Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-11-29
[|KESEND|NG
SOULS To
HE'LL
:crmer Guard Quit When He
Couldn't Bear to See Hor-
rors Any Longer.

One of the most shocking of all
the tales of the cruelty at the Allan
la Federal Prison since Julian Haw-
thorne and DR.. W. ]. Morton made
their sensational charges against
warden William H. Meyer, was told
10 The Georgian Saturday morning
by j. II, Archer, of Sumter, Ga, for
Two years a guard at the institution,
who says he quit because ut was
like sending mems souls to hell"
Mr.. Archer's story Of the things he
saw and the things he did during his
Two years service under Warden
Meyer is like page ripped from some
inquisition record. 1t is a picture
of tortures and punishments hardly
in this enlightened age
lie barred the secrets of the ''hole," a
place of torture that he says changed
strong men into white faced maniacs;
he tells the details of how men were
chained and shackled to the walls
Of a dungeon for days at a time, with
a slice of bread and a glass of water
their only fare; of men who we're
thrust into the blackness of the "soli-
tsry- and came out insane with the
sesire to kill; of the man who, his
mind wrecked by the terrible silence
of the hole" and the strain of his
punishment, tore a great hole In his
side with a rusty nail and ground
fine particles of glass into his own
flesh; of the consumptive who was
locked in his cell and kept there until
he died, and there is in his mind the
remembrance of the young prisoner
who lay for twenty days on the stone
floor of his cell without a morsel to
eat
Mover Began Use Of "Hoie."
It's been several years since L
worked as guard at the Federal Pris-
on" said Mr.. Archer, land things
may have changed, but in the light
Of recent revelations I do not believe
they have. | was one or the nrst
guards who worked at the prison. l
went there while Warden Hawke was
in charge, and later Warden Meyer
came. The hole was there when
Mr.. Hawke was there, but l do not
remember that he ever placed pr1s-
oner in it. But when Warden Meyer
came and took charge of the prison
there were always half a dozen poor
devils chained to the walls, their legs
shackled and their faces pressed
against the solid brick-slowly going
insane in the inky blackness and the
terrible silence.
There is but one word to use in
i speaking of the hole out there at
the prison. That word is hell. If there
ia hell on EARTH it is the dungeons
where prisoners are thrown for the
slightest infraction of the prison
rules; where mems souls are shrivel-
ed and their bodies destroyed. The
4 men who are paying their debt To
society out there fear the terrors OF
the hole more than they fear the
terrors of eternal damnation.
Il can't describe the hole No mar
could do that; no man could describe
the agony of men who are forced tc
stand for fifteen hours day for days
at time with their arms outstretch-
ed, their noses flattened against solid
brick; their feet shackled together
Standing all those hours in one posi-
uon, in a cell that has never known
a ray of sunlight, in a darkness sc
yfhlok that 1t is suffocating, and In
'Npace where the air is so foul as to bt
almost nauseating
Visitors Never Hear of II.
You never hear of the hole wher
you visit the prison. The first in
sruction a guard gets is that h'
must not talk of the hole and thu
Prisoners can't talk until they are re-
"aSed-and then nobody believes
'oem. And | believe every word ut
eFed by the men who have been tell
Continued on PAGE a, Column I.