The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-10
CHARGES AGAINST
PRISON FALL FLAT.
Criticisms of Federal Prison
Made By Hawthorne a~'
Morton Amount TO Little

Atlanta, November 9.-fSpeeial THE
effort to arouse storm of protest against
the conduct of the Atlanta federal prison
under the administration of Warden Will
liam IL. Meyer has failed
1t has been for a long time too ap-
parently the effort of one newspaper to
stir up strife within the institution and
criticism outside of 1t against the war;
den. For what reasons 1t is not publicly
known, but the attack is looked upon as
part of a general scheme to discredlt
the national administration and every
feature connected with it.
The whole thing started when Julian
Hawthorne, the author. and Dr. Morton,
his prison companion, were released after
having served sentence of one year
for using the mails with intent to defraud
They were Immediately pounced upon and
interviewed by representatives of this
paper, and their charges of insufficient
food and cruel treatment of prisoners
were made subjects for scare heads and
were spread all over the country.
Ever since the publication of these
charges there have been repeated news
stories, either containing the same or adj
ditional charges, and predicting investi-
cations by the department of Justice and
eN en- by Congress. None of these inves-
legations have materialized, nor does it
appear likely that any of them will. Even
Congressman William Schley Howard,
who spoke of a congressional investiga-
tion at the time the charges were first
made, has since been silent ON the SUBJ
ject and has taken no step to bring it
about
When Superintendent r. V. LaDow of
government prisons came here from
Washington the other day, as he does
several times every year, to attend a
meeting of the prison parole board, his
visit was Immediately pounced upon as
the beginning of the long heralded nvesti-
cation of the Hawthorne charges. But
Mr.. LaDow put a quietus ON this report
in less than "a hours He made it clear
that he had come here solely for the pur-
pase of attending a parole board meeting
and said that he anticipated there would
be no change whatever i nthe policy of
the department as expressed in the recent
statement of Attorney General Reynolds,
to the effect that he did not consider the
Hawthorne charges even worthy of inves-
tigation.
1t may be said that this practically
ends the matter. The prison guards who
were suspected of stirring up internal
strife have been suspended by Warden
Meyer, and report of their suspension has
been made to Washington. Under the
circumstances. there is little doubt that
his action will be approved by the depart
ment OF justice.
Warden Meyer, who went into office un-
der a republican administration, has
proven himself one of the most compe-
tent prison officials in the country. He
has made a study of prison system not
only in this country, but in Europe, and
as rapidly as conditions warrant it he
has instituted every modern improvement
and system that would make not only for
better administration, but for the benefit
of the prisoners themselves. He has been
continued in office under the democratic
administration, and there is apparently
every reason to believe that he will re-
main.