Friday, January 8, 2010

THE WHITE HOUSE BOYS



You probably don’t want to know about this book or about this true account of man’s unbelievable and insane cruelty to man!
by Charlie Leck

About the time I was graduating from high school, Roger Kiser was just arriving at the Florida Industrial School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. A friend recently told me that Roger had written a book, The White House Boys, and that I ought to read it.

“Read the Prologue,” he said, “and you won’t put it down.”

So, yesterday I read the Prologue of the book. Three hours later, shaken and overwhelmed by a sense of the unbelievable, I put the book down, finished with it and madder than hell.

Unless you are up to facing the reality of man’s incredible “inhumanity to man,” you are not going to want to read this book.

There are a couple of ways to learn quickly what the book is about. One is to visit this web site: The White House Boys Survivor’s Organization Corp. Watch the video there, but be careful; for you may not be able to keep your last meal down.

The other way to learn quickly what was going on here is to read Roger Kiser’s speech at a ceremony in 2008 that acknowledged what had happened there. Four men, who as boys had lived at the reformed school, were invited to speak, without being censored, about what happened there. Roger was one of those speakers. Here’s what he said:
As I stand here before you today, the White House Torture Chamber less than four feet behind me, it is strange that the only word that comes to my mind is the word “masturbate.” Between Matron Mother Winters at the orphanage and Dr. Robert Curry, the psychologist you hired to straighten we boys out, that was the only word I ever heard come from these two individuals’ mouths. During the first twelve years of my life that seemed to be the most important thing the State of Florida wanted to know about me. It was bad enough never having had a real mother, but to have to sit through that type of degrading language was scary and disgusting. Governor, I have always wanted to say those words to you.

The term ‘reform school’ is supposed to be a positive place not a negative. You, the State of Florida, became my parents by an order of the court and placed me in a Jacksonville, Florida, orphanage. You, not I, chose to make that decision. I, being only four or five years old, had not choice in the matter. You had a responsibility to teach and prepare me for a life outside the orphanage. For seven years, you are the one who allowed me to sit on the end of my bed with only a single broken roller skate wheel to play with. For seven years, I sat there rocking back and forth on the end of my bed, my mind wasting away while I spun that single roller skate wheel around and around more then [sic] one-hundred million times. When I was not spinning that wheel I was over at Mother Winter’s room laying naked, my little head on her bare chest while she had me masturbate her.

But because I took one of the girl’s bicycles from the dormitory, climbed a tree now and then, and went to the bathroom or got a drink of water without asking permission, you sent me to this ungodly place. Whatever goodness might have been left of me at the age of twelve, you finally destroyed by beating the pure living hell out of me. You almost killed me. When I exited this damn building I was so bloody than no one could recognize me. I walked into the bathroom in Mr. Hatton’s office and I screamed in horror when I saw nothing more than a bloody monster in the mirror. Shaking and screaming, I begged Matron Mother Winters to please come and save me from you bastards. ‘I’ll help you masturbate Mother Winters, really I will and I won’t complain ever again.’ YOU CAUSED ME TO BEG FOR MY MOLESTER TO COME AND SAVE ME! THAT’S WHAT YOU DID TO ME!

Gentlemen, today, almost fifty years later, I now stand before you and I am still not sure if this building will allow me to smile. But that’s not the worse [sic] of it all. A secret inner hatred of society and a fear of my fellowman will forever be instilled and kept secretly hidden deep inside me because of this White House building, the Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna, Dr. Robert Curry, Mr. Hatton, and Mr. Troy Tidwell.

Was my secretly riding one of the girl’s bikes without the orphanage matron’s permission, or climbing up a thin tall pine tree, or stealing candy bar from the Patio restaurant because I was hungry worth the price the State of Florida made me pay?

I was not a murderer, a rapist, or a burglar. I was a danger to no one, other than maybe myself. As a child, I had never hurt anyone, not even under the slightest of terrible circumstances. I was just an innocent, confused, incorrigible, hungry, unwanted and unloved young boy who needed someone to let him know that he had a value to someone, somewhere in the world.

My entire adult life, those two horrendous beatings at the White House have been very difficult battles to deal with – one moment loving children, animals and most of humanity; the next moment a temper exploding into a fit of rage trying to protect myself from those who probably do not wish to harm me, but I cannot afford to take such a chance ever again.

I stand here today in remembrance of all the boys who were beaten, raped, and abused by this facility. But one that I will remember the most will be the boy who had his skin whipped off his back in one chunk from his shoulders to his knees.

I don’t know how many boys were killed here, and I don’t know if that we ever be known. But I do know this: Many a good little boy walked into this damn torture building but a lot more little Charlie Mansons walked back out than did good little boys. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I can only pray that things have changed for the children of today.

Mr. Kiser’s book catalogs and details the events of his life while living in the Florida Industrial School for Boys. You probably don’t want to know about them.

You can visit Roger Dean Kiser’s own personal web site and learn more about him.

32 comments:

  1. This comment from an angry reader who claimed to be one of the White House Boys recently came in. I don't usually publish comments that are anonymous, especially if they say potentially libelous things, as these do; but the rage sounds so authentic that I am compelled to provide them here:

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes well, in 1965-66 the strappings at FSB Marianna AKA Arthur G. Dozier School were light and mild, about as described by Troy Tidwell in his video deposition. I ought to know. I was there. It was the Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee in 1965-66 where leather strap flogging reached the level of psycho-sadistic paraphilia with 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160 hard whacks being laid on at a time to individual kids. One boy tried to commit suicide by diving off his bed head-first to the terazzo floor while waiting to be tortured. They trussed him in a strait-jacket, fastened a football helmet over his head, beat him mercilessly, and threw him bleeding back into his cell. This was at Okeechobee.

    The White House Boys' president, Richard J. (Dick) Colon, is a goddamn cowardly criminal who committed assault and battery and criminal, aggravated, felonious child abuse in Orlando, Florida on September 26, 2009. I am sure his White House Boys friends who helped him are proud of him. If I knew without any question I could do so without consequence, I would take a flame thrower to the White House Boys. Many were violent criminals at Marianna and only one thing could persuade them to leave others alone, and that was a leather strap stripping the skin from their backsides. Your sympathy for most of them is probably misplaced. Strong men with leather straps were the only reason many kids got out of those schools at Okeechobee and Marianna unharmed by their inmates. Anonymous.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was in Okeechobee - in 1965 and it was horrible. They beat me badly but they beat some much much worse. I remember while in lock up one time if they had beaten one boy to death. I lost count at about 136 or so - and they beat him until he passed out. I prayed and cried for him - his crime? Running to go home for some love.
      Records should have been kept. You say we boys were rabid criminals but I know better. The beatings I got were for talking in school - smoking little duds people would put out on the grounds and once I stole a ring - it was not going to be a permanent theft and I readily admitted it then and now it was wrong the ring was returned - still they beat me so bad they had to leave me in lock down for well over a week before they could let me be seen in the showers. Boys were raped and murdered and you say from the shadows of the administration & anonymity we were bad. My name is GARY RICE and I say the staff were the criminals and people like you were the staff. I will gladly debate you here with names and facts - dates and faces if you will come out of the closet you lying bastard. I forgive the men that beat us at Okeechobee but don't tell me it was for our own good - people literally do not beat a dog like they beat us.
      That's my 2cents
      Gary Norman Rice Adams Cottage 1964-5 7 months 15 days 6 hours and 45 minutes in Hell on Earth.

      Delete
    2. My name is James Hay. I was 16 in 1964 when sent to FSBO for running away from home. They beat us for any reason. I got my two for 3 cigarettes (35 wacks with the run-away paddle) and making a bullfrog sound behind a cottage parent's back Got 30 days in solitary as well. Some of the adult staff were okay but most were hateful men. Mr. Johns, about number 3 on the boss list was a sadistic, child beater and a pedophile. I hope he's met his just rewards. Yes, some of the guys there were predators and beat up other kids but they NEVER got beat. The tough guys were the buddies of the adult staff. I know of one teacher and house parent there who was a homosexual. He used to give the smallest children there (his cottage) on campus and spend hours teaching them how to use toilet paper. The dentist (I was a dental assistant for a while) would slap patients for moving in the dental chair. Mostly ruined my whole frickin life. If the State of Florida were to give me a million bucks it would not come close to covering the pain that sadistic bunch did to me.

      Delete
    3. Rice and Hay come across like they were choir boys set upon by the evil state of Florida, when in fact they were criminals well deserving of a weighted leather flogging strap stripping the skin from there backsides. Nobody went to Okeechobee for running away from home. Some kids were railroaded, but comparatively few.

      Delete
    4. Donald Johns was a hateful man. That was my impression too. They came into the adjustment unit one dark drunken night with some of their buddies from town to demonstrate how they could yank some terrified kid from his mattress and beat him to a pulp. Dirty bastards, and state officials should have been assassinated. That's my opinion. I was planning a 9-11 against Tallahassee or local in 1970-71. How do you think I got into a discussion about airplane attacks with people in Saudi Arabia in 1997? I had written up a plan for it in 1989 and have it now. Zych, Johns and Davis were hateful, offensive criminals funded by a state apperatus, and abetted by a chickenshit ignorant society habituated to the civil obedience of bowed-down, sucking, bottom dwellers.

      Delete
  3. I dont get this? Are you calling us Lairs?! Computer commandos are cowards...Tell it to our face & we'll see what happens. Seems like,you have other psychological issues to deal with. Attacking men that said what they went through is not going to heal you problems, it could only make them worse! Get professional help before, you make the mistake of mouthing off to the wrong person! FSB Alumni 1961-62-63-64.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, the white house boys are scums and liars, and it really is that simple. What about what they put other people through? They will never tell you that. They are the dregs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey are you still around or have you been committed yet?

      Delete
    2. Yep,still around, and like your wife, been all over town.

      Delete
  5. To the anonymous Take just A little Ride on the BED then try and Give an observation Till the You Know Nothing !! Your worst Nightmare become's REAL and You Can't wake up! When you do your still in HELL FSBM 63 FSBO 66 Run AWAY What a CRIME!!! J.C

    ReplyDelete
  6. Charles Shoot me a line was at FSBO 6566 was the Baker Madison cottage jdc313@aol.com did ya know acea hurd

    ReplyDelete
  7. I knew Acea a little. He had legs like broom sticks and a normal upper body. He needed metal braces from his feet to his hips just to stand up. He needed crutches to walk. He was abnormally short because of his disfigurement. He had almost no backside at all, but one of those sadistic state-fed bastards found a way to beat it anyway.

    I was in lockup in the "adjustment unit", Okeechobee's white house, only worse, when they brought him in for his flogging. I recognized his voice and someone called him by name. I could hear them order him out of his braces. To this day, 45 years later, I can remember the clinking of those metal braces as they were thrown onto the terrazo floor, just like it was yesterday. I don't remember how many lashes he had to take. He might deny all this if asked about it, and I cannot say he was the most honest person I had ever met. Seems like he had three strikes against him from the day he was born.

    In those days a runaway from FSBO was made to regret the day he had ever been born. If you think that's an exaggeration, it's like the poster above said. Ride the bed a few times, even once, with sadists like Donald Johns, E.B. Davis, or Frank Zych flying that strap, and then you will know what that means. If you don't believe that, I would tell you to ask Patrick Timothy Gabriel who was about 15 years old in those days, but he wouldn't be able to answer you. He ran away to avoid sadistic torture in 1965, and was shot between the eyes.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The beatings at FSBM before 1965-66 were quite different and more severe. We were all apprised of this in 1966. However, in 1966 nobody sweated the whitehouse anymore. I saw quite a few boys come back from the whitehouse in 1966. You could see their buttocks and see there was hardly any discoloration at all. Troy Tidwell told the truth from what I saw in 1965-66. The beatings at FSBO in 1965 were ferocious torture. In 1966-67 the beatings at FSBO were not nearly as severe as in 1965. Why this was so I don't know, but it was so. I counted the number of whacks kids got for seventy days at FSBO. Now, are you saying I'm lying? And you had better watch out too Mr. criminal.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you counted the wacks we got and I got my share you are a criminal as well or you would not have been there. The beatings I got should have required a hospital visit. No sane person would beat an animal like they beat me. My crime? Skipping school.
      You sound like a troll - I was in Adams Cottage - GARY RICE- - I was also known as GARY NORMAN because of an adoption.

      Delete
    2. Rice (Norman), I agree about the staff at FSBO in 1965-66. That kid you said they may have beat to death. Was that the black guy? If so, you were in the adjustment unit the same time I was. That one guy they beat over and over again for weeks. He started out making the loudest, weirdest, animal-like noised the first week or so, and later settled into extreme grunts and guttural sounds, and near the end, nothing at all. They may have in fact beat him to death. Near the end of six weeks of beatings it sounded like flogging dead meat, just the sound of the leather strap, and no noise out of him at all. It was horror heaped upon horror. They gave him several hundred whacks. You count over 135, and I assure you that was only that one day's torture. I know this for fact.

      Delete
  9. 2 January 2013: A rash of comments have come in lately about this blog, including 3 last night. Some of these recent blogs make serious charges against named persons without the person making the comments and charges identifying himself. After legal counsel I am refusing to post those blogs. Another contained an extraordinary amount of blue language and unimaginable sexual references. In the interest of decency and protecting my readers, I am also not going to publish those comments. Charles Leck (AD ASTRA)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Further Update: 3 January 2013.
    It turns out that 3 of the comments we received in the last few days about the White House Boys were submitted by the same person. They present some pretty serious charges about one of the players in this terrible event, but they are not documented or substantiated with any evidence whatsoever. I would like to communicate more expediently with the person making these comments and I invite him to email me directly so we can start a conversation about what he claims: chasleck@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  11. I have only just heard of this story recently, and it physically makes me sick just reading the sheer horror these boys endured for so long. with government turning a blind eye and the people who were supposed to protect and guide these kids using them as their own personal sadistic sex objects and whipping posts. As a fellow human being I'm so sorry this happened to any of these boys. I'm not sure why "anonymous" is so angry at people who are bringing awareness to this tragedy. These boys who have turned into the "criminals" and "addicts" have become this because they have been failed since the day they were born and have probably never had the adequate support and therapy needed to deal with the issues that these experiences have created for them. I'm sure the abuse was handed down from boy to boy also but if it's all any of these kids knew in the few years they had been put on this earth, that's all they new. From abuse at home to this place and to prison. Its a never ending cycle. There are those that find a way to fight through their demons but there are those that just can't do it alone. I don't understand how such sick sadistic people find there way into the ranks of caring for children. On top of that, troubled kids that need the extra guidance and support to begin with. I dont care if this is a story of 50 years ago or 1 year ago, these things need to be brought to light, because we all know these things are happening in other places right here and right now. People have just found new ways to abuse and new ways to cover up the abuse and will continue to do so unless the institutional torture of children is brought to the forefront (that includes our current foster care system). I also don't understand why there are statutes of limitations on crimes against children anyway. It makes no logical or rational sense. Too many issues to even go any further, this all makes me angry. Thanks for letting me speak my mind. I hope all the survivors find the peace they deserve someday. Now excuse me, I have to go hug my son.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Childhood abuse is not a free ticket to abuse others with impunity. The abuses at Okeechobee and Marianna were exposed in the 1960s. Why do you think they outlawed the beatings, officially anyway? Have you met the so-called WHBs? What stupid, ignorant, rude, scum they are. What group of men choose as their president a man who brutally raped his own sister-in-law when she was eleven years old? They are worse than the state-fed bastards who used them for their own paraphiliac thrills those many years ago. How intelligent is it to try and sue dead men fifty years after the tolling of the statutes of limitations? How smart can they be when they say they want dead men in their graves brought to justice? How wise was it for them to ask the state to investigate itself? It's like going to the mafia with a complaint about organized crime. They are no good bastards. I knew many in Marianna and I had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any of them. I was Ace with a perfect record. I got out in record time. It was WHBs who kept fomenting hatred against anyone who achieved the rank of Ace by insisting that Aces got rank by ratting out other boys to get out early. Nothing was further from the truth. All you had to do to get Ace was not break any rules whatsoever, do your job, go to school, behave, and don't mess with anyone else. That was it. Those WHBs were idiots because what they kept doing and saying to get themselves into trouble were obvious and easy for anyone to see, but they were too stupid to fgure it out. They had to blame and attack others for their own stupid recalcitrant failures. Some formed gangs and beat the crap out of other kids in the locker room or the dormitory. They beat up some kids really seriously. I mean they ended up in the hospital. I am sure such records as those are kept out of public awareness. Ask Charles Youse AKA Krout how many weeks he spent in the hospital after these poor, forlorn, innocent, WHBs kicked his teeth out of his mouth in 1965-66 in John Howard's cottage?

      Some kids were compartively innocent and were railroaded into those places in Okeechobee and Marianna. Some were beaten horrifically for little or nothing. I witnessed beatings for 70 days in Okeechobee's so-called "adjustment unit." I doubt floggings in concentration camps in Europe during the Second WW were worse than some of the tortures I know about. As for myself, they locked me up in juvenile detention after I reported the actions of a male principal who abducted me to sexually molest me. Unfortunately, he knew people and made life bad for me because I told on him. Bastards tried to have me murdered when I was in a cell at 15. The let the would-be murderer go and kept me in after I had been seriously injured. They refused to let a doctor in. They refused to take me out for much needed medical care. The took me to Okeechobee. No jury. No lawyer. No witness. No defense. No court. They put me in solitary confinement for 70 days, still without any medical care at all for serious, life-threatening injuries, and they beat me to a bloody pulp for nothing. All the while, serial adult felons who had committed repeated crimes against others and me, who had been reported to the authorities, were allowed to live freely in the community. And for me? Not even a -- Sorry about that. I am also the person who got detailed information about the attacks of 9-11 in 1997. Did I tell the upper authorities? Hell no! Would you have? You may think this is BS, but it isn't at all. I despise those bastards in power for their abuses and their smug goddamn arrogant attitudes. I hope they get blasted again worse than the last time.

      Delete
    2. You and I got beat as kids so thousands should die today? Take some pills and go to sleep. Forever! What's with your name. Are you ashamed of who you are?

      Delete
    3. The problem is they did not beat you long enough and hard enough. If you had gotten your ass whipped in 1965 I doubt they would have let you slide with a puny little 35 whacks. In 65 they usually started with 40, and 60 was common. It could got to 150 nice and slow to extend the excruciation deep and long. How many kids did you puke out to get only 35 whacks. Only rats got off that easy.

      Delete
  12. We want to know why after committing repeated felonious assaults including the violent serial rape of an 11-year-old girl, this creep, Richard Colon, has not been arrested. They reported him to police. Is it because he is the wealthy owner of Mace Electric in Baltimore? Is the Amerikan system of law really that corrupt?

    http://www.ripoffreport.com/richard-j-dick-colon/sex-offenders/baltimore-maryland-60fdf.htm

    ReplyDelete
  13. I ran away from an abusive home. Quit painting us all with the same phule brush, anonymous punk!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I don't understand any of this.How can people be so mean about children which is what this is about. The State of Florida took in young children for minor offenses and totally allowed these settings to destroy their lives. My son had a lot of problems in school and by today's standards they would have been mild. The school district suggested a residential school for him in north palm beach. When he would run away and come home with a friend and talk about how the staff beat kids I thought it was his overactive imagination. Months later I withdrew him from that school but he still couldn't get along in school and then was put in a group home where things got better but after that program ended he went to a foster home where he could be better controlled. He got into legal trouble and was sent to Arthur Dozier School for boys. I was told that he needed limited contact with me if he was progressing and then I would be reunited with him. A couple of months after he was had been at the school I got a call at work from an attorney with the Civil Liberties Union telling me how they were investigating the school for abuse and preparing a lawsuit against Governor Graham. She proceeded to describe the conditions under which she found my child which was in isolation wearing a pair of men's pajamas where he was hogtied. He was then 12 years old. I contacted the courts and arranged a visit and by all accounts it looked like a college campus and was beautiful. My child told me all kind of stories about abuse and I just thought he was exaggerating. My grandmother had gone with me and I could see she was upset by what he was saying so we visited and I left. I raised hell and he was transferred to Okeechobee to what was a school that had been taken over by the Eckerd Foundation and it's image was drastically improved. Hogwash, it was another front with the same scummy corrupt people working there. A few months after he was put there I kidnapped him and when I was threatened with arrest and I threatened them with going to the media they release my child to my custody. He was not even 13 years old. So all you scumbags who want to defend these trashy employees of these institutions can kiss my ass. Oh yeh if anyone knows if DJ Pittman from Marianna is still alive I would love to chat with him.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Right on Janet. Most all the kids came from broken homes and economically deprived, disadvantaged backgrounds. There was a reason for that, and it was not that lower class kids were the only types doing things wrong. It was because poor people are much easier to exploit and harm with impunity. It was and still is a form of class warfare in some sort of perverted devious pecking order. I never tell the full truth of the extents of the beatings perpetrated against some kids in Okeechobee in 1965 because people become incredulous at the nasty sadistic truth of it all.

    ReplyDelete
  16. As for Hay, the best thing he / she could to to improve this society is hang himself.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hay's unreasonable answers demonstrate that when you allow the general commonality of humanity to participate in a discussion requiring thought, the levels of right and reason decline. You get one non sequiter after another. Yes, I had been aware of the coming attacks of 9-11 since 1997, but the gross malfeasance of government in Florida and their sadistic torture of kids were only parts of the reasons I could not go to the higher authorities with the information I had. I did tell about 130 people about the attacks from 1997 to and through the night of September 10, 2001. I couldn't get anyone to listen to me and take it seriously. The fact that those authorities I told did in fact cover it up says a lot too. There was also the matter of 6 months of precisely worded terrorist threats and the slaughter of 104 people and wounding of 265of which I am a survivor. There were many other matters. Hay's ignorant comment that thousands died because we got beat when we were kids is stupid and inappropriate. I do not owe warnings to any government or society that condones felonies against me. I am a man and not a dog. The many warnings I did give were out of humanity and kindness.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I ran away to escape a school principal who was trying to sexually molest me. I reported him. They locked me up in juvenile detention and let him go. FU, F Florida, F the state. 9-11Sic semper tyrannis.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I notice the mentally challenged Hay and Rice (Norman) have not contributed anything of value to this forum, unless you think threats, vulgar stupidity, and irrelevant jibberish are important to the subject. Their child-molesting president, Richard J. Colon of Mace Electric in Baltimore, is still on the loose. I am sure Hay and Rice are proud of him for slipping the law once again. Colon is their hero, I am sure. How well does it represent the White House Boys that they elected as their president a pervert who sadistically, brutally, repeatedly raped his own 11-year-old sister in law, forced her into group sex, and coerced her to get an abortion at the tender age of 12. The White House Boys are no class act by any stretch of the imagination. Colon's record makes us wonder what their offenses have been, especially those who did not get caught in the act. I mean, if they elect a known child molester, you can guess what they are themselves. The fact they get a lot of press indicates not the value of their organization and their goals, but the low level of moral values to which the media will plunge in order to sensationalize examples of state sponsored terrorism against children.

    ReplyDelete
  20. World history presents the facts with clarity and many examples. The worst abusers of human rights throughout the past have been governments, military forces and police forces. Government and police, judges, tax payers were all complicit in the abuses of children at the Florida schools for boys at Okeechobee and Marianna.

    ReplyDelete