Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-12-22
GOV. ALLEN OF
KANSAS SC0RCHED
BY ALEX H0WATI

Alexander Howat, who IL serving q
| Jail sentence for having violated the
! Kansas Industrial Court law By call.
ing strike of miners in order to
compel 3 greedy coal company TO pay
a just wage claim % enc of their en-
| ployes, has written a letter 10 Co gin-
or Allen wherein he takes the govern.
or 10 task for his periodical inter
views in the public press relative to
| the alleged efforts of certain persons
to obtain pardons for Howat aud MS
colleagues.
The letter to Governor Allen IL
lows:
Henry J. Allen, Governor Of Kansas,
Topeka, Kansas.
Dear Sir:
My attention Ras recently been
called 10 a press dispatch IN when
you are quoted as saying that you
mad received a letter from some party
in Kansas, in which you were request
ed to grant a pardon to myself and
to my fellow mine workers, from the
sentence which We are now serving IN
the Crawford County Jail; and you
are further quoted as vehemently de
Ginning to grant such pardon.
Your interview (Self appointed, |
assume) has the old familiar ring Of
propaganda for which you have be-
come justly famous. This is the sixth
interview, if | remember correctly,
which you have put out within the
past year, in each Of which you have
declined, with great gusto, to pardon
myself and companions.
fUhn a,,aaft... ,.ta,L tpbu ehIa4I.A
you continually be breaking into the
press with such interviews declining
pardons to myself and fellow prison
ers, when neither myself nor my
brother mine workers in jail, nor any
one else authorized or appointed to
speak or act for US, have ever aban-
doned our manhood or sacrificed our
honor and self respect to the extent
of asking any privilege or favor al
your hands. Should we have done 50
we would be asking but the smallest
measure of justice, in order that u
part of the perfidious wrong done to
the workingmen and women of this
State, through your iniquitous admin
istration might be righted.
obviously you have been nettled
and disappointed that such a request
has not been made by us, and you
NAV rest assured, Governor, that no
such request ever shall be made, and
had you tendeded any such pardon it
would have been spurned by US, COM
ing from your hands, with the con-
tempt which it would rightfully de-
serve.
''Our only crime, as you we'll know,
was in calling on 40 to 30 men to Law
down their tools at small mine,
when there was no need of coal, and
when the mine was working but half
time for lack of orders, and this
strike was called only as a last re-
sort to compel greedy coal company
to pay to boy, and widows son
$500 which has been owed to him for
more than two years. For this So
called crime we were given eighteen
months in Jail, of which we have now
served about nine months.
THE coal miner today receives but
$l,25 per ton for digging the coal
from the earth and working but half
time and risking his life every min
ute, while the people over the state
pay $40, $l2 and $l5 per ton for the
same coal and you and your industrial
court sit idly by while this is going
on, and rejoice that you have few of
the representatives of labor in prison.
at was better for you, governor,
to ask the pardon of the people, for
your laundering, laundering, hell
raising administration, which you did,
and the people answered at the ballot
box on election day, and you and your
policies and your industrial court
were overwhelmingly repudiated.
Your hand picked, stall fed, and press
touted, candidate, endorsed by Big
Business, ran against Jonathan Davis,
the peoples candidate, like broken
winded, checked headed, mine pit
mule racing against Dan Patch or
Man o. War.
Politically, Governor, you are "a
very sick man. Your days are few.
In fact you are already dead. On
Jan. /, willing hands will cheerfully
roll the clods on your coffin, the
cuckoo and the boot owl will glee-
fully coo and boot above the bones of
has been, and all the common peo-
pie will rejoice.
Sincerely,
ALEXANDER HOWAT."