The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-12-24
Prison Depravity

One of the fostering sores of the capitalist
system is the prison regime. Most criminal
laws of capitalist society deal with crimes
against property. By far the overwhelming
majority of victims of capitalist criminal law
are workers deprived of an opportunity to
earn a iving'who were driven to desperation
in order to obtain means with which to en-
able them and those dependent upon them to
exist. No prison regime can ever change the
economic forces that impel men to violate the
laws of private property. And the system
in vogue in United States prisons, far from
aiding the individual to improve himself
physically and mentally, is calculated only to
deprave him in every conceivable way.
During the past year there have been
number of desperate prison revolts by prison
ers who knew from the outset that their
chances of success were hopeless. They
simply chose to die fighting rather than en-
dure the fiendishness of the regime.
1t is notorious that the food furnished
prisoners is vile, that most prisoners emerge
from period of confinement physical wrecks.
This systematic destruction of the physical
man is accompanied by warping of their
mentality by depriving them of an oppor-
tunity to receive literature other than that
approved by the ignorant prison chaplins-
ordained preachers and priests saturated with
the superstition of the dark ages and
preaching submissiveness and servility to the
chained and helpless victims of capitalism.
Only few days ago the warden of Auburn
prison excluded the Daily Worker. No eX-
PLANTATION was given. None was needed. The
warden one of Tammany Al Smiths favorite
jailers, is in charge of the prisoners. A paper
that so relentlessly exposes the fraud of the
late candidate for Wall Street. as we'll as all
other capitalist illusions is dangerous to the
ruling clique even of prisons.
One specific reason why our paper is ex-
Guided from prisons is the fact that in every
prison outbreak we have exposed the loath-
some conditions that provoke such outbreaks.
While other papers loudly acclaim the fright
full massacreS of unarmed prisoners by
drunken depraved police guards, we defend
the heroic and desperate action of the re-
VOTERS, we explain that no person accused
of a crime against property should be re-
garded as other than victim of capitalism,
that prisons are built not for the big Grim
inals, the big thieves, the oil swindlers, the
political grafters, but for the poor exploited
workers; in word they are class institutions.
To be excluded from prisons by the prison
keepers and hangmen of capitalism is
tribute to the Daily Worker-one of the many
things of which we are proud as we near the
Fifth Anniversary of the founding of this
revolutionary paper.
All workers, all readers and supporters of
our paper should remember that we are
known as favorably because Of the enemies
we have made during the past five years as
by the friends we have made. And all those
workers who have suffered in capitalist
dungeons, or who have relatives or friends or
comrades in the fight who have suffered
should send in greetings, get organizations to
donate to the Daily Worker on this Fifth
Anniversary so that we may be able to con-
tinue our fight until the time comes that the
walls of the torture chambers for the work.
ing class fall before the avalanche Of the
revolution.