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S P R I N G - 2 0 0 1
ON CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: THOUGHTS FROM TERRE HAUTE
There is something wrong in this country,
the judicial nets are so adjusted as to catch the minnows and
let the whales slip through... Eugene V. Debs.
In labor circles and among progressives,
Terre Haute, Indiana is known as the home of Eugene Debs, a turn
of the century champion of industrial unionism, social justice
and world peace who did jail time for his convictions. Now, in
an ironic twist of history, a temporary resident of Terre Haute's
nearby federal prison is scheduled to be executed May 16 after
a long suspension of executions within the federal penal system.
The upcoming event is already drawing widespread and even international
attention. Within days of the announcement of the execution date
for Timothy McVeigh, mastermind of the Oklahoma City bombing,
every hotel room in Terre Haute was booked. It is rumored that
the major networks will anchor their daily newscasts from Terre
Haute that week. The heinousness of the offense for which McVeigh
was convicted is attention getting, and so are the emotionally
charged arguments pro and con on the subject of capital punishment.
Proponents of both sides of the issue of the death penalty will
be in Terre Haute for this media event.
Early Terre Haute native Eugene Debs had
strong opinions about our criminal justice system and was, based
on personal experience, highly critical of the "justness"
of our legal and judicial system. It was after the first of his
two prison stays that Debs spoke the lines quoted at the beginning
of this essay. Twice Debs was sent to prison after highly dubious
legal proceedings: to Woodstock jail near Chicago for violating
the injunction aimed at ending the Pullman strike, and to Atlanta
federal prison for alleged violations of the Sedition Laws intended
to silence opposition to United States involvement in World War
I. Mind you, Debs spoke of a system which caught the minnows but
not the whales at a time in American history when the industrialization
of America was accompanied by incidents such as the Ludlow massacre
and Triangle Shirt Factory fire, and immense fortunes were being
built by incredibly rich and powerful industrialists. Clearly,
the "whales" were the business tycoons of that period.
Debs' views on the all too evident class bias in our legal system
are expressed in his only book, Walls and Bars, recently re-issued
by Charles Kerr Publishing Company.
True to his convictions, not long before
his death in 1926, and after his second imprisonment, Debs became
involved in the internationally famous or infamous case of Sacco
and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants who, like Debs, have been
generally viewed by historians as political prisoners, two men
who were singled out, tried, convicted and executed, not because
they were without a doubt guilty of murder in the act of committing
a bank robbery, but because they, as radical anarchist and recent
arrivals from Italy, were of the type capable of such a crime
It appears that Debs' involvement in this case was motivated by
the all too evident errors in trial proceedings and use of evidence
rather than from a blanket opposition to the use of the death
penalty. Vanzetti wrote thanking Debs for his efforts in their
behalf, excerpts of which follow, in the author's limited English:
Dear Comrade and Maestro:
I have read in the Daily Worker of May 27, your letter-appeal
to the American Labor in our behalf. For Nick (Sacco) and I and
our dear ones, I thank you with all my heart for that letter in
which you putted all yourself and worth of better times and better
men. I learnt to-day that the Massachusetts S. Court has repelled
the request of the deface for a rehearing, and that the District
Attorney of the Norfolk County minds again to f x a near date
for our sentencing...
Dear Comrade Debs, I am sorry that your health is not quite well
just now, and I wish you a good health. Have care of yourself
and do not whorry about us. Mankind needs you; others will take
our place...
With figlial (sic) love I am yours,
BARTHOLOMEO VANZETT
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