The Semi-weekly leader., 1919-08-23
CAN'T SUPPRESS EDITOR
Even Behind the Bars Memphis
Press Man Writes From Jail
Of Experiences.

Maybe Editor Leech, OF Memphis
Press, will be sorry when his ten day
term for contempt of court comes to
an end this week. He is being made
muchabout. Doubtless the old Judge
who sentenced .Leech to iail for say
Ing that the Memphis. courts were
crooked. though specifying no names,
will be very wrathy because the pub
lie has seen at. to do little hero
worshipping.
Leech has been writing an inter-
esting column or two from prison
for his paper daily.
Here are few extracts from Mon
days paper;
Yesterday was a big day-Sun-
day. We all put on collars in honor
of the occasion.
Prisoners need unionizing.
There's no double time for Sundays
and "a hours every day.
However, Sundays a gala day in
Jail. Visitors all day long; dinners
for many of the prisoners sent in
from the OUTSIDE; church services in
the afternoon. u
II attended the prison services
and I'll never forget them. A score
of earnest men and women conduct
ed them, while e. H. Lafayette, a
fellow prisoner, played the organ.
Sunday was big day in my room
Had so many visitors I lost track
also lost some of the scraps of paper
on which have been jotting down
names. That's why am unable to
recall the name of the welcome Wis
itor who brought down bottle OF
delicious loganberry Juice. Inciden-
tally, put 1t in the jail ice box and
the jailer looked so suspicious when
he saw the color that had to give
him a sample to prove I'm still q
prohibitionist,
MRS. F. j. Barlow, whose husband
is editor Of the Tunica, miss. }
Times, came to take a look at q
newspaper editor in jail. Under ju-
dicial precedents recently related
every editors wife should become
used to the spectacle.
with Mrs. Barlow was her dugh-
ter, Elizabeth, six, who recited
poems for me and Mrs. S. A. Bob
bitt of Memphis.
(Here the editor listed the candy
fruit, flowers, cream, cigars, cake
etc., that had been sent him and by
whom and then proceeded with more
serious comment, as follows:-)
"At nights the negro prisoners
back in their cells sing and laugh
till 1000 O'Clock. During the day
they lie around on the floors or sit
propped against the cells, in absolute
laZiness.
"0ne can't help but wonder, as he
looks at them, what the law expects
to make of them. There they are
all herded together, murderer and
petty thief, hold-up and delinquent
boy, without any distinction as tc
the nature OF the crimes or their
ages. Nothing to do but loaf and
talk, boast of their crimes grow sore
at the world, tell of the big 1obs'i
they might pull-all being degraded
to one class of criminality. Is
rFigure out how many negroes
come to this Jail every year. to min
gle with criminals of every class, to
grow soft and lazy, and it won't
seem strange that they keep coming
back, each time little more crimi-
nal than they were before.
Their feed costs the county rs
cents a. day-and all the county gets
In return is more criminals to sup
port in idleness. Suppose, instead,
there were prison farm, somewhere
that the prisoners could work, where
the petty criminals could be kept
separated from the more haroened
and desperate class, where they
could earn something for the county
and finish their terms in good ply
lsical and mental condition. Wouldn't
1t pay? The more l see of this place
the more l believe it would"
Leech's case has attracted atten-
tion all over the country, and the
press is lambasting the judge who
imposed sentence for his autocratic
power -Vicksburg Post.