The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 18, 1926, Page 11

F.8 Pos fer a: ed POs ea or ao [Be @ few - & FS “3ES2Sam So & eR at a ae aes 4: to “\ ‘| trom his neighbor?. There they were free to run stores for themselves, to write novels, teach their children, - ‘ferab their own food, dig irrigation ditches, study lan- sharpened |\®{ Young Proletatre rebuilt New York, Chicago, Pitts- MICHAEL GOLD smild@, who always enjoyed a little metaphysics after " ut—but—” “No~buts please.” “If in the future—?” . “Let tomorrow make its own discoveries,” he an- swered tolerantly. “And you do not fear god?” “No, how can one fear primitive science? A thought in the brain? What, would you havé me turn maso- chistT” & THE REVOLT OF THE INDIVIDUALISTS. K esse were individualists in the New America, Some were cured and happy, but many were still vain, pompous,' jealous. . Anxious for medals and special re- wards. Afflicted with the obsession of the elder world that each man was the center of life, and caused the sun to rise and,set.. They,,did not believe in organisation, but one. day they came together to organize a revolt, “{ used to be.a great writer of novels,” one wept, and ten thousand intellectuals read my books, and I received honer. and royalties, Now. a million- people read my books, and I receive, not royalties, but a worker’s wage. ™ awful.” . was a shopkeeper, a free man. I was free to buy se—™, to cheat and be cheated,” said another. “But I'm a ffave now—can’t make any money—must work with o@fiers.’ “I was a technician. If it were not for me the fac- tories could not run. I was the enemy of the workers —their master. Now I am their fellow-worker and must pretend to be their friend.” “I worked my way up from the bottom and became a millionaire. Now there no millionaires.” “I was a superman,” wailed stil! another, “and they took my income and forced me to work like everyone else.” And so on and so on. The complaints were as bitter and numerous as there were individuals at the meeting. All agreed on one point, however—that each man creat- ed his own life by his own efforts, and was entitled to his special success. And they sent a delegation to Young Proletaire and demanded a return to individual- ism, “We do not believe in your social order,” they said. “This is a hive, an army, a mechanism that crushes. our souls. We are free men. Give us back our little shops, our incomes, our royalties.and medals and rank, our god-given right to feel better than others. We want freedom,” “Certainly,” said Young Proletaire. with 2, smile, \He, had.them., shipped, off. to, the ‘Rocky. Mountains, where each wag.giyen a private farm a hundred. miles guages, make laboratory experiments, discuss philos- ophy, fell trees, build subways, acquire new libraries and earn a million dollars. Freedom. Individualism. But they did not enjoy it. They were free now. Lone- some Impotent. They trooped back in a week and askeg to be restored to their old jobs. mce ig sécial. It depends on numberless expert. | .by,..centuries of unknown workers.” “a¥t is social. It is. the growth of multitudes of seas : since the. primitive.”, ai ep k “Language is social.” “All thought is.social.”. . ae : “All economic effort is social. A million dollars is ‘treated by a community-—not @ man,” “and s0 on and so on,” Young Proletaire repeated with a bored expression to them, for this was old stuff and only these hoary anachronisms hadn’t heard of it. And that ended that. 8. MANY’ EXPERIMENTS. , Ment experiments were tried under the leadership ot Young Proletairé. Everything seemed possible of accomplishment, in the New America; there was. a naive optimism abroad, a belief in miracles. And thus many miracles did constantly take place. ; : “Let.us change the course of the Gulf Stream, and spread “eternal, spring over America,” & Worker would suggest to Young Proletaire. ., The leader did not command that the man be thrust sag. nee BORA, £6 Wes, cimaye haDpERIOS, under: L209, pe idea, Have you a plan?” he would say,,in- mi PD ae SES Ete Be pen ae ents, : Md grew afraid not of experimenting, but ot standing still. Qnce it had been said human nature could not be changed, | but now it was changing rapidly, It was found to be as controlable as the nature of horses or dogs, Environment was the clue—and the community now controlled environment. Young Proletaire established thousands of Behavior- ist laboratory communes where the human nature of children was constantly changed and bettered thru training. Thus a race of supermen was being formed. Once there had been an army. Many sincere people believed murder was part of man’s heritage. But Young Proletaire abolished the army—armies only protected private property and there was no more private prop- erty, he said. After the army was abolished, life went on as be- fore, and even liberals were convinced murder was not necessary. Fighting went on—but in the realm of ideas, and it the mind and will of the fighters. A. NE could not undertake with any pretense of com- pleteness, the narration of the martyrdom under- gone by the prisoners of Bulgaria, of Roumania, of Jugo- Slavia, In Roumania there is a special prison for political prisoners. It is the central prison of Doftana. It con- sists entirely of dungeons. The beds are screwed to the walls. During the day they are raised up ahd the prisoners are’ compelled to stand up. The food is vile and the. “inmates” suffer from hunger. possesses a special section, Section N, called the tor- peasants are tormented there. The inmates of this section are chained hand: and foot and are submitted three times a wéek to the “black fast” (dry bread and -water). Shut up in veritable ‘sacks of stone, ‘called “guerlos,” constructed out of a single block of fortified concrete, the vermin and from suffering. They,are unable to stir and must sleep standing. It is a vertical coffin, For the least infraction or error, for example, failure to salute, they lock them in casemates where they are obliged. to remain seated on the cement and in water, hands and feet chained. Those who beseech for human treatment are noted down; they condemn them to one, two, five years of prison and they make them travel from jail to jail. They do not remain longer than a week in each prison and are always shut up im dun- geons, chained hand and foot, without linen, in rags; thus they make a round of all Roumania. At Doftana, there is a “Section H” where they put the “undisciplined” prisoners. There the dungeons are three meters by one meter (about nine and a half by four and a half feet—transl.), without air, without beds, without tables or chairs, without sanitary installations. No water for washing onesself, no linen for months. The food is unclean, and yet insufficient! (Thirty kilos of soup for two hundred prisoners). They give then unpeeled potatoes which they put into a bucket: they boil them, then the¥ add salt water up to the top of the bucket (water which makes the body swell up and causes nephritus). The prisoners drink out of the same bowl, even the tubercular and syphilitic. They put such manacles on them that one can soon see the very. obvious thinning of their wrists. They continually apply the cudgel to them. Beaten on the soles of their feet, the prisoners are unable to walk when they are sent back to their-cells; ‘their comredes are, forbidden to support them, One cannot endure this ‘eins for more than sev- eral months... When one leaves there, one leaves it hebetated or epileptic, but usually one dies thére. In six months, out of sixty-three prisoners put in Section H, only twelve remained alive. During the spring of 1923, there were thirty-eight deaths at Doftana, thirty- six of which were from Section H. When the prisoners are ill, they let them die. As for example, Ivanuz, tubercular, at Jilava. To be sure, there is-a doctor, but he never touches a prisoner. He contents himself -with demanding jugs of wine from relatives for transferring the sick person to the sani- tariim. Ihave seen a poor woman without ' any ‘re- sources from whom the doctor had demanded’ 10,000 lei to have her ‘husband trankported to the hospital; she was unable to doit. - According to the regulations, one should not remain at Doftana more than six months. There are some who have been there for five years for peciaes” or “syndi- | calist propaganda.” M. Tchernatz, director-general of prisons, es in- stituted compulsory labor for prisoners’ in order to draw profit from it. They work under the cudgel. Soldiers, with bayonets ten centimeters (abott four inches— transl.) from: their bodies, keep them from drinking or from relieving Apomectyea as dens, as the work is un- finished. ...., Naturally,.,the. oduaaie: eso commit suicide. But outeide..of the hunger strike, it is dificult‘for them. I sow Seathtide A taal 3 a g burgh—all the ugly chaotic man-slaying ‘American cities. Yes, he made of them throbbing, beautiful communities huge worke of anil Aap cplagned effort of oe mass- artist. { There was no money to be made out of these things, s0.no one obstructed, all had something to gain. A curious wave of health sét’ ‘iny there’ was thuch ‘less disease, because no one worried over old ‘age’ of pov- erty. Workers were always provided for, the’ fittre” was certain. Thére were no savings: are ‘Vat neither were there pauper homes,’ y Everyone belonged. Everyone had some useful’ Job. It was queer, but people grew friendlier, the world was an enemy no longer, but exactly like one’s own house. Men were like a family. Yes, this was health, No one whimpered. All created. There were endless adventures each year, and enough hard work, And America was thankful Young Proletaire had come, tho at first most had feared him because new tayatt is an, agony. At first they called him a “mad 40m, but then later they called him the.Messiab, As in Russia, so here too, the human race grew by a few inches, Great deeds. were done and there was no money, ‘ This is the end of my fable, The prison | Bucharest. ture-section. Hundreds and thousands of workers and | The regime is particularly severe. Scenes From the Hell of Europe By HENRI BARBUSSE. have been told the story of one of them who tried to die by swalling tincture of iodine. There are “rebellions” concocted by the management and the convict-guards. An epileptic having fallen upon a keeper in the course of a fit, they spread the rumor that he had wanted to kill him; and then fol- lowed a feast of reprisals, The military fortress of Jilava had been transformed into a prison by the Germans when they occupied It is a living tomb. The prison, buried ten meters beneath the ground, is entirely of concrete. The “disciplined” are shut up for ten days in “cement sacks” where thay cannot make a single move. The prison of Vakarechta ig the largest in Rodiiandn. It was constructed for 2,000 persons; neverthelexé, it ‘actually confines no less than 3,000 entries, :<Phé:dts- ciplined are shut up-in special dungeons ‘of two meters the prisoners await death which will liberate them from’ and. are obliged to remain standing there. The regime of prisons and prisoners in other Bal- kan centers’ is sidentical with the Roumanian regime. To describe it would mean to recommence the descrip- tions which I have just given only changing the ‘proper names, Rights of defense? They do not exist. In Bulgaria, the lawyers are not allowed to converse in private with the prisoners whom they are defending. An official is present at the conversation. Escaped Bulgarian prisoners who had’ succeedéa in gaining the Turkish frontier have told us of: the ‘arbi- trary manner in which they proceeded in their exantina- tions: at times it was an ordinary corporal; «an agent. In many cases, enormously long imprisonments before trial without examination, In Roumania there are in- numerable cases like that of Ivanuz who was arrested for no special reason, solely for his opinions or because he was a supporter of the plebiscite in Bessarabia, serv- ing four and a half months of prison before trial and dying there of tuberculosis; others have served years. The Rumanian lawyer, Boujor, chained in a dungeon without a window, went insane, The Bulgarian, Asen Vaptzarov, having gone insane following the compres- sion of his head by an instrument of torture, is let loose in his home. He kills his wife and child with an axe— and hangs himself. They now have proof that the journalist, Herbst, ~_ been burned alive in the’ central heating ai the organization of National Safety at Sofia © 7h building which had been confiscated from the large operative, Osvabojdenie), together with two former officers and another journalist; he offered a constant opposition to the government and had written an ar- ticle in his journal, Vik, which has displeased the higher-ups, Max Goldstein, condemned to life imprisonment at Bucharest, went on a hunger strike, his life in the dungeon being nothing more than a long torture. On the fortieth day, he agreed, after supplications by his family, to take food again, but the director of the prison gave the order that he should not be allowed to eat. He died ten days later, The same order was given in the. Romanian prison of Doftana in regard te. twenty- seven political prisoners,.who had begun;sthem j#va- pended, a hunger strike... When the news was published, these twenty-seven prisoners had not eaten for three weeks. In many cities of old Roumania and of:‘Transy)- vania, they proceeded to arrest the workers en masse who protested against the murder of Max Goldstein. To render the fury of their executioners impotent, the prisoners have only this voluntary sacrifice, the hunger strike. The-.growing terrors of this carnal punishment, directed by ‘the will, requiring during the first days. an almost superhuman strength of spirit, have been minutely deseribed. In this Roumanian prison of Jilava where there are prisoners who have been’ #0 furiously beaten that the blood came thru their clothes, statistics of the month of May, 1925, have established the, fact. that seventy prisoners had. together completed 1,840 days of a hunger strike. Sc teoq Iam preciously treasuring a wretelied : bit of : “paper: a, letter, which the Roumanian political, prisorers,”in- formed, I do not. know how, of my passing thru’ the country, succeeded in giving me to keep. The treat- ment which these men undergo surpasses alk imagina- tion, and they are only accused of delinquencies’ of opinion, and, as I have said, it is even sufficient! for them to be suspected of “sympathizing” with the ad versaries of the government. Here are a few lines of this heart-rending appeal: “The,tobacco passage” to the point of blood, with the help ‘of: knotted cudgels and bull pizzles, hair torn out, heads beaten against the wall, feet trampled upon to the point of fainting, all these things which you have read are little beside that which we uaye suffered at the hands of the Safety’s police of . (I have sup- pressed the. name). Tied upright, with “knees touching the chin, arms crossed over a peg, we were gagged, the heel of the executioners on our throats in order to keep us from crying out. This lasted for hours and whole days. When we fainted away, they drenched us with ) water in order to make us suffer martyrdom anew to the point of exhaustion after we had been revived, Hus- ‘bands maltreated before their wives, parents before their children, were exposed to one another. as examples, Somé of us were lodged next to the torture chamber povescegh the sound of blows, of cries, and of death- rattles,” amas ‘ ss