Biography
Carl Haessler was a Rhodes Scholar and University of Illinois philosophy professor who joined the Socialist Party and refused to fight "for a capitalist country." Accepting induction but refusing the uniform, he was court-martialed and imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth and Alcatraz from June 1918 until a presidential pardon in August 1920. He was a leader of the January 1919 Fort Leavenworth prisoners' work strike and later a prominent labor journalist with the Federated Press.
Simons recalled Haessler reading Plato and discussing philosophy with fellow Fort Leavenworth prisoners. Haessler taught philosophy and logic in the Wire City night school and lectured on pragmatism. The same issue identifies him as editor of the prisoners’ Wire City Weekly, whose political debate, literary criticism and humor continued despite prison censorship. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/1919/09/v2n09-w19-sep-1919-liberator.pdf#page=43
The Revolutionary Age of August 9, 1919 prints a letter received by the National Left Wing Conference on June 21, 1919 from political prisoners confined in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It lists Carl Haessler among Socialist Party members, endorsing the letter's support for the Left Wing and its political aims. June 21 is the conference's receipt date, not an admission or release date; no individual charge or measured custody total is supplied.
The Walter P. Reuther Library’s collection guide distinguishes Haessler’s imposed twelve-year hard-labor sentence from the two years it reports he actually served at Fort Leavenworth and Alcatraz. It dates the presidential commutation/pardon to August 1920. These are not twelve years served, and the guide does not supply exact physical admission or discharge days. The existing month-precision custody dates and twenty-four-month actual subtotal remain unchanged.
Simons recalled Haessler reading Plato and discussing philosophy with fellow Fort Leavenworth prisoners. Haessler taught philosophy and logic in the Wire City night school and lectured on pragmatism. The same issue identifies him as editor of the prisoners’ Wire City Weekly, whose political debate, literary criticism and humor continued despite prison censorship.
