The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-01-02

MANI u0S VI II any WucAS else II yOu
can.
Sincerely yours,
paul BLANSHARD."
*
The Matter at Issue.
The following is the original letter
which The Nation refused to pub
fish:
81 propose a new slogan for a
crusade against the Reds: THE
criminals must be kept safe for capt.
talisnl.' The method has been
evolved by General Jennings,
Warden of Auburn State Prison,
Auburn, N. Y, one of the nations
most LIBERAL governors appointees.
AS service and contribution to the
campaign, Warden Jennings has just
lately prohibited all radical litcra-
ture from entering his prison and
from reaching the prisoners-thus
keeping them safe from being con-
taminated with opinions and views
inimical to capitalism.
''In particular he vented his rage
against friend of mine, August
Reid, who was receiving the Daily
Worker for a long time and of late
also the New Masses. So far l have
not heard that The Nation, which
the same Reid also receives, has
been stopped, but that may be due
to the fact that The Nation sup
ported Smith for president. I re-
member a case when the same
warden stopped The Nation in 1924.
Important Precedent.
what difference, l will ask you,
is there between this warden who
prohibits mailable radical literature
from entering the prison premises
and local postmaster who refuses
to deliver radical literature on the
same ground, that he considers it
too revolutionary? You will say,
well, why bother about a prisoners
fate. You are right. In the face
of the numerous suppressions re-
lated in The Nation by Scott Near
ing and other cases that are related
daily by the Daily Worker. this in
cident is too insignificant. But there
one reason why / consider this i'm
portant, and that is because this
touches the general problem of the
criminal and the prison system. 1t
is true that the prisoners have no
legal rights, and they are held so
incommunicado that they cannot
even make protest, but it has been
found from experience that radical
workers in general and Communists
in particular have no chance of
redress even tho they do make a
protest. Yet The Nation sometimes
becomes indignant even when the
victims of suppression are mere
workers and Communists.
Double Penalties.
''If a prisoner is judged guilty OF
crime and he is sentenced to
physical isolation, must he also suf-
fer intellectual isolation? If we per-
nit the prisoners to be regularly I'M
dernourished and fed on rotten food
from which they suffer the rest o.
their lives, if they live through the
experience, is it also necessary to
cripple and warp their mentality
and to stuff them with literature
which disgusts and outrages them?
ut may perhaps contribute to the
knowledge of The Nation family to
learn something about the individual
who has been made victim of Warden
Jennings ukase. In such cases, you
will generally find chain of cir
cumstances eliminating in final
tragedy. In this case, August Reid,
who has worked in various factories
in his home state, Pennsylvania, and
in the rubber mills in Ohio, enlisted
in the navy during the World War.
Observation-Disclosures.
"After his discharge, he qualified
as a third mate in the merchant
marine, but during critical period,
unable to find work, out of touch
with former friends and severed
from all connections, he drifted in
with a group of fellows, some of
whom he met overseas, who took
care of him and took him in their
confidence. These fellows were
similarly out of work and not look
ing for any, and yet they had money,
and plenty of it.
"They were not coupon clippers,
but had to earn their money at the
point of a gun. They were finally
involved in a robbery in which one
man was killed. My friend, Reid,
has a sentence of from ten to
twenty years of which he is serving
the last year. During this time he
has occupied himself not with .hall-
games, comics, thrashy and obscene
literature which Warden Jennings
permits to enter the prison in goodly
portions, but Reid applied himself