Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
James Robert Gossard-25, IWW Martyr
James Gossard was one of the members of the Industrial Workers of the World who were rounded up, in the fall of 1917, on the oil fields of Butler County, Kansas, and held under terrible conditions in the jails of Kansas while awaiting trial in federal court. Fellow Worker Gossard survived for about one year under these brutal conditions before dying of influenza and pneumonia on October 30, 1918, at Newton, Kansas, in the Harvey County Jail.
The story of his long ordeal is here told through newspaper and magazine accounts of the day.
From The Towanda News (Kansas) of December 20, 1917:
Arrest Four More I. W. W.-Four more I. W. W. were picked up by federal authorities in the Butler county oil fields and brought to the Sedgwick county jail [in Wichita]. They were James Gossard, John Gresbach, Morris Hunt and John Vagtch. There now are twenty-nine I. W. W. in the Sedgwick county jail.
From The Survey of September 6, 1919:
The Sedgwick County Jail Described by Winthrop Lane
The Sedgwick county jail is the worst place for incarcerating human beings that I have ever been in. Built forty years ago, it has undergone additions from time to time, so that to day it is not the compact structure that many jails are but has many wings and cages. There are cells for approximately 100 prisoners. It is filthy with the accumulated filth of decades. No longer would it be possible to give the jail a decent cleaning. The metal floors are periodically “laraped” with black jack, a greasy substance the chief effect of which is to fill the corners with a coagulated mass of dust and floor sweepings, hardened by the glue-like action of the black-jack. The toilets throughout are covered with dirt. Many of them are encrusted with excreta and a few actually stink. The men declare that they do not dare to sit down on them, because of the vermin. [Drawing added. For more on Sedgwick County Jail and worse of it, see below at “See also”.]
