’s works. Here they were set to work immediately without being given even a chance to rest after their journey. For the next nine days and nights the five men worked, ate and slept in big, barn-like structures inside the stockade with 2,000 machinists and other laborers who, they say, were kept at work inside the stockade against their will.

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Hellraisers Journal: McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Company Charged with Holding Strikebreakers in Peonage

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege, Ab Chp III———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 31, 1909
McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Company Faces Charges of Peonage

From The Pittsburgh Post of August 28, 1909:

McKees Rocks Strike, Fed Investigation re Peonage, Ptt Pst p1, Aug 28, 1909—–

BRUTALITY, POOR FOOD, DAILY DIET
—–
Witness Collapses at the Inquiry.
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NIGHT SESSION
—–

Testimony of a startling nature tending to prove that imported workmen were held in restraint within the Schoenville stockade by clubs, blackjacks and riot guns, was brought out yesterday at the Government inquiry into the charges of peonage against officials of the [McKees Rocks] Pressed Steel Car Company.

Beginning yesterday morning and continuing until late last night, witnesses told in harrowing details of terrible times within the big Schoenville enclosure.

Mute evidence of the condition of the company’s food supply was furnished at the night session in the Federal building, when James Morris, one of the strike-breakers, fainted as he was about to be put on the stand. Willing hands carried the poor fellow out of the judge’s chamber and into the corridors, where a physician diagnosed his ailment as ptomaine poisoning. He was taken away in an ambulance.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for July 1919, Part II: Sissonville Prison Road Camp-Burning Hell Hole of West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones Constabulary n Bread, Ab Chp 23, 1925———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 16, 1919
Mother Jones News for July 1919, Part II
-Found Protesting Conditions at Sissonville Road Camp

Hell Hole in West Virginia: Sissonville Prison Road Camp
-Described by Mother Jones:

Mother Jones Crpd Women in Industry, Eve Ns Hburg PA p2, Jan 6, 1919

With Mr. [Fred] Mooney and Mr. Snyder, organizers, I went to the prison camp of Kanawha County where prisoners were building a county road. It was a broiling hot day.

About forty men were swinging picks and shovels; some old grey haired men were among them, some extremely young, some diseased, all broken in spirit and body. Some of them, the younger ones, were in chains. They had to drag a heavy iron ball and chain as they walked and worked. A road officer goaded them on if they lagged. He was as pitiless as the Bull on their bent backs.

These were men who had received light sentences in the courts for minor offenses, but the road officer could extend the sentence for the infraction of the tiniest rule. Some men had been in the camp for a year whose sentence had been thirty days for having in their possession a pint of liquor. Another fellow told me he was bringing some whiskey to a sick man. He was arrested, given sixty days and fined $100. Unable to pay he was sentenced to five months in the prison camp, and after suffering hell’s tortures he had attempted to run away. He was caught and given four additional months.

At night the miserable colony were driven to their horrible sleeping quarters. For some, there were iron cages. Iron bunks with only a thin cloth mattress over them. Six prisoners were crowded into these cages. The place was odorous with filth. Vermin crawled about…..

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Wichita Class-War Prisoners & “Hell Holes in America” by Upton Sinclair

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, Mother and Boy, Lv Nw Era p4, Mar 14, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 14, 1919
Upton Sinclair Exposes the Barbaric Sedgwick County Jail

From the Appeal to Reason of May 10, 1919:

Upton Sinclair Page, AtR p4, May 10, 1919

Hell Holes in America

In the Amnesty Edition of the Appeal I reproduced a circular sent out by the I. W. W. boys, describing the terrible conditions in the Sedgwick county jail at Wichita, Kans. I made no investigation of their statements, but acted on my general impulse to believe the worst about American jails. Those which I have investigated in past times have disposed me to believe that nobody could possibly exaggerate their evils. But soon after this article appeared in the Appeal I received letters from several correspondents who reported that they had complained to the Governor of Kansas about the matter, and had received from him a report of a confidential investigation which he had had made into this Wichita jail. The report stated that conditions in the jail were excellent, and that all the accounts sent out by the I. W. W. were false.

Now the Governor of Kansas, Henry J. Allen, is a progressive politician and a gentle man. I feel acquainted with him from reading “The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me,” by William Allen White-Governor Allen being the Henry” of that book. So I began to feel real bad about what I had published, and made ready to apologize to Governor Allen, and also to the readers of the Appeal for the blunder I had made.

But I studied that report again and noted that the Governor’s investigator denied that the I. W. W. boys had been arrested for trying to call a strike of the oil workers. He said they had been arrested for hindering the prosecution of the war. I have encountered that official bunk so often that I know the type of mind that swallows it.

And then I recalled the many, many times in my life when I had followed the work of official investigators, in cases with which I myself was entirely familiar. I recalled, for example the statement given out about the county jail here in Los Angeles, that the prisoners had had lice brought in and put them on their bodies prior to my inspection! I recalled Major Louis L. Seaman of the United States army, who investigated the Chicago stockyards for Collier’s Weekly, at the time when the Appeal to Reason was publishing “The Jungle.” Major Seaman was a gentleman of undoubted integrity, and he reported that everything was lovely in that inferno of graft. You see, these gentlemen of undoubted integrity have their class point of view, and they let themselves be escorted around, and they only see what they are shown-and even then, most of the time they don’t realize what they are seeing!

So I decided that before I apologized to Governor Allen, I would inquire a little farther. I wrote to Caroline Lowe, a woman who has interested herself in the defense of political prisoners, and asked if she happened to know anything about this particular jail. In reply came a letter which speaks for itself and which I quote:

Regardless of any denial made by the Governor of the State of Kansas, I can testify of my own knowledge that the conditions not only in the Wichita jail but in the jail at the State capitol at Topeka, Kans., beggar description. The rotary tank in the jail at Wichita is a relic of barbarism. I have been in the jail many times and have seen this tank in operation.

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Hellraisers Journal: National Civil Liberties Bureau Corrects Attorney General on Number of Political Prisoners

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, Prison Reveille, Lv New Era p2, Apr 4, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 28, 1919
New York, New York – National Civil Liberties Bureau on Political Prisoners

From the Appeal to Reason of April 26, 1919:

Deny Attorney General’s Statement Regarding
Number of War Prisoners

Remember Political Prisoners by Bingo, OH Sc, Mar 10, 1918

(The National Civil Liberties Bureau of New York City makes public the following statement in reply to the assertion of the Attorney General that the number of political prisoners in the United States has been greatly exaggerated:)

—–

In a published statement the Attorney General intimates that the current estimate that there are 1,500 political prisoners in the United States is the result of either frenzied imagination or deliberate intent to deceive the public.

We accept full responsibility for the estimate in question and wish to reassert our belief in its moderation and accuracy. The Attorney General evidently does not regard a person who is under indictment or is out on bail pending appeal as a political prisoner. His view is that liberty on bail is the same thing as liberty without the threat of prison. Such an assertion needs no comment. Nor does the Attorney General include conscientious objectors. The following table shows how our estimate has been derived and we challenge the Attorney General to show that it is inaccurate in any substantial particular. The figures for prosecution under the Espionage Act are taken from the report of the Attorney General for the year ending June 30,1918, and are the most recent published officially. We have repeatedly requested more recent figures but our requests have been refused.

Clas War n Political Prisoner Numbers per NCLB, AtR p3, Apr 26, 1919
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Hellraisers Journal: The Red Special, Part I: “A Train Under Heavy Guard..Passed Swiftly Across the Continent from Seattle”

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Quote HOConnor, IWW Red Special Deportation Train, Stt Rev p154———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 24, 1919
From Seattle to Ellis Island – The Red Special Deportation Train

From The Survey of February 22, 1919:

The Deportations
[Part I]

IWW, HdLn re Red Special Deportation Train, Chg Tb p1, Feb 10, 1919—–

FOR several days last week the eyes of newspaper readers were fixed upon a train under heavy guard that passed swiftly across the continent from Seattle. Persons who peered in at the windows (apparently no one was allowed to go aboard) remarked that most of the occupants looked foreign. Few were seen to smile. Apparently there was a commissariat on board, for “no food was taken aboard at Buffalo.” Reaching Hoboken, N. J., its occupants were hurried on board ferries and soon found themselves in the detention quarters of the United States Immigration Station, on Ellis Island, in New York harbor awaiting sailing to various corners of the earth.

The passengers on this curious journey have all been ordered to be deported from the United States. They constitute the vanguard of what is described as an “army of undesirable aliens” soon to leave our shores. For weeks the newspapers have been picturing the “great combing-out process” in which the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice are declared to be cooperating.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “About the Second Masses Trial” by John Reed, Drawings by Art Young

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Quote John Reed, Rebellious People, Ten Days, 1919
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 27, 1918
New York, New York – Jack Reed & Art Young on Second Masses Trial

From The Liberator of December 1918:

-Defense Attorney Seymour Stedman by Art Young

2nd Masses Trial Oct, Stedman by Art Young, Liberator p4, Dec 1918

SEYMOUR STEDMAN, attorney for the defense, in his eloquent summing up, referred as follows to the fact that the Masses editors asked an injunction compelling the Post Office to mail the very magazine for publishing which they were later indicted:

Do men who are committing a crime go into a Federal Court and face a District Attorney and ask the privilege of continuing it? A strange set of burglars! A strange set of footpads! A strange set o smugglers! A strange set of criminals! I ask Mr. Barnes to tell you when before in his experience, men in the City of New York came in and filed an appeal, opening all their proof and all their evidence and all their testimony and said, “if the Court please, we insist on the right to continue this deep, dark, infamous conspiracy, and have it sanctified by an advocate of the United States Court.” History finds no parallel that I know of in any criminal procedure which has ever taken place.

-John Reed on Second Masses Trial

About the Second Masses Trial

by John Reed

IN the United States political offenses are dealt with more harshly than anywhere else in the world. In the amendment to the Espionage Act [the Sedition Act] it is made a crime equivalent to manslaughter to “criticize the form of government.” The sentences in Espionage cases run anywhere from ten to twenty years at hard labor, with fines of thousands of dollars.

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