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Reaction: Task Force Vote Fraud Investigation: "Kusper Opposes Use of Marshals at Polls" - Pamela Zekman and William Currie - Chicago Tribune
"An angry Stanley T. Kusper Jr., chairman of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said yesterday that he is 'unalterably opposed' to having federal marshals in polling places in order to deter vote fraud in the general election on Nov. 7. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1972-10-11
"Kusper Ad Recruits Poll Judges Here" - Unsigned - The Chicago Tribune
"The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners advertised in the four Chicago newspapers yesterday in an unprecedented atempt to recruit election judges for the November election. The full-page ads were signed by Stanley T. Kusper Jr., chairman of the board, who told The Tribune that judges are 'quitting at a rate of 55 a day' . . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1972-10-10
Follow-up: Task Force Vote Fraud Investigation: "Kusper Office Ballot Records are Missing" - George Bliss and William Mullen - Chicago Tribune
"Ballot applications stored in the City Hall office of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners have mysteriously disappeared for a precinct under investigation for wholesale forgeries and double voting. It was also revealed yesterday that board officials have been unable to account for the location of all the ballot applications for at least a dozen other precincts in wards where investigatiors have uncovered massive evidence of vote fraud. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1972-10-10
Follow-up: Task Force Vote Fraud Investigation: "Kusper Crony Draws Big Fee From Vote Board" - William Mullen and George Bliss - Chicago Tribune
"William R. Ming, convicted tax evader and law associate of Stanley T. Kusper Jr., has collected more than $74,000 as special attorney for Kusper's Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. The Controversial Kusper has been able to keep Ming on voucher payments from the board while the board has failed for three years to fill a budgeted vacancy for a full-time attorney at $15,000 a year. That is less than half the $32,320.83 the city has paid Ming so far in 1972. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1972-10-09
IX-Task Force Vote Fraud Investigation: "Payrolls Padded on Voting Machines" - William Currie - Chicago Tribune
"The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners has been using maintenance on its 6,200 election machines to pad payrolls at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to taxpayers. The Tribune has learned [sic]. The scandal-ridden Election Board, headed by Stanley T. Kusper, Jr., has $400,000 budgeted this year to pay 52 election machine servicemen for 6,200 machines - a ratio of one man for every 120 machines. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1972-10-05
Reaction: Task Force Vote Fraud Investigation: "U.S. Probes '71 Vote in 34th Ward" - William Currie - Chicago Tribune
"Federal prosecuters are widening their investigation of Chicago vote fraud to include a bitterly contested aldermanic allection in 1971, and separate charges involving Ald. Edwin P. Fifeiski (45th). Government attorneys are studying affidavits by hundreds of registered voters who swore thatthey voted in the 1971 34th ward aldermanic race for losing candidate Augustus (Gus) Savage. . ."
Follow-up: Task Force Vote Fraud Investigation: "2 Precinct Bosses Take 5th In Probe" - George Bliss and William Currie - Chicago Tribune
"Two Democratic precinct captains who recruited other Democrats to work illegally as Republican election judges in the March 21 primary yesterday refused to answer questions of an Illinois House elections subcommittee. The two precinct bosses and an election judge who served illegally as a Republican each invoked their rights to refuse to answe questions at least 20 times. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1972-10-06
"Kusper Aides Testify in Vote Fraud Probe" - Unsigned - The Chicago Tribune
"Two top aides of Stanley P. Kusper Jr., chairman of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, testified yesterday before a federal grand jury investigating vote fraud and a possible conspiracy by board employees to conceal voting irregularities. "I know nothing," said Mrs. Stephanie Steckl, Kusper's secretary, after she left the grand jury room following her second day of testimony. She said the jurors had treated her "fine," and did not now whether she would be asked to testify again."
The Chicago Tribune 1972-10-04
VIII-Task Force Vote Fraud Investigation: "Vote Machine Waste Told" - William Currie - Chicago Tribune
"The Chicago Board of Elections Commissioners has been ignoring simple money-saving bidding procedures to award favored companies millions of dollars worth of contracts for storing and moving its voting machines and materials, the Tribune has learned. Since Stanley T. Kausper Jr. became chairman of the board in 1969, Cook County, which pays for moving city machines during general elections, and the city have appropriated $4 million to pay eight Chicago movers for storing and moving the machines and materials. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1972-10-04
Plan to Stem Drugs at Lorton Announced
D.C. Del. Walter E. Fountroy yesterday announced a series of measures that have "the aim of rooting out drug trafficking and drug use at Lorton Reformatory." Fountroy said his plan was in response to a current Washington Post series that has described how visitors on occasion have taken illegal drugs to Lorton inmates.
The Washington Post 1984-03-06
IV-"Officials Differ on Depth of Prison Drug Problem" - Athelia Knight - Washington Post
Four months ago, before I ventured down to The Avenue to find out how visitors smuggled contraband into Lorton reformatory, several judges said that drugs were so accessible at Lorton they sometimes thought they should send felons with drug problems elsewhere. On Feb 22, D.C. Superior Court Judge Henry Greene did precisely that. Robert S. Carter stood before the judge that day, waiting to be sentenced for selling heroin. Carter had been a drug user for 10 years and had gotten into trouble several times because of his dependence on narcotics.
The Washington Post 1984-03-07
III-"Threat of Violence Haunts Drivers" - Athelia Knight - Washington Post
Tony parked his camper in the usual spot, across the street from the Woodward & Lorthrop department store, and stepped out into the freezing rain. It was 5:30 on Wednesday evening, four days before Christmas. There were 50 to 60 people along The Avenue. Some were boarding vans and campers such as as Tony's that were bound for Lorton Reformatory, and others, holiday shoppers, were waiting for the next Metrobus to take them home. His hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the sleet, Tony walked down to the corner to see another veteran driver, a paraplegic known on the street as Donald. They chatted for a few minutes, Donald up in the seat behind the steering wheel of his van parked near 11th and G, Tony leaning against the side window. A third man appeared out of the darkness and confronted Tony in the roadway. They exchanged a few words. The man went into a boxer's crouch, clenched his fists, and punched Tony in the head, knocking him to the pavement, according to reports. The blows were delivered with such swiftness that Tony never got his hands out of his pockets.
The Washington Post 1984-03-06
II-"Visitors Make Drug Deliveries to Inmates" - Athelia Knight - Washington Post
Tony's camper reeked with the smoke and aroma of marijuana as it rolled up the hill toward the prison, carrying 25 women on their way to visit the men of Lorton. The trip from The Avenue in downtown Washington had taken about a half-hour on this evening of Nov. 22. It was enough time for some of the passengers to smoke a joint or two, and for one rider who wore her hair in tiny braids held by silver beads, to roll a dozen marijuana cigarettes. I had watched her during the trip as she wrapped her dope - she called it "diamond" - in small sheets of paper, licked the ends shut, and placed the cigarettes in her breast pocket.
The Washington Post 1984-03-05
I-"Drug Smuggling and Hot Goods: A Ride on Prison Visitors’ Buses" - Athelia Knight - Washington Post
No bus stop in Washington is quite like the one downtown near the intersection of 11th and G streets NW, along a stretch of pavement they call The Avenue. There, most evenings and weekend mornings, scores of women gather to ride the unofficial shuttle buses that take them over the Potomac and out of the city, down the highways of suburban Virginia to the place where their men live, Lorton reformatory.
The Washington Post 1984-03-04
Reaction: Private Ambulance Investigation: "Hearings End In Ambulance Abuse Cases" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"The city completed license revocations hearings in the private ambulance scandal yesterday amidst conflicting testimony by officers and employees of Mid America Ambulance Co. and a statement by one of the officers that one of the firm's locations was a "filthy pig pen." Peter Fitzpatrick, deputy city license commissioner, said he expects to make recommendations to Mayor Daley this week regarding possible action against the companies. The three ambulance firms were ordered to answer a total of 22 charges Aug. 5, based on information uncovered by THE TRIBUNE and the Better Government Association. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-09-22
Follow-up: Private Ambulance Investigation: "Left By Ambulance, Prober Says At Quiz" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"Mid-America Ambulance Co. deserted a victim of what apparently was a heart attack as he lay gasping on the floor of a North Side apartment because the man could not pay cash on the spot, a deputy city license commisioner was told yesterday. The testimony came during license revocation hearings against three ambulance firms named in a TRIBUNE series last June. The city filed 22 charges against the companies based on information uncovered during a two month investigation by the newspaper and the Better Government Association. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-09-19
III-""Bureaucratic Overload Turns Justice to Misery" - Ben Bagdikian - Washington Post
They look like a Norman Rockwell painting of democratic American life - kindergarten kids, some Orientals, some balck, some Caucasian, cheeks ros in the morning cold, skipping and laughing, paired hand-in-hand, with two good-natured teachers guiding them along the sidewalk of Baxter Street. A few of the children look curiously at the scene across the street. Fourteen men, all blacks, handcuffed in pairs, shivering in their shirtsleeves, jump out of a police van and disappear into a steel doorway of the Manhattan House of Detention, the Tombs. The first thought prompted by the sight of innocent eyes watching the gray scene is, "Thank God they dont know what it's like inside." The second thought is, "Perhaps they should. Some of theme, some time in their lives, will be held in a jail."
The Washington Post 1972-02-01
Reaction: Private Ambulance Investigation: "Ambulance Firms Denied Funds" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"Medicare officials ordered a crackdown yesterday against two Chicago ambulance companies named in a Tribune series for their improper treatment of the ill and injured. The companies, Mid-America Ambulance, 5651 Madison st., and Scully-Walton Services Inc., 15 N. Laramie av., were informed they can no longer transport elderly persons covered by the federal insurance program. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-26
Reaction: Private Ambulance Investigation: "Investigators Find Three Linked To Mob Control Ambulance Firm" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"The United States attorney's office disclosed yesterday that crime syndicate financial wizards now control all of the stock of the Scully-Walton Ambulance company, 15 N. Laramie av. The company was a key target of the two-month investigation by the Tribune and Better Government association which disclosed police pay-offs and sadistic treatment of the ill and injured by private ambulance crews. A Tribune reporter and a B. G. A. investigator worked undercover as ambulance attendants to doument the abuses. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-25
State Prober Finds Ambulance Fee Boosts for Welfare Legal - Joseph McLaughlin - Chicago Tribune
Springfield, Ill., June 24 - A legislative commission heard today how a former public aid employe [si] found loopholes in the law that allowed hi mto make money on state payments for ambulance service to welfare recipients. William J. Nettles, chief investigator for the attorney general's office, said the former employe [sic], Frank Andrew, apparently was operating within the law, even tho [sic] his business was costing the state money in higher welfare payments.
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-25
Reaction: Private Ambulance Investigation: "City Controls on Ambulance Services Proposed" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"The city's top health official yesterday urged a city council committee seeking private ambulance reforms to make the Chicago fire department the clearing house for all ambulance calls. Dr. Murray C. Brown, city health commissioner, proposed a special city-wide ambulance telephone number with fire department personnel answering phones. A caller would be told a fire department ambulance would respond to an emergency call, if he wished, or he could call a private ambulance service. Telephone numbers for private ambulance service would be made available to ta caller. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-24
Follow-up: Private Ambulance Investigation: "City Ambulance Firm Linked to Mob Loans" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"One of Chicago's controversial private ambulance firms has recieved thousands of dollars in recent weeks from a hoodlum-controlled finance company. The financial dealings between Scully-Walton Service Inc., 15 N. Laramie av., and National Financial Services, 1 N. La Salle st., will be the target of a federal grand jury probe scheduled to begin tomorrow in conjunction with an investigation by postal authorities. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-21
Reaction: Private Ambulance Investigation: "City Ambulance Reforms: Daley Vows More Units, Better Care" - William Jones and Edward Schreiber - Chicago Tribune
"Mayor Daley announced a sweeping plan to improve Chicago's ambulance service yesterday that includes an immediate 40 per cent increase in the number of fire department ambulances and the training of private emergency crews under the supervision of physicians and the Chicago fire academy. Daley said the first phase of the plan will begin July 1, and will concentrate on improved ambulance service for the 'poor and indigent' . . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-18
Ambulance Probe Due in Illinois
Springfield, Ill,. June 15 - A state-wide investigation into mistreatment of ill and injured persons by private ambulance crews was promised today by Sen. W. Russell Arrington [R., Evanston], the majority leader. Sen. John W. Carroll [R., Park Ridge] told the Tribune that a special subcommittee of the legislative advisory committee on public aid will begin the probe within the next week or two.
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-16
Follow-up: Private Ambulance Investigation: "Report Urges Control Over Ambulances" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"An 18-month study of emergency care in the Chicago area will recommend increased training and control over private ambulance crews and at least 100 per cent increase in the number of fire department rescue units. Organize and directed by the Chicago Hospital Council under a $100,000 grant, the study is expected to be published later this year. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-14
Follow-up: Private Ambulance Investigation: "Ambulance Quiz in Senate Urged" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"State Sen. John Lanigan [R., Chicago] announced yesterday he will seek a state Senate investigation into disclosures of mistreatment of the ill and injured by Chicago private ambulance crews. Lanigan said he will introduce a resoulution Monday asking that the investigation be conducted by the Senate's public welfare committee. Lanigan is a member of the committee headed by State Sen. Harris W. Fawell [R., Naperville]. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-13
VI-Private Ambulance Investigation: "Ambulances' Crews Pilfer Hospital Goods for Their Supplies" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"The 79-year-old man had just been pronounced dead in the hospital emergency room, but that was not what was worrying the ambulance driver. A disposable oxygen mask that sells for 60 cents had been used by the Mid-America Ambulance company crew in an unsuccessful effort to revive the victim and now the mask was missing. "What happened to that mask?" the driver asked a nurse. "We threw that away," the nurse replied, pointing to an emergency room waste pail. "We take and sterilize them sometimes and use thm again," the driver told the nurse as he began rummaging thru [sic] the waste container. He located the mask and the crew returned to the ambulance. Then, without even wiping the dead man's perspiration from the vinyl mask, the driver connected it to an oxygen tank to be used by the next patient. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-12
Reaction: Private Ambulance Investigation: "3 Ambulance Firms Banned in Aid Cases" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"David L. Daniel, county public aid director, yesterday banned three Chicago ambulance companies from transporting public aid patients following Tribune disclosures of sadistic treatment of the ill and injured. Daniel said the order will remain in effect until his office completes a thoro [sic] investigation of the treatment of welfare patients by the companies. The public aid chief said there will be not interruption of emergency transportation of welfare patients because the calls usually referred to the three will be handled by other ambulance companies. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-11
V-Private Ambulance Investigation: "Ex-State Official Inflates Costs for Ambulances' Welfare Clients" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"Two years ago the director of all welfare payments for the state of Illinois decided "welfare business is good business." He was so convinced that there was a profit to be reaped from the state's multimillion dollar public aid budget that he quit his post in Springfield, formed a company named Welfare Billing service, and began advertising among Chicago area ambulance operators, doctors, and medical clinics. . . "
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-11
Reaction: Private Ambulance Investigation: "Ambulance Quiz Ordered" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"The state director of public aid stopped all welfare payments to Mid-America Ambulance company yesterday and ordered an investigation to determine if the firm should be banned from transporting welfare recipients. Harold O. Swank, the state's top welfare administrator, took the action as the Tribune and the Better Government association disclosed incidents of mistreatment of the ill and injured by employees of the company located at 5651 Madison st. Payments to A-Alamo Ambulance Company, a Mid-America subsidiary, were also halted. The two firms have billed the state for more than $130,000 in welfare fees during the first four months of this year. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-10
IV-Private Ambulance Investigation: "Police Sell Ambulance Cases" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"Sometime on the afternoon of May 11, on Chicago's south side, a black man named James WIlliams suffered a fractured hip. The cause of the accident is not known and even Williams may not remember where it happened because he is subject to epileptic seizures. But the story of what happened to this 40-year-old Chicagoan is the story of the hustlers among the city's private ambulance business who buy and sell human beings. It is also the story of their partners in this grisly business - a group of Chicago policement who are willing to sell people like Williams for $10. The bizarre partnership, which flourishes in all sections of the city, was uncovered during a two-month investigation of the private ambulance business by the Tribune and the Better Government association. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-10
Aldermen Urge Laws to Halt Abuses by Ambulance Firms
The president pro-tem of the city council issued a scathing attack against abuses by the city's private ambulance companies yesterday and called for legislation that would permit the "prosecution and license revocation" of offenders.
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-09
Reaction: Von Solbrig Task Force: "Von Solbrig Hospital Placed on Probation" - Pamela Zekman and William Gaines - Chicago Tribune
"Dr. Eric Oldberg, president of the Chicago Board of Health, Tuesday placed von Solbrig Memorial Hospital on one-month probation, during which the board will examine hospital records, interview employees, and conduct frequent inspections of the hospital's facilities. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-10
VII-Von Solbrig Task Force: "Hospital Proves a Costly Haven for Alcoholics" - Task Force Report - Chicago Tribune
"For the alcoholic deperate for a cure, the hospital is a sham, the treatment a cruel joke. For the welfare loafer eager for a free ride, it is a $78-a-day hotel where a person can float for days on powerful tranquilizers. And for the taxpayer, Northeast Community Hospital is an expensive charade that squanders valuable Medicaid dollars. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-10
VI-Von Solbrig Task Force: "'A nice place to go,' doctor tells drunks" - William Crawford - Chicago Tribune
"One of Northeast Community Hospital's most frequent patients is Michael Wadley, a resident of the Northmere Hotel, 4943 N. Kenmore Av., who was admitted to the hospital six times between October and May, according to state public aid records. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-09
Reaction: -Von Solbrig Task Force: "Probe started at von Solbrig" - William Gaines and Jay Branegan - Chicago Tribune
"Investigation into von Solbrig Memorial Hospital and two of the doctors who practice there were ordered Monday by city and state agencies in the wake of Tribune disclosures of alleged unsafe and unethical medical practices at the hospital. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-09
IV-Von Solbrig Task Force: "Surgery done on assembly line" - von Solbrig Physician - Chicago Tribune
"The odds are astronomical, medical experts say, that several children in the same family would need their tonsils removed at once. But for $120 an operation, Dr. Edward J Mirmelli defies the odds, The Tribune Task Force found. Reporters discovered he regularly operates on three, four, and give children from the same welfare families in von Solbrig, 6500 Pulaski Rd., helping boost his welfare income to $60,000 last year, and $124,000 in 1973, according to federal government figures. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-08
V-Von Solbrig Task Force: "Hospital hunts patients" - Task Force Report - Chicago Tribune
"From all over the city, private ambulance companies take public aid recipients, easily able to use other transportation on expensive rides to Northeast, a violation of public aid regulations. In some cases, ambulances carrying "emergency" cases bypass other hospitals to go to Northeast, another public aid violation. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-09
III-Von Solbrig Task Force: "4 doctors on list dead" - Pamela Zekman - Chicago Tribune
"Altho fifty doctors are listed on the staff directory at the von Solbrig Memorial Hospital, only 18 of 47 located by The Tribune said they practice here. At least four doctors on the list are dead. One has been dead for four years. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-07
II-Von Solbrig Task Force: "'Janitor' Helps With Patients" - William Gaines - Chicago Tribune
". . .I was a Task Force reporter, hired as a janitor at the von Solbrig Memorial Hospital, 6500 S. Polaski Rd. I had been employed to scrub and mop and throw out garbage, not to assist nurses and doctors in the sterile surgical area. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-07
I-Von Solbrig Task Force: "Filth and neglect bared at von Solbrig Hospital" - Unsigned - Chicago Tribune
"It is a critical period for a 6-year-old girl lying in an anesthetized sleep on the operating table in von Solbrig Memorial Hospital. Only minutes ago she had undergone two operations, a tonsillectomy and surgical repair of a hernia. But the only other person in the operating room is a $2-an-hour janitor, in his unsanitary working clothes, who has just put down his mop in the corridor outside and rushed in to watch over the young patient at the request of a nurse. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1975-09-07
Landlady Almost Ruins Probe
A key portion of the Tribune's investigation of the hustlers among Chicago's private ambulance business was almost thwarted by a hysterical north side landlady who believed her furnished apartment had been invaded by a gang of narcotics addicts. Before the bizarre chain of events was over, an ambulance crew was photographed deserting an apparent victim of a heart attack and the landlady would receive and extra $20 rent to calm her frazzled nerves.
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-09
III-Private Ambulance Investigation: "Heart Victim is left in Flat; Had only $2" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"The two-man private ambulance crew stood over the gasping middle-age man in his north side apartment, arguing with a friend of the victim. "That's all he's got is two bucks?" asked one of the attendants. "He's gotta have at least $38 or we can't take him. Ain't he on welfare or medicare or something? We ain't got a chance of collecting on something like this." The friend shook his head and pointed to the $2 on the table. "That two bucks is all I could find," said the friend. "But he's got a job so he'd be good for the money." Both attendants shook their heads and shrugged. One of them called his office, Mid-America Ambulance company, 5651 Midison st., and said the crew had been ordered to leave the premises without the victim. Then they dragged the victim of an apparent hart attack to a kitchen chair where he slumped over the table. Before leaving the apartment, one of the attendants commited the final indignity. He pocketed the victim's last $2. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-09
II-Private Ambulance Investigation: "Sadism Rides an Ambulance" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"The ambulance siren gave a final growl as we arrived in front of the blighted south side buliding. I leaped from the vehicle, my heart pounding. It was my first day on the job as an ambulance attendant and my first emergency call. I had good reason to be nervous. Reporting for work less than an hour before, I was immediately assigned to an ambulance. Now, with no training in the handling of a stretcher or the use of oxygen, I was to be confronted with a reported heart attack victim who could be fighting for her life. The city code requires only first aid training to be liscened as an attendant. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-08
I-Private Ambulance Investigation: "Men Of Mercy? Profit in Pain" - William Jones - Chicago Tribune
"They are the misery merchants and they prowl the streets of our city 24 hours a day as profiteers of human suffering. Waiting in filthy garages thruout [sic] the city, they prey on families faced with an urgent need for transportation and medical care for a loved one. They are the hustlers among the city's private ambulance operators and they are waiting for your call for help. Their business is big business in Chicago. The multimillion-dollar industry accounts for nearly 1 million dollars of Cook county's welfare fees each year. . ."
The Chicago Tribune 1970-06-07
X-"State Could Remedy Conditions for Migrant Labor" - Dale Wright - New York World Telegram and Sun
I saw it all - the misery and ugliness of the migrant's labor camp and the fields where he worked from Florida to Long Island. I labored in the same bean and tomato patches with these itinerant crop harvesters. I grubbed in the rich earth with them for potatoes and I chopped cabbage in the same fields. I shared wretched food with the "stoop" laborer and along with him I was cheated out of my meager wages for work honestly done. I found that despite legislative efforts and the work of social and religious agencies to improve the lot of the nomadic farm hand and his family, little has been done to better their way of life.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-10-23
IX-"Migrants Exist in Duck Sheds" - Dale Wright - New York World Telegram and Sun
A 30-page, slick paper booklet published earlier this year by the New York State Migrant Labor Committee boasts proudly that the state "marches forward" in long strides in its handling of itinerant farm workers. Photographs of smiling laborers and their children beam from its pages - at work, at play, in school and in church. The committee booklet spells out step-by-step the regulations under which more than 25,000 transient crop pickers who come into the state every year live and work.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-09-20
VIII-"Migrant Accepts Gyp as Part of Life"
A migrant farm worker expects exploitation as one of the grim facts of his miserable life. He knows he'll be cheated and he learns to live with it. He knows he'll be underpaid for his labor and overcharged for many of the things he has to buy for himself and his family. Beause many migrants never get to school - or have to leave during the early elementary school years to work in the fields, they are uneducated and illiterate. For this reason they are easy marks for sharp operators.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-10-19
VII-"Farm Camp Slum, Exposed 8 Years Ago, Is Still Hell" - Dale Wright - New York World Telegram and Sun
The great dream of many migrant farm workers, born and reared in a shack in the South, is to go North to the land of plenty - to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. On his first trip "of the season," the migrant finds that dream quickly shattered. I, too, was a dreamer when I went into the fields in Delaware, New Jersey and eastern Long Island. I found that unlike that South, there were indeed a few laws aimed at protecting the rights of the itinerant harvester. But the truth is that these laws are so scant and so haphazardly enforced that they have little effect.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-10-18
VI-"Migrant Workers Need U.S. Protection" - Dale Wright - New York World Telegram and Sun
The night I decided to leave Florida and move north with the migrant laborers for South Carolina was one of the worst nights in my life. I was asleep in a filthy room near Hastings when a baby's shriek pierced the night and woke me up. I pushed open the unlocked door of the room next to mine to investigate. There, lying on a burlap bag in an old packing case, was a baby, two or three months old, screaming in terror. A huge beetle had crawled into the baby's mouth. Its parents were not home. I picked up the baby, removed the beetle, and succeeded in quieting the frightened youngster. There was no more sleep for me that night so I stayed with the baby and waited for his folks to return. Beetles and roaches and cinches, they told me later, were the least of their problems. The Florida potato belt also breeds big rattlesnakes. They are likely to be found in or under any old building. Flies and mosquitoes were everywhere, buzzing around in the remnants of food and debris.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-10-17
V-"Speed-Up Forces Migrants to Quit Job Before Payday" - Dale Wright - New York World Telegram and Sun
What's it like working in a potato harvest? It's monotonous, brutal, strength-sapping labor. Toiling and sweating in the long potato rows, filling 100-pound sacks under the blazing sun, tries any man's endurance. But working in a potato grading shed was even worse. In my travels as a migrant laborer, I found myself in the Florida town of Hastings. With 20 other workers, I had arrived there one morning last April in a bus. By early afternoon I was pushing a hand truck for Florida Planters, Inc.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-10-16
IV-"Migrant Labor Exploited by Delay Trick" - Dale Wright - New York Telegram and Sun
When I found myself stranded in a miserable Florida migrant labor camp with no work for 10 days because the tomato crop was late, my first thoughts were charitable ones. Naively, I figured a mistake had been made, that I and the scores of other workers with me had been transported 300 miles in the good faith that that jobs were waiting for us. I've never been more wrong in my life! It wasn't the weather and the fact that the tomatoes had not ripened by the time we arrived. The simple truth was that the tomato grower and "the labor contractor" who hired us with his fat promises planned it exactly that way.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-10-13
III-"Migrants Live Horror Story in Job Travel" - Dale Wright - New York Telegram and Sun
The transportation of migrant workers within a state such as Florida is a horror story. I was in Florida last spring riding with and working with the thousands of migrant laborers who follow the harvest of crops for their miserable livelihood. Travel, for a migrant and his family, is a nightmare anywhere. In Florida, and other states which don't regulate migrant transportation, it's worse.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-10-12
II-"Migrant Pay $4.32 a Day In Florida Tomato Field" - Dale Wright - New York Telegram and Sun
On a warm, humid morning last April, a rickety old bus jolted along at its top speed between rows of carefully manicured estates along route 1 from Miami south to Homestead, Fla. Although the vehicle had seats for 35 persons, it was crammed with 64 passengers. I was one of them. I was on my way to my first day of work as a migrant farm laborer in the lush tomato fields of southern Dade County. I had shaped up (reported for assignment) earlier that morning on a Miami street corner and was hired - with no questions asked - by a fat character known as a "labor contractor." In the South, labor contractors round up crews of workers for transport and assignment to farms where crops are harvested.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1961-10-11
I-"I Saw Human Shame as a Migrant Worker" - Dale Wright - New York Telegram and Sun
Despite certain limited improvements -on paper - in the laws protecting the migrant farm worker, he continues to be America's forgotten man - forced to work long, tortured hours at every turn and compelled to live in filth and squalor and danger. I know this because for six months, on and off from April to October, I worked as a migrant laborer...
New York World-Telegram and Sun Tuesday, October 10, 1961
II-"No. 50061, Inside Maximum Security" - Ben Bagdikian - Washington Post
The aging forger slid over the bench where we were watching television. "Did you really do it?" "Do what?" "You know. The murder." I looked at him in astonishment. Prisoners don't say things like that to each other. It's the kind of question a clumsy informer asks. "No," I told him coldly, "I didn't." It was true. I was in a maximum security penitentiary for murder. But I hadn't killed anyone. No one at the prison - warden, guards, inmates - knew that. All they knew was that one night, two state policemen delivered me in handcuffs as a "transfer" from a distant county jail.
The Washington Post 1972-01-30
Bad Checks Got IBM Salesman "Terrifying Experience of Jail" & Crime and our Prisons - and Futility"
Question: Had you ever been in a jail before? Barker: Neer. It's a terrifying experience... I spent two years in the Marine Corps... so I had met all types of people and had to live with all types of people, so I think I was better prepared probably than most adult people. But it's frightening. You're in a detention room with sleeping accommodations for 32 and 40 people. Some people have to sleep on the floor. I've seen people raped, specially young kids. You can get a kid as young as 14 years old and several 16.
The Washington Post 1972-01-29
I-"A Human Wasteland In the Name of Justice" - Ben Bagdikian - Washington Post
". . . If today is average, 8,000 American men, women, and children for the first time in their lives will enter locked cages in the name of justice. If theirs is an average experience they will, in addition to any genuine justice received, be forced into programs of psychological destruction. If they serve sentences most of them will not be by decision of judges acting under the Constitution but by casual bureaucrats acting under no rules whatever; they will undergo a significant probability of forced homosexualism, and they will emerge from this experience a greater threat to society than when they went in. . ."
The Washington Post 1972-01-29
South Carolina: The Employed Inmate & California: Juvenile on Team Probation
Like California, South Carolina has some of the worst prisons and some of the best. Its maximum security Central Correctional Institution may be the worst dungeon in the country, a 104-year-old five-story granite mass with iron catwalks from which, in the past, inmates had thrown guards and fellow inmates to their death below. But architecture is not the critical judgement of a prison system. The state's director of corrections, William D. Leeke is trying to get rid of his dungeon, but in the meantime he has started a program of work release centers.
The Washington Post 1972-02-06
VIII-"An Agenda for Reform of a Hell Behind Walls" - Ben Bagdikian - Washington Post
". . . When you turned down Fourth Street you saw all the usual clues: the 14-food cyclone fence with escapeproof top, the 51/2-inch window frames looking normal but precisely to small for the passage of the human head, the high intensity lights around the perimeter. But something was wrong. The gate was wide open and nobody was guarding it. . ."
The Washington Post 1972-02-06
Blacks Feel Jailed by Color & The New Breeds of American Prisoner
Question: What kind of a problem did you have coming in as a black warden in a largely white correctional staff? Johnson: Everybody seems to think that's a big problem, but really I haven't seen any big problem... I'm interested in what's happened to prisons because of the influx of blacks, young blacks. In many ways the American prison system has become a system which imprisons black people at a time when race consciousness is very high in the country, and that's very special.
The Washington Post Saturday, February 5, 1972
VII-"The Drive for Inmates' Rights" - Ben Bagdikian - Washington Post
"It used to be that the favorite recreational activity of prisoners was playing baseball. Now it's filing lawsuits." says Evelle J. Younger, attorney general of California. Is there a new kind of person behind bars in the 1970s? More interested in politics than athletics? More militant, organized, and rebellious? Younger is right about the growth of lawsuits. There is a swelling tide of civil petitions flowing out of prison cells into courtrooms. These are not the traditional jailhouse appeals on criminal cases, which continue. The new phenomenon is civil petitions suing prison administrators for allegedly violating human and civil rights.
The Washington Post 1972-02-05
Old Methods Didn't Work, But Maybe New Ones Will & A Police Chief Examines Theory of Long-Term Incarceration
My own observation is that incarceration serves [a] purpose that is now being lost, and that is the purpose of preventing the offenders from committing a crime while he is incarcerated. But the whole method of dealing with persons that are convicted of crimes has sort of taken a tone of arguments that one: incarceration does not serve to rehabilitate... and two: incarceration is not dignified treatment... and then, three: that incarceration is a method that is useful for compensating victims of crimes.
The Washington Post 1972-02-04
VI-"Rehabilitation: A Frayed Hope" - Leon Dash - Washington Post
". . .The 12-year-old boy thought he was alone in the dormitory of Cottage 7, sweeping under the beds. But he wasn't alone. A creaking wooden floorboard caused him to turn. A 14-year-old fellow inmate of the old Industrial Home School For Colored boys (now Junior Village) was sneaking up behind him. "He said he'd been watching me and said I was either going to fight him or let him have sex with me," Lawrence Smith Jr. recalls. Smith refused. The bigger boy grabbed him. Smith pushed back. They fought and Smith says he won that battle. This was one boy's introduction, 18 years ago, to the world of District of Columbia "corrections" - to sexual assaults, fights and beatings behind the walls of institutions where juveniles and adults from Washington have been sent for the announced purpose of being rehabilitated. . ."
The Washington Post 1972-02-04
They Wanted Citizen Involvement And They Got It - The Hard Way & Youths Unaware They Are Suicidal
McGormick: It's amazing how many kids are suicidal and are not away that they are setting themselves up to kill themselves. Question: If they don't know, how do you know? McGormick: They overdose, they drive a motorcycle at 95 miles an hour on a rainy night. Here they become aware that they were setting themselves up deliberately, that a part of them was looking forward to the escape of death.
The Washington Post 1972-02-03
V-"Juvenile Prison: Society's Stigma" - Ben Bagdikian - Washington Post
". . . The price list is posted in big red letters for every kid in the classroom to see. Coffee break? $40. Sit in the teacher's swivel chair for a whole period? $20. Take a trip to the library for a book? Only 50 cents. Get out of here entirely? $7,875. You don't have the money? Just sign one of these contracts. "I will remain in my sear during the testing period. I will not talk to other wards..." up to $50 payment. "I will not fight with Chuck over the TV program"–$100. "I will write out as closely as I can remember exactly what I said and exactly what Chuck said when we fought and then I will write out what I could have said to avoid a fight and still get my point across." –$300 . . ."
The Washington Post 1972-02-03
Pretending to be Stupid Wins Parole on Second Try & 3 Black Women in Jackson Jail Stripped; Searched Almost Daily
When I was sentenced, the judge – and I really think he believed this – said that if I was good and did what they told me for six months then they would release me. My lawyer and my parents were all under the same impression. Well: I met the parole board the first time and they gave me a 20-month contract which means there's no way to get out before 20 months...
The Washington Post 1972-02-02
IV-"Female Homosexuality Prevalent" - Ben Bagdikian - Washington Post
So far as anyone knew, she had a conventional sex life on the outside. But shortly after she arrived at the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, W. Va., she stopped telling people her name was Charlotte and said it was "Charlie." Charlie soon discovered the mysterious ways some of the inmates got hold of men's clothing - desert boots, dungarees, T-shirts, zipper jacket, visor cap. She began walking with a masculine swagger, talked tough, held a cigarette in the corner of her mouth, and shortly afterward established a relationship with another woman inmate whose manner was obedient and submissive while Charlie acted strong and protective. They were thought of by the other inmates and by the staff as husband and wife.
The Washington Post 1972-02-02
VIII-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
Most of New York City's slum dwellers live in ignorance and fear.During my "life" in the tenement jungles, I talked to scores of tenants who were completely unaware of their basic rights under housing laws. And because of this ignorance, they are exploited and housed in quarters intolerable for decent human beings.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-30
I Lived in a Slum
Most of New York City's slum dwellers live in ignorance and fear.During my "life" in the tenement jungles, I talked to scores of tenants who were completely unaware of their basic rights under housing laws. And because of this ignorance, they are exploited and housed in quarters intolerable for decent human beings.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-30
VII-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
As part of my assignment to live in slums for a month, I wanted the experience of trying to get on relief. My role was that of an unemployed and inexperienced actor who drifted here from Los Angeles.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-29
IV-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
It's almost a blessing that Old Sam can't see the squalor of the one-room dungeon where he lives with his faithful wife in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.Old Sam is blind.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-26
III--"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
Francisco and his seven small children are trapped in a dingy, unventilated two-room flat in a cankerous community called "Korea" in the Lower East Side.Francisco was one of the first tenants I met after I became a slum dweller in that area of the city last month. My $10-a-week hole in the wall in a cheap rooming house on Forsyth St. was barren, rat infested.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-25
Editorial: "I Lived in the Slums" - Unsigned - World Telegram & Sun
This is probably the first time we've ever asked our readers to refer to yesterday's paper. But we emphatically urge just that for any readers who may have missed reading the opening article in Woody Klein's "I Lived in a Slum" series.Seldom has a story revealed in such dramatic and explicit terms the atrocious conditions under which more than a million New Yorkers live. Today's article and those that will fellow present further shocking documentation of a great city's shame.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-24
VI-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
Twenty years ago W. 84th St. was a "good address" in a highly respectable neighborhood inhabited by successful, middle-class residents of New York City. It was clean, well-kept, a community of traditional four and five-story brownstones.But neglect, indifference and subsequent deterioration have lowered this once-select area to a hodge-podge of rooming houses and dreary apartment buildings.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-27
II-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
I was sitting in a dark, flooded basement apartment in the heart of the Upper West Side "jungle" during a heavy rainstorm. Water was coming in through holes in the roof, pouring down the walls of the five-story building and forming a pool three inches deep on the wooden floor.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-23
I-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
More than one million people are living in the filth and squalor of New York City's slums. The blighted areas of overcrowded, rundown homes are spreading farther and farther through the city.Although the Welfare Department spends $16 million a month to help some of these destitute families, thousands upon thousands of them are trapped in festering tenements, rooming houses and ramshackle dwellings.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-06-22
XI- "Boy on the Brink" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram & Sun
When I went to live in the slums, one of the persons I wanted most to meet was a sensitive boy caught in the mess and misery of tenement life.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-07-06
X-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
The city administration admitted today it had failed to meet its slum problem successfully and that blighted areas were spreading faster than rehabilitation.In the wake of a series of articles portraying horrendous conditions in the city's slums, this newspaper assigned a team of reporters to ask city officials about what they intended to do about it.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-07-02
Reaction: "Slum Expose Loudly Praised; Aid Offered, Action Demanded" - Unsigned - World Telegram & Sun
People who knew that slum was a dirty word but who never lived in one were loud in their praise today of staff writer Woody Klein and his series of articles exposing life in New York City's teeming tenements.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-07-01
IX-"I Lived in a Slum" - Woody Klein - New York World Telegram and Sun
In a city where Health Commissioner Leona Baumgartner says there are as many rats as people - eight million - there are only four Health Department inspectors assigned to investigate rat bites and vermin.
New York World-Telegram and Sun 1959-07-01
Letters to the editor
We cannot blame the "undercover" reporter, Leslie Linthicum, for her misrepresentation of the overall populus of Eldorado. How much can we expect a new student with an out-of-style- hairdo, big nerdish glasses, and her hair with very premature grayness to learn from her peers in a week and a half. Dan Schwed Eldorado Student
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-18
Eldorado principal speaks about "Undercover Student"
John Andrews: First of all in response to the article itself, what do you think about it?Robert Daugherty: I guess maybe we should feel fortunate that Eldorado was chosen in a sense. Also Eldorado just did win the state basketball championship. I think that has to be addressed also.
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-17
Text of Eldorado statement on 'Undercover Student'
A school is really only a series of relationships based on trust. Fracturing that trust affects students, parents, teachers, the school district and even the public image of the city. Tribune reporter Leslie Linthicum has threatened the fragile web of human relationships which is Eldorado High School.
Albuquerque Tribune Thursday, March 17, 1983
APS board rates school series as positive
Four members of the Albuquerque Board of Education reacted positively to The Tribune's "Undercover Student" series and said they hope it will stimulate changes in Albuquerque Public Schools. But board President Meg O'Keefe said last week's series presented an unrealistic and biased view of an APS high school because Tribune Reporter Leslie Linthicum based her articles on only 11 days at Eldorado High School and only took "fluff" courses.
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-17
Letters to the editor
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-16
'Undercover Student' lessons to be learned
First it should be pointed out that The Tribune does not consider the series the definitive work on the inside of Albuquerque schools. We see it as no more or less than a two-week slice of life inside a big high school.
Albuquerque Tribune Tuesday, March 15, 1983
Reaction to "Undercover Student": "Why EHS?" - Leslie Linthicum - Albuquerque Tribune
"Reaction to The Tribune's "Undercover Student" series came swiftly and with startling intensity last week. Although the series didn't actually start until Tuesday, my telephone began ringing Monday night, after an introductory article was published. And it seldom stopped after that."
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-14
V-"Serious Students Persevere, Others Talk of Rock, Partying" - Leslie Linthicum - Albuquerque Tribune
"Rock and roll, parties and friends are topics of high interest at Eldorado High School. Book learning, to many students, is not."
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-12
Student protest interrupts school day
A student assembly at Eldorado High School this morning turned into a sit-down demonstration over the social factions that have divided the school for years.
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-11
IV-"There's more to EHS than the '3 Rs'" - Leslie Linthicum - Albuquerque Tribune
In Human Development class, well-tailored Kathryn Meloy stirred boys and girls alike with the topic of child care and feeding. Prompted by a worksheet that asked, "What would you serve a 3-year-old child at a mid-morning snack?" students launched a lively discussion of the dangers of junk food.Many of the youths strongly opposed feeding children refined sugar, point to evidence linking sugar to hyperactivity. Juice, graham crackers and fruit were the top snack choices. The "practical arts" are emphasized in Albuquerque Public Schools these days,
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-11
Letters to the editor
The Tribune does a super job on its "undercover" reporting.Some time ago, The Tribune published a series of articles about a reporter who posed as a teacher in APS. This week, there is a series about a reporter who posed as a high school student.
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-10
III-"Building 'walls'" - Leslie Linthicum - Albuquerque Tribune
"If you've got $7 and 15 minutes, you can buy 10 "hits" of low-grade "speed" and one or two pipe bowls of marijuana at Eldorado High School.And once you've "scored," it's easy to find a secure place to get high.
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-10
II-"Nap time at EHS" - Leslie Linthicum - Albuquerque Tribune
Filmstrips have become the teacher's best friend and the student's anesthetic."I'm sick of seeing these Mickey Mouse films that don't tell us anything we don't already know," complained a freckled blonde after the second filmstrip in as many days in Independent Living class.
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-09
I-"High School Revisited" - Leslie Linthicum - Albuquerque Tribune
From Editor's note: "During January, 24-year-old reporter Leslie Linthicum spent 11 days posing as a student at Eldorado High School. This is the first in a week-long series of articles relating to her experiences."
Albuquerque Tribune 1983-03-08
A Way Out of the Welfare Mess
After a week of training lectures on the job of a caseworker, my supervisor offered me the first of several helpful hints: "The main thing is to get the aid out," he said. "You can always check things later if you have suspicions." But "later" - as it turned out - I had more and more cases and there was never any time. Within two months, in fact, I was the government assigned head of household for 160 families.
Harper's 1961-10-01
Reaction: "Health Chief Defends His Clinic Curbs" - Pamela Zekman and Karen Koshner - Chicago Sun-Times
The director of the Illinois Public Health Department conceded Monday that his agency "might have been more aggressive" in investigating abortion clinics, but defended the overall regulation of medical facilities.
Chicago Sun Times 1978-12-05
"Profiteering Shocks These Abortion Pioneers" - Pamela Zekman and Pamela Warrick - Chicago Sun-Times
The chaplain whose search for competent abortionists circled the globe. The physician who led the first national debate on ending all abortion laws. The attorney who filed the suit that first legalized abortion in Illinois. The feminist with a conscience - but no medical degree - who performed dozens of abortions in friends' bedrooms. Together, they and others like them pioneered the way for legalized abortion in Illinois.
Chicago Sun Times 1978-12-03
"Hospital Abortion Issue 'Hot'" - Pamela Zekman and Pamela Warrick - Chicago Sun Times
At many of Chicago's hospitals, the moral controversy over abortion has not subsided. And the reluctance of some hospitals to help women with unwanted pregnancies and the refusal of others to even perform abortions has caused many women to turn to walk-in abortion mills.
Chicago Sun Times 1978-12-02
Reaction: "Probe Abortions, House Asked" - Ellen Warren - Chicago Sun-Times
"Three illinois congressmen Friday called for an immediate congressional investigation of widespread abortion fraud and medical abuses detailed recently in the Chicago Sun-Times. . ."
Chicago Sun Times 1978-12-02