The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 26, 1924, Page 9

There were three of us, serving our year for making’ speeches against the draft law. We were nearing the end of our sentences and had been transferred from cells te the com- parative comfort of the dormitory. Here the short-timers, mostly drunks and vagarants loafed out their $5.00 and $10.00 and cost sentences, It was in the early days of pro- hibition, The bootlegergs had not ‘yet become proficient at their trade. The population of this workhouse had been considerably reduced as a con- sequence and there were’ only a dozen of us in the dormitory, which usually held forty. * Our state bread and “all-together” soup had been served thru the little opening in the iron door. The “king of the spoons” had made his rounds and gathered those precious instri- ments. The rusty pans, separated into three parts by partitions, in which our bread and soup and some- times a slice of red beet was served, were noisily shoved out thru the opening in the door. Everyone breathed a sigh of re- lief and relaxed. We were thru for the day. Except for the night guard, slipping: by noiselessly in his felt slippers every now and then, no one would come near -us until morning. Compared to the day’s work under the constant observation of the guard, this was freedom. Until the lights went out at eight was the story telling hour. Tonight Slippery Ike had the floor. — Six feet six and thin as a rail, with just a fringe of red hair decorating his bald head, one could easily see how he had earned his name. Ha disposed of himself carefully on one of the cots, keeping within hitting distance of the spittoon, and began: “The goddamnest thing happened to me last week.” “I was riding a friéght out of Bellaire on the way te Columbus. I hadn’t made more then ten miles when a smart-aleck breakman cam down on me. ; “‘Hay, you,’ he shouts. ‘You'd better beat it when we stop. at the water. tank. The’re two dicks in the caboose and they seen ypu getting on and are going to grab you when we stop. There’ll be another freight along in an hour.’ “I didn’t like the idea of sitting around.a water tank ten miles from nowhere, perticularly since it was getting on toward supper-time and I began to argue the question. But he wouldn’t discuss the matter. “Take it or leave it,’ says he, and goes off swinging along the top of those cars as if he were walking down Broadway, ’ “When the tank hove in sight I slipped off and ducked in among the trees aong the track. and watched. Sure enough them fly- cops came out of the caboose and one on each side walked forward to the engine, looking each car over as they went. “When she pulled out they stood there until the caboose came along and hopped on the end, so I didn’t get a chance to jump her again. “Wasn’t anything to do but wait for the next freight which the breaky said would be along, so I found a soft spot and proceeded to invite myself to snooze, “When I awoke it was nearly dark—must have slept and hour and 6 half. Wasn’t any freight in sight. I sat waiting another half hour or so, but nothing happened. “It. had got ed dark—one 0’ those black nights that you can feel. My little tummy had been tell- ing me ever since I woke up that it was time to go looking for some good lady, so I stood up on a big sigh Sal Idn’t see a thing, so I began to stumble along to a sort of road I had seen down a piece. I follered i say seit faced, I told my story. another down at the kitchen table oh ea chicken, bread, j 0 a glass of cider! Gee, I this. is soft, “She didn’t say a‘ word w it E g F PRISON DAYS et, but soon as I was thru she starts kind of business like. “* Now, I want you te do some- thing for me. My old man died suddenly a couple hours ago, and I want you to watch while I hitch up and go for the undertaker.’ of cider I'd forgotten about the stiff, ‘who seemed’ a pretty jolly sort of | back ae ee “Td just began to pay my respects to that old woman of his who'd tried to poison hm, when we heard the rattle of buggy wheels driving “The job didn’t appeal to me,/u and I began to excuse myself, tell- ing her I had to get back to catch the freight that would be along soon. “She looked at me rather hard- like and says ‘Therell be a five dollar bill in it for you, now come along’ and opens the door to the next room, “I seemed to be in for it and bucking up my nerve I folowed her. Sure enough, there en the couch in the corner was a body stretched out and covered by a sheet, “She points te a chair near the “ ‘Quick,’ says he, ‘cover me up and get back on your chair and don’t say a word.’ He stretches out and I pmll the sheet over him and get back to my watching seat. “Pretty soon: I hear voices in the kitchen and hear the eld woman grumbling about the ‘damn tramp’ having been helping, himself to the chicken and cider, “They don’t come into the room where I and the stiff are, though, and a little Mater there. are steps going upstairs from the kitchen and I hear them moving about oever- door and says ‘Watch here, till I| head. eome back’ and eloses the door. “Soon I heard the buggy go rattl- ing out of the yard and saw’ thru the window the light from the lant- ern which she'd taken with her, go- ing down the road.’ “The stiff jum 2 Se? know ke be cies it gives me a creepy feeling him come out from under the sheet. I feelg like getting thru that kitchen door and taken to my heels, but he grabs Bound and Gagged : ¢ Cus The Political Prisoner. “When I turned my head toward the stiff in the corner, my hair stood on end. When I’d looked before the Es 3 * & Ee ret 2 # pe “i iu ie i R28 Flues Fe i i i i Kh me by the arm and says, ‘Come on, we'll fix them now’ and pulls me up the stairs with him. “There’s a key in one of the doors and he runs and turns it quick and then rushes ints the next room and calls ‘Help me, quick,’ and begins hauling out a big dresser. We pile this and a lot of other furniture against the door. “The windows haven’t been open for ten years and they can’t get out that way,’ he grins, and rushes down to the cellar and comes up with a can of gasoline, which he begin pouring around the hallway. “Things look pretty bad, Too much for me and I kind ef protest. ‘Shut up,’ he answers, and looks at me as if he was going to eat me up, ‘or I'll lock you up with ’em.’” . “He finishes woe the gasoline by drawing a little lin way, and when we get to the bottom touches a match to it. As the flash runs up the stairway he shouts, ‘Come on, let’s get out.’ “We rush out to the yard where the horse and buggy is standing. ‘Get in,” he growls at me and soon we are driving like the devil down e¢ down the} F. By EMIL LYON the humpty-dumpty road. Looking as we go I could see the flames growing bigger and bigger, “We drove about five miles, paaa” ing two or three houses on the way, but they all dark and not even a dog barked. The farmer didn’t say a word, After another mile or so he turned down a cross a piece and then suddenly and said, ‘Get out.’ “‘The railroad is about a quarter of a mile down the road,” he con tinues. ‘There'll be a freight along soon. If you say a word about what happened tonight it’s the electric chair for you as well as me.’ “With that he turns the buggy around and goes driving back up oo Sas if the devil was after “I walk down the road, and sure enough I soon come to the railroad track, and I hadn’t been there ten minutes when the headlight of the freight comes around the curve. I hop on and by early the néxt morn- ing we pull into Cadiz. “I stayed there for a week, pick- ing wp papers every day, expecting to read about the fire and the people being burned, but I’ve never heard another thing about the whole busi- ness. I be damned if I did.” Two weeks later Slippery Ike left us. _We had made the best of our stale bread and “all-together” soup. (Glory be, only a few more days of that!). The spoons and pans had gone clattering down the hall, Big Mike, who boasted that he had been in every jail from Maine to Texas, had the place of honor tonight. He stretched himself out on the bed where Slippery Ike had lain, gazed at the ceilng for a few minutes, and began: “The goddamnest thing happened to me last week.” And word for word almost he told us the same story. When he finished with the ident- feal “I never heard another thing about the whole business, I be damn- ed if I did,” I could restrain myself no longer. Jumping from my bed I stood ever him shaking my fist in his face, and shouted, “You’s a goddamn liar!” A Poet in the Mining Country. The miners are having a conven- tion, and this draws attention to the lot of the miners. The miners live a hard life, But their spirit is not broken, not in Herrin, not in West Virginia, not in other places. The mounted constabulary in Pennsyl- vania, cannot break them. The Ku Klux Klan in Herrin can’t do much, The gunmen in West Virginia have found that they are not the only ones who can shoot. Carl Sandburg the great American poet has been in the mining country and has written what he felt when he was there. This is how the poet speaks of the mining country in his poem “Pennsylvania”: I have been in Pennsylvania, In the Monangahela and the Hocking Valleys. In the blue Susquehana On a Saturday morning I- gt the mounted constabulary go by, I saw boys playing marbles. Spring and the hills laughed. And in places Along the Appalachian chain, I pd -stee] arms handling coal and ron, And I saw the white cauliflower faces Of miners’ wives waiting for their men to come home from the day’s work, I made color studies in crimson and olet Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset, Cause and Effect. The Socialist Party called upon its entire membership to come out to small hall and write a platform ‘or the spring election. How demo- cratic! In 1919 they expelled sixty thou- sand members for trying to have a say in the organization. front, page of their weakly organ carries a “Statement of Own- ership” not required by postal regu- lations. It reads: “The Jewish Daily orward has donated $250 to the Socialist Party of Cook County for the ——. ees gy 7 : very ely piece of help a 8 thoroly appreciated,” In the Workers Party the members subsidize the press. In what is left of bey SP it seems the other way round,