Trying to hop a train out of Philadelphia, wobbly Joe Harris is arrested for vagrancy and sent to the hell of the city’s House of Corrections. Holmesburg Prison would become particularly notorious, the site of medical experiments that rivaled the Nazis, and far outlasted them. It was known as “The Terrordome” by its inmates. It closed in 1995.

‘Philadelphia’s “House of Correction”’ by Joe Harris from Solidarity. Vol. 2 No. 33. July 29, 1911.

Philadelphia, July 20.

I will let you know some of my experiences in the “city of brotherly love.”

I blew in here on the 11th of June, expecting to take part in the free speech fight in case it was pulled off. I stayed two days, and when the case against Miss Flynn exploded, I decided to leave town. While waiting for a sidedoor pullman about two miles out of town, I was spied by a bull in uniform. He cross-examined me, asking me what I was doing there. I told him I was going to the harvest in Kansas. He decided to pinch me, saying I would be turned loose in the morning.

The next day the bull appeared against me. He told the magistrate that I was a bum, and that I wouldn’t work. I was not allowed to defend myself. I repeated to the court that I was going to the Kansas harvest, and the magistrate said they needed harvest bands in the House of Correction. So he gave me three months.

The house of correction is situated at Holmesburg, 12 miles from Philadelphia. The transportation facilities consist of a wagon made of sheet iron and almost air-tight, and a police boat. I was loaded into the wagon and unloaded at the river with five other prisoners who were taken out of the station houses that we passed.

We were taken in charge by the crew on the police boat, who were all bulls, and thrown into a hole where we were all locked in. There were about 20 prisoners in all, and it made the air very foul.

After we reached our place of destination, we were taken in charge by seven bulls, who marched us into the superintendent’s office. There we were again questioned, consisting of an account of ourselves from the cradle to the present time. Then we were given the first meal since the time of our arrest, which consisted of bread and soup and water. After dinner we were locked into our cells until the slaves came back from work, when we were given supper consisting of two slices of bread and one cup of tea. This is eaten in the cell which is locked as soon as we enter. There we stay one man in a cell, separated from each other by a concrete wall about two feet thick, where we remain until the next morning at 7 o’clock. Then we are turned out to get our breakfast, which is two pieces of punk and coffee. This coffee is made of rye grown on the place. It is roasted and boiled. After this meal we are taken to the various kinds of work, which consist of quarry, farm, and gas house.

The gas house supplies gas to the private houses in the neighborhood and the grafters get the money. The men are also hired out as day laborers to private individuals, all for the profit of the grafters. We get a bath once a week in a pool of standing water. Some of the men have sores all over their bodies: they also wash in the same pool with the rest.

Brutal Treatment of Prisoner.

The first few days I was there I worked in the quarry swinging a 16 pound hammer. I handed out I.W.W dope in huge raw chunks and the slaves took to it like to mother’s milk. But as soon as the bulls got hip, I was put in the dark cell and fed one slice of bread three times a day for five days. This dark cell is a room surrounded by thick concrete walls, and is like a vault in a morgue, it is noise proof. The bread we get is so thin that it would starve a sparrow in ten days. There is no bed in the cell and nothing to over with. They take away the coat so that you won’t be able to cover up.

After five days of this treatment, I was put back in the quarry to swing a 16 hound sledge hammer. When I refused to work, on account of being weak, I was again thrown into the dark cell.

Here I remained for five days more on bread and water, after which I was again taken to the quarry. But I couldn’t work fast. So the guard, whose name is Hugo O’Donnel, came over and used me for a punching bag, after which he sent me to another boss. I went slowly, and he picked up stones and threw them, intending to hit me.

When I reached my new boss, he said, “What’s the matter?” I said my old boss nearly killed me, and he replied, “It serves you right, and I’ll take a poke at you, too.” So he beat me up, too. Then he told me to go to work.

About two hours after, the captain came over to look over the work. I went up to him and said: “Captain, I want to talk to you a few minutes.” So I told him about the treatment I received, and asked him to look into the proposition, saying, “If you don’t I will.” He took me back to the jail and said: “You have too much of a mouth; if all the men had a mouth like you I would have to quit my job.”

So they put me in solitary confinement. This I endured for a week and a half, not being allowed to talk to anybody or to take any exercise. I had it pretty hard.

I was released through the efforts of Local 11, I.W.W, after serving about a month.

They have about 1600 prisoners in this bull pen; the capacity is about 2500.

All the prisoners work, so you can get some idea about the graft.

There is a bug house in connection with the pen, so when a slave goes crazy from the treatment, he is taken into the asylum without any inconvenience. There is also a hospital in connection, so when a slave dies he is dissected, and there is nothing said about it.

There are no toilets in the cells. They have only asbestos paper buckets, which are never scrubbed, and are full of disease germs. The men wear zebra-striped clothes and are forced to march in lock-step fashion, a treatment that has been abolished in the worst penitentiaries, including Sing Sing.

There are men in there who have been given a year on suspicion with no evidence against them. There are small boys in there, mingling with the most hardened criminals and lunatics. There is one boy who has a silver plate in his skull. He had been operated on two times and being sick went to the city hospital asking for admission. He was refused, so he went to the station house and applied for relief. There they said, “Yes, we will give you admission to the hospital; we’ll give you three months in the house of correction at hard labor.”

Three months is the least you get here for vagrancy or disorderly conduct. Two years is the limit. All prisoners are sent here for insignificant crimes. They are guarded with shot guns by seven guards to about every 100 men.

After going through all this misery during the week, they force the religious dope into us on Sunday. The preacher’s test is always the same: he tells them to be satisfied with all their misery, and contented with their lot, so they will be happy after they are dead. And if one should refuse to go to the meeting which is held in a church connected with the pen, he gets five days in the dark cell. All this and more exists in the land of the free, and no home for the slave.

JOE HARRIS, Local 85, I.W.W.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1911/v02n33-w085-jul-29-1911-Solidarity.pdf