- Transcription
THE SECRETARY OF THE SAVY,
WASHINGTON.
June 24, 1919.
My dear Governor:
You have doubtless seen the article in the Charlotte Observer1 on Sunday with reference to a statement by Mr. Earl E. Dudding, President of the Prisoners’ Relief Society, who lives at 509 E Street, N. W., in this city. In addition to the statement which he makes, which has been circulated rather widely, he has taken this matter up with the Department of Justice. He says that a negro prisoner was cruelly and brutally mal-treated (burned him nearly to death) on the Roanoke farms in Halifax or Northampton. He also has letters from four or five others claiming inhuman treatment. I know of course that any mal-treatment or the lack of the most humane treatment is revolting to you and I write to suggest that the best way to answer these charges that are going to be made seriously, is on your own initiative to have an investigation by a board of conspicuous and independent men--and it might be well to have women too--so that their statement will be accepted as true in the country as to the real conditions. I know if anybody has been guilty of cruelty or inhuman treatment that you will make them walk the plank and the sooner this is done the better. Mr. Dudding has taken this matter up with the Department of Justice. Of course they may not move rapidly, and the Department may not feel that they have the authority to take hold of it. I understand that in this event, Mr. Dudding intends to take it up to Congress and have some representative offer a resolution and this will give our State a very bad name, because a report of inhumanity travels very far. I am writing to you because I know your feeling is like mine that our State must not permit anything except the most humane treatment of those who are prisoners.
Sincerely yours,
Hon. T. W. Bickett,
Governor of North Carolina,
Raleigh, North Carolina.
1. “Brutal and Inhuman Treatment of N. C. Prisoners is Charged,” Charlotte Observer, 22 June 1919.
