Golden Age, April 27, 1932

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The Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

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in this issue

LAWLESSNESS BY OFFICERS OF THE LAW

ON THE

ROMAN CATHOLIC FRONT

ON THE METHODIST FRONT

"APRIL SHOWERS”

LEARNING OBEDIENCE

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every other

WEDNESDAY

five cents a copy one dollar a year

Canada & Foreign 1.25

Vol. XIII - No. 329

April 27, 1932

CONTENTS

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Not a Passing Depression . . . 470

Two-Thirds Sought Work . . .470

One New Locomotive.....471

Arkansas Schools Closed in

February........471

How the Incomes Are Distributed 472

Without a Parallel in History . 473

Florence and Muscle Shoals . . 473

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

“April Showers"

How Nice Cleans Its Sewers . . -170

More People Are Walking . . . 471

What America Received from

Europe

Canada Unarmed and Unafraid . 473

The Plumbers of “Christendom'’ 470

No War in Asia

Good-bye to the League . . . 471

Boys Whipped in Court . . . 472

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

New Type of Cotton

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

Twenty Substances from Air . . 470

New Felt-Coated Steel . . . .471

More Beautiful Bricks .... 473

HOME AND HEALTH

Cough Syrup on Pancakes . .471

Cutting Fourth Set of Teeth . .471

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

Postal Savings Deposits Quadrupled.......470

British Speeding Up Trains . . 470

Munitions Stocks Coing Up . . 471

Lower Light Rates for Churches 473

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Lawlessness by Oit’ICERS of the Law........451

On the Roman Catholic Front 431

On the Methodist Front . . . 467

Some Military Statistii s .... 470

$1 5,000,000 from Mexico to

Vatican .........470

The Survivors of Chapei . . . 470

Five and a Half Months’ Fast . 470

Some. Features of Sydney’s Bridge 471

Suicides of Kreuger and Eastman 472

Rains in Rainless Peru .... 472

Japan’s Puppet-President of

Manchuria

Viva il Papa

At Geneva and at Shanghai . . 473

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Looks like More Trouble . . . 472

Must Hang Together er Separately

Learning the Lesson of Obedience 474

Published e\cry othei Wednesday nt 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN

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Ihiteied as second cla-s matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1S79.

Golden Age

Volume XIII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, April 27, 1932 Number 329

Lawlessness by Officers of the Law

ONE of the principal reasons why the United States is the crime center of the world is that so many of its servants, paid to uphold the law, do so many lawless acts. Section 1.1 of the 'Wickersham Commission report, 347 pages, 60 cents, can be had from the United States Government Printing Office at Washington, and contains enough evidence to make every American hang his head for shame, and to keep it thus hung until the infamous abuses therein complained of have been corrected.

In England, and probably in other civilized countries, public opinion is against the torture of prisoners, but in this country we have so many that have been indoctrinated with the theory of longer or shorter terms of suffering in purgatory, and so many of these have secured positions as guardians of the law, that torture of the helpless is quite common, law or no law.

It got a good start just after the Civil War, with the “sweat box”. This was a cell in close proximity to a stove, in which a scorching fire was built and fed with old bones, pieces of rubber shoes, etc., all to make great heat and offensive smells, until the sickened and perspiring inmate of the cell confessed in order to get released.

The Inquisition in Texas

Judge Morrow, of Texas, describes the recent treatment at Harrison in that state, of an eighteen-year-old Negro youth:

After appellant was arrested by officers he was struck by one of them in the mouth. The officer then said: “I think I hit him with my fist once and slapped him once. I struck him in the mouth as hard as I could hit him.” This officer also testified that the appellant was laid across a log, that his clothes were removed, and that he was whipped by the officers with a switch, which one of them described as being “about the size of my little finger or a little larger than my little finger; it was as big as my biggest finger and was green. I didn't count the times I hit Robert.”

Probably the illegal conduct of these particular Texas “officers” cannot be traced to a belief in purgatory. Quite probably they are the victims of a still worse teaching, which would consign almost all the human family to eternal torture without any respite or relief at any time whatsoever.

As officers of the law they are worse than useless. They promote the very thing they are hired to prevent. Who could have any respect for a servant that would maltreat a member of his master’s family merely because he happened to have him for a short time within his power ?

Judge Morrow also reversed the conviction of another Texas Negro, 26 years of age, and tells of the way this man was treated. He says that after he had been brought to the jail in Marlin, and had denied any connection with the crime for which he was arrested, he was then whipped by the sheriff, who used a leather strap about 21/, feet long with some strips of leather sewed on the end of it; that he was whipped all over the head, shoulders, and neck, and that there remained scars on his body and head. These scars were exhibited, and testimony relating to them was given by a doctor and another witness. Appellant testified further that the injuries to his arm prevented its use for a month and caused him to swell up so that he could not lie on his side for several months; that he was whipped with the side of the strap and the butt end of it and nearly killed; that when he came to, they were kicking him in the side; that his head still gave pain and swelled up. The swelling was verified by other witnesses. He testified to subsequent whippings in the jail at Marlin and that on one occasion a stick was used by the sheriff which cut to the blood and caused an injury from which he had not yet recovered; that he was told by the sheriff to go before the grand jury and make the same statement that he had made to him, otherwise he

would be mobbed, and if he did make the same statement he would be discharged after certain white men against whom suspicion rested had been dealt with. In the jail other witnesses, Negroes, were severely and cruelly whipped by the sheriff. One of them was put in water and his head held in water until he was almost drowned. Another, a woman, was stripped of her clothes, laid on the floor, and severely whipped and strapped.

Todhunter of Lillie Rock

Judge Butler, of Arkansas, released two Negro boys who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for tin* drowning of two other boys. There was no evidence that the drowned boys had been drowned by anybody. Judge Butler tells of the means that were taken to force one of these boys, an exemplary young Negro named Bell, to confess to this crime of which he was innocent :

Be told how he was made to lie upon the floor, dad only in a thin shirt and trousers, and was whipped with a leathern strap attached to a handle; the strap was 3J h feet long and 3 inches wide. Here we have a. Negro boy, whom the testimony of Mrs. McCullom, the mother of the unfortunate little Julius, characterizes as “a good Christian boy, if ever there was one". Iler testimony showed that he had been the humble friend and companion of her children for six years; that hi' was obedient, kind, and helpful; that he shared his horse, the pride of his heart, with Julius, whom he loved like a brother; that he would carry the little children around on his horse and in every way manifested a gentle and affectionate spirit. This is the “mean, hard-headed nigger” of whom Air. Todhunter spoke. This Negro boy was taken, on the day after the discovery of the homicide while he was at his usual work, and placed in jail. He had heard them whipping Swain in the jail; he was taken from the jail to the penitentiary at Little Rock and turned over to the warden, Captain Todhunter, who was re-<|Uested by the sheriff to question him. This Todhunter proceeded to do day after day, an hour at a time. There Bell was, an ignorant country Negro boy surrounded by all of those things that strike terror to the Negro heart; he vas told that he had drowned Julius McCullom and that he must admit it, and asked if he had not done so; when he denied it, he v,as whipped by the warden, who “usually conquered when he began”, according to the warden’s testimony.

One wonders if Todhunter is still warden at Little Bock. Such a man is not fit to hold any job whatever in which he comes in contact with his fellow men. We hate to have our British readers see what they will see in this article, but this thing is up for an airing now, and up it comes.

No Need for Laws in Kansas City

Commissioner Henwood, Kansas City, Alo., reversed the conviction of a man whose automobile was used in a bank robbery. As reasons for the reversal he gave the following, which leads to the obvious conclusion that a civilization which has enough Thurmans and Kellerstrauss-es needs no laws, judges, juries nor citizens:

The defendant offered to testify that from about 8: 30 in the evening of June 1-1, when he was arrested, until about noon on June 16, when he was taken to the prosecuting attorney's office, he was sweated almost continuously by various police officers and detectives, who kicked him, beat him with a rubber hos>‘, struck him with a revolver, a chair, and a blackjack, and squeezed and twisted his testicles, and refused to let him sleep and to let him have anything to eat or drink, and threatened to kill him, in their efforts to force, him to admit that he actually participated in the robbery and the killing of Officer Smith and to inform them as to others who participated in the perpetration of said crimes; that by means of such mistreatment, torture, threats, and coercion, he was forced, at police headquarters on June 15, to sign the first statement about 9 o’clock in the morning of June 15, and to sign the additional statement some time in the afternoon of that day, without first having an opportunity to read said statements and without having said statements read to him; that, about noon on June 16, he was taken from police headquarters to the prosecuting attorney's office by two detectives, Thurman and Kellerstrauss, who had actively participated in the mistreatment, torture, threats, and coercion to which he had been subjected at police headquarters; that immediately before he was taken into the office of the prosecuting attorney he was told by Thurman that unless, when questioned by the prosecuting attorney, he confirmed the statements signed by him at police headquarters, they (the detectives' would take him back to police headquarters and “finish” him.

The Shame of Kenosha

Judge Jones, of Illinois, was unable to see the value of a so-called “confession'’ of Frank Lang, held tight against a wall by Kenosha officers and repeatedly pounded on the back and kidneys. In reversing his conviction Judge Jones endorsed the testimony of two physicians one of whom said:

I examined the defendant, Frank Lang, at the county jail. He was stripped and an examination made of his physical condition. There were marks

The GOLDEN AGE

on the right arm; also marks on the left side—left back—extending from the shoulder down to the edge of the ribs. This extended around on the side to a line that might be drawn from the interior portion of the axilla. The left arm was also bruised, black and blue to the elbow; and there was a discoloration, greenish yellow, from the elbow down toward the wrist. The left arm was swollen, also the forearm. The tissues of the back were somewhat swollen. There were also bruises on the buttocks, as I remember, especially on the right. I should judge that the injuries observed by us were caused by violence of some kind which extended into the tissues and muscles, breaking the blood vessels under the skin, so that it caused discoloration, and also breaking the skin in spots. We took an X-ray to determine whether oi1 not the left arm was fractured.

Maybe you didn't know that when you pay taxes you pay your servants to club suspected persons on both arms and all the way down their backs until they arc black and blue with broken blood vessels, and their lives are shortened by having their kidneys bruised! And you may get it next, yourself.

Belzoni’s Negro Familiaire

Judge Anderson, of Mississippi, was not pleased when he learned that a sheriff at Belzoni had had a Negro suspect beaten by a fellow convict in the effort to force a confession. Reversing the conviction Judge Anderson called attention to the fact that at the time this beating took place, shortly before midnight, the prisoner had no clothing on except his underwear; it took place in the presence of a white prisoner in the same jail and a deputy sheriff of the county. The prisoner* who did the beating was let into the cell and provided with a leather strap for the purpose of administering it. What do you Britishers think of that ? But hold! More is coming.

Most of us feel rather sorry for boys of seventeen when they get into trouble. But in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, two youths of that age, arrested for the theft of an automobile, were taken to a private room in the police station, where they were struck in the face, threatened with death, and one of them was caught by the hair and hit until the desired “confession'" was secured. Ever hear of the Spanish Inquisition?

The “Water Cure” in Clarksdale

On a night in 1925, in the jail at Clarksdale, Miss., a Negro charged with murdering a man was placed on his back on the floor, and tied, and water was slowly poured into his nostrils until he. “confessed”. Acquitted at the trial, the poor Negro was lynched anyway. Do you think Jehovah God is going to let a thing like that go unpunished ?

At West Allis, Wis., a prisoner emerged from jail with two black eyes, and explained that, besides his bruises, he had been made to occupy a. cell which was subjected to sudden changes of temperature, from insufferable heat to extreme cold. Wonder if the tormentors of Seville ever thought of that one.

In Manistee, Mich., an illiterate Polish woman, charged with the murder of a nun, was put into a cell lighted with candles where a skeleton was strung up so that it could be manipulated. She was told the skeleton was that of her victim, and was compelled to stay there two hours. Entertaining, isn't it?

Has America Fallen This Low?

If we feel sorry for a couple of boys, only seventeen, that get into trouble, how ought we to feel for a poor Negro girl, only fifteen, charged with murdering her own baby? The conviction of this girl was reversed, but read what the county attorney has to say of how he bulldozed her into making a confession which she always insisted was only a lie.

“The sheriff, the deputy sheriff, and myself brought Joe Stella up to the courthouse and to the sheriff’s office again, and after much persuasion could not get her to make any statement that would involve her in the killing. I believe we did tell her that we already had sufficient evidence to justify a jury in breaking her neck, and if she would confess and tell the truth about it we would try to make it light on her; we possibly told her that we would see that she got a light sentence; in fact, we told her ’most anything, trying to get her to make a confession. We possibly interrogated her something like an hour and a half or two hours, but she maintained that she was innocent and would not make any statement implicating her in the killing. But, anyway, one of us suggested that the white folks were getting wrought up over the killing of this baby, and unless she told a different story they might come in and take charge of her. Something was said about a mob. She begged us to protect her from a mob, but the sheriff told her that unless she would come clean and tell a different story, he did not feel inclined to give her any protection, so far as he was concerned. It was after many threats were made before we were able to get her to tell anything. The statement was written and read over to the appellant, and she said: ‘White folks, that’s the biggest lie.’ We then took time about trying to get her to sign the statement, but nearly every time we would ask her to sign it, she would say there was not a word of truth in it. Finally our patience was about exhausted and the sheriff took her to the window and pointed out the water tower and asked her if she knew what it eould be used for. There was something ('Ise said about a mob at that time, too. It was soon after that time or about that time she signed it and we sent her on back to jail.”

Terrorism ’mid Rats and Scalps

A man charged as accomplice in a New Orleans murder case was obliged to take o If his own clothes and put on a ragged pair of trousers and shirt which the police gave him. He was taken to another police station several miles from where he belonged. Here he was kept four days, including December 25. The chief of detectives admitted that it was an antiquated jail, with brick cells, without heating, with the glass broken out of the windows, and said to be inhabited by rats. The defendant, who was ill with a sore throat, testified without contradiction from the police that during his four days and nights of confinement in such surroundings he was given no food except one sandwich a day, no drinking water except what he found in the reservoir above the toilet, and no bedclothes except one blanket, which he received only on the last day; and that several policemen came into the cell every hour of the night and prodded him with questions.

At Miami, Fla., a prisoner accused of murdering his wile was chained overnight to the floor of a cell without a bed, which was so infested with mosquitoes that he could not sleep. Next day he was subjected to a “grueling examination” by the chief of police, the State attorney, his assistant, and the deputy sheriff throughout the morning and until 4 p.m., with the scalp of his dead wife at his feet.

The Horrid Tortures of Wan

One of the most terrible acts of oppression ever committed in the world took place in the national capitai. Wo have before made reference to this in our columns. Three Chinamen had been found dead in tin; Chinese Educational Mission in Washington, D. C. Wan was suspected. He was found in New York, where he was ill in bed, searched without a search warrant, and brought to Washington. There he was held incommunicado in a hotel room eight days, all of the time acutely ill so that a police surgeon was repeatedly called. He was questioned almost continuously night and day and guarded by policemen at all times. The examinations sometimes lasted until 5 in the morning. On the eighth day, 7 p.m. to 10 a.m., he was questioned at the scene of the crime. On the ninth day he was at last formally arrested and taken to a police station, where investigation was immediately resumed. On the eleventh day he was again questioned at the scene of the crime for hours. A stenographic report of the interrogation was then written out, which he signed on the twelfth day. Four- oral confessions were also made after the seventh day. On the thirteenth day he was for the first time examined by the jail physician, who found him very ill and under the circumstances not responsible for anything he had signed. He lay ill for a month in bed. Three Washington detectives and the superintendent of police participated in this process, which all took place before production in court. Wan’s conviction was reversed and these confessions excluded by the Supreme Court. After two subsequent juries had disagreed as to his guilt, the district attorney stated to the judge that it would be impossible to find a jury which would declare Wan either innocent or guilty. The accused was thereupon released, seven years after his arrest.

A Woman Prisoner in Oakland

In Oakland, Calif., a woman charged with murdering her husband was cross-examined by two or more police officers for two weeks after her arrest, when she was in such low physical and mental condition that she had to be assisted into the room by matrons and have her head covered with wet towels in order to be able to answer questions. She had no counsel and was not warned of her constitutional rights. The examination lasted for hours at a time, during which she was denied food.

Commissioner Reeves of Missouri reversed the conviction of a man from whom a ‘‘confession” was extracted under the following circumstances :

Appellant was qvestioned almost continuously from Il o'clock Saturday morning until 1 lie time of his confession at 7 o’clock the next morning. He agreed to eoni'ess at t> o’clock a.m.. so he was subjected to a rigid examination for a period of IS hours. During that time he was interrogated in relays by the police and was not permitted to sleep, nor was he given food. Police Officer Gcrk, who was a large man, slapped him during the inquisition, because he said that appellant was disrespectful, and Officer Sweetin again slapped him, because he called said officer a liar. Sweetin was also a large man. Appellant’s shoes were taken from him. At one time he was stripped of his clothing, lie was required to look at two bright reflectors, so that the light fell on his face, and was forbidden to turn his face away, so as to rest his eyes. He was taken to his cell for a few minutes at a time during the night and then brought back for further interrogation. He was compelled on Saturday afternoon, and again before daylight on Sunday morning, to go with the police officers to the vacant lot where deceased was murdered, and then, while it was yet night, to go to the undertaker’s, and there stand before the body of the deceased, while a light was flashed on her face. He was required to put his hand on the corpse.

Questioned in Relays

In New Orleans a man who had been drinking hard before he was arrested was persistently questioned by the superintendent of police and reporters, during live interviews which aggregated possibly 40 hours out of the 53 which elapsed before the “confession” was secured. One of the members of the court in which the man was afterwards tried remarked that he himself might make a false confession of having murdered his own father if he were kept awake and prodded with questions as long as this man Doyle was kept awake and prodded with questions. It is a good thing that we have some honest judges in this country or it would be the annex to Hades.

A St. Joseph (Mo.) judge reversed the conviction of a woman, a hotel cook, who had been ill for a week, mostly in bed, who had been arrested for the murder of her husband and held incommunicado at the station house for two days without a warrant and without any charges being filed against her. Iler own friends and her husband's relatives were excluded. She was questioned by different members of the police force in relays until after midnight on both nights, besides two long questionings by the prosecuting attorney. The examinations were not stopped for supper; she had nothing to eat during the period; she was not allowed to lie down.

Other Protracted Interrogations

Other instances of protracted interrogations by the police were in Fresno county, Calif., whore an Armenian woman was subjected to a bombardment of questions by official after official for about eight hours, when she had been without food all day; in San Francisco three men questioned, in handcuffs, from midnight until 5 a.m.; in Teller county, Colo., a “long conversation” during which the defendant was verbally abused by the deputy district attorney; at Ottawa, 111., a farm hand questioned from 11 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.; at Covington, Ky., two laborers questioned separately from 4 a.m. until 8 a.m. in a very menacing manner and informed that their co-defendant had been badly beaten; at Baltimore a man questioned while in the hospital, having been shot twice; at Pottsville, Pa., a 14-year-old boy questioned for four hours after midnight; at Doylestown, in the same state, a defendant questioned for a considerable period of time while confined in the barracks of the state police; at Butler, also in Pennsylvania, a garage owner with a criminal record taken at 9 p.m., after 24 hours’ detention in the county jail, to the barracks of the state police and questioned throughout the night until about 6 a.m., seated all this time on a stool under a strong electric light; at Kennewick, Wash., a Croatian woman of low mentality, who could not speak or understand English readily, questioned six or seven hours by the prosecuting attorney and a police officer; at Clarksburg, W. Ya., three men questioned repeatedly over a period of three weeks by a private detective and by two private citizens who participated in the investigation pro bono publico. At Swartz, La., two mon were hold in jail, sequestered from all communication with friends, for 38 days.

Conditions in New York City

You wonder what are the conditions in New York city, and you cease to wonder when you learn that the mayor of the city, Jimmie Walker, recently issued for publication a statement that for successful police work the old-fashioned night stick was far more effective than the new scientific ideas. This is about what might be expected of Mr. Walker, who was lionized all over Europe, but is not held in such high esteem here in his home city.

Commissioner Whalen, in a public address, told how a suspect was stripped of his clothing and put in a cold room until he gave the information the police wanted. A total of 1,235 cases taken from the files of the Legal Aid Society showed that 23.4 percent of the defendants claimed to have been beaten by the police. It is said that every police station in the city is equipped with the instruments to administer the tortures now recognized as pertinent to the third degree.

Arrested persons come to station houses or headquarters in good shape and are seen shortly afterwards in the Tombs with swollen faces, all sorts of bruises and cuts, and often with blood spots scattered over them. An observer with exceptional opportunities has seen many cases of face and body bruises and broken ribs.

A distinguished magistrate reported that, when several Italians were brought before him for alleged violence, he looked at their backs and there was hardly a spot that was not raw from recent beating. Two men brought before Federal Judge Woolsey, at his direction removed their clothes, displaying welts and bruises which they said they had received as a result of beating with a rubber hose at the hands of the city police and of the Federal secret service agents.

Here is what the papers reported in a few successive days: Herald-Tribune, Dec. 23, 1930 (Officer Hollander suspended; charged with striking woman during course of arrest); Times, Dee. 27, 1930 (policeman sued for $50,000 when victim of his beating loses eye); Sun, Dec. 29, 1930 (Patrolman Johnson held on charge of felonious assault); Telegram, Jan. 20, 1931 (letter alleges writer saw police sergeant knock down and kick beggar); Post, Jan. 21, 1931 (Bogusoloff, communist, charges beating of two hours by police; appeared in court with head bandaged and shirt streaked with blood); Times, March 6. 1931 (girl swears before Seabury's investigation that police broke arm in raid).

Some of the Methods

Third-degree methods, authoritatively reported as recently employed include: Punching in the face, especially a hard slap on the jaw; hitting with a billy; whipping with a rubber hose; kicking in the abdomen; tightening the necktie almost up to the choking point; squeezing the testicles. Methods are favored which do not leave visible marks, because these attract the attention of the courts and sometimes lead district attorneys not to use the confession. There is said to be a practice that the arresting-officer does not commonly do the beating; another man will do it, so that when the arresting officer takes the stand it cannot be charged that he used force.

Among the methods are: A sharp, but not heavy, regular blow of a club on the skull, repeated at regular intervals, so that the regularity of the blows arouses anticipation which increases the torture; assuring suspects that they would not be hurt, then suddenly felling them unconscious by a blow from behind with a club or a slab of wood, followed by further sympathy and reassurance when the man revives, only to have the same thing suddenly happen again, the man never seeing who strikes him.

Fiaschetti, a former head of the Italian squad, says of one case, “I went to the Tombs and got myself a sawed-off baseball bat and walked in on all those dogs. Yes; they came through with everything they knew.”

A milder method, coming into increasing use, is to exhaust the prisoner by keeping him awake or constantly awakening him after a brief sleep. Or a man may be exhausted by long relays of questioning. Sometimes the questioning takes place in the presence of several burly officers, who rap the table sharply with their night sticks to terrorize the suspect. Deprivation of food is also practiced. These methods are called the mental third degree.

The Case of Barbato

Judge Pound of New York city reversed the conviction of one Barbato obtained under the following circumstances:

Defendant testified that one of the police officers struck him on the jaw and knocked him to the floor; that the other two pulled his hair and knocked him about with blackjacks, kicked him, cursed him, threatened to kill him, and made, him write, “I kill Julia Museo,” because they menaced him with further abuse if he refused; that he was still under the influence of fear when he made the later statements, so that he made no complaint to the assistant district attorney or the district attorney.

On Tuesday, September 17, he was arraigned before the magistrate in the Bronx Homicide Court. He then seems to have had a black eye or two black eyes, although the evidence on this point is not as conclusive as it might be. lie claimed protection, saying that he was broken to pieces and could not talk. lie was then committed to the Bronx County jail. On September IS he complained of pain to the warden. He then had a black eye. The warden called Doctor Radin, the attending jail physician, to examine him. lie was stripped. Doctor Radin testified as follows:

“Q. Now, doctor, will you tell this jury what your examination disclosed?—A. I found echymoses, that means black and blue marks, over the right arm, with some swelling of the arm, with a hemetoma over the middle of the aim. A hemetoma is a little collection or tumor of the blood. There were several abrasions over the right elbow and right forearm. Abrasions are superficial scratches. There are livid stripes over the right forearm and back of the right hand. There are echymoses black and blue marks, over the left arm, also over both eyelids on the left eye; over the left malar bone, that means cheek bone here [indicating] ; there were some abrasions in the right temporal region, that is, up here | indicating] —

"The Court. Witness indicates by placing his hand on the left temple.

“A. (Continuing.) There were a few echymoses over the back of the neck, and he complained of pain on manipulation of the head. There are some echymoses over the right scapula; that is, the shoulder blade. There were echymoses over both sides of the back and in the left lumbar region; that is, the left loin, in the left lower axillary region—the axillary region is the sidu of the chest, and the left lower axillary region would be the lower part of the side of the chest—there ’were echymoses over the right buttock and over the front of the right thigh and over the front of the left thigh and over the back of both thighs; there were some abrasions of the right leg.”

This evidence means that his body was covered with black and blue spots and lumps or swellings, caused by a fusion of blood under the skin, which might result from a beating.

In one instance forty bruises were counted on a prisoner’s body. In this instance a district attorney states that the punishment inflicted was so severe that a police surgeon was called in and stood by and at intervals took the. pulse of the prisoner and gave advice as to whether he could stand more beating. How would you like to have the whole country under the control of Tammany Hall.'

Newark—Philadelphia—Cincinnati

The third degree as practiced in Newark is vhat is called the •‘hard and soft" method. One or two detectives scare a prisoner thoroughly, rough him a hit, and then are "caught in the act" by some captain or superior officer, who enters and severely reprimands the rough workers and sends them out of the room. The superior then is frequently able by a show of friendship to get the man’s confidence and obtain a confession. The men assigned to the "hard” roles make every show of force, put a rubber hose and other weapons on the table, use loud and abusive language, shove the suspect the length of the room, threaten him. They may even go so far as to use the hose or their fists. When the “friendly” officer enters, he may ask the suspect whether he is hungry and would like a good steak and potatoes.

The decision to employ force is made, it is said, only after a protracted period of questioning without violence has failed to “break” a man. This long questioning may involve two or three nights of wakefulness, with more or less constant pressure upon the suspect by relays of detective's. There is reason to believe that food is sometimes denied and that threats are made during the process.

Philadelphia at present is quite civilized, with Boston even more so. The outstanding illegal practice in Philadelphia is that known as “cold storage”. Alen who will not readily confess at the outset are put in cold storage to "think it over". It is not uncommon for men to be so confined for a week, and as much as three weeks has been known.

Conditions are also pretty good in Cincinnati, but there is, too, some holding of men incommunicado. The headquarters cells where these men are held are reported as dark, badly ventilated, infested with vermin, and often damp. It is believed that the Voluntary Defender, as well as the City Manager, is a positive factor in improving the third degree situation in Cincinnati.

Cleveland the Worst of All

Cleveland will have to bear the shame in the Wickersham report of being the worst place in the United States in its treatment of its helpless prisoners. Enter the Devil himself.

Prolonged relay questioning is employed, with loss of sleep and deprivation of food and drink. Sometimes the prisoner is kept standing, clear of a wall, for many hours during the interrogation. If the prisoner starts to fall asleep while on his feet, he is wakened by slaps in the face. The questioning may also be accompanied by violence.

There is evidence of the beating of prisoners over the kidneys and in the soft hollows above the hips with a weapon such as a rubber hose or a sausage-shaped sandbag made of silk, these instruments being chosen because, when properly applied, they leave no marks. It is said that the prisoner is frequently struck from behind so that he may not see the person who hit him, and as a result will be unable to identify him in court.

Six years ago a prisoner by the name of Bush, in a room at the old Cleveland headquarters, was questioned, severely beaten, and finally stripped, laid flat upon the floor, and lifted by his sex organs—not once, but several times. It is doubtful if in their day either Cardinal Ximenes or Nicolas Eymericus of Aragon ever did anything much worse than that. The object was to make him tell where money taken in the robbery was concealed, of which he denied knowledge. Participating in this third degree were a private bank detective, a detective from Lakewood (a suburb vherc the hank was located), and a Cleveland detective who is still on the force.

There is good reason to believe that an Italian youth was murdered at Cleveland headquarters because his attorney was, the next day, to bring out in open court the terrible way he had been abused. Jlis body was found hanging in his cell. The Wickersham report discreetly remarks that the man's fellow prisoners said he committed suicide and let it go at that, but others have claimed that the man was murdered so that he could not squeal on his inquisitors.

Looping the Loop in Detroit

The worst abuse encountered in Detroit is the so-called trip ''around the loop’’. This means shifting a prisoner from one police station to another, leaving him in each station until there is a likelihood of an attorney's finding him, then moving him along to another. The outlying stations are used in preference to headquarters because there art* no outsiders around. The shifts are said to be generally made at midnight in the patrol wagon.

All told, there are fifteen stations. Tn some cases, it is said, men go the entire circuit. In other cases, seven or eight stations are deemed sufficient. As a part of the process, the jailers have been ordered at times to jam as many men as possible into one cell, so thc'y have had to squeeze the door shut with two jailers shoving the door. It has been said that the police order is that these men sent “around the loop” shall not be “overfed”; and that the opportunities for keeping clean or for sleeping are poor. This is accompanied by the additional discomfort that arises from the knowledge that they are, to all intents and purposes, completely lost, for the ordinary “loop” ease is frequently not even booked on any charge and is hold incommunicado during the process. In some instances the police have themselves been unable to find a man for some days because of the absence of records.

Horrible Conditions in Chicago

The methods described as in use in Chicago include the application of rubber hose to the back or the pit of the stomach, kicks in the shins, beating the shins with a club, blows struck with a telephone book on the side of the victim’s head. The Chicago telephone book is a heavy one and a swinging blow with it may stun a man without leaving a mark. (The use of this practice is described by a responsible eyewitness of more than one occurrence.) Other methods stated to he used are suspending a prisoner upside down by handcuffs or manacles and the administration of tear gas. Prisoners in the hands of Chicago inquisitors have often been threatened with death unless they give the information wanted.

Illegal detention and detention incommunicado are said to be common. The police are slow about bringing prisoners into court or even booking them. As far as the records show, men are usually produced in court not later than 48 hours after the entry of the arrest; but, in fact, the true date of the arrest is often not entered on the police blotter. An advance period of kidnaping “prior to arrest” makes the records wholly untrustworthy. JIen are frequently not booked at all and there is no record of their being in custody. “Losing” men for days at a time is common. This absence of record blocks attorneys when they go to the police demanding to see their clients.

In most of the stations the cells are dirty and inaccessible to natural light and ventilation. Neither beds nor bedding is provided (except for women). Classification is either impossible or else unattempted. Mere boys are often detained overnight, sometimes longer, in the same cells with hardened crooks, perverts, alcoholics, dope users, etc. Overcrowding is very common. At the Detective Bureau, for instance, where most felon suspects are detained for a period, a cell capacity of six is often made to care for over a hundred persons for many hours. The condition in the basement lockup of the Chicago Detective Bureau beggars description. It reminds one of the state of the prisons in England and Wales, as described by John Howard in 1777. An editorial in the Chicago Tribune of February 17, 1925, alludes to it thus: “A person with any decency would feel that one night there had defiled him for life.’’

Judge Duncan, of Chicago, reversed a conviction against a prisoner, Berardi, because of the following facts:

lie testified to his arrest and imprisonment in the police station by Ilie police officers and to their questioning him day ai'tir day for three or four days, and that tie continually, through all this questioning to the last, denied any and all connection with the robbery or knowledge of it. Ue also testified that Officer Carroll, after they had questioned him for considerable time, brought a strap into the room where he was confined and beat him with the strap, and that another policeman whom he did not know questioned him about the robbery and kicked him on the shin; that his mother and father were allowed to see him at the police station, and that he showed them his body, which was then black and blue from the beatings given him by the officers. The two policemen who testified to his confession themselves admit that the statements that they say he made to them as a confession were in part untrue.

Judge Dietz, also of Chicago, made the following statements regarding one Hulick:

The plaintiff in error testified that at the time of his arrest he was sick and in a weakened condition; that until a week prior thereto he had been in bed, continuously, for three months with a broken jaw and a couple of fractured ribs, from which he was still suffering; that he told this to the police officers and they told him that they knew it ; that he did not sign Ilie alleged confession until the second night after his arrest; that during all that time he was under the. constant surveillance of a number of police officers, who questioned him continuously, except for infrequent half-hour intervals when he was kept in a cell; that he repeatedly professed to them his innocence, and -when he did so they said he was a liar; that lliey told him he would Inr,e Io make the statement they wanted him to make and that they would force him to <!.i so if it took- a year to get it ; that he did not make th' statement, bait that it wa« made by some one else ; 1iiat he did not read it and that it was not read to him; that when he signed it he did not know what it contained: and that they twisted his arms and compelled him to sign it. No ex ideiice was offered in rebuttal. and there was no specific denial of the facts testified to by the plc int i i'f in error.

Zn Dallas and El Paso

Tn Dallas the practice of bolding men incommunicado is said to he so prevalent, despite 1 lie statute, that a certain coll at headquarters is colloquially designated the "incommunicado cell" m d was referred to in those words bv one of the Dallas judges. And the incommunicado detention may last for several days or even for a week or more.

In El Paso a young Mexican woman, the mother of three children by different men, was charged with having killed her youngest child by pouring kerosene on the bed and setting it afire. She had been arrested at midnight and was relay-questioned without rest, and perhaps without food, for 35 hours until she confessed. In court she asserted that the infant died by accident, and tried to repudiate her confession, saying that the district attorney and other officials had threatened to take her two remaining children away from her unless she confessed.

Toward the Setting Sun

In Los Angeles arresting and holding men on suspicion is considered legal by the police. Men are reported to have been struck and manhandled in the booking room and in the fingerprinting room. It is said to be usual to hold suspicion cases 48 hours and often 72 hours before they are charged or released, and that suspects are often held incommunicado in spite of the statute allowing access to lawyers.

Investigation by responsible lawyers leads them to believe that third-degree practices are a serious evil in Los Angeles, and the existence of these practices is borne out by independent investigation. It is said that in police headquarters there is an "incommunicado cell" which is also used as a third-degree cell, and that here beatings take place. Screams have been heard and complaints from prisoners are frequent.

Axel llayrinen is a naturalized Finn with an excellent overseas war record, working in the building trades. Late one evening in March, 1929, as he was starting up his car on the street, he was stopped by two plain-clothes mon who mistook him for somebody else. A verbal altercation followed, during which llayrinen said that he did not like the manner of police arrests. Although the police admitted that he was not the man for whom they were looking, and informed him of no cause for his arrest, they took him to the police station. Thore, according to his circumstantial narrative to the Constitutional Hights Committee, he was brutally pommeled by a. policeman, liomero, who kept saying, “So you don't like the police; I'll make you lik<* the police." llayrinen was covered with blood, blood spurted on the wall, and his iqiper lip was cut clean through by a brass knuckle, so that four stitches were later taken. He did not dare to put up any resistance, because another policeman was present. When Ilayrinen at last said, ‘‘I like the police now,"’ he was released, allowed to wash the blood off his face, and went out. This lasted half an hour. No charges had been fded against him.

In San Francisco, it is said, some of the worst beatings take place in the outlying stations. However, arrested persons are not held long, seldom overnight, and then are confined in the Hall of Justice, where the police jail is situated. Most of the beatings occur in the Hall of Justice. There are several places used for the heatings all over the building. At night it is common to use the jail cells upstairs, where outcries and other sounds of beatings have been heard by the police reporters in the pressroom across the central lightwell. In the daytime various rooms in the basement have been used, and the police garage downstairs at the rear. Outsiders have been witnesses. The beatings are, in general, administered by detectives.

In Seattle the severe beating of men on arrest is reported by reliable informants to be a usual practice. Men have also been beaten in (he patrol wagons and sometimes ridden around the city in police automobiles and beaten therein. After arrival at the police station prisoners have been assaulted in the booking room, when they are handcuffed and consequently incapable of any action that could excuse the use of force by the officers.

Forced Confessions Are Valueless

In England the police are deprived of the power to question persons under arrest. One of England's kings, William III, tried the thumbscrews on his own thumbs anti said another turn would make him confess anything. Wonder how some of our illegal officers of the law would like to have done to them the things they have done to some of the poor and defenseless that were in their grasp, as related in the Wickersham report. Jehovah God will require it at their hands.

In England, under promise of a pardon, a prisoner confessed to a murder; the victim later turned up alive. Tn 1819, in Vermont, the two Boom brothers, after much pressure, made detailed confessions of murder; the “murdered" man was discovered in New Jersey, wandering around in a fit of amnesia.

In some unnamed American city an honest prosecuting attorney found detectives in a jail almost killing an Italian boy in the effort to make him confess to killing a girl who was slain while the hoy was still in another prison and thus had a perfect alibi, and the detectives knew it. The girl had been used by one of the detectives for his own purposes, and was probably killed by him.

Judges and Prosecutors Involved

The Report shows that in many places the prosecuting attorneys and the judges themselves are as unfair and as illegal in their conduct as the police. Delayed trial, hasty trial, deprivation of counsel, deprivation of witnesses, mistreatment of witnesses, inducement of false testimony, failure to furnish list of State's witnesses, improper jury lists, inexcusable use of inadmissible evidence, condemnation of the defendant for his criminal record, unfair and inflammatory comment on evidence and on events during the trial, attacks on the counsel for the defense, attacks on witnesses for the defense, references to the defendant's failure to testify, appeals for conviction on improper grounds, appeals to racial or national or religious prejudice, unfairness of the trial judge during trial, trials conducted wholly or partially in the absence of the defendant, mishandling of the jury, and payment of judges, prosecutors and court officials on the basis of convictions, are some of the kinds of lawlessness in law enforcement that are treated in the Wickersham report which we have not even had time to glance at.

The World’s Only Hope

All this sounds to us like the Dark Ages; it sounds like the reign of the Devil himself, and that is what it is. Every one of the acts mentioned in this article is illegal, and is an incitement to ciinie. as it is itself a crime. The only possible relief from this state of affairs is God's kingdom, the hope of the world. O God, Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is done in lieaven. Men make a wreck of everything they touch, because they are controlled by the Devil, and are his children in deed and in truth. The Lord God Jehovah has promised that there will be a great cleaning out soon of those that are steeped in iniquity; and it can’t come too soon.

On the Roman Catholic Front—Illegalities at Pittston and Swoyersville

Every God-fearing, law-abiding citizen of Pittston and Swoyersville will read this with profonndest concern.

IX AMERICA the priests and preachers have the same rights before the law as do other people; no more, and no less. With some two hundred kinds of churches, everybody is supposed to be free to teach what he believes, without hindrance from the one hundred and ninety-nine that differ. Some people in Pittston and Swoyersville seem to think that because there are Roman Catholic churches and Roman Catholic officials in those two cities the rest of us here in the United States must keep out and keep still, and allow a rule without law and in disregard of the Constitution. Nix! The attempt to rule in defiance of the law is ruining the country ; it must stop, and it is going to stop in Pittston and Swoyersville. This is a legal notice.

In Swoyersville, in May, 1931, Roman Catholic officials, contrary to the law, caused the arrest of four persons engaged in giving the message of Cod’s kingdom to the Russian and Polish people. They were giving the people an opportunity to obtain at their own doors some of Judge Rutherford’s wonderful lectures on the Scriptures. This they have a right to do, which is guaranteed by the fundamental law of the United States, as well as of the State of Pennsylvania. Moreover, they were obeying God’s law, doing His work, the right of all.

When the case got up to the higher court at Wilkes-Barre the judgment of the magistrate at Swoyersville was reversed, as it would have to be, unless we are to have in the United States a repetition of what was brought about in Mexico and Spain. Do the Roman Catholic clergy really want that? We do not believe they do; nor do we. It is better to give everybody a fair deal all around than it is to try to pretend to a control of things that docs not exist and cannot be made to exist without the total ruin of the Roman Catholic church in the United States. When a priest tries to order police oflicials and magistrates around he has bittern off more than he can chew; and those with any common sense will not try it often.

Of course a priest can stir up a mob, and that has often been done; but that is a dangerous business. No one can ever tell where mob spirit once started will end. It cannot be trusted. The mob that shouted ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ was the same mob that five days before had strewn their garments in the way. Mobs do not reason. Come. Let us reason.

Of all countries in the world, Spain was the most Catholic until it suddenly became convinced that it had been misled, when it turned completely. Mexico was docile for four hundred years, but when it became convinced that the $15,000,000 sent every year to tin1 Vatican could much heller be used at home for educational purposes it passed laws limiting the priests 1o one for every one hundred thousand people. That practically kills the church in th,at country. Who is to blame for it ? The priests themselves. If they had not tric'd to grab so much they would not have lost so much. Now the question is: Do the priests of Pittston and Swoyersville want to duplicate the experience of their fellow priests in Spain and Mexico ? It looks as if they did. We are trying to show them a better way.

Swoyersville Slow to Learn

One would think that when the burgess of Swoyersville, and the police, had been rebuked in a higher court for attempting to interfere with the free exercise of religion, they would know better than to try it a second time; but some people are slow to learn.

Having the best interests of this burgess and his officers, and especially of the well meaning citizens of Swoyersville, at heart, a company of Jehovah’s witnesses visited that community on the morning of September 20, 1931, and placed in each home a copy of The Golden Aye containing a reproduction of Judge Valentine’s overruling of their previous illegal conduct. There were seventeen cars of workers in the party.

The people of Swoyersville were well pleased to get the papers, but about the time it was done the chief of police came up to W. A. Barrett, a reputable citizen of Nanticoke, and used the following language: “What in the hell are you doing here? (let to hell out of this town, and do it quick!” Pennsylvania has a law against the use of profanity in public places, or by public officials. Air. Barrett was reared a Catholic.

When Mr. Barrett protested the use of such language, and insisted on his rights as a citizen, he was, without warrant, and without charges, illegally “arrested" and, along with five carloads of other workers, was detained at the magistrate’s home. XVhile in the home, waiting for the burgess to return from church, one of the police officers snatched personal papers from

Air. Barrett’s possession. In dne time all those illegal acts will be brought out in court and the malefactors must suffer for it.

Among the ladies illegally “arrested'’ at Swoyersville was a refined Christian woman of Luzerne, Pa., Airs. S. L. Stull. She waited with another lady in her car while the men were in the burgess’ office, knowing full well that she had violated no law of God or man. As she sat there talking to the other lady, and discussing something entirely foreign to the “arrests”, the Swoyersville chief of police glared at her savagely and said, “Don't you laugh. If you got what you deserved, you would be stoned.” Can you imagine a man like that as being a police of-iicei ! AVhat an asset to the “church” he would have been back in the days of the Inquisition!

Among those “arrested” at Swoyersville was S. Al artin Peterson, a man of large business experience, for many years superintendent of huge textile establishments in various parts of the country. AVhen accosted by the Swoyersville police he was cursed, was accused of selling things on Sunday, which was untrue, and was told. “You are nothing but sneaks,” and anybody who knows Alartin Peterson knows that that is not true. It is not the duty or the right of police officials to do illegal and offensive things.

Plot to Murder Five Carloads

Among those also “arrested” at Swoyersville was Daniel E. Alorgan, pioneer witness, ex-1United States Alarine, in seven major engagements of the AVorld War, including Chateau-Thierry and Soissons. His story appeared in The Golden Age in the nine issues from Alay 14, 1930, to September 3, 1930, inclusive. His hook containing the same story is published by the Christopher Publishing Company, Boston, Alass. Knowing his rights, Alorgan objected to being arrested without a warrant, or without being told of the charges preferred against him, vhereupon the police officers forced his car door open and dragged him out of it into the street. Air. Alorgan, referring to this incident, says: “As a result of the unlawful force exercised, and the methods of the officers, they soon attracted a crowd, and their conduct put the crowd in a riotous mood.” Police have no right to start a riot, under any pretext.

As the burgess was slow in returning from church, Alorgan got back into his car; and his statement of the matter continues: “Several of the mob that had been gathered by the riotous conduct of the officers repeatedly said in their hearing and in mine, ‘We ought to turn the machine guns on the whole crowd,’ and there was no protest from the officers. These men tried to engage us in conversation, evidently in the hope of getting us in the same riotous attitude as themselves.”

After the burgess returned from church fifteen minutes elapsed. Alorgan went in to see why the delay and overheard persons in an adjoining room say, “We cannot waylay them until they get outside the borough limits.” With that, one of the officers stepped out from the room, and in a ringing voice Morgan -wanted to know of him if he was a party to the conspiracy to murder five carloads of workers, that he had just overheard. The officer replied that he could not he responsible for what other men said, but he could not deny and did not deny that he -was present in the room -while the conspiracy was being formed.

So that is what we have come to in America, is it? AVhen the entire nation, all its police officials and all its newspapers and detectives cannot find a baby that is stolen from its crib, a police force can show its prowess by gatheringin the home of a magistrate and plotting to murder wholesale Jehovah’s witnesses who alone today have the courage to stand up for law and order! It never seems to occur to the minds of some police officers that they themselves have to obey the law. Nevertheless, they must.

As a matter of fact the “arrests” at Swoyersville were one continuous illegal bluff from beginning to end, excepting that the plot to murder was not a bluff, but a stern reality. No formal charges were ever preferred by the Swoyersville administration; they could not be, for no offense against the laws was committed. In due time those that were involved in the Swoyersville breaches of the peace will be called upon to explain their conduct.

Some Unpalatable Truths

It so happened that the particular issue of The Golden Age which was distributed at Swoyersville contained other items of real value but which, because they are true, might seem unpalatable to some. There was an article on “Racketeering—The Devil's Civilization” which contained a few paragraphs which we herewith reproduce:

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