Word: snoop
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Leavenworth outbreak awoke the Federal Government to its prison responsibilities. Though wardens' reports had reiterated figures on overcrowding, the only Federal prison reform of recent years was when Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, then Assistant Attorney-General, sent fake convicts to Atlanta and Leavenworth to snoop. She demanded the resignation of Atlanta's Warden John W. Snook "because of utter want of administrative ability" (TIME, March 25). Out went Snook, in came A. C. Aderholdt, who first worked for Atlanta prison as a construction gang foreman in 1906, later as prison guard, as record clerk. Now, as warden, he is softspoken...
Immediately "Convict Hansen" began to snoop on Warden Snook, to send out secret reports on the prison to Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Assistant Attorney General in charge of U. S. penal institutions (as well as of Prohibition prosecutions). Finally he was transferred to Leavenworth Penitentiary, and thence released on Mrs. Willebrandt's orders...
...Borah of Idaho plodded into the Department of Justice last week to demand of Attorney General Mitchell that the whole system of prison spying cease. Col. Mitchell weighed the question thoughtfully, and Senator Borah withheld comment until a decision should be announced. Meantime, Mrs. Willebrandt hinted that the prison-snooping system had originated with Attorney General Sargent. At the same time, with feminine inconsistency, she hinted that if she could not continue to snoop on her prison wardens she would resign...
Said Mrs. Willebrandt: "The [snoop] system seems the only way at present to find the facts necessary to keep conditions wholesome in the penitentiaries. It [snooping] has been' fairly and equitably'applied...
Said Senator Borah (great Hoover-Prohibition orator who was said to have been offered the Attorney-Generalship before Mr. Mitchell): "It [the snoop system] cannot be justified upon any theory of law or justice or expediency. ... I predict that the system will be discontinued. ... It involves fake or fraudulent commitments. . . . These commitments must involve the courts. I would not hesitate to vote to impeach a judge who had signed or issued such papers. . . . It is about 300 years behind the times in prison management...