Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/30

CHAPTER 2. ANTI-WAR AGITATION 17 John Dunn, a conscientious objector and Catholic, from Providence, R. I., who was boss of the plumbing gang.

The conscientious objectors were scattered in different gangs and cell houses over the prison. The warden told me that the orders from Washington were to put us all in one place, but he knew better and scattered us out, for if we were in one place we would plot. This reminded me of the farmer who caught the ground mole and said, "Hanging's too good; burning's too good; I'll bury you alive." So we conscientious objectors were scattered around where we could do propaganda instead of being segregated where we would argue among ourselves. John Dunn and I were good friends. His number was 7979 and he got 20 years. When I was sentenced, the Espionage Law had not yet been passed. After his release he studied for the priesthood and is now a priest in Portsmouth, Ohio, and a reader of the CATHOLIC WORKER. Paul was a young, Russian-born Socialist who had quit a good job to come to prison, Morris was a quiet, very short Russian Jewish anarchist, whom I met often at the vegetarian diet table. (You could get all the good toast bread and milk you could devour if you signed up for any certain length of time at the diet table, but you were not allowed to eat anything from the regular table, at the same time.) Louis was just the opposite; an erratic boisterous Nietzschean who felt that everything that you had was his and what he had was his own. Morris was deported at the same time as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, after the war. Louis very recently has come to an appreciation of God, if not of orthodox Christianity. Tony was a Russian who did not speak English, but whose quiet manner marked him as some kind of a religious sectarian. Walter was a college man who came from an old anarchist family who had reviled his father's ideas until the crisis of war brought him to prison. His partner was John, a seaman who belonged to the I.W.W. maritime branch. He had been banished from Australia as a radical, and had refused to register for the draft.

Theodore and Adolph were young Socialists from Rhode Island who were enthusiastic and helpful in any prison rebellion. Gilbert was an Italian I.W.W. who spoke little English. He worked in the stone gang. I never met him personally; we just smiled from a distance. Al and Fred were two older comrades who had unwittingly been sent to prison. They were not left wingers, but were in official position in the Socialist Party, where the extreme conservatism of their communities made them martyrs. They were not active in any plans that we younger rebels formed. Francisco was the only local comrade from Atlanta in prison against the war; he was a Porto RicanPuerto Rican [sic] and had the advantage of his family coming to see him often. The young Hollander from Vermont was now a radical in the accepted sense of the term; he simply refused to fight against relatives who were in the German army. Fritz was a young Russian Socialist who was also quiet, but who went along with us in any of our plans. The Russellites came in later while I was in solitary and I never met any of them. There were about 20 of them including their leader, Judge Rutherford. Nicholas, the Mexican, was dying of tuberculosis. I only saw him from a distance for he lived by himself in a tent the year around. He was a Mexican revolutionist. Two Negro objectors who belonged to some Holiness sect in the Carolinas would not mix with us.