Alexander Berkman

“ You will pardon me when I confess I smiled at your question whether your correspondence was welcome. Your notes are a ray of sunshine in darkness, and I am intensely interested in the personality of a man whose sense of justice transcends considerations of personal interest. You know, no great heroism Is required to demand justice for oneself, in the furthering of our own advantage. But where the other fellow is concerned, especially a stranger, it becomes a question of "abstract" justice -- and but few people possess the manhood to jeopardize their reputation or comfort for that. ”

“ To have so unexpectedly found both in you, unutterably lightens this miserable existence. What matter that you do not entirely share my views, -- we are comrades in the common cause of human emancipation. ”

“ Every Sunday from 30 to 50 men are locked up on the top range, to remain without food all day. The system is called "Killicure" (kill or cure) and it involves considerable graft, for I know numbers of men who have not received tobacco or a Sunday dinner for months.
Warden Wm. Johnston seems innately cruel. Recently he introduced the "blind" cell, -- door covered with solid sheet iron. It is much worse than the basket cell, for it virtually admits no air, and men are kept in it from 30 to 60 days. Prisoner Varnell was locked up in such a cell 79 days, becoming paralyzed. ”

“ He has never known the love of a mother, nor the care of a father. A typical child of the disinherited, he was thrown, almost in infancy, upon the tender mercies of the world. At the age of ten the law declared him a criminal. ”

“ At twenty he is dying of prison consumption. Was the Spanish Inquisition ever guilty of such organized child murder? With desperate will-power he clutches at life, in the hope of a pardon. He is firmly convinced that fresh air would cure him, but the new rules confine him to the hospital. ”

“ He has learned all the details of the trouble, and feels that I acted in the defense of my rights. It is an outrage to lock me up for resenting undeserved humiliation at the hands of an unfriendly guard ”