Jailed for Freedom Part 29

Will you, if it is within your power, attempt to have her recognized as a political prisoner, and relieve the severity of the treatment she is receiving for obeying this impulse born of her love of liberty and the dictates of her conscience?

I have, Excellency, the honor to be,

Respectfully, your countrywoman,

(Signed) VERA SAMARODIN, Baltimore, Maryland.

Another Russian, Maria Moravsky, author and poet, who had herself been imprisoned in Czarist Russia and who was touring America at the time of this controversy, expressed her surprise that our suffrage prisoners should be treated as common criminals. She wrote:[1] "I have been twice in the Russian prison; life in the solitary cell was not sweet; but I can a.s.sure you it was better than that which American women suffragists must bear.

"We were permitted to read and write; we wore our own clothes; we were not forced to mix with the criminals; we did no work. (Only a few women exiled to Siberia for extremely serious political crimes were compelled to work.) And our guardians and even judges respected us; they felt we were victims, because we struggled for liberty."

The Commissioners, who bad to bear the responsibility of an answer to these protests and to the demand of the prisoners, contended to all alike that political prisoners did not exist.

"We shall be happy to establish a precedent," said the women.

"But in America," stammered the Commissioners, "there is no need for such a thing as political prisoners."

[1]Reprinted from The Suffragist, Feb. 8, 1919.

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"The very fact that we can be sentenced to such long terms for a political offense shows that there does exist, in fact, a group of people who have come into conflict with state power for dissenting from the prevailing political system," our representatives answered.

We cited definitions of political offenses by eminent criminologists, penologists, sociologists, statesmen and historians. We declared that all authorities on political crime sustained our contention and that we clearly came under the category of political, if any crime. We pointed as proof to James Bryce, George Sigerson, Maurice Parmelee and even to Clemenceau, who defined the distinction between political offenses and common law crimes thus: " . . . theoretically a crime committed in the interest of the criminal is a common law crime, while an offense committed in the public interest is a political crime."[1]

We called to their attention the established custom of special treatment of political prisoners in Russia, France, Italy and even Turkey.[2]

We told them that as early as 18'72 the International Prison Congress meeting in London recommended a distinction in the treatment of political and common law criminals and the resolution of recommendation was "agreed upon by the representatives of all the Powers of Europe and America-with the tacit concurrence of British and Irish officials."[3]

Mr. John Koren, International Prison Commissioner[4] for the United States, was throughout this agitation making a study of this very problem. As chairman of a Special Commit-

[1]Speech before the French Chamber of Deputies May 16, 1876, advocating amnesty for those who partic.i.p.ated in the Commune of 1871. From the Annales de la Chambre des Deputes, 1876, v. 2, pp.

44-48.

[2]Those interested in the question of political prisoners and their treatment abroad may want to read Concerning Political Prisoners, Appendix 6.

[3]Siegerson, Political Prisoners at Home and Abroad, p. 10.

[4]Appointed and sponsored by the Department of State as delegate to the International Prison Congress.

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tee of the American Prison a.s.sociation, empowered to investi- gate the problem of political prisoners for America, he made a report at the annual meeting of the American Prison a.s.soci- ation in New York, October, 1919, ent.i.tled "The Political Of fenders and their Status in Prison"[1] in which he says:

"The political offender . . . must be measured by a different rule, and . . . is a creature of extraordinary and temporary conditions . . . .

"There are times in which the tactics used in the pursuit of political recognition may result in a technical violation of the law for which imprisonment ensues, as witness the suffragist cases in Washington . . . . These militants were completely out of place in a workhouse, . . . they could not be made to submit to discipline fashioned to meet the needs of the derelicts of society, and . . . they therefore destroyed it for the entire inst.i.tution."

There was no doubt in the official mind but that our claim was just. But the Administration would not grant this demand, as such, of political prisoners. It must continue to persuade public opinion that our offense was not of a political nature; that it was nothing more than unpleasant and unfortunate riotous conduct in the capital. The legend of "a few slightly mad women seeking notoriety" must be sustained. Our demand was never granted, but it was kept up until the last imprisonment and was soon reinforced by additional protest tactics. Our suffrage prisoners, however, made an important contribution toward establishing this reform which others will consummate. They were the first in America to organize and sustain this demand over a long period of time. In America we maintain a most backward policy in dealing with political prisoners. We have neither regulation nor precedent for special treatment of them. Nor have we official flexibility.

[1]Mr. Koren discusses the political offender from the penological, not the social, point of view.

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This controversy was at its height in the press and in the public mind when President Wilson sent the following message, through a New York State suffrage leader, on behalf of the approaching New York referendum on state woman suffrage:

"May I not express to you my very deep interest in the campaign in New York for the adoption of woman suffrage, and may I not say that I hope no voter will be influenced in his decision with regard to the great matter by anything the so-called pickets may have done here in Washington. However justly they may have laid themselves open to serious criticism, their action represents, I am sure, so small a fraction of the women of the country who are urging the adoption of woman suffrage that it would be most unfair and argue a narrow view to allow their actions to prejudice the cause itself. I am very anxious to see the great state of New York set a great example in this matter."

This statement showed a political appreciation of the growing power of the movement. Also it would be difficult to prove that the "small fraction" had not shown political wisdom in injecting into the campaign the embarra.s.sment of a controversy which was followed by the above statement of *the President. In the meantime he continued to imprison in Washington the "so-called pickets" whom he hoped would not influence the decision of the men voters of New York. It will be remembered, in pa.s.sing, that the New York voters adopted suffrage at this time, although they had rejected it two years earlier. If the voters of New York were influenced at all by the "so-called pickets," could even President Wilson himself satisfactorily prove that it had been an adverse influence?

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Chapter 10

The Hunger Strike-A Weapon

When the Administration refused to grant the demand of the prisoners and of that portion of the public which supported them, for the rights of political prisoners, it was decided to resort to the ultimate protest-weapon inside prison. A hunger strike was undertaken, not only to reinforce the verbal demand for the rights of political prisoners, but also as a final protest against unjust imprisonment and increasingly long sentences. This brought the Administration face to face with a more acute embarra.s.sment. They had to choose between more stubborn resistance and capitulation: They continued for a while longer on the former path.

Little is known in this country about the weapon of the hunger strike. And so at first it aroused tremendous indignation. "Let them starve to death," said the thoughtless one, who did not perceive that that was the very thing a political administration could least afford to do. "Mad fanatics," said a kindlier critic.

The general opinion was that the hunger strike was "foolish."

Few people realize that this resort to the refusal of food is almost as old as civilization. It has always represented a pa.s.sionate desire to achieve an end. There is not time to go into the religious use of it, which would also be pertinent, but I will cite a few instances which have tragic and amusing likenesses to the suffrage hunger strike.

According to the Brehon Law,[1] which was the code of

[1]Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, Vol. I, Chapter VIII.

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ancient Ireland by which justice was administered under ancient Irish monarchs (from the earliest record to the 17th century), it became the duty of an injured person, when all else failed, to inflict punishment directly, for wrong done. "The plaintiff 'fasted on' the defendant." He went to the house of the defendant and sat upon his doorstep, remaining there without food to force the payment of a debt, for example. The debtor was compelled by the weight of custom and public opinion not to let the plaintiff die at his door, and yielded. Or if he did not yield, he was practically outlawed by the community, to the point of being driven away. A man who refused to abide by the custom not only incurred personal danger but lost all character.

If resistance to this form of protest was resorted to it had to take the form of a counter-fast. If the victim of such a protest thought himself being unjustly coerced, he might fast in opposition, "to mitigate or avert the evil."

"Fasting on a man" was also a mode of compelling action of another sort. St. Patrick fasted against King Trian to compel him to have compa.s.sion on his [Trian's] slaves.[1] He also fasted against a heretical city to compel it to become orthodox.[2] He fasted against the pagan King Loeguire to "constrain him to his will."[3]

This form of hunger strike was further used under the Brehon Law as compulsion to obtain a request. For example, the Leinstermen on one occasion fasted on St. Columkille till they obtained from him the promise that an extern King should never prevail against them.

It is interesting to note that this form of direct action was adopted because there was no legislative machinery to enforce justice. These laws were merely a collection of customs attaining the force of law by long usage, by hereditary habit, and by

[1]Tripart.i.te Life of St. Patrick, CLXXVII, p. 218.

[2]Ibid. CLXXVII, p. 418.

[3]Ibid. CLXXVII, p. 556.

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public opinion. Our resort to this weapon grew out of the same situation. The legislative machinery, while empowered to give us redress, failed to function, and so we adopted the fast.

The inst.i.tution of fasting on a debtor still exists in the East.