We cited definitions of political offenses by eminent criminologists, penologists, sociologists, statesmen and historians. We declared that all authorities on political crime sustained our contention and that we clearly came under the category of political, if any crime. We pointed as proof to James Bryce, George Sigerson, Maurice Parmelee and even to Clemenceau, who defined the distinction between political offenses and common law crimes thus: " . . . theoretically a crime committed in the interest of the criminal is a common law crime, while an offense committed in the public interest is a political crime."[1]

We called to their attention the established custom of special treatment of political prisoners in Russia, France, Italy and even Turkey.[2]

We told them that as early as 18'72 the International Prison Congress meeting in London recommended a distinction in the treatment of political and common law criminals and the resolution of recommendation was "agreed upon by the representatives of all the Powers of Europe and America-with the tacit concurrence of British and Irish officials."[3]

Mr. John Koren, International Prison Commissioner[4] for the United States, was throughout this agitation making a study of this very problem. As chairman of a Special Commit-

[1]Speech before the French Chamber of Deputies May 16, 1876, advocating amnesty for those who participated in the Commune of 1871. From the Annales de la Chambre des Deputes, 1876, v. 2, pp. 44-48.

[2]Those interested in the question of political prisoners and their treatment abroad may want to read Concerning Political Prisoners, Appendix 6.

[3]Siegerson, Political Prisoners at Home and Abroad, p. 10.

[4]Appointed and sponsored by the Department of State as delegate to the International Prison Congress. tee of the American Prison Association, empowered to investi- gate the problem of political prisoners for America, he made a report at the annual meeting of the American Prison Associ- ation in New York, October, 1919, entitled "The Political Of fenders and their Status in Prison"[1] in which he says:

"The political offender . . . must be measured by a different rule, and . . . is a creature of extraordinary and temporary conditions . . . .

"There are times in which the tactics used in the pursuit of political recognition may result in a technical violation of the law for which imprisonment ensues, as witness the suffragist cases in Washington . . . . These militants were completely out of place in a workhouse, . . . they could not be made to submit to discipline fashioned to meet the needs of the derelicts of society, and . . . they therefore destroyed it for the entire institution."