BY MARK CURTIS

FT. MADISON, Iowa - Without a doubt, mail call is the high point of every prisoner's day. Getting a letter is a reminder that a person with a real life is thinking about you and that they're holding your place in line until you can get back in it.

That's assuming you get mail. Sadly, there are many who go a long time between letters. That isn't the case with me, though. In over seven and a half years there's only been a handful of days when the postman didn't deliver. Lately the guard brings an armload of it to my cell, and I get a lot of good-natured kidding from other prisoners that the reason they didn't get anything is because "Curtis got it all."

Since getting my parole last November the letters were congratulatory, and then after Illinois resisted accepting me the tone was outrage at my continued imprisonment. The letters come from all over: New Zealand, Canada, Greece, Sweden, Mexico, Australia. During the big strike wave in France I got many letters from there as the Militant and literature about my case got around among the protesters.

I do appreciate the letters - they have a good political impact on all the hands they pass through (by way of censorship), and especially on mine. It's my hope that I'll be forgiven if I don't respond to all the letters, and that the thoughts in this column will be considered as a way of response.

A couple of the most interesting letters I received lately are actually from other prisoners. Roger Warren is a framed-up Canadian gold miner and union militant. He writes from his cell in Stony Mountain, Manitoba, "I'll followed your story with great interest for several years and this latest chicanery by the parole board and Illinois state officials has raised my incredulity to new levels.

"In cases like yours, which is without a doubt an attempt to silence a social activist, this not so subtle message seems intended to make others bow their heads meekly and not interfere with the ability of big business to do as they please."

Louisa Frazier dropped me a card after the protest march in Sioux City, Iowa, against the police murder of her daughter Kimberly. "It seems we're all in this unfair fight against this system. When are they gonna wake up and give us a break? In your case I hope soon. Whatever or however long this takes; with the help of the medicine of many I know I will fight for justice until my dying day," she pledges. The fight for justice for Kimberly Frazier is not just a campaign against police brutality but for democratic rights for Native Americans like the Fraziers. Louisa's son was recently transferred the penitentiary here and we have discussed this question several times.

The many letters I'll received span not only the globe but the generations as well. Mildred Solem of Duluth, Minnesota, sent me a card that really put my fight in perspective. "I am in my eighties, Mark," she said, "and I was there when the leaders of 544 and the SWP went to prison for speaking out against the war, and I worked with their families while they were imprisoned. Those were dark days...." She is referring to the "Minneapolis 18," the revolutionary unionists and socialists who led the fight to organize the truckers in the 1930s. They were railroaded to prison by President Roosevelt for their twin campaigns for the union and against World War II. What an honor to hear from a participant in that struggle!

The Minneapolis 18 focused on their political education while they were locked up. I got a letter from a friend here who is in disciplinary lockup that shows the Minneapolis 18 have their descendants. "Greetings comrade Mark," he begins, "Hope this legal letter finds you in strength. I received the book Lenin's Final Fight from the library and I want to send you my thanks for the good looking out." Having had many conversations with this man over the years, I knew he'd enjoy the latest of Pathfinder Press's volumes on the history of the Russian revolution, but I didn't expect to hear what he said at the close of the letter:

"Before I close I also want to tell you that four of us over here have study groups on Marx's Capital, Volume I. All four of us ordered the book so now once a week we get in the back air vents and go over and study what we've read within that week. So we are doing pretty good over here as far as studying goes. But anyway, stay strong and continue to be a revolutionary. And may you have prosperous days ahead upon your release. Peace."

I can't wait `til these guys get out of lockup.  
 
 
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