The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-08

The functionaries of the Commu-
mist Party Of Italy, members Of the
executive, party secretaries and
trade union functionaries, journal
lists and members of parliament who
were sentenced on June 4th of this
year to an aggregate of 400 years of
Imprisonment were transferred
shortly after their conviction to pris-
ons which are dangerous to health.
Comrades Gramsci and Terracini are
in Sancto Stefano Prison, others are
in Portolongone, others again are in
San Gemignano, Omeglia and Vol
terra.
Death Chambers.
These are the sadly notorious
death chambers of Italian bourgeois
justice, prisons with subterranean
solitary confinement cells, real tor
ture chambers, whose pestilencial air
undermines in a few months the
power of resistance of the most ro-
bust people especially as the pris-
oners may receive no food beyond
the completely inadequate jail diet,
so that within a short time the
prisoners inevitably suffer, as con-
sequence of this systematic MANU-
triton, the worst forms Of tubercu-
losis. These prisons were previously
used for the most dangerous muir
derers and criminals to bury them
alive and to expose them to a very
certain early death, as the Italian
criminal law does not yet include
the direct death sentence.
The conditions that must prevail IN
these prisons are evident from the
circumstance that even reactionary
bourgeois jurists, barristers, judges
and professors have demanded for
many years the abolition of these
prisons. which they themselves term
'Ttaly's stigma" l will mention one
of many examples, Cesare Civoli,
professor Of criminal law at the Uni
versity of Pavia, refers in his
Manual of Criminal Law, published
in 1900, to this form of punishment
as terrible application of the
death sentence" (Manuale del Dirt
to Penale. Milano 1900, Page 117)
For this reason, Comrade Terracini
was right when at the pronounce
ment of judgment he shouted to the
fascist blackshirts who figured as
"iudges" at the special trial:
"You have not the courage open
" to condemn us to death! But
you know only too well that you
have really condemned us to death
in sending us into those subter-
ranean cellsp'
Buried Alive.
So far it has not been possible to
establish fairly regular communica-
ton with the comrades buried in
these prisons. They are shut off
Theoretically from the outer world.
They may write only once in several
months and then the prison censor
will permit to pass only letters which
say nothing. So far they have not
been allowed visits from relatives.
Concerning the fate of most of these
comrades we are, therefore, in COM
plete ignorance.
In regard to Conrade Terracini
alone our Italian comrades have sue
ceeded in getting few reliable mes
sages; messages which are in the
highest degree alarming. Prior to
his arrest Comrade Terracini's health
left much to be desired. The insult
ficient diet during the two years he
was on remand further weakened
his physique. Italian comrades, who
saw him at the time of the trial, all
said that even then he was reduced
to a skeleton. Apart from Comrade
Gramsci, who was very i'll, our ltal-
ian comrades were, therefore, chief
ly concerned about Comrade Terra
cini. But the reports that we are