The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1911-03-08
Lad Who Had Tooth Knocked Out
At Red Wing Wanted In St.
Paul. :
LIND HEARS WHITTIER CONFESS
Superintendent of Training School
Admits That Boys are Spanked
and Says it is Humane.
(By z. A. Wilson)
iii Pioneer Leg1Slativo Bureat

Bemidji Pioneer Legislative Bureau
St. Paul, March S-"Walter Shores
of Bemidji was the boy saw knocked
down and his tooth kicked OUT
swore Walter Stoddard, colored
youth, a former inmate of the Red
Wing school, in testifying before the
legislative committee now investi-
eating charges of cruelty.
A. D. Stephens, former senator
from Crookston, says subpoena
has been issued for the Shores boy
and it is expected that he will, be
present when the hearing is resumed
in the senate chamber tonight.
Interest in the Red Wing exposures
has increased so that it was i'm
possible to seat all who came to be
present at the hearing Monday even
ing, and the spectators were not
there out of idle curiosity, bust.
ness and professional men being
among those present. In fact the
investigation is so searching, the
evidence so astounding and the
investigation so important that
former governor of the state, John
Lind. who is now practicing law in
Minneapolis, came Monday evening
to listen to: the testimony, and he re-
NAMED until the hearing adjourned
not long before midnight.
Superintendent Whittier was the
feature of the evening. He was
permitted to address the committee
which he did at length, admitting
that corporal punishment has been
and still is being administered at
the Red Wing school.
II think it is the most humane
and altogether satisfactory punish
ment of the severer FORMS" he told
the committee.
$40 you mean to say that you
have to whip boys to run your
SCHOOL," queried Senator Sullivan.
swell, no, didn't say just that,
and in fact we don't whip them
we just spank them, and we wouldn't
need to do that if we were provided
with cell houses" replied Mr.. Whit
tier.
Mr.. Whittier admitted that a
:sspanking contrivance' was used
in the schol up to July 4, 1905, when
it was destroyed by fire. He said
that since that time boys were
"spanked" by having their backs
barred, a wet towel applied and whip
ped, or as Mr.. Whittier preferred to
call it, "spanked" with strap four
teen inches long and three and one
half inches wide, attached to
handle, the complete whip being
twenty-five inches long.
"We only spank them until they
are throughly subdued," said the
superintendent, sometimes only
fifteen blows are needed andI don't
think more than so are ever admin
stored. OF course some of the boys
who have testified here undoubted-
ly honestly think they were given
more
Upon direct question from Senator
Stephens, Mr.. Whittier declared that
there was not and never had been a
machine with paddles attached, run
by electricity and used as a whipping
machine. ~~~&- r.
81 have been told there is such a
machine" was Mr.. Stephens COM
ment 49, s.
i Several boys, former inmates of the
school, were on the stand and re-
peated stories of cruelties at the
school. Eugene Jennings said that
he had been whipped on the spank
ing machine with his hands tied to
the floor and that when he got up
his arms and back were SO stretched
that he could not stand up, whereup-
on guard said. s'straighten up, damn
YOU" at the same time delivering a