The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-02-25
By wEsTBROoE PEGLER

BY wEsTBRooE PEGLER
KANSAS CITY,AA committee OF five, in
Guiding two St. Louis reporters judge OF the
federal court and two officials of the national
government whose official administration was
under attack, has finished an investigation OF
charges that federal prisoners were beaten
up and otherwise mistreated in the United
States medical center, prison for sick and
insane convicts, Springfield, Mo. The inquiry
was the result OF protest smuggled out by
Lewis Taylor, also known as Louis KraWcZyk,
OF New York, member of the war resisters'
League, a group of non-religious philosophical
DIRECTORS who not only refuse to submit to
the draft but even refuse to do any prison
work. Taylor and Stanley Murphy, also OF New
York, another war-resister had conducted a
hunger-strike at the Minimum Security Prison,
known as the country club at Danbury, Conn,
and were sent to Springfield as patients to
recover their health; impaired by their fast,
and for the stricter discipline of the medical
center Their outside contact is DR.. Evan
Thomas, of New York, director of the war
resisters and a brother of Norman Thomas,
the occasional socialist candidate for Presi-
dent.
The pair of them had protested last sum-
mer that they had been beaten at Spring
filed and were held to be liars by COM
mittee which held an investigation in August.
This committee composed of Austin H. Mac
Cormack, executive director of the Osborn
Association of Prison Reformers, Charles w.
Palmer of the American Friends Service COM
mttee, Quaker organization, and DR.. Marion
R. King, medical director of the U. S. Public
Health Service found that Taylor and Murphy
had not been beaten but did criticize the con-
finement of inmates to absolutely bare cells
in which they had to sleep naked on the con-
crete floor, as punishment for disobedience
and other indiscipline.
These who made the more recent investi-
cation are John R. Bell, Of the st. Louis Post
Dispatch Julius M. Klein of the Star-Times,
Judge George H. Moore, James V. Bennett,
of the Public Health Service. The Bureau Of
Prisons and the Public Health Service are in
the position of defendants.
Bell published his report entire, in a three
column piece Tuesday and laid it on the line
that some prisoners were mistreated but with
the mitigating reservation that like all other
employees the bureau and the service, are
hard up for efficient employees. Klein led off
with recountal of testimony in agreement
with Bells but expressed no conclusion How
ever his report is continuing and he may give
an opinion later.
But they leave doubt that prisoners were
stration was guilty OF neglect and failure to
protect the inmates in disobedience OF any
order issued by Bennett last fall forbidding
the guards and medical attendants to punish
prisoners informally and without official in
structions from their superiors.
One witness, DR.. Hulsey Cason, psyche
psychologist, allowing for the prejudice and
unreliability Of the inmates, many OF them
insane and the whole body of HOO constituting
the scum and off-scourings of the whole prison
system, nevertheless said that the discipline
was as rough as that in any other federal
institution. He blamed some members of
the staff for feeling Of hate against the
prisoners, said that many times the punish
ment was disporportionate to the infraction
and indicated suspicion that some Of the
hired personnel had monkeyed with the written
records to conceal facts
Neither Bell nor Klein indicated any sympa-
thy for Taylor and Murphy, however, who
seem to be Benefits most exasperating prob
lens with their guard-house -lawyerism and
their access to loud and sympathetic publicity
in New York through Evan Thomas.
Allowing all possible consideration for the
troubles of the wardens, guards, doctors and
attendants, the case obviously calls for Of
iicial investigation and public treatment. The
director Of prisons can send prisoner to
Springfield or Alcatraz with no explanations
to anyone and the health service can certify
a man to be crazy if he disagrees with the
politics of the examining psychiatrist. And if
the guards can get away with little more
rough treatment of prisoners than is neces-
sary, as one associate warden admitted the
case had been last summer, there is no gauge
TO determine how rough they may be to whom.
-V 81
Flu tip-give the spoon that serves bad
medicine a good licking!
A dietitian says that breakfast should be
eaten in silence What chance has the hubby
who was out late the night before?
| Dreams have a habit OF not coming true
when you spend all your time dreaming.
u