Biography
Frederick Esmond, an Oxford University graduate, was a newspaper and publicity agent for the IWW. Esmond headed the California Defense Committee for the Sacramento IWW Sedition Act defendants. After protesting the prison conditions endured by the Sacramento defendants to the U.S. attorney general, Esmond was himself arrested and charged with sedition. He was held in isolation for eight months and then tried along with the other "silent defendants" in Sacramento and sentenced to ten years. Esmond responded to the announced convictions by shouting: we, the outcasts, have been framed up, clubbed, beaten, slugged, martyred, and murdered. Is it any wonder that I do not consider myself bound to your procedures when this court and its proceedings are a disgrace to the United States? Esmond never recovered from the weakened state of health caused by his pre-trial confinement in isolation. He entered Leavenworth Penitentiary on January 25, 1919. On April 7, 1921, he suffered a complete mental collapse—becoming "maniacal, noisy, destroying clothing and bedding." According to the prison physician, Esmond reportedly started to have "delirious hallucinations" and became "homicidal." The physician attributed Esmond's breakdown to "overwork of his mental facilities, accompanied by worry and depression." Esmond was transferred to St. Elizabeth's Hospital where he slowly recuperated. He was pardoned and released from the asylum in February 1923.
