Lowe, who was a teacher and pioneer of the Socialist Party’s work among women, returned to school to get her law degree to become an indefatigable champion of I.W.W. and other class war prisoners facing persecution during the World War One-era wave of reaction.
‘More Than 100 I.W.W. In Jails Need Funds For Defense’ by Caroline A. Low from Truth (Duluth, Minnesota). Vol. 3 No. 7. February 14, 1919.
The overshadowing importance of the great Chicago I.W.W. trial, involving more than 100 men, and continuing for five months, has caused members of the organization and sympathizers to lose sight of the fact that more than 100 other men scattered in various parts of the country are still awaiting trial. Month after month they have suffered in vile jails, apparently for gotten by the outside world. Their cases are coming to trial, one after another, in the near future, and no funds are on hand to prepare adequate defense. There is the Wichita case, involving 34 men; the Omana case, with 28; the Spokane case, with 28, besides several others in which but one or two men are indicted.
In the Wichita case the men have been imprisoned since November, 1917, in unspeakably vile jails in Kansas. They are under charges of conspiracy almost identical with the Chicago case. Several of them are shattered in mind and body because of the intolerable conditions prevailing in these jails. They are, with but one exception, men who were engaged in the oil industry, and are being persecuted because of their endeavors to organize the oil workers. Many of them, in fact, are mere boys, who had just joined the organization and had not yet taken any active part in it. The long months of imprisonment have taught them more regarding class oppression than years of ordinary experience on the outside could have done.
The Wichita jail has a rotary tank, built of sheet iron, which is s placed upon a central pivot that it must be turned around every time any one enters or leaves the tank. This turning process is accompanied by a most distressing crunching noise. Men confined for weeks in this barbarous place go insane. The cells are triangular in shape, with the toilet facilities in the narrow point of the cell, measuring about 15 inches across. They empty, not into a sewer, but into an open trough, which is cleansed at the pleasure of the jailer. Sometimes the stench becomes unbearable.
Would Have Burned to Death.
The jailer recently told some of the inmates of the jail proper that for four or five days this winter the lever that moves the tank was out of order, and, had there been a fire, it would have been almost impossible to have taken these prisoners out in time to prevent their being roasted to death.
One of the defendants in this case is a Spanish-American war veteran. During service in the Philippines he contracted a serious venereal disease, which, having never received the necessary medical attention, has gradually grown worse. During the past year’s imprisonment he has rapidly developed symptoms of insanity. When I visited the defendants in December they told me that he was becoming dangerous, and they feared not only for his safety, but for their own. I appealed to Prosecuting Attorney Robertson in his behalf, and at the same time in behalf of an- other defendant, who, in, despair, had attempted suicide by cutting his throat, and since recovery has been under the constant watch of his fellow prisoners, who guard him night and day in two-hour shifts. Mr. Robertson refused to take any action. I appealed to Federal Judge Pollock, whereupon an investigator from the Department of Justice in Chicago was sent to examine into conditions. Although the investigator promised to have them properly examined and cared for, nothing whatever has been done to relieve them.
Men Not Criminals.
It is useless to attempt to go into the details of the persecution in this or any of these cases–the task would be endless. It must be understood, however, that these men are not criminals. They are working men who have been courageous enough to stand by their convictions and organize for their self-protection. For more than a year they have been subjected to inhuman treatment. Now, as they are about to be brought to trial, they have no funds with which to defend themselves. The charges in the Wichita, Omaha and Spokane cases are almost identical with the Chicago case, and, although the same verdict may be expected, nevertheless, these men feel that in justice to them and to the cause they represent they should put up the best possible defense.
When we consider the terrible strain under which the organization has been struggling for the past two years, it is not difficult to understand why the treasury is empty. Two years ago the Everett case came to trial. Seventy-three men were held for six months, and after a ten weeks’ trial were acquitted. This was followed by the Chicago case, in which over 100 men were held for a year, and a very expensive trial lasting five months resulted in conviction. The appeal in such a case necessitates a tremendous amount of work, costing many thousands of dollars.
Hundreds of minor cases have been defended, 300 in Idaho and Montana alone, many of them successfully. In addition to all of these legal proceedings, the organization has been subjected to the most bitter persecutions, its halls raided again and again, property destroyed, membership scattered, deported, browbeaten, until many have almost lost hope. Is it any wonder that no funds are on hand and none immediately available for the defense of these 100 men still awaiting trial? They are looking hopefully to the broadminded liberals and Socialists to aid them, and without this assistance they can be slight hope that the cases now pending and the appeal now in progress of preparation can be pushed through successfully.
Truth emerged from the The Duluth Labor Leader, a weekly English language publication of the Scandinavian local of the Socialist Party in Duluth, Minnesota and began on May Day, 1917 as a Left Wing alternative to the Duluth Labor World. The paper was aligned to both the SP and the IWW leading to the paper being closed down in the first big anti-IWW raids in September, 1917. The paper was reborn as Truth, with the Duluth Scandinavian Socialists joining the Communist Labor Party of America in 1919. Shortly after the editor, Jack Carney, was arrested and convicted of espionage in 1920. Truth continued to publish with a new editor JO Bentall until 1923 as an unofficial paper of the CP.
Access to full paper: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/truth/1919/v03n07-feb-14-1919-truth.pdf
