The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-10-21
EXPOSES CHAIN
GANG TORTURES
Negroes Sold for $40,
Says Author
CONTINUED FROM PAGE oNE)

to investigate conditions in the prison
camps and among the share-crop-
pers in order to gather material for
his book. Though written in fiction
form, Georgia Niger" is based on
fact, and is illustrated with official
documents and actual Photographs OF
tortures taken by the author. 1t is
a smashing indictment of the ruling
class penal system, especially the ter
ror against the Negro masses.
"a big proportion OF the Negroes
in the South are naturally worse off
today than in the days Of slavery"
Spivak said. Before the Civil War it
was easy for slaveowner to buy
husky Negro for from $1,000 to $4,000.
Today he can be bought legally for
$40. This is how 1t works:
"a Negro will get picked up by the
sheriff for some slight offense or
for no offense at all-in other words
through legalized kidnapping. He is
found guilty and sentenced to either
a fine of SIS or six months on the
chain gang. OF course he is unable
to pay. Through agreement with the
court, white planter steps in and
offers to pay the fine if the Negro
will work it off. The Negro starts
working it off, but the white planter
keeps the books and charges the Ne
gro from IS to 72 per cent interest
on the advance, according to govern
ment statistics. Many Negroes spend
years trying to pay off the debt. If
he leaves before, it's the chain gang
for him, for George Cracker law pro-
vides that If he leaves before his ad-
vance is marked off he is guilty Of
being a common cheat and swindler"
and may be sent to the chain gang.
Thus, with the threat of the chain
gang and the debtors law hanging
over him, the Negro is kept in state
of serfdom. Today, nearly 10 years
after Lincoln issued his Proclamation
Emancipation, there is no emancipa-
ton for a large proportion of the
southern Negroes"
my book" Spivak continued, sis
not only an expose of the Georgia
chain gang, but of the peonage sys-
tenn in effect in one-fifth of the
United States. The chain gang is
being used as whip to keep the
Negro in peonage;; it therefore has a
social meaning beyond the question
of brutality. And this swindling and
| torture of the Negroes is made pos
sible by the legal trickery of the
white crackers in control of the
South-all within an overnight ride
from the capitol at Washington.
Brutal Tortures
THE chain gang is undoubtedly one
of the most dreadful things in the
world. The gangs are operated by
brutal, often illiterate crackers, who
believe in keeping the niger in his
place. ! have seen men chained by
the neck with iron collars like an
cient Roman galley slaves. have
seen them with 20-pound spikes riy-
eted round their legs, spikes which
interfere with their sleep and rub
against the ankles, causing what is
known as 'shackle poison I have
seen men hung from stocks till they
were unconscious, and 16 and 17-year
old boys truSsed up like pigs for the
slaughter and left in the broiling
sun. have seen men broken on
the wheel as they were broken in the
days of the Spanish Inquisition, a
punishment inflicted for the slight
est offense."
What are the living conditions of
the chain gang prisoners?" Spivak
was asked.
''They live in cages like wild beasts
amidst the most horrible filth" he
replied. Disease is rampant. They
work from sunup to shutdown and go
to bed by torchhght, sleeping on YER
min-ridden filthy hunks.
Peculiar Deaths"
81 have seen records showing 'pecu-
liar deaths Of Negro prisoners and
read heartbreaking letters, pleading
for help and mercy. The whole sys-
tenn is one Of the vilest imaginable
and can be enforced only by a ruling
class which has deliberately distorted
its own legal guarantees. All this is
going on with the full knowledge of
Governor r. B. Russell of Georgia
and the Prison Commission In viola
ton of both the Georgia Constitution
and the u. S. Constitution, whose
Eighth Amendment forbids cruel and
unusual punishment" But the fact
is that if the chain gang system did
not fill a ruling class need, it would
have been abolished long ago. 1t is
but means to keep both the Ne
groes and poor whites in bondage.
And Georgia is representative Of what
is going on throughout the whole
Black Belt.
Asked concerning the general living
conditions of the illiterate Negro
masses in the Black Belt, Spivak de-
clared that they are only slightly |
higher than those of Chinese coolie.
"They are kept illiterate and con-
sidered as beasts of burden to be |
used by the white masters for their |
own profits. The whole of southern |
civilization rests on the back of the
Negro"
Boss Press Suppresses Facts
Spivak said that he had presented |
in his book not extreme cases, but
the average, because "the extreme
cases would sicken people and would
not be believed" The book is being
widely reviewed, he said, but the
facts it contains about the tortres
are being suppressed is most news
papers including many of the bou-
geois Negro papers. In the south
policy Of discreet silence
Georgia Niger" is being
followed.