University of Virginia Library

Justice Is Served

There was a kid down the cell
block who was eighteen, married
and out of work. He looked very
stupid. Desperate for eating money,
he ran off with twenty dollars.
They gave him two years in the
State Pen instead of teaching him
a trade and finding him a job. All
he wanted was to eat. Now with a
felony charge he'll never get a job.
What kind of society is it that
values property more than life?
When Rennie Davis spoke of all
prisoners as political prisoners I
scoffed. But listening to that dumb
but very young boy in the next cell,
I realized what Davis meant.

For you kid, with your pimples
and for Frank with his ten children
and his strange, sensitive mind; for
anyone else who "tangles with the
law" I can never forget that it is
precisely our money and our
apathy which feeds the Fascist
regime we call Justice in America.