The daily worker., 1933-07-01
Negro Miner
I els OF Ohio
Prison Torture
BY EDWARD NEWHoUSE

AN amazing story of a brutal judi
n ciary and vicious penal system
was unfolded yesterday at the Office
of the Daily Worker by Edward
Smith, Negro miner recently re-
leased from London Prison Farm,
Ohio.
Smith came not to tell his own
story but to help former fellow
convict, Ernest Conn, first incar-
cerated in 1929 for stealing a pocket
knife while drunk and subsequently
transferred to the Lima Criminal
Insane Asylum.
They didn't treat Conn any
worse than the others before he got
to associating with me and the
other Negroes" Smith said. See,
the cook there at London, he used
to get the Daily Worker off coal
miner on the outside and he'd pass
it on to me and I'd read it in the
Negro dormitory and give it to
Conn after. Sometimes we read it
together. Well, first the Captain
and the deputies, even stoolpigeons,
start riding him. calling him mig
gerlover' and all that but Conn,
he don't give a damn
Watched by Stool Pigeons
'Then they set couple of the
stools on his trail an after that he
didn't get moment of peace. See,
one of these stools, Deewester by
name, he was the worst kind of de-
generate, Conn certainly had his
hands full just keeping away from
him. And all the dirtiest work they
could find and all the worst punish
ments, Conn'd get them. Christ,
he was in the hole practically half
the time, that's solitary on bread
and water.
Then Captain Jack got this idea
of sending him before the Nut
Board every once so often. Conn'd
be kept in the Idle House for a
couple of weeks, that alone's enough
to drive you crazy but just before
he'd go up to the board they'd give
him some kind of medicine that
was just like whiskey and it would
make him dopey like. Then they'd
have him strip and just drill him
with questions for any length of
time and they got couple of these
stools to testify that he crawls un-
der the beo nights and keeps hol-
lering for his mother Couple of
times they tried to get me and some
others to testify but we wouldn't.
That boy never done nothing like
that.
mo Kid Gloves"
Say, in those three years they
had him up to that Nut Board six
or seven times before the transfer.
They didn't treat me with no kid
gloves but honest l don't see how
that boy stood it. You wouldn't
believe half the things I was to tell
you. And him only nineteen.
Finally, this February they tell
him to get ready, he's free. And
right from the beginning this smelt
fishy because his name wasn't either
on the bulletin list or The Colum.
bus Citizen. Now I know they just
told us he's getting off because all
the men knew Conn was sane and
the Captain knew We could make
trouble right there in prison. So
when Conn leaves he says, Smitty,
when you get out just go to my
sister in Taylor, Kentucky and tell
her about this and maybe she can
do something I tried to tell him
he was getting off alright but he
knew it'd be Lima for him, the
nuthouse, you know.
Served Four Years
81 got my release June Is, just
two weeks ago. I done four years,
two months and seventeen days,
for taking twenty dollars worth OF
plumbing tools SOS I could get a
job. I'd been sick with a flstula
the size Of an organize, and I sup
pose the Captain figured I wasn't
much good for work anyhow.
First thing I hit it for Taylor,
Kentucky, to this sister of Conn's,
Mrs. H. P. Warner by name. She
and her husband had shack in
Taylor there but they certainly
didn't look as they could afford