The following week was "letter day" at
the prison and nearly every inmate wrote a letter. All deplored
the murder of the warden and many spoke bitterly of the murderers
and those who instigated the murder. The following letter written
by a poor sick boy to his mother in Sioux City, Iowa, is a fair
example of the many that went out:
LANCASTER, NEBRASKA, March 25, 1912.
"My DARLING MOTHER: I will write you a few lines to let
you know that I am out of the hospital and am feeling better.
Mother, I don't know if you will ever get this letter, but I
hope you do. I know that you have read in the papers about the
awful murder of our good warden. I know that he is up among the
angels in heaven now. Mother, I want you to know that I was neither
hurt nor mixed up in that awful murder. The warden was on the
square and we all liked him. I sat on the hospital steps the
other day when he came along. He walked slowly and looked as
if he was worried. He asked me how I felt. I told him that I
was getting better, but had no appetite, that the only thing
I could eat was an orange, but that I had no money to buy one
with. He said that he would see that I got some. That same day
he brought me a big bag of fine oranges and told me that he would
bring some more. Mother, I want you to pray for his mother, she
is so good and kind. Colonel Presson preached a fine sermon the
other day, for the chaplain got fired. We have anew chaplain
now, he has not preached yet, but he has gone from cell to
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cell and visited with us. He is a young man and
I know that his heart is not petrified. Mother, pray for me that
I may live and get home in August, when my time is up.
Love
to all,
GEORGE."
Letters
of sympathy came pouring in from all corners of the world and hundreds of letters
came to the inmates deploring the murder. There was grief and sorrow in every
place, except in Tecumseh. Never during the life of the warden had the former
chaplain gone to him and talked over prison matters. Never had he complained
to him, never had he given an interview or explanation to a Lincoln
paper - never. But when the warden lay cold in death, he gives
out a statement to a little socialist paper way down in Kansas.
I am not saying anything against socialism for it has many good
features, but I am not in sympathy with those socialists, who,
during a spell of over enthusiasm, go too far and become anarchists,
and use their sheets to uphold and further bloody murder and
many lesser crimes. This paper is supposed to stand for
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