April 27, 1914
REBA EDELSON TRIES TO CONVERT WARDEN
‘Tween Hearty Meals She Preaches I.W.W. Logic to Handsome
Jailer.
HOPES FOR APPEAL TODAY
Miss Davis Glad Hunger Strike Is Off and Forcible Feeding
Unnecessary.
The visitors’ bell clanging insistently in the warden’s
office of the Queens county jail over in Long Island City yesterday afternoon
failed utterly to overcome the voice of a young woman upstairs in the old brown
prison who was discussing the wrongs of the human race and cataloguing Big Bill
Haywood with the saints.
The young woman was the I.W.W. vivandiere, Reba Edelson,
who, refreshed by a light, special luncheon of broiled steak, creamed potatoes,
bread and butter, apple pie and coffee was trying to convert the handsome young
warden, Henry Schieth, to the tenets of the I.W.W.
When the warden answered a summons from a reporter for The
Sun he looked a trifle exhausted. He was hoarse. Arguing with Becky Edelson
(she is known as Becky to the agitators of Rutgers Square) is a job for a well,
strong man, and the warden has been suffering from a touch of cold and wasn’t
in the pink of condition.
“Yes,” volunteered Mr. Schieth, “Miss Edelson’s hunger
strike has been called off. The Sun had it right this morning. She has decided
that there is no use to starve herself, since that won’t obtain her release
from prison, and she has been taking her meals regular since last night.
“Of course we had to be careful at first what we gave her to
eat because she had gone without food for forty hours. Deputy Commissioner
Burdette G. Lewis sent over chocolate and a few delicacies for Miss Edelson
last night. She enjoyed them and this morning she ate a hearty breakfast of
chops, potatoes, bread and butter and coffee. At lunch today she ate a quantity
of substantial things and I have no doubt that her appetite for supper this
evening will be excellent.
“Why did she decide to eat? Well, I hardly know myself,
except that she believes now that her friends will be able to get her out of
jail on a writ of habeas corpus which they mean to apply for today, I
understand. But we were pretty nice to her and maybe that had something to do
with her changed attitude. I certainly never met a woman who could talk faster
than Miss Edelson. I haven’t been able to get in a word edgewise and I’m a
pretty fair rapid fire talker myself.
“Mostly she has been interested in the Mexican crisis. She
was been trying to make me think that Governments have no right to make war and
that soldiers have no right to kill the armed enemies of their country. Yet she
maintains that her organization, the I.W.W., has a perfect right to kill people
if it is opposed or attacked. Her logic is too much for me.”
As a matter of fact Miss Edelson’s decision to pay a little
attention to her food was a great relief to Miss Katharine B. Davis, the
Commissioner of Correction; to Miss Davis’s subordinates, and to the prison
authorities. When the young woman was taken from the workhouse to the Queens
county jail the warden was afraid she would have to be fed forcibly.
Dr. John Oquaro reported that Miss Edelson was in good
physical trim. The she was placed in the custody of Matron Mary F. Daly, who
talked to her in motherly fashion. The warden reminded her also that if she
persisted in starving herself it might be necessary to place a charge of
attempted suicide against her and that she would find herself compelled to
answer a felony charge as well as the misdemeanor case against her. So Miss
Edelson thought over her situation and finally told the warden that she was
willing to eat. If she had not come to that decision today the prison
authorities would have found some humane way of making her eat. That had been decided.
Justus Sheffield, who is acting as counsel for the young
woman, will argue before Judge Mulqueen today an application for an appeal of
the three months sentence. Miss Edelson’s friends sent word to her yesterday
that the chances were good that she would be released in a few days.
