Biography
Otto Frederick Schmidt, a twenty-six-year-old member of the IWW arrested in Spokane, Washington, was held for ten months in jail as a deportable alien. Originally detained at an immigration station, Schmidt was arrested without a warrant and held without benefit of a trial or hearing. Schmidt was denied letter-writing privileges and was forced to sleep on a " concrete floor" with "no bed." He fell ill at the immigration station and lost his " teeth and hair. " According to his cellmate, A. George Jensen, Schmidt "believed that the working class should organize to better their conditions. He was arrested for trying to make the world a fit place in which to live." Schmidt was transferred to the Walla Walla County Jail, where conditions remained very poor. When the IWW prisoners collectively protested their condition, the guards responded by hosing them down: A terrific stream of icy cold water was turned onto the sick, half-starved and helpless men, who were locked in a cage, trapped like so many rats. Men were lifted off their feet and battered against the steel bars by the force of the water. Within a few minutes mattresses and blankets were floating about the floor and five men were stretched out, bleeding and unconscious in the wreckage and water. Schmidt was one of the inmates found unconscious after the hosing, but he received no medical attention. His body was merely laid on a " bare iron bunk. " Later, when prison authorities decided he was sufficiently ill to require medical attention, Schmidt was transferred to the Spokane County Jail. But his condition continued to worsen: Schmidt was coughing; the froth was over his drawn lips. During his final days he was removed, sent to the Sacred Heart Hospital, where he died on December 2, 1918.
