Richmond planet., 1901-08-24
A WHITE LADY SPEAKS,
THE BURNING OF COLOR
ED MEN.
HORRIBLE CONDITIONS IN CONVICT CAMPS
Official Reports cited-senator Detrek,s Proposition

During the past week two colored
men have been burned at the stake. |
The accounts as they are given In South |
ern papers are heartrending in the ex-
treme. But in neither case was there
any pity shown by. the infuriated mob
nor by the citizens who witnessed the
awful scene; on the contrary, cheers
rent the air.
Where, oh where! are we drifting?
How long must the young be educated
in witnessing scenes that would dis
grace n heather nation? God only
knows.
Why Is 1t that we never read of such
assaults on women during the civil war
when they were left unprotected? If
one-hah of the accounts of assaults on
white women by colored men are true,
is there not some hidden wrong conceal
ed from the eyes of the world?
The papers tell us that Joe Washing
ton, who was burned at the stake last
Saturday night denied to the very last
having committed any assault on the
woman. BE that as it may, there is no
doubt but Joe Washington was a bad
man. The papers tell us that he had
served two long terms in the peniten-
tiary.
The Georgia Penitentiary Report for
I Lsa6 tells me that Joe Washington was
then serving five years term IN
Browns camp at Dade coal mines for
Larceny from the house." He was
then % years of age. 1t was from this
camp that the young colored man, Neal
Smith was taken from the stoclrade and
burned at the stake in the fall of 1896.
lie had left the stockade, not being
shackled as many We're, and committed
an unmentionable crime for which he
was burned.
In the winter of lS96-'97, the legisla-
tive investigating committee made a
special investigation of the penitentiary
camps, think twenty-six in all. / will
give a few extracts from the report as
given in the Georgia papers.
'In the Dade county mines a most re-
voting state of moral depravity-de-
pravity not to be described in print
was found 70 exist, with the knowledge
of the Superintendents. The convicts,
and also gnards, gambled, etc. MANY
of the conYicts were naked TO the waist
and few of them had shoes"
They Were nearly starved, besides
having no fire to warm themselves by
even when they had TO go barefooted
through snow. They were flogged un-
mercifully, and one system of punish
ment was declared by the committee to
be ''the worst ever inflicted by one hu-
man being upon another" The con-
victs, nine-tenths Of whom were color
ed, as al the oonvicts of Georgia are,
were worked in the coal mines; the old
criminals and boys of tender years were
herded together like brute beasts and
treated as such.
Is it any wonder that human beings,
emerge from such schools of crime, such
hells upon earth, criminals of the high
est grade?
The corresponding secretary of the
Conference of Charities and Corrections
said in her last report, concerning the
colored boy criminals in Alabama:
''They go out lf-devil and half
beast" She adds: "How can we ex-
pect that brutal assaults will cease
while we are thus making bruteS of hu-
man beings?' Now what are we going
to do? All such ex. conyicts cannot be
burned at the stake.
1t is said that the newly elected u S.
Senator of Nebraska, Charles H. Diet
rich who has seen convict-camp life in
the South in all of its horrors, intends
to bring this subject before Congress
next winter with view of bettering
the condition of the convicts. Let all
who reads these lines write at once to
Senator Dietrich and imploDe him to 60
on with his scheme. Any letter sent
him and is addressed, United States
Senate, Washington, ID. O., will reach
him.
Should he need any additional infor-
nation concerning the present condi-
tions of convict camps, let him call at
122 Tenth St., S. E, Washington, d. G..
CLARIssA OLDs keller.
August 16, 1901.