PROBLEMS
ifornia
mal
ity
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
IN MEMORY OF
MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
PRISON PROBLEMS
PROPOUNDED IN
PROSE AND POETRY
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap." Gal. 6-7.
"The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted
they have torn me and I bleed!
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a
seed." Lord Byron.
COMPILED BY
FRED HIGH
SECOND EDITION
PUBLISHED BY
THE PLATFORM
THE LYCEUM AND CHAUTAUQUA MAGAZINE
602 STEINWAY HALL, CHICAGO
1913
Prison Problems
GUARANTORS.
Abraham Lincoln, then only a young- man, visited
New Orleans, stood before a slave market and saw
human beings sold at public auction, took this secret
vow: "If ever I get a chance to strike that insti-
tution a blow, I will do it." With Lincoln's view
fresh in his memory a gaunt, callow youth, on his
first real excursion into the big world visited the
Ohio State penitentiary where the sight of a horde
of lazy hirelings sitting with guns across their
knees, oozing out an existence as guards over their
feflowmen who slaved with down cast eyes, heavy
hearts and fettered hopes, not that they might be
reformed half so much as that greater profits might
be piled up for the contractors whose slaves these
prisoners were; contrasting the life of the guards
and keepers with the Simon Legrees of slavery
times, as that youth left that relic of the dark ages
he took Lincoln's vow : "If I ever get a chance to
strike that institution a blow, I'll do it."
This volume of Prison Problems was conceived,
compiled and is sent forth as an effort to hit that
inhuman prison policy that treats men as criminals
instead of looking upon them as brothers.
Being unable to strike this blow alone, this vol-
ume of Prison Problems is the co-operated effort of
the following persons who stood as financial guar-
antors and therefore deserve the credit for making
this effort possible: Edmund Vance Cooke, Poet-
Entertainer, 30 Mayfield Rd., Cleveland, O. ; Lou
J. Beauchamp, Humorous-Philosopher, Hamilton,
Prison Problems 3
Ohio; H. \V. Sears, The Taffy Man, Waverly, 111.;
William Sterling Battis, the Dickens Imperson-
ator, 6315 Yale Avenue, Chicago, Illinois;
J. E. Brockway, Manager, Redpath-Brockway
Lyceum Bureau, Wabash Bldg., Pittsburg, Pa. ;
R. R. Hamilton, Pres., National Lyceum Associa-
tion, 122 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, 111. ; Lincoln
McConnell, Lecturer, Thomaston, Ga. ; Chas. W.
Ferguson, Pres. Chautauqua Managers' Association,
630 Orchestra Bldg., Chicago, 111.; Mrs. Nora Mae
High, Vocalist, Waynesburg, Pa. ; Ellsworth Plum-
stead, Entertainer, Birmingham, Mich. ; Frank M.
Chaffee, President, Century Lyceum Bureau, 122
S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, 111.; Geo. P. Bible, Lec-
turer, 5212 Locust St., Philadelphia, Pa.; Wm. A.
McCormick, Entertainer, Onekama, Mich. ; B. F.
Pratt, Lecturer, 5126 Highland Ave., Tacoma,
Wash.; Wm. S. Sadler, M. D., Chautauqua Lec-
turer, 32 N. State St., Chicago; Nelson A. Jenkins,
Lyceum Committeeman, Conneaut, Ohio; Thos.
Brooks Fletcher, Lecturer, Marion, Ohio; Chester
Birch, Lecturer-Evangelist, Winona Lake, Ind. ; A
L. Flude, Manager Chautauqua Managers' Associa-
tion,- Orchestra Bldg., Chicago; Margaret Stahl, In-
terpreter, Fremont, Ohio ; Robert Parker Miles, 1433
Cordova St., Lakewood, Ohio ; Osceola Pooler,
Reader, Tustin, Mich. ; J. F. Caveny, 4806 Evans
Ave., Chicago; Henry Clark, Lecturer, Galesburg,
111. ; Strickland W. Gillilan, Humorist, Roland Park,
Md. ; Wm. I. Atkinson, District Manager of the
Mutual Lyceum Bureau, Clarksville, Iowa; I. N.
Kuhn, Lyceum Patron, Waynesburg, Pa.
2041975
Prison Problems
OUR PURPOSE.
Only such principles, fundamental philosophy
and practical scientific facts as have been gathered
by men and women of authority (with one excep-
tion) have been given a place in this little volume.
There is no attempt to make a novel ; neither is
it a salacious romance ; nor yet is it a literary
journey thru the underworld. It is an attempt to
present crime and criminals as they are, and since
the state and the nation collectively and you and
your neighbor and me and mine are responsible for
the conditions that obtain, then it is only just that
we set to work to clean up our part of the appalling
maelstrom of vice, crime and corruption that seems
to sweep over the land in tidal waves. Can we
justify our acts in punishing our weaker brothers
and sisters when much of their weakness is the re-
sult of environment and the inexorable law of
heredity ?
What is at the bottom of most crime? Warden
Sanders, of Fort Madison, says it is "booze."
We, the citizens of a Christian nation, vote to give
the saloon-keepers the right to sell "booze" and
then in our piety and self-righteousness and morally
disinfected spasms of virtue we are horrified and
cry for the officers to pummel and punish the men
and women who fall victims to these very man-
traps that we helped to dig.
Each chapter is presented either as a study in the
cause of crime or as a factor in the reformation of
criminals. The poetic section is a study of the men-
Prison Problems 5
tal viewpoint of the man behind the bars ; it is a
psychological cameo of the soul of the man in the
iron cage.
This volume was compiled to create discussion,
to cause its readers to stop and think, to create such
a moral resolve that out of this Stygian night will
come gleams of hope for a better day. The prob-
lems before us are as old as the human race; they
have the power of self-generation, and even if they
will be with us until the human race shall have run
its course, and old Father Time is asleep in the
abysmal night of oblivion, you and I must do our
little mite towards bringing about a better day
now for our fellows who have stumbled on the
rough journey and have stepped aside from the
straight and narrow path, where none save the
Master has w r alked.
Study the claims and assertions made by the
authors of the various chapters. Dispute their con-
clusions, dissect the figures and p#ss the volume on
to your neighbor and out of this will come much
good that must result in changed conditions, in
more humane treatment, in a search for the cause
of crime, rather than the improved forms of punish-
ment for criminals.
This little volume was compiled for the single
purpose of creating public sentiment that must in-
spire the soldiers of the common good who are now
engaged against such relics of barbarism as the
present contract system, that indefensible species
of human slavery that must be wiped out before
love can supplant hate, so that our penitentiaries
shall cease to be criminal factories and become re-
form institutions.
6 Prison Problems
It is the urgent request of the sponsors of this
volume that it be not placed on any book shelf, but
that it be loaned to ministers, editors, lawyers and
educators, and thus be kept in constant use. Each
minister who reads it is requested to preach a ser-
mon on some of these mighty problems.
Mr. Editor, you are urged to read this volume,
and then make copious clippings from its pages;
use it as a press sheet, comment on it, review its
contents, then urge your readers to purchase a copy
to start on this endless round of agitation and edu-
cation that must bear fruit in righteous legislation.
Above all, we urge you noble women, who bless
every community with your unselfish devotion to
human betterment and moral uplift, to study this
little volume, talk about it at your clubs, at your
churches and in your homes. We would further
ask that the boys and girls in our high schools,
colleges and all other educational institutions use
one of these problems as a theme for your essays
or orations and after its delivery send it to the
guarantors of this little volume.
We further ask each person who sees a review,
news note, or hears any mention made of Prison
Problems, that the facts be communicated to Fred
High, Steinway Hall, Chicago, and don't forget that
we are our brother's keeper.
Maud Ballington Booth says : "In the 16 years
since the work of the Salvation Prison Reform was
started 20,000 men have been released from prison
under the Volunteer Prison League guidance. Dur-
ing the time 75,000 have been converted while
within the prison walls, and 12,000 have passed
thru the various league homes, coming from prison
Prison Problems 1
to them and from them to the world of men, re-
habilitated."
As I stood before almost five hundred prisoners
at Fort Madison, Iowa, on Thanksgiving day, I
said : "Men, you probably think that as I stand
here and look into your faces, I am wondering
how so many of you got in here, but I am not. I
am wondering how on earth I ever kept out of here
this long. There is many a true word spoken in a
joke."
The man who, Pouter Pigeon like, struts around
the sanctuary of the Lord the most when the people
are watching him, and shouts thief, thief, thief the
loudest when people are listening to him, is gen-
erally the cuss who is too chicken-hearted to be a
real crook and too crooked to be even a ballyhoo
orator for a church raffle.
This is a queer world. Society will lie and perjure
its soul to keep a wrong-doer from going to "The
Pen" ; but, after one is there, that same crowd will
do all in its power to break the spirit, to crush
out hope, to humiliate the victim and his friends,
to maltreat, mistreat, beat and bruise the poor un-
fortunate object of its wrath. The slant-eyed suds
mongers of the city of Boston, who, according to
Tom Watson, "own fifteen thousand white women,
whom they sell and pass around among themselves,
at $15 and $20 apiece," receive more real sympathy
than our own fellowmen who are in durance vile.
The object of all prison work is twofold, to pro-
tect society and to reform the prisoner. There
isn't a man or a woman with the brain power of
a maltese cat but who knows that the past method
of mistreating prisoners made reformation almost
8 Prison Problems
an impossibility. We judge institutions by results
just as we judge individuals, and the results of our
methods have been horribly bad. A righteous cru-
sade is now being made through the magazines and
public press against the barbarity of prison meth-
ods, the antequated cruelty of the prison rules, and
the inhuman methods of (mis) treating the prisoners
by those in charge. No man, no race, ought to have
unlimited authority over any other individual or
race of men. It has always bred tyranny, brutality,
and resulted in a rebound action that mentally,
morally and physically paralyzed the person or race
in authority.
In Chicago, during two years, 34 bombs were
exploded, destroying thousands of dollars worth of
property. Two brothers were tried for throwing a
bomb ; three men swore they all but saw them ;
one swore he helped make the bomb; a jury set the
men free because they thought the witnesses were
swearing falsely, to get the mammoth rewards that
ran into the thousands. Could you get three men
to swear to a lie for $10,000? It is common street
gossip that you can get them here for two dollars
a head. Then, on the other hand, can you fix a
jury? But why go on? Can't we see that the
chances for railroading a man to "the Pen" are
great, but don't the records of all institutions teem
with names of men who have been as much wronged
as they have wronged?
In this very prison at Fort Madison was enacted
a wrong that is not without its many parallels. Back
in '61 the cry of war was abroad in the land. The
president, in the name of patriotism, called upon
the young men to fight, to shoot, to kill. A young
Prison Problems 9
man enlisted, he fought, he shot and he killed. A
generous government paid him $13 a month for his
services ; after the war the grateful people pensioned
him. At the front he learned to kill in deliberation
and years afterward it was charged that he killed
a man in a fit of passion. He was sent to Fort
Madison for life and his Christian friends asked
God to have mercy on his soul. They had none.
After thirty-one years of service, the great state of
Iowa turned this old veteran out of prison, and ac-
knowledged that the state had done him an irrepar-
able wrong. He was pardoned for a crime that he
had never committed. Don't censure Iowa; your
state and my state have done things no doubt worse.
In Maryland, adultery is punished by a fine of
$10, and in Iowa by three years' imprisonment in
the penitentiary. No one in Maryland would think
of the inhuman sentence of three years without the
privilege of speech. In most Pens, you are not al-
lowed to talk. Men have even lost the power of con-
versation.
When the sugar trust stole millions and were
caught, the thieves resigned ; but who ever heard
of the poor resigning? If a clerk in a store stole
$100, would his resignation keep him out of prison?
I have tried to make you see, dear reader, that
the difference between the wrong-doer who has been
sent up and the one who has escaped is nil. Now,
why all this harsh prejudice against the detained
offender?
Fort Madison has inaugurated a real school sys-
tem, whereby prisoners are taught to read and write
and the results of this effort are amazing. Some day
attendance will be made compulsory. At present,
10 Prison Problems
the school is a night school only, for the people of
Iowa are dead certain that they would rather have
60 cents from one of the largest trusts in America
for the man's work than to realize that they are
working to help restore a weak brother. They
would rather send their money to christianize the
poor Japanese than to spend it humanizing the in-
mates of their prison. The people of Iowa would
rather pay the trust $1 for a steel rake than to spend
$1 to save a human rake from stealing.
The historical and literary society is a great,
growing and influential organization. The mem-
bers did me the honor to hold an extra meeting
Thursday evening, when about twenty of us met in
a large cell, without a guard or an attendant, and
spent what to me was one of the happiest and most
profitable two hours that I have spent for months.
Three papers were read, one on "Reading as a
Habit," "The Editor as a Political Boss," and "A
Sketch of France," and so well prepared, well-
written and informing were these papers that it was
more a reminder of college days than of prison
bars.
One of the reforms that all of this discussion has
brought about is to substitute a service of hope,
of faith, of good cheer for the old, whining harangue
on retribution. The rehashing of the husks that a
certain gentleman used in lieu of a bundle of shred-
ded wheat biscuits, and when his fodder gave out re-
turned to where the fatted calf had been patiently
waiting for almost ten years to be slaughtered in
honor of the spendthrift's return.
A word to preachers, lecturers and singers : Don't
expect an encore on "Where Is My Wandering Boy
Prison Problems 11
Tonight." Common sense will teach you that he
sits right in front of you, and that he is not doing
much wandering, either. That bunch of crooks
know they are guilty, if they are guilty. Then, why
appeal to them to arise and go to their father's
house? Don't you know that the ordinary warden
won't allow them to go?
Now is the time to plead for the new idea, for
the advance movement. The lyceum is honored by
the work that Mrs. Booth is doing. Mrs. Maybrick
deserves great credit for her efforts. Caleb Powers
did a wise thing when he rushed to the platform,
and Cole Younger showed good sense in hiking for
the rostrum instead of the dime museum.
As a profession, are we pleading for humane treat-
ment for those on the inside of prison walls as we
plead for the brotherhood of man for all on the out-
side?
Isn't it worth our while to try and help solve this
problem? In Chicago last year there were 202 kill-
ings. In Canada there were 12 murders for every
million population. Last year there were 103 execu-
tions in the United States for 9,000 murders. It is
claimed by those who ought to know that the
chances are four to one that even our worst
criminals will not be apprehended in the United
States. The chances are ten to one that they will
never be convicted and twenty to one that they will
never go to the penitentiary.
What is needed is not less punishment, but that it
will be distributed a little more in accordance with
the square-deal principle.
12 Prison Problems
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF MUSIC.
By H. Addington Bruce.
Belief in the efficacy of music as an adjunct
in the treatment of diseases is literally as old as
antiquity. At least one reference to it is found in
the Bible, in the episode of David curing Saul of
melancholia by his skill as a musician. The ancient
Greeks and Romans were enthusiastic advocates
of "musical medicine" as a remedy for all sorts of
maladies. Thus, Aulus Agellus particularly ex-
tolled the music of the flute as a cure for sciatica,
an opinion which Democritus also voiced ; while
Pythagoras is credited with having composed "cer-
tain divine mixtures of 'diatonic, enharmonic, and
chromatic melodies, which were designed as anti-
dotes to moods."
But it cannot be said that the medical profession
as a whole has paid much attention, until quite re-
cently, to the views advanced by the ancients; or
to the hints thrown out by individual physicians,
who, as a result of personal experience, have be-
come convinced that music has a therapeutic value.
In only one field, the treatment of mental disease,
is it today utilized to any extent, and there mainly
in the way of asylum concerts and dances, and as an
ameliorative, rather than a curative, measure.
Lately, however, as evidenced by the tone of edi-
torial articles in leading medical journals, both in
this country and abroad, there have been signs of
a rapidly growing interest in the subject and an
Prison Problems 13
unwonted readiness to investigate it. Undoubtedly
this is due, in the main, to the amazing discoveries
that modern psychology has made with regard to
the influence of the mind on the health of the body.
It is not known, to mention one discovery of espe-
cial importance in connection with the problem of
the healing power of music, that the state of one's
thoughts and emotions exercises an appreciable ef-
fect in the circulation, the digestion, the respiration,
and, in short, the functioning of every bodily organ.
The distinguished Italian scientist, Angelo Mosso,
placed several of his colleagues and students, one
after another, on an apparatus constructed in such a
way that the body of a man could be balanced on it
in a horizontal position. Its mechanism was so
sensitive that it oscillated according to the rhythm
of the subject's breathing. Commenting on the re-
sults of the experiments, Professor Mosso said :
"If one spoke to a person while he was lying on
the balance, in equilibrium and perfectly quiet, it
inclined immediately towards the head. The legs
became lighter and the head heavier. This phe-
nomenon was constant, whatever pains the subject
took not to move, however he endeavored not to
to speak, to do nothing which might produce a more
copious flow of blood to the head."
Even in sleep the same phenomenon was evident :
"When all was quiet, one of us would inten-
tionally make a slight noise by coughing, scraping
a foot on the ground, or moving a chair; and at
once the balance inclined again towards the head,
remaining immovable for four or five minutes, with-
out the subject's noticing anything or waking.
14 Prison Problems
* * * It proved by this balance that at the
slightest emotion, the blood rushes to the head."
Following up these experiments, Dr. William G.
Anderson, using a similar apparatus, and selecting
as subjects a group of Yale students, proved that the
blood could be sent to the legs by merely concentrat-
ing the attention and thinking of moving them, but
without executing any actual movement. The same
motor influence of thought and emotion on different
organs of the body has been demonstrated by other
competent investigators with the aid of various
scientific instruments, by which the effect of mental
states on the action of the heart, lungs, muscles, etc.,
has been studied with the most delicate precision.
The results of their researches are conclusive
enough to justify Professor James's emphatic asser-
tion:
"All mental states (no matter what their char-
acter as regards utility) are followed by bodily ac-
tivity of some sort. They lead to inconspicuous
changes in breathing, circulation, general muscular
tension, and glandular or other visceral activity,
even if they do not lead to conspicuous movements
of the muscles of voluntary life. * * * All states
of mind, even mere thoughts and feelings, are motor
in their consequences."
Experiment has further proved that pleasurable
mental states have a distinct tonic value to the whole
organism, while mental states that are disagree-
able have a weakening effect. Accordingly, every-
thing that tends to expel "discordant" thoughts, to
allay worry, anxiety, grief, anger, fretfulness, de-
spair; replacing them with mental states of con-
tentment, hope, .peace, happiness, courage, must be
Prison Problems 15
of medicinal usefulness. It is this that, in the last
analysis, accounts for the success of all "faith heal-
ing" systems, so far as they are successful ; and it
is this that warrants the utilization of music as a
weapon in the warfare against disease.
Beyond the slightest doubt, there is none other of
the arts that so strongly appeals to the emotional
side of man. In some measure everybody has ex-
perienced, and will readily acknowledge, music's
unique suggestive force in conveying ideas and feel-
ings, creating moods, and impelling to action. Who
of us can listen unmoved to the plaintive sweetness
of "Home, Sweet Home," or has not felt the blood
pulse faster at "Dixie's" exhilarating strains? It
is not hard to understand the magic in the Finale of
Beethovan's "Fifth Symphony" that caused the
Napoleonic veteran to leap to his feet in the crowd-
ed concert hall, with the cry : "The Emperor !" Nor
can we wonder that, during the wars of the French
Revolution, it was forbidden, on pain of death, to
play the "Ranz des Vaches" in the hearing of the
Swiss soldiers, as it was found that the familiar
melody inspired them with such an intense longing
for home that they were deserting by hundreds.
For that matter, experimental evidence has been
obtained demonstrating that music "suggests" men-
tal states of great emotional significance, and that
through these it acts powerfully on the physical or-
ganism.
Obviously, if music is helpful in time of illness,
by virtue of its power to influence the body thru
the mind, setting in motion those healing forces
latent in all of us, it is still more useful from a pre-
ventive and hygienic point of view. It is valuable
16 Prison Problems
not simply as an aid to health, but as a powerful
auxiliary in the development of intellect and char-
acter. The ancient Greeks considered the study
of music indispensable to a proper education.
Today, in our schools, music is gaining increas-
ing recognition as an educational force. It still is
absent from too many homes. Yet it is incompara-
bly more needed in the home than in the school-
room, because it is there that its great suggestive
power may make itself most surely felt, to aid in
right thinking and right living. And nowadays,
since the invention of "player-pianos," and "talk-
ing machines," even those devoid of musical skill
can command in their homes all the music they
wish, and draw at will on its wondrous resources
as a giver of pleasure and an energizer of the body
and the mind.
Prison Problems 17
THE AMERICAN COMMON SCHOOL.
By Rt. Rev. Samuel Fallows, D. D., LL. D.
A sermon delivered at the request of the Na-
tional Educational Association at its recent conven-
tion in Chicago.
"John Stuart Mill once claimed that it would be
well to question an axiom so that the truth con-
tained in it might be the more clearly seen. It
would seem like arraigning an axiom in the educa-
tional world to call in question the value of a broad,
liberal public school system to the people of the
United States. Yet it has been done and is still be-
ing done. Richard Grant White fiercely attacked
the public schools a few years ago in the North
American Review, calling them a failure. Benjamin
Reece followed in the same track still later in an
article in the Popular Science Monthly. More re-
cently Rebecca Harding Davis took up the same
strain in a contribution to the North American Re-
view.
"Mr. White maintained that 'our large towns
swarm with idle, vicious lads and young men with-
out visible means of support. Our rural districts
are infested with tramps, a species of the genus
homo, unknown to our forefathers. Our legisla-
tures are corrupt, our great corporations buy them
up at will. The dominant political parties are
guilty of bribery at elections. The judges on the
bench have notably declined in learning, wisdom and
integrity. Dishonesty in business and betrayal of
18 Prison Problems
trust are matters of common shame. Politics have
been largely handed over to the inferior men of love
of cunning. Divorces have fearfully multiplied
Filial respect has diminished; our young men and
young women have lost their modesty and ceased
to blush for the loss.
" 'Crime and vice have increased year after year,
corresponding almost exactly to the development
of the common school system. It has given us also
a nondescript and hybrid class, unfitted for pro-
fessional or mercantile life, unwilling and also un-
able to be farmers and artisans and who have left
both skilled and unskilled labor to be performed
by immigrant foreigners.'
"The arguments affirming that our common
schools are the cause of crime, are fallacious through
and through. From the statistics carefully gathered
by the bureau of education and revealed in the
history of our reformatories and penal institutions,
we learn that one-fifth of all criminals are totally
uneducated and that the other four-fifths are practi-
cally uneducated. We also learn that the propor-
tion of criminals from the illiterate classes is eight-
fold as great as the proportion from those having
some education ; and in proportion to the higher
education received in our own country does crimi-
nality decrease.
"The following statements prove this: Out of a
population of 2,616 convicts, in the prisons of Au-
burn and Sing Sing, 19 were returned as collegiates,
10 as having received a classical and 78 academic
instruction 4 per cent of the entire population.
Years ago the commissioner of education gathered
statistics from seventeen of the middle and western
Prison Problems 19
states, bearing upon this point. These states re-
ported 110,538 prisoners. Of this number 25 per
cent were illiterate. The average illiteracy of the
population of these states was 4 per cent. There-
fore this 4 per cent furnished 25 per cent of the
criminals and the 96 per cent who could read and
write furnished only 75 per cent. Thus 1,000 il-
literates furnished on the average eight times as
many prisoners as the same number who could read
and write.
"The causes of crime are not education or the
common school, but unfortunate ante-natal condi-
tions, bad homes, unhealthy infancy and childhood,
over-crowded slums, promiscuous herding together,
industrial and social injustice and intemperances.
"I put emphasis on bad homes as the chief cause
of crime. The statistics of every reformatory show
that the great majority of inmates come from this
class of homes. It is easy to see how the work of
the teacher is hindered when pupils, however well
trained, are subjected continually to the malign
influence of evil home surroundings.
"It must be remembered that the average school
attendance is scarcely five years. It is not far from
the real facts in the case to say that the average at-
tendance at school the country through, of each
boy, is not much more than five months in the year
we may count it six months. The entire school-
ing of the average boy would be comprised, there-
fore, within thirty months or 120 weeks, or about
600 school days. Reckoning six hours for a school
day, the boy would be under direct school influ-
ence 3,600 hours. During that period he is within
the influence of the home directly or indirectly, 60
20 Prison Problems
months, or 1,800 days, or 43,200 hours. Deducting
the 3,600 hours the boy is at school, leaves 39,600
hours. The school ratio, therefore, to the home is
one to eleven.
"This, remember, is the ratio for the average
American boy's school instruction. When the in-
mates of our reformatories are considered with re-
lation to the number of actual days or hours in at-
tendance upon school, as evidenced by the low grade
they have attained before entrance into these insti-
tutions, the ratio of their school hours to the home
hours will be 1 to 22 that is, for 1,800 hours spent
in school 39,600 hours will be those for which the
home is responsible.
"Bonjean says: 'We cannot sterilize with the
bouillon of culture the microbes of vice and crime
except by wholesale parental correction.'
"With regard to the direct influence of our Amer-
ican system, I unhesitatingly aver from a long and
wide personal and official connection with it, that
the spirit of the requirements of the Massachusetts
system of education is observed by the 440,000
teachers of our public schools. These requirements
make it obligatory 'that it shall be the duty of all
instructors of youth to exert their best endeavors
to impress on the minds of children committed to
their care and instruction the principles of piety,
justice and sacred regard for truth, love of their
country, humanity and universal benevolence, so-
briety, industry and frugality, chastity, moderation
and temperance, and those other virtues which are
the ornaments of human society and the basis upon
which a republican constitution is founded.
"How can such schools foster crime? How can
Prison Problems 21
they be godless with the inculcation and exemplifi-
cation of these foundation principles of a godly
character?
"I have earnestly claimed for many years, in spite
of the fact that in some of the states of the Union
the Bible has been excluded from the schoolroom,
the schools are not therefore godless institutions.
Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, our excellent city superin-
tendent of education, has just affirmed the same
great fact. I again emphatically affirm that our
schools are not godless. Sectarian instruction never
can be given in them. Forever must we keep
separate in every phase and form the American
church from the American state. The American
church is diversified, as its more than forty distinct
denominations indicate. The American Sunday
school, embracing the children of these various re-
ligious organizations is to supplant the work of
the common schools by giving specific religious in-
struction one day in seven.
"Almost as many children as are embraced in our
public and parochial schools are to be found in our
Sunday school classes. This fact must never be
lost sight of when we are considering the subject
of American education ; whether the reading of the
Bible by the teachers in our day schools shall be
permitted, we ail know is a seriously mooted ques-
tion. The book of books in its entirety has been
held to be in a broad sense a sectarian book by some
of our state supreme courts. It has not so been held
by supreme courts in other states. It is not so held,
I believe, by the Supreme Court of the United
States.
"The solution of the difficulty presented by the
22 Prison Problems
decisions of these differing courts would seem to be
that of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which holds
that selections from the Bible, which teach the
fundamentally religious and moral truths that are
believed by the overwhelming majority of the people
of the United States, and on which rests the very
super-structure of our American civilization, may
be read in the schools of that progressive state.
"Such selections were made some time ago in
our city by the leading representatives of the Roman
Catholic, the Jewish and the various Protestant
churches for use in the Chicago schools. For some
reason, which I could not learn, they were not per-
mitted to be read by the board of education then
in office. It seems incredible that an indignity
should be put on this supreme book, which is put
upon no other commanding book in the world's liter-
ature, by denying even the reading of these selec-
tions, which lie at the very heart of all human prog-
ress to our school children. May we not hope for
a speedy wiping out of this shameful anomaly in
our educational instruction?
"As to the statement which has been made that
'the public schools turn out bad citizens,' I utterly
deny it, as a general proposition, but I do freely ad-
mit that they sometimes do turn out some bad citi-
zens, both literally and metaphorically, just as the
churches sometimes turn out some bad saints.
"But can any sane or well-informed person make
the above sweeping assertion? Sound the roll call
of the most illustrious dead of the American re-
public and summon those who are living to answer.
Let the scores of millions of the best men and wo-
men the world has ever contained, living or dead,
Prison Problems 33
stand up with them, multitudes whose names are un-
known, but who have wrought their lives into our
nation's glorious structure, since the first rude
common school house was erected on the wild
New England shore.
"With equal reason can you charge religion it-
self with being the cause of crime as education in
the common school? The indictments against the
school are really indictments against the churches.
How is it possible to believe that the conditions
of things so lugubriously depicted by Richard Grant
White can be the result of common school instruc-
tion without believing that the thousands of clergy-
men and millions of communicants in the vari-
ous churches and the thousands of teachers and
millions of scholars in the Sunday schools, almost
equaling those in the common schools are just as
much to blame?
"Religion is a failure if the common school is JL
failure. Neither is a failure. Of course, it goes
without saying that it is not because of but in spite
of the common school and of religion that crime
prevails.
"The grandest school of democracy is the common
school. It is the main unifier of the forty-five or
more nationalities with their sub-divisions that have
been and still are crowding our shores.
"The night schools of Chicago tell an eloquent
story to illustrate my statement. Nearly 15,000 are
now in attendance and there was almost a riot in one
of them not long ago because of the crush of scholars
to get in. In another of these schools sixteen dis-
tinct nationalities were represented.
"Why this crush? Why this commingling? Were
24 Prison Problems
these criminals that were struggling to gain admis-
sion? Were they rushing to be made criminals?
Were the self-sacrificing teachers that met them
with a welcome on face and lips and with patience
almost infinite in their hearts, a band of conscious
or unconscious criminal makers? I need not say
No. To make law-abiding, useful, honored Amer-
ican citizens is the aim of all this effort and it is
accomplishing the end desired.
"The common school is the great leveler, but it
levels up and not down. It practically enforces
equality and fraternity. Sharp angles are knocked
off, differences are rubbed down, class distinctions
are prevented, caste is abolished. The rich man's
son and the poor man's son meet together. Brains
and not money weigh in the scale of scholarships.
Merit and not the father's position sends the boy to
the head of his class.
"Religious animosity finds no fuel to feed it.
Nationality sees no barrier raised against it. The
young 'know nothings' speedily become 'know
somethings,' and they are not apt to forget the fact
in their future political life.
"The common school requires of the pupil an
arithmetical, geographical or grammatical reason
for the hope that is in him. His life afterwards is a
series of interrogation points. He carries the habit
of asking a reason in his dealings with all subjects,
with all measures, and with all men.
"The Mosley commission made its report some
time ago to the nation and the world. You will re-
call its origin. On account of the success of the
engineers of the United States, Mr. Mosley met in
South Africa, he desired to see 'what sort of coun-
Prison Problems 25
try it was that was responsible for sending so many
level-headed men to the Cape.' He said : 'So far
as I was able to ascertain, the form of education
given in the United States was responsible for much
of its success, and I returned home, determined,
if possible, to get together a party of experts to visit
the country and test the soundness of my con-
clusions.'
"He succeeded in his effort, and a superb body of
men, representing the cause of British education in
all its various features, was organized into a com-
mission to investigate the relations between educa-
tion and commercial and industrial efficiency, or
phrased differently, 'to find out the educational
causes and conditions which have contributed to
the rapid industrial development of the United
States.'
"In this report Mr. Mosely sums up his reflec-
tions upon our general educational system as fol-
lows : 'My observation leads me to believe that
the average American boy, when he leaves school,
is infinitely better fitted for his vocation and strug-
gle in life than the English boy. And, in conse-
quence, there are in the United States a smaller pro-
portion of "failures" and fewer who slide down hill,
and eventually join the pauper, criminal, or "sub-
merged tenth" class.'
"Dr. Harris, in referring to that portion of the
report bearing upon the manual and industrial
schools of the nation and upon its industrial condi-
tion, justly states 'that the American boy is fitted
by the general course of the common school for a
successful directorship of machinery. The gradu-
ate of the elementary school is well fitted by alert-
ness and versatility to direct or "tend" the machine
26 Prison Problems
in the textile manufactory, or in the machine shop
or in agriculture.'
"He further says : 'If we remember that the
manual training school does not cultivate alertness,
versatility, and the power of attention, any more
than, if quite as much as, the ordinary studies of
the schools in arithmetic, algebra, geometry, "nat-
ural philosophy" or physics, not to mention gram-
mar, and other language studies, we shall not be
surprised that in our country, where industrial ma-
chinery of every kind is almost universally used,
the American laborer is found to be possessed of
note-worthy skill and ability to turn out a large
amount of product, and that he is able to adjust
himself to new situations, for the common school
curricula give exactly the best training for this.'
"The American public school is not perfect by
any means, but with all its imperfections it is the
best system in the nation and for the nation that
has been yet devised.
"The spiritual training of our children must be
left to the church, as I have claimed. The state
must not usurp the function of the church in any
particular. The church must see that every child,
so far as possible, shall receive a distinct religious
education, and thus use this potent agency for the
prevention of crime.
"The months of common school education must
be increased each year from six to nine or ten, and
the years from five to seven or eight. Teachers
must be better trained and better paid. Parents
must come into closer relationship with the school-
room. Then will come the golden age of the public
school, and with it the golden age of the church
also. The millennium will then dawn upon us."
Prison Problems 27
WHAT BELITTLES A WOMAN
SOCIALLY.
By Ida M. Tarbell.
"No other honest work in the country so belittles
a woman socially as housework performed for
money. It is the only field of labor which has
scarcely felt the touch of the modern labor move-
ment ; the only one where the hours, conditions and
wages are not being attacked generally; the only
one in which there is no organization or standardiza-
tion, no training, no regular road of progress. It is
the only field of labor in which there seems to be a
general tendency to abandon the democratic notion
and return frankly to the standards of the old aris-
tocratic regime. The multiplication of livery, the
tipping system, the terms of address, all show an in-
creasing imitation of the old world's methods. Un-
happily enough they are used with little or none of
the old world's ease. Being imitations and not
natural growths, they, of course, cannot be.
"More serious still is the relation which has been
shown to exist between criminality and household
occupations. Nothing indeed which recent investi-
gation has established ought to startle the Ameri-
can woman more. Contrary to public opinion it is
not the factory and shop which are making women
offenders of all kinds ; it is the household. In a
recent careful study of over 3,000 women criminals,
the Bureau of Labor found 80 per cent came direct-
ly from their own homes or from the traditional
pursuits of women !"
28 Prison Problems
The ordinary servant girl in the home knows that
the standards and conditions of her work are a mat-
ter of chance ; that, while she may receive con-
siderate treatment in one place, in another there will
be no apparent consciousness that she is a human
being. She knows and dreads the loneliness of the
average "place." "It's breaking my heart here, 5 '
sobbed an intelligent Irish girl, serving a term for
drunkenness begun in the kitchen, "alone all day
long with never a one to pass a good word." She
finds herself cut off from most of the benefits which
are provided for other wage-earning girls. She finds
the Young Women's Christian Association in some
quarters if not everywhere closes its rooms and
classes to her. She finds the girls' clubhouses gen-
erally are closed to her. She is the pariah among
workers.
Prison Problems 29
THE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL.
By Dr. Max Thorek.
Official W. R. A. U. Physician and Surgeon-in-Chief American Hos-
pital, Consultant Cook County Hospital.
Reprint from The Player, the Actor's Magazine.
A great deal of discussion has for some time been
going on in scientific as well as in lay circles with
reference to the effects of stimulants on the system.
Society seems to be divided into two classes, one
of which decries the use of stimulants in any form
and are waging war by organizing temperance so-
cieties and even build hospitals in which not a drop
of alcohol is permitted for the treatment of the
sick or for any other purpose. (Frances Willard
hospital, Chicago.)
The first effects noted when drinking beverages
containing alcohol are the following: There is a
short, temporary period of exhilaration, you feel
good, you become "a good fellow," and when taken
more and more you will begin to feel sleepy. This
may gradually terminate in actual loss of conscious-
ness. You are taken home. Then follows the stage
of depression or the well-known "Katzenjammer."
If taken in small quantities it is a heart tonic, in
large doses it is a heart depressant. A drink of
liquor makes the breathing freer and fuller, an over-
dose weakens the respirations and you will often
hear drunken men exclaim that they cannot get
their breath. This means that the center of respira-
tion in the brain is being poisoned.
The working man who rushes his pail to the
30 Prison Problems
corner saloon for alcoholic beverages, in the belief
that it is a food and substitutes other foodstuffs is
digging his own grave. He is nursing the cumula-
tive effect of a deadly poision and from the point
of cost it has been calculated to be eight times
more expensive than bread. As a food alcohol in
any form is, therefore, an absolute failure.
There is nothing more degrading, there is noth-
ing that converts the best of men to beasts than
excessive drink. It is early in life that the habit may
be easily acquired. Those who yield to its seduc-
tions and become its slaves are usually weakened
either from inheritance or from some cause and it
i? in these neuropathic individuals that it works
its ravages.
For some reason or other, illness, disappointment
in business or love, worry over domestic felicity,
financial reverses and the like cause the individual
to feel an irresistible (?) craving for assistance in
the struggle of life, and, yielding to alcohol, is
wooed by blissful states of mind, which are tem-
porary and soon vanish. He wants this mock hap-
piness to continue he indulges more and more,
until the habit is finally acquired and he finds him-
self a confirmed drunkard. Some are quickly de-
stroyed by it, others again resist its ravages for a
longer period only to yield to it in the decrepitude
of old age or when his resisting powers have been
battered to pieces by the poison. After heredity
it is next as a cause of insanity.
No better picture can be obtained of the effects
of alcohol than from observing a drunken person
In the beginning, that is, after the first drink or
two, there is usually a feeling of exhilaration the
Prison Problems 31
individual feels an increase of his mental and physi-
cal powers. This stimulation is of brief duration.
Soon thereafter symptoms of suspended function
set in and the toper loses his sense of propriety, his
moral tone is degraded, you cannot successfully
attract his attention and he is unable to do any
mental or physical work. This gets worse, his
speech becomes babbling and he staggers about
and is unable to perform co-ordinate movements
with hands or lower extremities. If at this stage
he pours more of alcohol into his system he will,
in common parlance, become "dead drunk," lose his
consciousness and not infrequently die from acute
alcoholic intoxication.
Not all people, however, act alike when "stewed."
Some of them are in a fighting mood and very
active, others again shed tears into the cup of artifi-
cial bliss and are very depressed. The depression
in some cases is so great as to lead to suicide.
Once the habit is acquired, the individual starts
on a downward path and sometimes slower at other
times quicker but surely lands in the realms of
complete mental and physical decay. There is no
organ in the body which is immune to the effects
of alcohol. The principal organs involved however
are the nervous system (particularly the brain), the
stomach (catarrh of drunkards), liver (cirrhosis),
and the kidneys. He begins to tremble, his stomach
refuses, he develops arteriosclerosis (premature
senility) and his mind becomes enfeebled.
Of the other effects we find disturbances of the
sensation, motion and the intellect. The victim feels
tingling, pricking or crawling sensations in certain
parts of his body. His eyes and ears become de-
32 Prison Problems
ranged and as a result he hears strange noises and
sees things which are not there. He may develop
alcoholic epilepsy or paresis.
The mental changes are gradual but progressive.
The power of judgment is overthrown, the moral
sense annihilated and mendacity appears in most
bizarre forms. These people develop all sorts of
delusions, the most characteristic of which are a
certain jealousy and marital infidelity. A great
many divorce cases and homicides can be traced
directly to alcohol. The mind gradually decays and
the poor sufferer lapses into a condition of total
irresponsibility (alcoholic dementia).
The acute form of alcoholism known to all who
see these people is known as delirium tremens.
This is usually seen in cases where the drunkard
debauches and robs himself of sleep and food. This
condition may come on suddenly or develop within
a day or two. The individual usually awakens at
night trembling, he becomes sleepless, wants to get
out of bed and do some imaginary thing, talks con-
stantly and incoherently, looks about uneasily and
fearfully and he sees all sorts of animals (snakes,
rats, mice, alligators, monkeys, etc.)
Surrounded by these loathsome creatures and ter-
rified by the imaginary screams and noises he hears,
he presents a picture of abject horror. The horrors
may be so great that some of these people jump
out of the window and kill themselves. At other
times again he imagines the people about him to be
his enemies and attempts murder. During the at-
tack he is constantly shrieking and is evidently in
extremest agony and suffering.
In favorable cases the symptoms subside, the pa-
Prison Problems 33
tient falls into a refreshing sleep and he recovers.
In other cases again, the period of excitement is
followed by one of depression, he goes into a stu-
porous state, becomes exhausted and dies. In some
cases he may die suddenly, from a paroxysm of
acute failure of the heart or from some complica-
tion rupture of a vessel of the brain, or pneumonia
may set in which carries him off promptly.
I believe that men who start on their "alcoholic
career" should spend an hour or two in the receiv-
ing wards of some large hospital and see the sights,
and pitiful conditions in which these poor people are
admitted. An object lesson of this sort will do more
good than reading of volumes on the subject.
It is a universally established fact that the im-
moderate use of alcohol will surely shorten the
life of the individual. It is asserted on good author-
ity that the mortality of the intemperate is from
four to five times greater than that of the strictly
temperate of the same age and in the same class of
life.
Many death certificates show the cause of death
to be due to, say for instance, disease of the liver,
stomach, brain or kidney when as a matter of fact
the individual died from alcoholism. This is fre-
quently done purposely out of regard for the feel-
ings of the relatives of the deceased.
All evidence points to the fact that alcohol, ex-
cept in strict moderation, is injurious to men and
women who exert themselves physically or those
who do a great deal of mental work. For all en-
gaged in athletic pursuits it has a distinctly dam-
aging influence on the heart and blood vessels. For
people in good health alcohol in any form presents
34 Prison Problems
no advantages and for the young it is decidedly
injurious.
To condense the whole matter it may be sum-
marized as follows: 1. The abuse of alcoholic
stimulants, in any form (wine, beer, whiskey, etc.)
is largely responsible for physical deterioration, and
that it leads to diseases of practically all tissues in
the body. 2. Alcohol reduces the natural powers
of resistance to disease possessed by healthy indi-
viduals. It renders them liable to many inflamma-
tory disorders and causes them to suffer much more
from any illness they may contract and making
their recovery slow. 3. Intemperance predisposes
to consumption, venereal diseases and other affec-
tions. 4. Children of intemperate parents are ser-
iously affected. They frequently are subject to
paralysis, epilepsy and idiocy, which, if not leading
to death, render them permanently disabled. 5. The
increase of lunacy is largely due to intemperance.
Alcohol is the poor man's enemy and the de-
stroyer of society. Take a trip with me through
the stockyard district of Chicago and you can no-
where see a better picture of mental and physical
degeneracy than in this district. For blocks at a
stretch you won't find a house without a saloon.
(Some of them have two in one house.) The in-
mates, I cannot describe for want of space; but
suffice it to say that no human hand can depict
these degenerate animals in human form. These
are the breeding places of crime and misery and of
mental and physical decay.
Prison Problems 35
HOW A EECITAL IS APPRECIATED
BY PRISONERS.
Copied from The Mirror, Stilhvater, Minn.
"On Sunday the members of the Chautauqua Cir-
cle were given a treat that will long be remem-
bered. Miss Elizabeth Hanson of Wisconsin, travel-
ing from the Lyceum Bureau of Chicago, was the
attraction. She gave several readings, every one of
them grand. None can be chosen as the best, yet
we want to linger over the reading taken from
Ralph Connor's story, 'Black Rock.' The scene was
in a Canadian lumber camp and the minister reads
the old, old story wherein The Christ is lifted up
so that the lumber jacks might see a new signifi-
cance in it.
"I would that I had the pen of an idealist, so that
I could pay a fitting tribute to Miss Hanson and
her art. I have listened to many a lyceum work-
er, but that story, as read by Miss Hanson, crowns
everything I have ever heard. The old, old story;
yet she told it so beautifully that it came to us in
a newer sense newer because this truth was driven
home to us. Heaven is still open to the worst of
us. The pure life as held up by Miss Hanson is
the secret of salvation. There is no substitute. We
have tried them all and found them all wanting.
And, now and again, we are forced to go back to
listen anew to the old, old story that tells of a lowly
Galilean being born, to give hope to the hopeless.
"Miss Hanson is gifted with a very pleasing per-
sonality, she does not have to rely solely upon her
36 Prison Problems
art to win her audience. She has but to smile and
tell in a few simple words (as she does) her creed
of Sunshine 'of doing the best she can in all the
ways she can whenever she can,' and she has her
audience from the start. Her art keeps it.
""\Ye do not know whether Miss Hanson has any
set religion, but we do know she has the religion
of life. She tells of a present, but in the telling she
brings, out of the past, the memories of white boy-
hood, and white prayer-times. Old wounds we had
thought closed and forgotten opened anew and
many misty eyes there were when she told the story
of the minister's hearing the old, old story from his
mother.
"The memory of Miss Hanson will always live in
our hearts, as one of the sweet and clean visions
of the better life. I cannot help but think of her
in connection with Owen Kildare's description of
his 'Mamie Rose/ She was not a queenly looking
girl ; all her queenliness was within.
"There are stopping places along the downward
path. Every man gets a dozen chances to stop and
meditate. These stopping places bear a sign. 'Halt !
View thy life !'
"Did the speaker bring us to one of the 'stops?'
"How did the words appeal to you?
"Was the word of encouragement, of hope, spok-
en?
"Did the scales turn, even a tiny bit?
"If so, you may say with me : 'Last Sunday we
were given the chance to see such beauty of char-
acter in a girl, that we can appreciate and shape
our dreams of Heaven."
Prison Problems 37
IS THERE A CRIMINAL CLASS?
By William Allen Pinkerton.
Republished from Hampton's Magazine.
I have been for more than fifty years in almost
constant association with crime and lawbreakers.
I may fairly claim to have had exceptional oppor-
tunities for the study and observation of the opera-
tion of the human mind and the motives that actu-
ate those whom society terms criminals. I have
reached certain conclusions which do not agree with
the theories of some eminent scientists nor altogeth-
er harmonize with the teachings of the sociological
schools. I have no new theory to advance, but it
seems to me some facts have been generally over-
looked.
No one can study criminals at close range and
believe in the existence of a criminal class, regard-
less of what Lombroso and his disciples may claim.
It should not require any lengthy argument to prove
this assertion. If there were a criminal class, sharp-
ly defined as such and differentiated from the rest
of 'the human race by ascertainable characteristics,
then it must follow that there would be a non-
criminal class, comprising the rest of the human
race and as sharply distinguished as the supposed
criminal class.
Humanity is not thus divided into criminals and
non-criminals. There is but one classification that
can be made the class of those who have commit-
ted crimes and the class of those who have not yet
38 Prison Problems
committed crimes. Within certain limits, varying
with the individual, every human being is a poten-
tial criminal. I have seen this illustrated so often
that I am never surprised to learn that any man or
woman, however highly placed and however greatly
esteemed, has done something which the law for-
bids and for which society demands a penalty. On
the other hand, however and this is the bright
side of the shield every criminal is potentially an
honest man, and with the right kind of encourage-
ment from society will remain honest by preference.
It is my observation of hundreds of criminals whose
reform has been complete and permanent that makes
this conclusion a definite one. It is this capacity of
humanity to turn from evil ways to methods of
life which society recognizes as right and proper
that really proves my first conclusion, which is
that crime is an accident to which a moment's care-
lessness may subject any living person. If these
criminals who have reformed had belonged to a
different order of humanity from those of us who
have so far been fortunate enough not to have yield-
ed to the impulse to crime, how could they have
become members of the order to which we profess
to belong?
Men and women who have had every advantage
society can offer and whose moral training has
been at least up to the average standard, commit
crimes when the temptation and the opportunity
occur simultaneously. I would hesitate to say that
any man is temptation-proof. It is merely a ques-
tion as to what his particular temptation is and
how complete the opportunity to yield to it. Great
crimes are never planned by men of a low order of
Prison Problems 39
intelligence and the better educated a man is the
more dangerous does he become when he turns
criminal.
The motive that inspires nine crimes out of every
ten is the desire to get money faster or easier than
it can be earned legitimately. It is everlastingly
true, as St. Paul said, that "the love of money is the
root of all evil." Not money, but the love of money,
which is quite a different thing. It is the love of
money that may make a criminal out of any honest
man, depending only upon how strongly he desires
the money and how easy it seems to get it. I do
not mean that there is no one who would resist the
temptation to walk away with his neighbor's purse
if he felt sure he could do so undetected, but most
of us would prefer not to be subjected to that kind
of temptation. Yet there are men who have been
criminals men classed by the police as habitual
criminals who do resist the temptation when it
lies at their hands.
What is the underlying motive in most criminals?
Is it the dread of prison that influences the ordinary
criminal to turn straight? Fear of the prison or,
rather, of the disgrace of exposure may keep some
men from turning criminals, but I have seldom
known the dread of returning to a cell to have much
influence on one who has served time. It is some-
thing deeper than that call it conscience, if you
will that makes men desire to reform. I think it
is experience and observation. The most hardened
crook comes at some time in his career to a realiza-
tion that the honest man has a better time of it
that the privilege of walking down Broadway in
broad daylight is worth making an effort for.
40 Prison Problems
My sympathies are with the Jean Valjeans. I
regard the character of Javert, the police officer in
"Les Miserables" as the most despicable in all litera-
ture. If the escaped criminal continues to commit
crimes, that is another matter. But if a criminal
has reformed what could the prison do for him?
Our modern conception of a prison is as a place
where men are to be reformed. It would be sheer
vindictiveness to send back a man who has re-
formed outside the walls.
The whole question of crime and criminals is
one which our modern civilization hasn't yet got
to the bottom of. We are very far advanced be-
yond the ideas of even a century ago. We no
longer classify as crimes many things which were
so regarded in an earlier age, nor do we punish tri-
vial offenses with the same severity that once pre-
vailed. There probably are men yet living who can
remember when nearly one-hundred different of-
fenses were punishable by death in England. A
comparatively short time ago the theft of anything
valued at more than six-pence was a capital crime.
Nor has crime increased with the relaxation of the
penalties. On the contrary, crime is steadily de-
creasing, through various causes, and that is my
second general conclusion, drawn from a lifetime's
experience.
Society has begun to learn that one way of pre-
venting boys and girls from becoming criminals
is to give them proper care and attention when
young. The children's courts, that have been es-
tablished in several cities, are still only in the
experimental stage, but have already demonstrated
their usefulness as a means of diverting youthful
Prison Problems 41
offenders from the downward path. Much remains
to be done in the way of improving prison condi-
tions. Long steps have been made, however, in the
direction of making our prisons and penitentiaries
agencies for moral reform rather than vindictive
instruments of punishment. The time is coming,
as enlightenment increases, when men will come out
of prison sounder in body and mind than they went
in and with hands and heads trained to useful and
profitable occupations. In this way we shall grad-
ually be able to eliminate the habitual criminal,
while better educational methods and a clearer
recognition by the state of its duty to the child
cannot fail to reduce materially the proportion of
first offenders.
But with all these moral forces at work, are
there not more clever and more skillful criminals
at work today than ever before, is a question that
is often asked. There are not more criminals, but
cleverer ones. The successful great criminal of
today has to be cleverer than ever before, not only
because he runs an infinitely greater chance of being
caught than did his predecessors in crime, but be-
cause modern methods of preventing crime are more
efficient. We hear a great deal of the scientific
criminal, but the scientific detective has more than
kept pace with him.
Hand in hand with the moral agencies which are
striving to make crime less attractive, or at least
to make honest labor more attractive, there are
constantly being developed new methods of pre-
venting crime and of making it more hazardous and
less profitable. Not only are means of protecting
life and property constantly being improved, but
42 Prison Problems
there is no branch of science that cannot be brought
to bear and is not utilized on occasion in the solu-
tion of detective problems that would have been
unsolvable mysteries a few years ago.
A single hair may send a man to the gallows.
A single drop of blood in the hands of an analytical
chemist may spell life imprisonment for a criminal.
There is no poison the traces of which cannot be
detected, while the microscope has made success-
ful forgery almost impossible. The applicaton of
the mathematical law of chance has proved it pos-
sible even to identify the particular machine on
which any certain typewritten document was pro-
duced. The science of numbers has also been ap-
plied to the identification and recovery of stolen
property, making it increasingly difficult for the
thief to dispose of his booty.
Railroads, steamships, the telegraph, the tele-
phone, the wireless and now the aeroplane have
combined to make the world smaller and reduce
the chances of the criminal's successful escape from
pursuit. Canada and Mexico are no longer popu-
lated by defaulting bank cashiers from the United
States, for international extradition treaties now
cover almost the entire habitable globe.
It was once a very simple matter for the clever
criminal to change his identity so completely that
even when his crime was positively known he could
remain immune from arrest under the very eyes of
the police. First photography, then the Bertillon
system of measurements, which has lately been sup-
plemented by a system of classifying individual
characteristics, and latest and best of all, the finger-
print method of identification, are all operating to
Prison Problems 43
reduce the criminal's chance of escaping punish-
ment to the minimum. In my opinion the finger-
print method will prove to be the most useful, as
it is the most accurate means of detecting criminals.
Photography alone does not furnish positive means
of identification.
Some years ago Chas. Schumacher, one of our
operatives, was killed by two criminals of the type
known as "yeggs," at Union, Mo. There, by the
way, is the most dangerous class of criminals now
in existence the "yegg." I do not know the deriva-
tion of the name, but every criminal and every
pursuer of criminals knows it to mean a class of
tramps whose specialty is safe-blowing, operating
in small towns and villages, robbing post-offices,
rural banks and similar easily opened safes. It is
characteristic of the "yegg" as of no other type of
criminal, that he will shoot to kill at the first sus-
picion of discovery. Every "yegg" is a murderer,
actual or potential, as well as a burglar.
The two "yeggs" who killed Schumacher, Wil-
liam Rudolph and George Collins, were arrested at
Hartford, Conn., and taken to St. Louis, where
they were confined in the Four Courts prison and
their Bertillon measurements taken. They escaped
from jail, and in the search for them every "yegg"'
captured anywhere in the United States was held
until one of our men could look them over to see
if they were Rudolph and Collins. Two "yeggs"
were captured in Kansas whose description tallied
with that of the fugitives, but when the Bertillon
test was applied their measurements did not tally
with the record taken in St. Louis. Fortunately,
the local authorities were able to hold the men
44 Prison Problems
until some one who knew Rudolph and Collins
could reach the spot and the identification was then
easily made by their finger-prints.
It is surprising that the finger-print method for
purposes of identification was not universally
adopted long ago. It has been in use among the
merchants of the interior of China for untold cen-
turies, the thumb-print affixed to a receipt or a
promise to pay being more binding than a signa-
ture, because of the impossibility of forgery. No
two persons have been found whose finger-prints
are alike, and it is the one distinguishing character-
istic of the individual that, barring accident or muti-
lation, does not change from the cradle to the grave.
In this country the finger-print record has been
adopted by the police departments of the principal
cities and in every state prison and penitentiary.
It has been adopted by the United States Army,
which now keeps a record of the finger-impressions
of every enlisted man as a means of identification
in case of death on the battlefield, as well as for the
detection in case of desertion. Not long ago I was
asked by the War Department whether it was
necessary to take a new set of finger-prints at each
re-enlistment. I replied that this was unnecessary
unless the subject had received injuries that left
scars on his fingers.
The finger-print method requires no special opera-
tors, like photography, nor expert accuracy, like the
Bertillon system. Any schoolboy can take finger-
prints as well as a trained expert could do it. There
is no difficulty in indexing and classifying finger-
prints for rapid reference and comparison. Of
course skillful criminals now wear gloves or take
Prison Problems 45
other precautions to avoid leaving traces behind
them, but once a man's finger-prints have been
recorded there is no way in which he can success-
fully conceal his identity. If the system is extended,
as it doubtless will be, until the finger-impressions
of substantially all the world are on record, many
classes of crimes will disappear from the calendar.
The finger-print alone, of course, will never detect
criminals. One cannot walk along the street study-
ing the finger-print of everyone whom he meets,
and there will always be work for the skillful de-
tective so long as crime continues and criminals
flourish. But the record will eventually make it
impossible for the criminal to hide, and consequent-
ly furnish another incentive to reform, while science
is making it more difficult for him to conceal the
evidences of his crime, modern protective measures
are making crime more difficult, youthful offenders
are kept from becoming criminals and those who
have erred are being aided, through diverse agencies,
to re-establish themselves as honest citizens.
I do not expect mankind to reach that state of
perfection in the near future. I do contend, how-
ever, that because of the causes I have outlined,
crime is decreasing, criminals are becoming fewer
and the number of those who really reform is con-
stantly increasing. After fifty years of experience in
the detection of crime and the pursuit of criminals
I am still an optimist.
46 Prison Problems
THE MAN IN THE CAGE.
By Julian Leavitt.
Republished from The American Magazine.
When I first began my investigations into prison
life and labor I believed, as most of the readers of
this article probably believe, that the grosser cruel-
ties of the cage were a thing of the past. I was
familiar with the prison history of the last century,
when the lease and contract systems held sway
everywhere. In those days scarcely a year passed
without its sickening scandal. Men, women, chil-
dren, were systematically beaten, starved, and tor-
tured in the mad drive for prison profits. There
was no evil too wicked to be inflicted upon these
creatures who had fallen under the heel of society.
It was monstrous. Such things, I felt, could not
possibly exist today. And in this belief I was con-
firmed by all the students of penology to whom I
talked.
Genial wardens assured me that the reign of
brutalitarianism was over. Kindly penologists as-
sured me that the reign of humanitarianism was
already ushered in. Some even believed that the
pendulum had swung too far in that direction.
"We are coddling our criminals too much," a
judge told me; "no good can come of it!"
And external evidence seemed to lend color to
this protest. Clean cells, books, games, bands, even
prison newspapers and moving picture shows, all
seemed to indicate that revolution in prison meth-
ods was in full swing.
Prison Problems 47
And yet the moment I began to probe below these
pleasant surface phenomena I discovered that pris-
ons were still prisons. In nearly half the States of
the Union today the basic industrial conditions in
the prison world are virtually the same as they
were fifty and a hundred years ago. Everywhere,
from Maine to Texas, we still sell prisoners to
outside interests for the profit they may take out
of prison. That is, men without rights are put com-
pletely into the power of men without feelings.
Let me tell briefly what the good people of Kan-
sas and Michigan discovered, almost inadvertently,
only a year or two ago. I must state plainly, at
the outset, that these two instances are selected for
description, not because they are exceptional in any
degree, but because they are typical and recent.
There are a dozen or more records of legislative in-
vestigations within the past decade which have
revealed worse conditions than are described below.
The first case is that of the Branch Penitentiary
of Michigan, located at Marquette. It is often
known as the Upper Peninsula Prison. It is a
small prison, as prisons go, yet it was the storm
center of the legislative session of 1911 and filled
thousands of newspaper columns with its story of
manifold horror.
Its population numbers about 300, of whom some
240 are employed by two contractors, one a box-
making concern with 74 men (its contract expired
July 31, 1911, and was not renewed), and the other
the firm of G. G. Shauer & Bro., overall manufac-
turers, of Chicago. As usual, the contracts are sold
for a song, the State giving factory buildings rent
free and tax free, heat, light, power, superintendence
48 Prison Problems
and even drayage free and the labor of the men for
45 cents a day.
The warden, as usual, is a powerful politician.
He is also a friend of the Governor and owner of
a controlling interest in an influential newspaper.
For many years past rumors had been circulating
among the people of Michigan concerning Warden
Russell's institution ; yet he was powerful enough
to ward off any public investigation until 1909, when
the State Legislature appointed a special commit-
tee to probe and report, This committee made a
hurried visit to the prison, but found the convicts
unwilling to testify for fear of punishment a fear
amply justified, as later events proved; for one of
the few inmates who had been rash enough to
talk, a boy by the name of Johnson, was found by
the committee, in the course of a return visit, laid
up in the hospital as a result of the vindictive pun-
ishments which had been inflicted upon him by
the prison officers. Under these circumstances the
members of the committee, feeling that the truth
was not to be had, returned to Lansing and pre-
sented a fragmentary report which, everyone felt,
could not possibly end the matter.
Two years later a new committee was appointed,
with the fullest legislative authority. This time
the committee stayed a week, took two thousand
pages of testimony, and returned to the capital with
a report which stirred the State of Michigan to its
depths. "The debate on these findings," says the
Lansing Journal, "furnished one of the most sensa-
tional sessions ever held by the Michigan House
of Representatives. The galleries were crowded, as
well as the side lines when the House convened
Prison Problems 41>
at 7 :30 o'clock, and the sympathies of the spectators
throughout the long argument, which lasted until
nearly one o'clock, were with the convicts ; and
gradually the House was wrought to a pitch of in-
tense feeling which threatened even more exciting
scenes."
Unfortunately it was impossible to keep politics
out of this affair, and the committee records, as
well as the legislative debates and the press discus-
sions, were largely tinged with partisan feeling.
The committee of five did, however, agree on all the
essential facts, splitting only on the recommenda-
tion affecting the warden a minority of two recom-
mending his dismissal and a majority of three favor-
ing his retention, but not without a curtailment of
his disciplinary powers. The House adopted the
adverse report, and called upon the Governor to
dismiss Warden Russell, but he ignored the resolu-
tion and the administration of the prison is, there-
fore, unchanged to this day.
In reporting the findings of the committee I shall
aim to present only the evidence which is indorsed
unanimously; otherwise the source will be expressly
indicated; and I shall use, as far as possible, the
language of the official report as published in the
House journal.
In its externals, the Marquette prison, like most
of our modern institutions, was found to be clean,
and even inviting. The corridors were spotless,
the cells light and even airy, and the food good and
plentiful. But in the prison factory, where the men
spend more than half of their waking hours, and
where visitors rarely penetrate, ruled a system of
exploitation that was perfect and complete. The
50 Prison Problems
foreman of the overall factory which employed the
greater number of the inmates was William Rus-
sell, brother of the warden. He, it seems, was the
real power in the prison, and he was dominated by
the single ambition that dominates all foremen
maximum output.
It was found, says the majority report, that more
than three-quarters of the punishment reports orig-
inated in the overall shop, were signed by William
Russell, and the offense charged in the majority of
cases, "Not doing task," and in many more cases the
offense was something that grew out of this same
cause, "Not doing task." These tasks, adds the
minority report, were beyond all reason.
The punishments were varied and frequent, but
the most common was by the paddle, a scientific
instrument, carefully designed, it seems, to inflict a
maximum of suffering without infringing upon the
humane law of the State, which is very explicit
upon this point. It reads:
"The warden or deputy warden may punish the
convict for misconduct in such manner and under
such regulations as shall be adopted by the board ;
Provided, that punishment by showering with cold
water or whipping with the lash on the bare body
shall in no case be allowed."
Now the paddle is not a lash. It is merely a
piece of heavy sole leather shaped like a tennis rack-
et and fastened, with copper rivets, to a wooden
handle. It weighs about two pounds. The auxiliary
apparatus consists of a ladder, a barrel, chains,
handcuffs and ropes. The ladder is about nine feet
long and has a set of brackets in which the barrel
is held firmly, lengthwise. The barrel is small,
Prison Problems 51
perhaps the size of a "half" beer barrel. The pris-
oner, stripped, is laid upon the barrel, his feet
roped to rungs at one end of the ladder and his
hands bound with steel cuffs which are chained to
the other end of the ladder. Two men then unite
their strength to stretch these ropes and chains taut,
in order to prevent the prisoner's body from moving
or giving at any point, thereby weakening the force
of the blows. In short, the man's body is by this
means so placed, anatomically, that every blow of
the executioner will yield its maximum result in
human suffering.
The formal preparations completed, the experi-
ment in reformation is ready to begin. The prison-
er's head is covered by a sheet, so that he may not
see his tormentors. Another sheet is placed upon
his back, so that the provision of the humane law
against punishment on the bare body shall not be
infringed. The warden is called in to superintend;
and the blows are laid on. Some men can stand
as many as sixty or seventy blows, it was reported ;
others collapse at the fifth or sixth ; most of them
faint at the tenth or twelfth blow and mercifully
remain unconscious.
This revolting list might easily be extended to
fill several pages. The volume of two thousand
pages of testimony is simply a volume of medieval
horrors. Nor are these tortures accidental or oc-
casional. They are the very basis of prison policy,
as we shall see, wherever the dominant force is
the contractor and his demand for maximum profits.
One would like to believe for example, that the
paddle is merely an accident of prison life; that it
was an instrument which was seized upon in a
52 Prison Problems
moment of passion, and is clung to because it was
found convenient. Unfortunately, the evidence is
all against such a belief; rather does it point to
the paddle as a very cold-blooded invention of a
mind eager to inflict torture, but afraid to infringe
upon the law. It has too many refinements to be
an accident. One of these is peculiarly diabolical in
its intent. The piece of sole leather is perforated by
many small holes, perhaps an inch or two apart.
These serve a double purpose ; they suck up the air
which would otherwise cushion the force of the
blow somewhat, and they suck up the victim's
flesh as the leather comes in contact with it. Then,
says the report, when the paddle is pulled off very
slowly and carefully, each perforation, as it releases
the flesh which has adhered to it, sends its own
message of pain to the man on the rack, thus in-
tensifying the agony a hundredfold!
No, the paddle is really a social function of the
prison ; and a delicate touch is added to the cere-
mony by covering the victim's body with a sheet
soaked in salt water. An ordinary sheet would
have sufficed to evade the law ; but the sting of
the salt water, as it penetrates the lacerated flesh,
adds an exquisite touch of pain. Yet, curious to
see, one of the chief functionaries at the ceremony,
the prison physician himself, did not understand
the symbolism of the brine. Here is a bit of his
testimony:
"What do they wet the paddle in?" he was asked.
"Salt solution."
"Why in salt solution?"
"I do not know. From a medical standpoint it
might be that there would be less pain with a salt
solution than with plain water."
Prison Problems 53
"Isn't it true that paddling is done to inflict pain?
Then why should they wish to ameliorate it by us-
ing salt water?"
"I don't kno\v. It has been the custom, and I
have never changed it. I cannot say why it should
not be used. I cannot say why it should be dis-
continued. Only in figuring from a medical stand-
point, I cannot see that salt water is detrimental
or harmful in the least."
The strait-jacket, once a favorite in most prisons,
but now rarely used, was also found at Marquette.
It is an instrument well beloved by the more brutal
keepers, I am told, for this atrocious reason: The
internal organs of the body, as every student of
anatomy knows, are packed as skillfully as only
Nature, with its millions of years of experience, can
pack them. But if the body be encased in a strait-
jacket and the straps jerked to the last notch, the
delicate internal organs may be permanently dis-
placed without leaving any external evidence.
A milder form of punishment or perhaps, I
should say, a less spectacular form of it, is the
"cuffing up" of men by their wrists with handcuffs
and chains to a staple in the wall or to the upper
bars of a cell gate in the "bull pen," a special pun-
ishment room. This was frequently used in Mar-
quette.
"It must be remembered," says the minority re-
port, already quoted, "that the hands of every con-
vict are drawn up to the same height. Such a posi-
tion allows some men a chance to rest their arms
somewhat on the cross bars, but it compels others
to raise their hands above their heads and subjects
them to most extreme torture. Men have been
54 Prison Problems
chained continuously in this position for a period
of fifteen days, only getting relief at night when
allowed to lie on their cots. The handcuffs are
never removed. One can probably form some idea
of what it must mean to wait on oneself in such a
condition."
Parenthetically, I may remark that this is per-
haps the most common form of punishment in our
prisons today, especially in contract prisons. I
have never visited one of these without finding the
bull pen occupied. The filth and degradation of it are
indescribable. I can only suggest them by quoting
the words which the inmates of one such institution
bestowed upon a former warden of blessed memory,
in contrast to the harshness of his successor, "Now
there was a humane man !" they told me. "When
he cuffed a man up he would let one hand free so
that we could at least care for ourselves!"
But to return to Marquette. Its bull pen was
never without victims. One elderly man named
Myers, of excellent conduct, a leader of the band,
an eminent citizen in general, was strung up six
days for failure to perform task. George H. Hamil-
ton, strung up for seventeen hours consecutively,
lost the use of his left hand permanently. Earl A.
Thompson, a bookkeeper before he went wrong,
was unskilled as a machine operator. He could
only finish thirty-six dozens of the forty which his
task called for. He was strung up for two days.
They were punished for all manner of trivial of-
fenses. One man was punished for using black
thread instead of white, another for attempting to
send a letter out of prison against the rules, another
for breaking needles (a frequent and unavoidable
Prison Problems 55
accident in overall manufacturing, as the hard cloth
offers an irregular resistance to the delicate, swiftly-
flying needles of the machine). But by far the
greatest number of punishments estimated by the
investigating committee at three-fourths was for
failure to perform the tasks assigned. What these
tasks were I have not been able to ascertain ; it
seems that there was no regular schedule, the fore-
man (who, you will remember, was the warden's
own brother) speeding the men individually to their
limit and punishing them for not exceeding it.
The legislative committee of 1909 reported that
"Conditions in the shops indicated that the men
were worked to the physical limit, far beyond that
expected in a free shop. It seemed as though every
man was exerting every atom of energy in his make-
up to perform the tasks assigned him." This is
emphasized even more strongly in the report of
the committee of 1911, both the majority and the
minority reports concurring, as a result, in the de-
mand that all contracts at the institution can be
cancelled immediately. But it was soon discovered
that one of the peculiar features of the contract was
that although the contractor could cancel the bar-
gain upon six months' notice to the State, the State
was tied for the full period of five years. The con-
tract, therefore, is still in force until 1913.
It would be unfair to close this chapter of the
story without giving the warden's side of the case.
His defense, briefly, resolved itself into this: (1)
Since the death penalty is not inflicted in Michigan,
its prisons house many degenerates who elsewhere
would have been put out of the way altogether;
(2) the men singled out for punishment were, as a
56 Prison Problems
rule, among the most bestial of these ; creatures who
had committed nameless crimes while in freedom
and who were vicious and unruly in captivity; there-
fore (3) they deserved all they got; and (4) any-
way, he could not run the prison without corporal
punishment.
The last item in the defense was demolished, cur-
iously enough, by the warden's own friends in the in-
vestigating committee, who, although they fought
stoutly and successfully for his retention, neverthe-
less recommended that the power to inflict corporal
punishment be removed from his hands and vested
in the board of control; and, moreover, that in no
case should the paddle be used without the presence
of the prison physician, the chaplain, and one mem-
ber of the board of control. This last recommenda-
tion was an obviously impossible one, as the mem-
bers of the board would have to make a special
trip for every such function. The committee knew
this well; the recommendation as a whole may,
therefore, be regarded simply as a measure to "save
face." And since the use of the paddle has been
abandoned the necessity for its use seems to have
disappeared also. "Not a single convict has had to
be reported," admitted the warden lately, "and dis-
cipline has been of the very best." It seems, then,
that when need drives even a warden must; if cor-
poral punishment is flatly forbidden a prison may
be run without it, after all.
With the warden's own admission on record all
the other items of the defense break down complete-
ly; and yet it may be well to say a word upon them.
It is true that Warden Russell's prison houses an
unusually large percentage of murderers and life
Prison Problems 57
men. But the "lifer," as every prison man knows,
is generally the best-behaved man in the community.
He may have committed his one great crime in a
moment of passion and may be, at bottom, far less
dangerous than the man who commits many small
crimes deliberately. At any rate, once he is put
away he adapts himself to his environment as sen-
sibly as most men do in freedom. He knows that
there is small hope of pardon so he "gets in right."
He becomes conservative, acquires a stake in the
prison world in the form of a superior cell, perhaps,
or some other trifling perquisite, and enlists per-
manently on the side of law and order. If then,
Warden Russell found his prisoners unruly, the
reason lay elsewhere than with his life men.
I have set down the facts relating to Marquette
prison plainly and without that comment which
its obvious lesson makes superfluous. I shall mere-
ly emphasize the fact that this prison is no worse
than a hundred others that might be named. It is
not an exception. It is a type. I have described
it at some length only because it happens to have
furnished the latest of our perennial prison scan-
dals. Within the last five or ten years there have
been a dozen similar revelations in other States
in Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Georgia, Texas, Kan-
sas. All of these were as bad as Michigan, Kansas
was even worse. The story of its clean-up at the
hands of Kate Barnard, of Oklahoma, is interesting.
When the young territory of Oklahoma was first
confronted with the crime problem it had no prisons
and no money to invest in these luxuries. It solved
this problem, however, by boarding out its convicts
to its neighbor, Kansas, which owned a castle of a
58 Prison Problems
prison at Lansing that housed comfortably nearly
a thousand inmates and had room for more. Okla-
homa paid forty cents a day for the food and board
of its convicts and permitted Kansas to make what-
ever additional profit it might by working the men
in its own coal mine or in the contract shops. At
the time, this arrangement seemed reasonably fair
to both States. But it was not long before both of
these communities were to learn how dangerous
it is to play the game of convict exploitation.
Oklahoma became a State in 1907. By that time,
some of its people had begun to suspect that all
was not well with the Oklahoma prisoners in the
Kansas Penitentiary. Discharged convicts drifted
back to their homes with terrible stories of mal-
treatment. But the people as a whole were too
busy to listen; and even had they stopped to heed
there were no means of confirming the convicts'
stories.
But one day in the summer of 1909 there appeared
on the streets of Lansing a little, dark-haired woman
who was destined to make a stir in the two States
before she had finished her work. She found her
way to the prison, paid her admission fee, and
joined the visitors' line in the old castle. The well-
trained guide conducted the party through the
show-places which every prison care-stages for the
curious visitor the spotless kitchen, the library,
the short corridor upon which face the comfortable
cells of the favored inmates, and perhaps the Ber-
tillon room. When the trip was over, the little
woman retraced her steps to the warden's office.
To the trusty at the door she presented her card.
It read :
Prison Problems 59
KATE BARNARD
Commissioner of Charities and Corrections
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Never did so small a woman and so simple a
card create such consternation. The warden met
her with scant civility.
"What is it that you want?" he asked her.
"I should like to go through this prison," she
answered, "in order to see how the Oklahoma pris-
oners are being treated."
"Well, I shall have to consult the board of control
about that."
The board happened to be in session at that mo-
ment. The members were furious.
"Who commissioned you to come here and spy
upon us?" one of them cried out.
"A million and a half citizens of Oklahoma," she
answered, with all the dignity that a small person
can sometimes muster.
"You may either show me through or show me
out, as you please."
The men blustered, but she stood her ground,
knowing that she had the advantage and that they
knew that she knew it. Finally they gave way
and permitted her to proceed with her investiga-
tions, putting only such obstacles in her way as
-eemed to suggest themselves at the moment.
The story of her adventures and of all that fol-
owed forms an interesting chapter in the prison
history of the United States. It is told in full in
the First and Second Annual Reports of the State
Commissioner of Charities and Corrections of the
State of Oklahoma.
60 Prison Problems
She crept and crawled, she says, through the inky
depths of the State coal mine where many of the
Oklahoma men were employed. There were pas-
sages so narrow that if the earth were to sag ever
so little a large man could never get out alive
and often the supports were bent under the weight
of the earth above. The rumor of her visit went
through the silent prison like wildfire. Every Okla-
homa man felt that the hour of his salvation had
come; yet no one dared to approach her openly to
give her the information that all knew she was
seeking. But occasionally, in the protecting dark-
ness, some boy would rush past her and whisper:
"Look for the water-hole, girl" or "For God's sake,
don't go away without seeing the crib and the
dungeon !"
She stayed only a short while, but the sight and
sound of what she saw that summer day drove the
two States to appoint a joint committee to investi-
gate. The first session was amicable enough, but
friction soon developed, as might have been ex-
pected, and the joint investigation was brought to
an abrupt close when Miss Barnard challenged
the committees to investigate the financial manage-
ment of the prison as well as its physical defects,
which were all too obvious. The Kansas Committee,
so far as I am informed, never reported in full ; but
a brief abstract in' the Fourth Annual Report of the
Board of Health seems to confirm all the charges
that Miss Barnard made, so that I feel justified in
quoting freely from her own full report, which also
contains a stenographic report of the hearings held
by the joint committee.
The task in the coal mine, it seems, was eighteen
Prison Problems 61
cars a week which, according to report, is reason-
able enough for a skilled miner, but impossible for
a beginner. The learners were, therefore, put with
the older men. Thus they were confronted by two
alternatives; either to put themselves completely
at the service of these older men, or to try the task,
as best they could, alone ; and since the second
alternative meant failure and inevitable punish-
ment, most learners were willing to serve the older
men. The fate of a boy who was thus made the
slave of a slave in a dark hole in a mine need not
be dwelt upon. Miss Barnard's report contains
some of the most sickening testimony ever printed
in the English language.
The punishments at Lansing were even more
murderously cruel and deliberate than those at Mar-
quette. One instrument was the "crib" or "alka-
zan," a heavy coffin in which the victim was placed,
face down, his hands and feet tied securely and
drawn up behind his back until they met, the lid
screwed down and the man allowed to lie for hours
tied in this knot! Or he was placed in an upright
position, tied immovably, his mouth plugged open
by a wedge between the teeth, his face and mouth
smeared with molasses, and the windows opened to
admit the flies and insects. Another punishment
was the familiar "water-cure," whereby the victim
is given all the torments of drowning by having a
powerful stream of water forced into his mouth,
ears and nostrils. And the more conventional pun-
ishments flogging, the dungeon, etc. were in con-
stant use. Here are a few cases from Miss Bar-
nard's record :
62 Prison Problems
Bert Lewis, cribbed two days in 1907 for letting
fire die down in kiln.
Ellis Dillon, failing to get out his three tons of
coal daily, was cribbed four days one week, four
days the next week and six days the third week.
Released Thursday, died Monday.
Joseph Bruner, cribbed eight days in 1908.
Martin Bates, water cure, crib alkazan, 1907-8.
Clarence H. Green, 21 days dungeon, 1907 or 1908.
Ed. Carpenter, water cure and seven days dun-
geon, 1907.
Miss Barnard presented dozens of cases similar
to these and was ready to present fifty others. And
the testimony of all tended to show pretty convinc-
ingly that the Kansas Penitentiary was an elaborate
apparatus of torture; that the guards murdered the
inmates and the inmates murdered each other; that
the food was uneatable, the water undrinkable and
the life unlivable in short, that the State of Kan-
sas was spending something like a half million dol-
lars a year in the manufacture of monsters.
The prison administration made no defense
worthy of the name. "They burned the cribs before
the investigation," writes Miss Barnard. "I am in-
formed that they had intended to keep them and
undertake to demonstrate how harmless they were,
but, finding many blood stains on the woodwork,
they ordered the convicts to scrape and boil them
off, but the cribs had been used so much that they
were pretty thoroughly saturated, so that the stains
could not be removed."
There could be no defense. But the administra-
tion was powerful enough to fight without one, at
least for a time. The warden, as usual, was a pow-
Prison Problems 63
erful politician. At the time of the investigation
he was State Senator ; and on the stand he testified
that he had been member of the school board, mayor
of his town, and tersely "all that sort of thing."
He was a personal friend of Governor Hoch. The
firm which held the principal contract in his institu-
tion, the Union Overall Company, also had power-
ful affiliations. Its vice-president was the Honor-
able D. R. Anthony, Jr., now representing the First
District in Congress.
Having no decent defense, the powers resorted
to an indecent one. "Tales were circulated," says
Miss Barnard, "that my motive for making the
charges against the Kansas Prison was 'that my
husband had been a convict !' When it was pointed
out that I am a single woman the tale was changed
to make me an ex-convict. When our committee
resented these preposterous stories they told that
the Assistant Commissioner had been a prisoner in
Lansing Prison. The five witnesses brought from
Oklahoma were designated as "Kate Barnard's
Band of Murderers." A Kansas City reporter
chided me with bringing such men as wit-
nesses. I retorted by asking him who but convicts
or ex-convicts could testify truly as to what took
place within prison walls. He confessed that no
others could, but ended by saying that he would
not believe such men under oath. This was an ad-
mission that he would allow horrors to exist in a
prison because of lack of proper witnesses. The
sentiment was a serious handicap, but you will ob-
serve by reading the evidence that not one bit of
the ex-convicts' testimony was disproved."
The evidence was strong enough to cause drastic
64 Prison Problems
action to be taken by both States. The Oklahoma
prisoners were removed in the dead of winter and
set to building a prison for themselves in their own
State. Kansas, left to grope with its problem, threw
out the entire prison staff, cancelled the contracts
which had been the source of the punishments, and
cleaned and humanized the institution in many
ways. Mr. Codding, the new warden, is a big man
and impressed me, in the course of a brief talk, as
a strong man. With the aid of Governor Stubbs,
who has thrown himself heart and soul into the
problem, he has already accomplished great results.
The scandal which Miss Barnard raised has end-
ed well for two States. But its lessons may well
serve for the twenty-odd other States where con-
victs are still exploited for profit.
What has happened in the midst of two kindly
communities like Kansas and Michigan can happen,
and does happen, elsewhere. I cannot emphasize
too strongly the fact that these two cases that I
have described at some length are not exceptional.
It happened that, for a brief moment, their windows
were opened wide and we were allowed to see what
goes on in the name of the State. Other prisons,
no less guilty, have their windows firmly shut and
curtained. No outside investigator can possibly
get the legal evidence necessary to convict. Guards
will not talk; their bread and butter depends upon
silence. Prisoners cannot talk; for so long as they
remain in the cage they cannot reach the outside
world with their stories, for not a letter may leave
or enter the prison without inspection, and when
discharged they cannot talk for their liberty fre-
quently depends upon their silence. They are either
Prison Problems 65
on parole or on probation ; or they are dependent
upon the charity of a prisoners' aid society which
is itself dependent upon the good will of the prison
administration. The warden need not talk for he
is all-powerful. He is the one public official who is
not accountable to the public in any effective de-
gree. He publishes annual reports; but no one
can check them or contradict them, for he holds
the keys to the prison.
To get legal evidence under such circumstances
is, I must repeat, well-nigh impossible; yet, I have
enough information to justify a dogmatic declara-
tion that wherever the contract system exists in any
of its forms either lease, piece-price or ordinary
contract there exist the same conditions that have
been exposed in Michigan and Kansas. I might
even say that, in judging contract prisons, it is
proper to reverse the usual laws of evidence and
to hold them guilty unless they can prove their
innocence ; and that the better the reputation of
such a prison is, the worse is its actual administra-
tion likely to be.
I have in mind, for example, one Eastern prison
where the contract system has operated undisturbed
for many years. The warden of the institution is
a leading penologist. He is a prominent member
of the American Prison Association. He has the
solid support of press, pulpit and public in his State.
Yet I venture to predict, on the basis of certain
evidence now in my possession, that if the Gov-
ernor of that State should appoint, tomorrow, a
committee consisting, let us say, of the deans of
the political science faculties of Harvard and Yale,
one or two perfectly upright prison officials of the
66 Prison Problems
stamp of Superintendent Leonard of the Ohio Re-
formatory, and two or three well-known men of
the State; and if the Governor or the Legislature
should give this committee the power to examine
witnesses under oath, to audit the prison records,
and to make a thorough physical probe of the prison
I venture to predict that this committee would,
in the course of a week's investigation, uncover a
nest of horror which would make the community
gasp.
The reader who has followed the story to this
point has probably asked himself more than once :
"If this is a true picture of prison life, why do the
men endure it all? They are strong, desperate men;
why don't they revolt? Why don't they burn the
prison down? Why don't they kill their keepers
or themselves?"
The answer is simpler than one would imagine.
In the first place, the average convict, like the aver-
age human being, does not expect to share the gen-
eral fate. He knows that others are punished and
even tortured. Scarcely a day passes without a
whisper of it reaching him, in the voiceless lan-
guage which convicts employ. But he invents a
dozen reasons to explain to his own satisfaction
why they deserved what they got and why he
won't get it. And when his turn comes he is as-
tounded.
In the second place, most convicts are not des-
perate men. On the contrary, the average convict is
the most docile, spiritless creature in the wide world.
We must remember that of the great army of law-
breakers it is only the failures who land in prison ;
and this consciousness of failure crushes the con-
Prison Problems 67
vict's spirit even more than does the iron routine
of the prison.
The tradition of the "bad man" which rules the
popular attitude toward the convict is both false
and foolish. It is fostered, largely, by two agencies,
neither of which is altogether disinterested. One
of these is the police ; the other is the daily press.
The police make their bread and butter by the pose
of social defense. It is true that many police and
prison officials are sincere in their simple convic-
tion that society, were it not for brass buttons,
would instantly revert to barbarism ; the majority,
however, understand their place fairly well and are
not above trading upon the fears of the timid citi-
zen deliberately, with an eye to increased appropria-
tions. The newspapers, on the other hand, foster
the "bad man" tradition indirectly, and perhaps in-
nocently.
It is only the more sensational crimes that have
sufficient news value to justify "scareheads" or
prominent mention otherwise. But the average
reader does not realize this. He is fed, daily, on
the exceptional in crime, and ends by accepting it
as the rule. Therefore he finally grows to associate
all criminals with sensational deeds of daring or
cruelty, forgetting that for every crime which is
striking enough to be "played up" on the front
page of his paper there are a thousand drab, stupid,
foolish, cowardly crimes which are too inane to get
an inch of space in the most obscure corner of the
sheet. Yet it is the perpetrators of these who are,
as a rule, the inmates of our prisons.
When a superior criminal does, by a fluke, land in
prison one of two things happens immediately.
68 Prison Problems
Either he is broken by the routine and becomes
as spiritless as the rest or he worms himself into
the ring which rules the prison and himself becomes
a force for law and order. In either event he knows
that to attempt escape or mutiny is foolish ; for
success in either is, as a rule, followed by recapture
or defeat.
It is the common realization of this, rather than
the discipline of the prison, which makes concerted
mutiny impossible.
Concerted mutiny is doomed to failure; but indi-
vidual revolts are equally futile. Nevertheless,
there arise, occasionally, men of heroic frame who
resist to the end. These are probably recorded in
the physician's report as victims of heart disease or
fever. Some men will even mutilate themselves in
order to escape the daily task. This is mentioned
casually in many a prison report. In Missouri, for
example, where the contractors have full control,
the report of the State Bureau of Labor for 1909 re-
marks that "Some deliberately maimed themselves
by placing fingers under cutters or against fast-mov-
ing circular saws, to escape the daily task." But
these poor creatures miscalculated sadly. They were
simply turned over to a shoe-findings contractor for
twenty cents a day less than the standard price.
In some States the cripples and defectives are sold
for half price. Nowhere do they escape the task;
for the institution which is run by the contract
system cannot afford to trade fingers for freedom.
Prison Problems 69
THE CONTRACT SYSTEM.
By Charles Edward Russell.
As a general rule, subject, of course, to some ex-
ceptions and modifications, where there is contract
labor there is corporal punishment; where there is
no contract labor there is no corporal punishment.
In these days, therefore, corporal punishment sur-
vives not for reasons of discipline, because disci-
pline is maintained easily enough without it, but
to extract from the prisoners the profits of specula-
tors in misfortune. And the men that are subjected
to the unspeakable degradation and pain of the lash
suffer not so much for their own misbehavior as
for the greed of those into whose hands the punish-
ment of our stumblers was never legally committed.
Long ago I suspected this to be the fact; now 1
am sure of it. Lest there be doubt of this detestable
fruit of a vicious system, I refer the incredulous
to the evidence that lies in the geographical distri-
bution of the evil. They will find that corporal
punishment and brutality are at the worst where
the contract system is most absolute (as in the
loathsome convict camps of Alabama) and lessen
as the contract system lessens, until all disappear
together in a modern reformatory like Fort Leaven-
worth.
The hearts of men are not naturally cruel ; cruelty
is the offspring of greed, and greed is born of the
social system that enables the strong to prey upon
the weak and one man to live upon another's toil.
70 Prison Problems
PROFIT IN PRISON LABOR.
Leslie M. Shaw was four years Governor of Iowa.
He was for six years a member of the President's
cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury. He is at
present the influential president of the First Mort-
gage Guarantee and Trust Company of Philadel-
phia; also chairman of the board of directors of
the American Fibre Reed Company. With Mr.
Shaw, politics is politics and business is business.
We have received a copy of a recent prospectus
of the American Fibre Reed Company, enumerating
the advantages under which it operates, announcing
its plans for increased output, and offering $200,000
of its preferred stock at par to the public.
Mr. Shaw's prospectus is impressive. It says :
"The American Fibre Reed Company manufactures
fibre and reed furniture with prison labor. Its fac-
tories are located inside prison walls and it has, at
the present time, 800 prisoners under contract in
Maine, Illinois and Kentucky. Prison contracts are
usually made for eight years and generally con-
tinue indefinitely. This company pays for its labor
52 cents per man per day; its competitors who
employ free labor pay an average wage of about
$2.00 per day."
"There are no strikes or labor troubles in prisons.
This company is supplied free of rent with factory
buildings, storage warehouses and grounds inside
the prison walls, and with free heat, light'and power.
To acquire similar facilities as this company has
obtained free with its contracts would necessitate
Prison Problems 71
an additional investment of approximately $1,000,-
000. Having to make no investment for factory
buildings, storage warehouses, heat, light or power,
the company's funds are kept actively engaged in
liquid assets such as raw materials, finished goods,
and accounts receivable. These are ideal conditions
for profitable manufacturing."
"Dividends of 7 per cent on the preferred and
10 per cent on the common stock are strongly as-
sured ; in fact, the company expects its net earnings
to be double these dividend requirements."
"The company's experience and organization
enables it to obtain these contracts and advantages
in preference to other manufacturers of fibre and
reed furniture who have not had prison experience."
"The demand for fibre and reed furniture, having
grown so rapidly, the company has decided to double
its output. This should give it control of about 65
per cent of the fibre and 50 per cent of the reed
business in the United States."
Meanwhile the movement against contract prison
labor is gaining headway. The states are beginning
to awaken to the evils and injustice of exploiting
prisoners for private profit. Twenty-one states
passed laws designed to protect imprisoned men
and women from being used as cheap labor to pile
up dividends for favored manufacturers. Not one
state legislated to give new powers of leasing or
contracting for the labor of prisoners, and one only,
Idaho, extended the field of its present leases.
What Mr. Shaw's company offers is undoubtedly
attractive to capital seeking high earnings and little
risk. It is what is known as a "cinch." But is it not
also an object lesson? Does it not emphasize the
72 Prison Problems
public duty of protecting our prisoners from such
exploitation for the private enrichment of a few
manufacturers ; like those, for example, whose "ex-
perience and organization" enable them to get the
cheap prison labor and the free light, power, heat
and space, away from competitors with less of such
"prison experience?" Reprinted from La Follette's
Magazine.
PRISONERS SHARING PROFITS.
F. H. Tracy, Sheriff of Washington County, Vt.
"The work commenced under a prison labor law
passed by the legislature of this state in 1906, the
intent of the law being to work men under guards.
We tried this method for some months, but with
poor success, the men doing as little as possible
and with poor results. Finally, in the spring of
that year, I commenced the plan of giving the men
a part of their earnings. In other words, I gave
them all they earned above one dollar per day, and
the result has been wonderful. The men all have
to work as laborers, no matter what has been their
calling. We have had many a man support his
family from his earnings while serving time. The
men go to their day's work like any ordinary
laborer, sometimes five or six together, and some-
times alone, working cheerfully and saving their
wages and contented. Surely the time is fully ripe
when every state should give those confined a part
of their earnings. This means better work and re-
lieves many innocent people of the disgrace of
charity."
Prison Problems 73
GOOD ROADS BUILT WITH PRISON
LABOR.
By Warden T. J. Tynan.
In four years we have built about 1,000 miles of
roads in Colorado with labor worth $2.00 a day,
but which cost only 28 cents. We now have 300 of
our 800 convicts engaged in that work without
armed guards, and many miles away from the prison
walls. One-hundred more are employed under the
same conditions on the 1,500 acre farm of the prison.
In other words, 50 per cent of our prisoners are
working outside the walls. This system has spread
in the last four years until it is now used with suc-
cess in Oregon, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming and
Nevada.
We build approximately $250,000 worth of roads
yearly. Prisoners are sent out to do the work.
They form a camp and are supervised in their work
by a skilled road man. For every thirty days of
good deportment the prisoner receives ten days of
"good time." One prisoner out of every 200 escapes.
Before they are sent out they give their word of
honor they will not attempt to escape and will pre-
vent others from trying. They get relatives and
friends to make like promises on their behalf, so
that when a man does escape he throws down his
best friends.
The public is against the contract system. The
labor unions have indorsed the use of convicts on
the roads. They build excellent roads, too.
74 Prison Problems
The old system of prison management is funda-
mentally wrong from both the viewpoint of the
state and prisoner. Flogging is worse than futile.
It only tends to brutalize the victim and serves no
useful purpose. I have used it only twice in five
years. The contract labor system is the worst cufsc
of prisons. It is a farce. Two favorite industries
for the contract system are the making of brooms
and shirts. In making brooms the contractor is
often robbing the blind, for many of them earn their
living by making brooms. The contract system
teaches no trade to the prisoner, the state is cheated,
and the system is morally bad. It benefits only the
contractor.
"All nations seem to have had supreme confidence
in the deterrent power of threatened and inflicted
pain. They have regarded punishment as the shorc-
est road to reformation. Curiously enougn, the fact
is that no matter how severe the punishments were,
they did not cure crime. In our country there has
been, for many years, a growing feeling that con-
victs should neither be degraded nor tortured. It
is my belief that all the tortures inflicted in the
modern penitentaries have been caused through
physical fear, and when the average warden over-
comes that natural fear of the man who is impris-
oned, he will find that kindness and firmness will
go further toward reformation than the club or
whipping post. The convict who is doing right
should be encouraged. Every right should be given
him, consistent with the safety of society. He
should not be degraded or robbed. We have found
that by working a certain number of our convicts
on the public highways we have produced splendid
Prison Problems 75
results, not only from a monetary standpoint, but
in the way of reforming the men themselves. Sinco
December 1, 1910, we have built over 1,000 miles of
good roads. I hope the sentiment of the state will
commend us to such a degree that we will be able
to keep our convicts on the highways, instead of
keeping them inside, because we know from actual
tests and experience gathered from other states that
ours is the most reformatory way of running a
prison ever conducted in the country."
BUT DOES IT PAY?
The man who gave his son a nickel to go to bed
without his supper then charged him five cents for
his breakfast had nothing on these prison officials:
Some few prisons pay a small stipend to those
prisoners who are actively engaged in doing the
work that serves to make the institution self-sup-
porting. From this amount the State deducts the
cost of keeping the prisoner. One great State in
the East pays its prisoners the munificent wages
of one and one-half cents for each working day,
irrespective of what their work may be, but even
in this case earnings were forfeited for each in-
fraction of the rules. Editor-in-Chief of Good
Words published in the United States penitentiary
at Atlanta, Ga.
76 Prison Problems
A NEW PURPOSE.
By Warden J. C. Saunders.
"Thou shalt not kill" ought to be as binding on
the state as it is on the individual. Why should
the state set the example of killing a man, that he
may pay the penalty of a crime; kill another man
for slaying his comrade? We seem to forget that
any punishment is reserved for the Almighty to
administer. There are those who maintain that the
murderer should be killed as you would kill a snake
that bites you. I believe it is a mistake to send a
man to the penitentiary for life on circumstantial
evidence. What is the logic in killing a man who
never stands alone in this world, unless you punish
his accomplice and furthermore preclude the bad
social conditions and defective institutions that tend
to make him what he is? Every instance of a man's
suffering the penalty of the law is an instance of
the failure of that penalty in effecting its purpose,
which is to deter. To break away from custom
is always painful, no matter how barbarous the
custom, which is seen more in what we bear than
in what we enjoy; and yet a pain long borne so
fits itself to our shoulders that we do not even miss
that without disquietude.
Nature never made an unkind creature ; illusions
and bad habits have deformed a fair and lovely crea-
tion. Outlawed criminals often bear more hu-
manity in their hearts than these cold blameless
citizens of virtue in whose white hearts the power
Prison Problems 77
of evil is quenched, and also the power of good. If a
man steals a ride on a railroad he is called a "hobo";
if he steals the whole railroad, his name is emblaz-
oned in history as a financier. An outsider was
passing by the prison the other day when the men
in the yards were indulging in a game of baseball.
He remarked to the guard on the wall : "This is a
hell of a penitentiary." That man had just sold
fifty cords of wood that were three inches short of
being four feet long. Verily, I was led to exclaim
that the chief difference between the outsider and
the group on the inside was simply the stone wall.
To close a man's ears to the refining influence of
music is nothing short of criminal.
Men must be inspired with the idea that they
are men, entitled as men to the fullest of every
privilege which they can only lose by ceasing to be
men. Self-respect is recreated at once; there re-
turns a sense of personal dignity, and those are the
two kinetic forces of reformation."
It is my opinion that there should be more sys-
tem of earning devised for the prisoners, that they
may acquire the habit of not only making, but sav-
ing, during the period of their incarceration, and par-
ticularly those who have families on the outside.
This would give them a working interest in the in-
stitution, and it would cultivate the habit of dili-
gence, industry, etc., such as we would want them
to use on the outside when released. It is punish-
ment of the most cruel character to turn a man
loose from the prison with nothing in his pocket
but a five dollar bill. There is no question but
that the matter would be abused, but the abuse by
a few should not prevent the rewarding of one who
78 Prison Problems
is really trying to make a man of what is left of
him. Exercise, as I have said before, is the law of
development, and the lack of that habit of saving
is what brings many a fellow in here, to think
and ponder over the past, and suffer. There is no
man so miserable as he who is at a loss how to
spend his time in his cell after his manual labor is
over. The divinest spirit that ever appeared on
earth has told us that the extension of human sym-
pathy embraces all that is required of us either to
do or to foresee.
Our prison lecture course, which carries with it
about $1,200 worth of the best talent on the lecture
platform, is a reward that cannot be measured in its
influence. The personal appearance of a prisoner
should be emphasized by a respectable suit of
clothes, tailor-made, laundered shirts and polished
shoes, for Sundays and holidays. Now, I know that
many laugh at this proposition ; but when you
consider that many of them have never had any of
these refining influences on the outside and have
subordinated their finer senses to over-indulgence
of passion, it is worth while to reward them. You
cannot make a man better, you cannot make him
think better or act better, until you first throw
around him the best influences there are. Further-
more, it does not cost any more to make a suit of
clothes shapely than it does to throw it together
and hang it on a prisoner as you would rags on a
scarecrow.
A man's food should be varied, not with ex-
travagance ; but he should have plenty of good
wholesome food. These men have eaten with their
hands in "hobo" clusters out of troughs, much like
the swine on the outside, and have failed.
Prison Problems 79
Ninety per cent of the men in my institution
are there as a direct result of the booze proposition,
but I have very few bartenders who sold these
ninety per cent men the booze. I would abolish
capital punishment, and I am not sure that I shall
not eventually do away with the solitary, except in
the very rarest cases ; as I believe the mental pun-
ishment which a man gets is far in excess and much
more effective than any corporal punishment what-
soever. Prisons should be located in the country
where fresh air and God's out-of-doors can be in-
dulged in to the limit. Our medical department
would then have fifty per cent less service to ren-
der. Prisoners' health of course is a vital consider-
ation. The treatment of the eye, ear, nose and
throat is a revelation.
The beating of men will not be tolerated while
I am warden. I think perhaps the most effective
punishment we have is taking a man's good time
and depriving him of the privileges of fellowship
on holidays, and keeping him out of the dining-
room and from assembling with the men in the
yards and enjoying the little social privileges that
cost nothing to give. "Punish parents and not chil-
dren" was the caption of a column in a daily paper
the other day. If I were a Methodist I should say
"Amen." May the Lord save many children from
their parents before they get in the ways that lead
to the prison. A man or woman who brings a child
into this world ought to be compelled to raise it
right.
The cry is punishment, punishment, punishment.
Ah, my dear reader. God knows that the man is
punished more than human tongue can tell in the
80 Prison Problems
words "convict" and "ex-convict." His punishment
never leaves him. There is never a moment in the
natural life of a man who has served in a prison
which is free from punishment. The world points
its finger of scorn and says : "There goes the 'ex-
convict'." God pity the "ex-prisoner," nobody else
does. There are sufferings that the world never
sees, and that courts and keepers cannot inflict.
Long after father and mother have sinned
through omission; long after the formative period
of life has passed and nothing but a wreck and a
shell is presented at the turnkey's office ; long
after the moral and religious instincts have been
decultivated ; long after every influence has been
brought to bear to weaken ; long after the miserable
jails of Iowa have stung them; long after the courts
and municipalities have given them the "gravity
kick" ; long after a few should have been sent to
Glenwood ; long after the inebriate should have en-
rolled elsewhere ; long after some have become in-
sane; long after hate, anger, judge, jury, mob, and
prejudice have placed their "fiat," we are asked to
reward and punish. When we contemplate the
psychology of a mob of intelligent people, we seri-
ously doubt our moral right to punish.
THINK IT OVER.
"We condemn their bodies to degeneracy, break
their spirit with iron bars, and, when their souls
are black and cankered, turn them out again upon
the world." Gov. George W. P. Hunt, of Arizona.
Prison Problems 81
PRISON PROBLEMS.
Governor B. F. Carroll, of Iowa, appointed a com-
mittee to investigate prison conditions at Fort Mad-
ison and elsewhere. The committee consisted of
Hon George Cosson, attorney general, Hon. M. A.
Roberts of Ottumwa, who had long served upon the
district bench, and Hon. Parley Sheldon, of Ames,
who has served as mayor of his city for nearly a
generation, who at one time was the nominee of
his party for Lieutenant Governor. The committee
made a long and valuable report, its finds and recom-
mendations were unanimous. A few of them are
copied here : "Under any system in the manage-
ment of a penal institution there must of necessity
be loyalty, fidelity and co-operation on the part of
the guards and the subordinate officers. Their
conduct is inextricably connected not only with the
general welfare of a prison, but also abuses com-
mon to penal institutions.
We found that there were a number of guards
at the penitentiary who were not loyal to the war-
den, the board of control, nor the state. They were
conniving with prisoners either through sympathy
or for gain.
The evidence is absolutely convincing that a num-
ber of guards were passing letters in and out of
the institution, and not only that, some of them
were furnishing prisoners with morphine, cocaine
and other kinds of dope. It seems to be generally
accepted that in a number of the penal institutions
of the country, the guards themselves traffic in dope,
8'2 Prison Problems
and it is claimed that many a young fellow who
never used dope when he entered a prison left it
an abject dope fiend. Evidence comes to this com-
mittee that such is true within this state.
We are advised that since the visit of this com-
mittee to the institution three or four guards have
been discharged. The committee recommends that
every guard and every subordinate officer in the
penitentiary at Fort Madison who is either passing
letters, passing dope or in any way planning and
conniving with prisoners should be promptly dis-
charged. Wardens in other prisons have attempted
to temporize with guards of this character and sus-
pend them or reprimand them. The result has
always been that the warden or superintendent has
found that he has a far more dangerous man in the
institution in the person of the guard than the pris-
oner himself. In this regard there should be no
expediency or temporizing. Summary and abso-
lute dismissal is the proper remedy. In this con-
nection the committee finds that the general stand-
ard of the guards at Fort Madison is not equal to
the high standard found at the Mansfield and Elmira
Reformatories and other model penal institutions.
It needs no argument to demonstrate that a man
of sufficient education, ability and character to prop-
erly fill the responsible position of guard cannot be
permanently kept at a small salary of fifty or fifty-
five dollars per month.
No institution can be properly managed without
capable, efficient, honest and loyal guards. There
was evidence to the effect that some of the em-
ployees of the contractors co-operated with the
prisoners in passing things in and out of the prison.
Prison Problems 83
While our evidence is such as not to warrant us in
attempting to designate the particular employees of
the contractors, we feel certain that there is more
or less truth in the testimony, and that not only
information and letters are conveyed from prisoners
to persons on the outside, but that at least some
drugs and dope received by prisoners come through
that avenue. That abundant opportunities exist for
these evils there can be no question.
That in some states, prison officials of penal insti-
tutions have received financial benefit from the con-
tracts is certain, and that the opportunity exists in
any event is beyond question. There is no penal
institution in which the contract labor system exists
where prisoners do not claim that the officers of
the institution are controlled by the contractors,
from the superintendent, the warden, the prison
physician down to the most subordinate officer.
Inasmuch as the contractor is in the business for
profit and not for philanthropy, there is a great
temptation on the part of the contractors to keep
on harmonious relations with the prison authorities.
This may be done in various ways without trans-
gressing any law, and perhaps without the con-
tractors realizing that they are offending against
anything in the moral code. If, however, the con-
tractor is the kind of man that believes in getting
results and that the end justifies the means, there is
unlimited opportunity for corruption.
A letter was received by the attorney general from
an inmate in which he states : "I have been deprived
of my liberty and robbed of my labor for years. My
health and nervous system are broken down. I am
not a criminal and feel that I am held a slave to
the contract system."
84 Prison Problems
The saying that "Whenever the contractor comes
in, the warden goes out" contains a sufficient amount
of truth to prevent it ever becoming obsolete so
long as the contract system is in use.
As before stated, the contractor is in the business
for what profit he can get out of it. He does not
pretend to be an educator, a reformer or philan-
thropist. He cannot be blamed if he makes long
term contracts for the prisoners' labor at from twen-
ty-five to eighty cents a day at the penitentiary at
Fort Madison twenty-five and sixty cents per day
nor can he be blamed if he receives as much control
over the prisoners as possible ; that is his end of the
bargain.
The blame should primarily be lodged against
the state. It is fundamentally wrong for a state to
exploit prisoners for profit. It is not only wrong
but foolish when this exploitation is delegated to
some private corporation. If any one is to receive a
profit it should be the state. If a profit can be made
by a corporation it can be made by the state under
efficient management. When the state assumes
control over an individual it is responsible for his
physical well-being and his social and moral wel-
fare, but no one pretends that a contractor is con-
cerned in any way with the social, moral or physi-
cal welfare of the prisoner. With the state, the
primary object in view should be the protection of
society and the reformation of the individual ; with
the contractor the primary object is and always will
be the maximum amount of dividends, and it is no
answer to say that the Thirteenth Amendment to
the federal constitution of the United States, in
which it is provided that "Neither slavery nor in-
Prison Problems 85
voluntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime, whereof the party shall have been duly con-
victed, shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction" at least indirect-
ly recognizes that each state may impose a form
of slavery upon its convicts.
The contract system is the worst form of slavery
because it is a delegated form of slavery. Authority
and responsibility should go hand in hand but this
cannot be with the contract system. The Outlook,
May 4, 1912, editorially in describing the difference
between the contract labor system and slavery as it
formerly existed, states : "There is, however, this
important difference between the contractor's rela-
tion to the convict and that of a master to his serv-
ant. The master owns his slave and hence has a
selfish interest in his life, health and efficiency. The
contractor does not own the convict, and hence has
no selfish interest in his physical well-being. If
the convict dies, it costs the contractor nothing, and
there are plenty more to take^ his place. Is it any
wonder that a leading prison contractor once ex-
claimed, 'This beats having slaves all hollow !'
Yes, this modern survival of slavery has a great ad-
vantage, from the dollars and cents point of view,
over the old form."
"The God given right to labor should not be
denied permanently or for any considerable period
to any human being. Numberless instances could
be given of the evil effects of enforced idleness and
of solitary confinement. Under an act of 1821, fol-
lowing an experiment in Pennsylvania, New York
adopted a scheme of grading, which proposed three
classes. The most dangerous and impenitent com-
86 Prison Problems
posed the first class, which was doomed to constant
confinement in solitary cells with no companion but
their own thoughts and, if the keeper saw fit, a
Bible. The second class, to be the less incorrigible,
should alternate between solitary confinement and
labor as a recreation. The third, being the most
hopeful, were to work in association by day and to
be in seclusion by night. The first class were
separated from the others on Christmas, 1821, and
consisted of eighty-three of the most hardened
prisoners who were committed to silence and soli-
tude. In less than a year five of the eighty-three
had died, one became an idiot, another when his
door was opened dashed himself from the gallery,
and the rest with haggard looks and despairing
voices begged to be set to work."
A prison warden of one of the eastern institu-
tions who has held his present position for over
twenty-five years, told the attorney general of Iowa
that he could distinguish a prisoner who had for-
merly served time in the Pennsylvania penitentiary
by the looks and actions of the prisoner without any
other evidence. This experience, however, is not
confined to our own country.
Mr. Bailie-Cochrane says: "The officers at the
Dartmoor prison inform me that the prisoners who
arrive there even after one year's confinement at
Pentonville, may be distinguished from the others
by their miserable downcast look. In most instances
the brain is affected, and they are unable to give
satisfactory replies to the simplest questions."
"The evils of solitary confinement and enforced
idleness as described by prison officials are clearly
recognized by the greatest psychologists and phil-
Prison Problems 87
osophers. Herbert Spencer in his unusually able and
prophetic essay on "Prison Ethics" after condemn-
ing the solitary system said : ''Our own objection
to such methods, however, has always been, that
their effect on the moral nature is the very reverse
of that required. Crime is anti-social is prompted
by self-regarding feelings, and checked by social
feelings. The natural prompter of right conduct to
others, and the natural opponent of misconduct to
others, is sympathy ; for out of sympathy grow both
the kindly emotions, and that sentiment of justice
which restrains us from aggressions. Well, this
sympathy, which makes society possible, is culti-
vated by social intercourse. By habitual participa-
tion in the pleasures of others, the faculty is
strengthened ; and whatever prevents this participa-
tion, weakens it an effect commonly illustrated in
the selfishness of old bachelors. Hence, therefore,
we contend that shutting up prisoners within them-
selves, or forbidding all interchange of feeling, in-
evitably deadens such sympathies as they have ; and
so tends rather to diminish than to increase the
moral check to transgression. This a priori convic-
tion, which we have long entertained, we now find
confirmed by facts. Captain Maconcochie states as
a result of observation, that a long course of separa-
tion so fosters the self-regarding desires, and so
weakens the sympathies, as to make even well-dis-
posed men very unfit to bear the little trials of
domestic life on their return to their homes. Thus
there is good reason to think that, while silence and
solitude may cow the spirit or undermine the ener-
gies, it cannot produce true reformation."
This is precisely in accordance with the conclu-
88 Prison Problems
sions of the late Professor William James of Har-
vard set forth in his psychology on page 179 in
which he speaks of the effect of depriving a human
being of his social relation with his fellow man,
and says:
"No more fiendish punishment could be devised,
were such a thing physically possible, than that one
should be turned loose in society and remain ab-
solutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. If
no one turned around when we entered, answered
when we spoke, or minded what we did, but if every
person we met 'cut us dead,' and acted as if we
were non-existing things, a kind of rage and impo-
tent despair would ere long well up in us, from which
the cruellest bodily tortures would be relief; for
these would make us feel that, however bad might
be our plight, we had not sunk to such a depth as to
be unworthy of attention at all."
Emphasis has been placed upon the evil effect of
both the solitary confinement and enforced idleness
because it even now forms so large a part of our
penal system. Especially is this true with the pun-
ishment meted out to misdemeanants. The state in
eliminating one evil should not cause a still greater
evil. There is conclusive evidence, however, that
a substitute or substitutes for contract labor can be
found which is superior from every view point to
that of contract labor. In other words, we believe
that contract labor can be entirely abolished from
our penal institutions and that our institutions can
be so managed that every person confined may be
profitably employed at productive labor during every
working day, and we believe that there is something
radically wrong in any institution where any con-
Prison Problems 89
siderable number of able bodied men are in idleness
or where any individual capable of labor is kept in
idleness for any considerable period of time.
Enforced idleness is not only a crime against the
prisoner and his family, but it is economic idiocy,
and this is true whether the idleness is a part of
our system of punishment of felons or misdemean-
ants ; in other words, whether it is a part of the
penitentiary system or a part of the jail system, ex-
cept where the jail is used merely as a place of
detention.
Prof. Charles R. Henderson of Chicago, United
States commissioner of International Prison Com-
mission, says in his introduction to Outdoor Labor
for Convicts : "The whole question of occupation
of convicts is connected with that of the reform of
our jail system, which, by the unanimous consent of
all competent students is the most vicious and cor-
rupt agency connected with our penal system. The
essential evil of the ordinary county jail does not
lie merely in its unsanitary condition, bad as that
often is, for this can be corrected by health author-
ities. The worst of the jail method is that it in-
volves idleness and base companionship. It is idle-
ness which corrupts young men, especially when
the unoccupied time is spent with depraved com-
pany. There is a large class of low-bred, degenerate,
alcoholic rounders who are now required to serve
short sentences for drunkenness or disorder and
who are made worse by the treatment given them
under present laws."
The fee system connected with our jail system
is absolutely indefensible and should be abolished
by the next general assembly.
90 Prison Problems
Mr. Paul U. Kellogg, in reporting the proceedings
of the International Prison Congress at Washing-
ton, in the Survey of November 5, 1910, in speaking
of this question states that the imprisonment of all
persons awaiting trial and those under sentence for
minor offenses has been left in the hands of counties
and states, and says: "The fees to be gained by
their arrest, detention, feeding and incarceration
during the period of sentence, have made the
sheriff's office the center of county politics and in
some localities, a more lucrative post than that of
president of the United States."
A system whereby a sheriff has a distinct, per-
sonal, financial gain in the arrest and confinement of
prisoners, and no interest whatsoever in their refor-
mation is vicious and capable of no defense.
That being true, we agree with Prof. Chas. R.
Henderson that mere "petty tinkering with the
present methods is absurd and is a waste of time,
money and manhood," and that "this evil cannot be
corrected so long as the ordinary place for serving
short sentences is a county institute. The jail
should be reserved simply for prisoners presumably
innocent, but held for trial. A convicted person
should at once be sent to a district prison of some
kind and placed under state control until he is re-
stored to freedom."
And we also agree with Sir Evelyn Ruggles Brise
that "America cannot help Europe solve the prob-
lem of dealing with misdemeanants until we recog-
nize that the petty offender is as much a matter for
state concern and control as the man under long and
indeterminate sentence."
Abundance of evidence from our own state which
Prison Problems 91
is within the possession and knowledge of this com-
mittee makes it absolutely imperative that we should
entirely eliminate the county jail in so far as it is
used as a place of confinement or punishment of a
person convicted of crime, and that in all such in-
stances the offender should, in the event that he
has violated a state law and sentenced to confine-
ment, be sent to some district penal institution un-
der the absolute jurisdiction and control of the state
Hugh C. Weir in the World To-day for January,
1910, states that a man was sentenced to the Phila-
delphia city prison 201 times for the same offense.
The records of the Detroit House of Correction
show one man to have been committed 112 times ;
another, 59 times ; another, 58 times ; another, 57 ;
another, 40; and so on down.
We are informed by police officers in the city of
Des Moines that Polk county has one citizen who
has been sentenced on an average of from five to
ten times a year during the past fifteen years; and
one year this individual was committed to the city
or county jail seventeen times. It goes without
saying that any law under which it is possible for
a man to serve seventeen sentences in a year, and
an average of from five to ten every year, and from
100 to 200 in a life time is both archaic and vicious.
The amount of money annually spent in punish-
ing intoxication and inebriety and the resultant
evils inflicted upon the offenders' families by reason
of the present foolish and vicious form of punish-
ment is far greater than the public generally real-
izes.
The statistics of one writer show that one-half of
all the arrests in a dozen of the largest cities of the
92 Prison Problems
United States during the year 1909 were for intoxi-
cation, and he states that during that year there
were approximately 786,000 arrests in the country,
and that over 350,000 of these were for drunken
men. During the same year the report for England
shows that of 90,000 persons who were committed
to prison in default of payment of fines, over half
were convicted of drunkenness.
Reports from every county in the state of Iowa,
and special investigations which have been made
by one of the members of this committee in some
of the larger cities, show that the ratio of arrests
for intoxication as to the whole number of arrests is
about the same in Iowa as the reports for the United
States and for England, that is to say, our report
shows that the arrests in Iowa for intoxication aver-
age from 46 to 52 per cent of the total number for
arrests, and in some communities arrests for intoxi-
cation are 60 to 65 per cent of the total number of
arrests.
Jane Addams and Katherine Bement Davis, Sup-
erintendent of the New York State Reformatory for
Women, have taught us that the scarlet letter may
be removed, that the women of the street convicted
of immorality are worth saving, and that it is pos-
sible to save them.
Summing up the evils of the jail system now
existing in Iowa, we cannot do better than to adopt
the language of the commissioners appointed by
ex-president Roosevelt to investigate the jail system
in the District of Columbia. They say :
"The evils of such a state of things are too
obvious to call for or even justify extended com-
ment. That men and women should be sent to
Prison Problems 93
these narrow and crowded cells, the innocent with
the guilty, the first-offender with the hardened
criminal, in one promiscuous assembly, to corrupt
and be corrupted by each other, the lazy to be
humored and fostered in their laziness, the in-
dustrious to be deprived of every form of employ-
ment, to be fed like beasts and maintained at the
public charge, not only with no prospect of im-
provement in their condition, but with the moral
certainty that they will come out far worse than
they went in, is a fact that has become a stench in
the nostrils of the whole community and ought to
be felt as a shame and disgrace to the whole nation,
whose representatives are responsible for its exist-
ence."
Senate Document 648, p. 8.
In view of these conditions and the general de-
fects in our penal system previously referred to,
the question confronting our state is whether we
will continue to cling to a false economy and blindly
follow precedent in our method of dealing with the
large number of persons annually convicted of
crime, or whether we will have the larger vision and
adopt a plan both humane and scientific, in con-
sonance with the heart, the character and the cul-
ture of our people.
Warden Wolfer of the Minnesota Penitentiary, at
Stillwater, writes : "Our annual manufacturing ca-
pacity is now approximately eighteen million
pounds of binder twine. Our mills were operated
at full capacity as usual during the past two years.
Our financial statements show that we could now
pay back into the state a revolving fund to carry
94 Prison Problems
on the business, and still have left a net clear profit
of $1,570,992."
The United States commissioner of labor reports
that there has been a saving to the farmers of three
cents a pound on binder twine, which saving in
view of the amount manufactured and sold to the
farmers of Minnesota amounts to $5,081,190.
"I also call attention to the farm machinery plant ;
after taking a careful, conservative inventory of our
assets, we show under the head of profit and loss, a
developing expense of $42,057.42."
"In my opinion the farm is the solution of the
labor proposition in the employment of convicts.
It is out in the open, gives recreation and the work
is varied. You can always find something to do
for most any prisoner on the farm whether he be
weak or strong. Our farm contains 7,000 acres, is
divided into two camps or stations and each is
well equipped with dwellings for supervisors and
guards, good cell houses and splendid hospitals.
We have a large brick plant on the grounds, but it
is not being operated now. Of course when we
operate this, our population will average about two-
hundred. There seems to be nothing that would
especially distinguish it from other prison manage-
ment, except possibly the farm feature, which has
been a part of our work for about twenty years.
However, I have observed recently that prison
management generally are turning to the farm for
employment of prisoners and no doubt will find it
wholesome occupation and profitable to prisoner
as well as to the management."
Governor George W. Donaghey of Arkansas, re-
ferring to the success of the state penal farm in
Prison Problems 95
his message to the legislature in 1911, said: "We
have on the state farm 2,700 acres of open land.
When we took charge of the penitentiary two years
ago, and before we could make a 4 move to earn any-
thing for its maintenance, we found it was in debt
in the sum of about $130,000. $99,000 was appro-
priated by the legislature out of the general revenue
fund for the payment in part of that debt. The
balance remaining unpaid was left to the board to
work out. The first year, 1909, we bought supplies
on credit, paying what our creditors chose to charge
us, and we not only paid the debt to which we
fell heir, but made enough money over and above
all expenses to pay $30,000 of the state's farm debt,
and turned back into the general revenue fund
$50,000. For the past year we will do equally as
well if not better. The greater part of this money
was earned on the state's farm." Governor Don-
aghey states that less than one-third of the convicts
were used upon the state farm.
The state of Louisiana has purchased for its penal
institutions fifteen thousand acres of land at a cost
of $409,000, there being six separate penal farms
ranging from 400 to 800 acres in each farm. The
recent report for the calendar year ending 1911
shows that they have constructed on one of the
farms a sugar refinery at a cost of nearly $420,000,
"all of which has been paid for out of the earnings
of the penitentiary during the fiscal period, except
$170,671.00."
During the year 1911 the report shows an excess
of receipts over current expenses, $149,308.18. A
large number of the most able-bodied men are work-
ed on levees, and not on the farm. For 1912 the
96 Prison Problems
report shows they will have 2,460 acres of corn and
3,160 acres of cane, besides the other miscellaneous
crops and vegetables sufficient for their own use
and also for sale.
Mr. Frank A. Fetter, in the Survey for February
4, 1911, referring to the Witzwil farm, Berne, Swit-
zerland, which contains 2,000 acres, states :
"This farming enterprise in which most of the
work is done by prisoners has proved to be a good
investment for the canton. There has been ex-
pended by the canton, all told, for land $200,000,
for building material, $100,000, and other cash ad-
vances (net, after deducting the so-called rent paid
to the canton), $50,000, a total of $350,000. The
present worth of the whole plant (land, buildings,
stock, cash fund) is at a low estimate $550,000, an
average gain for the time the institution has been
in full operation of over $13,000 a year. While the
care of the 200 (sometimes over 250) prisoners is
without cost to the public, the actual outlay on
new buildings and equipment has amounted to a
good return on the investment in grounds and build-
ings. Yet this has been done without the lease or
the contract systems of labor, and with no injurious
competition with, or protests from, free labor. With-
in the last year the land has at length been brought
fairly under cultivation, so that it would seem that
the results in the future would be still more favor-
able."
Director Kellerhals in his report states that the
open air employment has a peculiar value both
upon the health and the reformation of the individ-
ual. He states that much of the work done in
closed prisons is of no value to the prisoner upon
Prison Problems 97
his return to society, but that "The conditions are
quite otherwise in an 'establishment in the open
air/ as Dr. Goos of Copenhagen, calls ours. Not
only can a debilitated young man recuperate better
and much more rapidly than in the unhealthy at-
mosphere of the workshop, but he can there acquire
in less time the practical knowledge which is de-
manded of a well-paid workman. Agricultural es-
tablishments are especially helpful to those prison-
ers who, after having undergone a long sentence,
approach the end of their term."
The reason given for this is because of the me-
chanical routine of the ordinary prison. He there-
fore states : "We cannot do better than to re-awak-
en this interest in them and prepare them for the
struggle for existence which awaits them, than to
make them pass the last period of their imprison-
ment in a penal agricultural colony. Agricultural
work more than any other occupation makes it
possible to keep an eye on lazy men. They are
placed in a work group and they must keep up with
their comrades. That is why the agricultural col-
onies are a horror to vagabonds and notorious slug-
gards, while the good workers find themselves rela-
tively happy there."
98 Prison Problems
EXCERPTS FROM CHICAGO'S VICE
COMMISSION REPORT.
"The first truth that the commission desires to
impress upon the citizens of Chicago is the fact
that prostitution in this city is a commercialized
business of large proportions, with tremendous
profits of more than $15,000,000 per year, controlled
largely by men, not women. Separate the male ex-
ploiter from the problem, and we minimize its ex-
tent and abate its flagrant outward expression.
"In juxtaposition with this group of professional
male exploiters stand ostensibly respectable citi-
zens, both men and women, who are openly rent-
ing and leasing property for exorbitant sums, and
thus sharing, thru immorality of investments, the
profits from this business, a business which de-
mands a supply of 5,000 souls from year to year
to satisfy the lust and greed of men in this city
alone."
"First offenders, especially, instead of being fined
or imprisoned, should be placed on probation
under the care of intelligent and sympathetic wo-
men officially connected with the court. Old and
hardened offenders should be sent to an industrial
farm with hospital accommodations on an inde-
terminate sentence. Obviously, it is necessary that
some such measures of almost drastic control should
obtain if such women are to be permanently helped
and society served."
There is a protected and flourishing "vice trust"
robbing the people yearly of $60,000,000, destroy-
Prison Problems 99
ing the souls and bodies of five thousand girls, and
spreading disease, debauchery and degeneracy
throughout every corner of the city. The systema-
tized official graft from this curse of Christendom
amounts, at the lowest conservative estimate of
the leading daily press of Chicago, to nearly $700,-
000 every year.
A code of "regulations" boldly adopted by the
police department, with the sanction of the mayor
and his party backers, deliberately setting aside
both state laws and city ordinances on this great
evil, and sustaining a system of so-called "segre-
gated" vice, the chief purpose of which appears to
be the maintenance of graft and the perpetuation
of the "white slave" traffic.
An organized influence of vice and drink so
powerful as to dictate instant rejection by the
political leaders and officials of the carefully out-
lined proposals for the total suppression of the
social evil, presented by the Vice Commission.
The Chicago grand jury probe, July 19, 1909, dis-
covered that :
1. A network of vice protection extends over
nearly all of Chicago.
2. Tribute is paid by nearly every denizen of
the "underworld," and an elaborate system of col-
lecting this money is in vogue.
3. An elaborate "vice trust" exists on the West
Side, and thru this "trust" tribute is levied upon
the resort-keepers.
4. The heads of this "vice trust" are wealthy
saloonkeepers and ward politicians.
5. The "vice trust" wields so strong a power that
witnesses are afraid to testify against any of its
members.
100 Prison Problems
"How can these unfortunate women be helped
and saved to society? Some well-meaning persons
declare that they should be left to their fate; that
they are criminals, and should be treated as such.
The commission does not feel that this is an answer
to the problem. They are human beings still,
stumbling for a time in the depths of sin and shame,
but notwithstanding how low they have sunken in
the social scale, they can be rescued if by some
method they can be made to feel the touch of divine
sympathy and human love.
"No doubt, during the coming months many of
these women, now in houses, and in the streets, and
in the saloons, will be cut loose from their sur-
roundings by the effective operation of the law.
Some wise provision must be made to help them.
To put them in prison, with no provision for their
spiritual or physical needs, would only tend to
degrade them still lower and send them back to
a life of shame in some other community in a worse
condition than they were before.
Prison Problems 101
WHERE CRIME IS A PROFESSION.
By Abraham H. Sarasohn.
Eminent Criminal Lawyer of New York.
The criminal law has proved inefficient to cope
with the growing element of law-breakers. Not-
withstanding popular notions, the professional
criminals of our large cities are seldom caught, and
if caught are rarely punished. Their safety from
detection and apprehension is due to an inefficient
police system, while their relative security from
punishment even when arrested is founded upon an
archaic and utterly deficient machinery of criminal
law procedure.
As a result of this situation crime has become
a paying profession. There are in New York city,
and, by parity of causative reasoning, in every one
of our cities of first rate size as well, thousands of
persons who earn a comfortable and in many cases
luxurious living by following a criminal career year
in and year out.
The entire success and prosperity of the criminal
classes depend upon their ability to keep immune
from interference or arrest by the police, and to
escape punishment when arrested. In our large
cities the criminal classes are notoriously successful
in escaping punishment even when arrested, through
the many loopholes and defects of our antiquated
criminal law procedure.
Such an alarmingly small percentage of profes-
sional criminals caught in the toils of the law is
102 Prison Problems
convicted and punished that the average criminal
feels perfectly safe and secure from conviction. The
chances of a lawbreaker suffering punishment by
conviction are not much greater than the hazard
the average workingman takes of suffering personal
injury in his trade. To this amazingly slight ratio
of risk such criminal statistics as are available bear
eloquent testimony.
Few crimes are committed overtly. To hide
itself is of the nature of crime, which precludes the
idea of any records or statistics of crimes com-
mitted. Of course there are records of crimes re-
ported to the police authorities, but these repre-
sent only a portion of those actually committed.
But even the records of reported crimes are not
accessible to the public. The secretiveness of the
metropolitan police in this matter has recently been
the subject of severe and deserved criticism. The
public is kept unaware of the percential proportion
of arrests to the number of reported crimes.
Following the rumored "crime wave" in the early
part of last year the grand jury of New York county
made an extensive investigation, and its present-
ment filed May 17, 1911, contains some figures
from which a rough estimate may be formed of
the percentage of arrests for reported crimes in
New York alone. This presentment shows that in
the year of 1910 there were 10,288 complaints for
burglary and attempted burglary, and 14,091 com-
plaints for larceny. This number, however, is ex-
clusive of the complaints made at the police station
houses, which the grand jury found were 711 for the
period between February 27 and April 4, 1911, or
Prison Problems 103
approximately twenty complaints a day, or 7,300
during the year.
Adding these 7,300 station house complaints to
the crimes reported at police headquarters, and to
the cases where arrests were made without any
previous report we find that during the year 1910
there were 32,679 reported cases of burglary and
larceny, and during the same year only 3,501 arrests
for those offenses, showing that in less than 11 per
cent of reported cases of burglary and larceny, ar-
rests are made. When we examine the printed re-
port of the police commissioner of New York
county we find a still more alarming state of affairs
as regards the small percentage of persons arrested
for serious offenses that are convicted and punished.
The report of the police commissioner of the city
of New York which covers the year ended Decem-
'ber 31, 1910, shows that during that year 20,377
persons were arrested within the greater city for
felony, but the convictions for felony during the
same year were 5,678. During the preceding year
there were 24,192 arrests for felony, with but 5,321
convictions, and during the year 1908 there were
25,209 arrests, with 6,"099 convictions.
On the strength of this showing only one out of
every four persons arrested for felony in the greater
city is convicted, which does not necessarily mean
punished, since 10 per cent of those convicted es-
cape punishment by appeal.
104 Prison Problems
A PRISON LYCEUM.
Some Attractions That Have Appeared on the Fort Madison Course Up
to June 15, 1912.
Mrs. Florence Maybrick, Lecturer; Dr. Henry
Clark, two lectures; Ned Woodman, Cartoonist;
Rogers & Grilley, Humorist and Harpist; Schild-
kret's Royal Hungarian Orchestra; Chas. H. Plat-
tenburg, Lecturer; Robert Parker Miles, Lecturer;
Dunbar Quartet and Bell Ringers; Enderle- Wilson
Concert Company; Sylvester A. Long, Lecturer;
Keokuk Concert Company, two engagements ; Skov-
gaard Concert Company; Ellsworth Plumstead,
Characterist ; Maud Ballington Booth, Lecturer;
Fred High, Entertainer ; Caveny Concert Company ;
Edmund Vance Cook, Recital ; Strickland W. Gil-
lilan, Humorist; Thomas McClary, two lectures;
Dr. H. W. Sears, The "Taffy" Lecturer; McCor-
mick & Bronte; William Sterling Battis, Life Por-
trayals; John B. Ratto, Impersonator; Joseffy,
Necromancer; Slayton Jubilee Singers; Mauer Sis-
ters' Concert Company; Edwin Weeks Concert
Company, two engagements; Prof. E. Green, Lec-
ture-Recital ; Prof. Alonzo Zwickey, Cartoonist ; The
Spaffords, Cartoonists; Capt. Jack Crawford, The
Poet-Scout ; Germain, Magician ; Roney Boys Con-
cert Company; Burlington Ladies Concert Com-
pany.
Prison Problems 105
THE HONOR SYSTEM.
By Oswald West, Governor of Oregon.
Oregon had all the vices in its prison system
that any other prison boasted. It had the "water-
cure" with its ingeniously horrible contrivance for
torturing a recalcitrant convict into submission. In
the bath-room of the same prison one may still see
the iron rings for tricing up men to be flogged or
tortured (to death in some cases) by the hose
grim reminders that ten years ago was as 200 years
ago in man's treatment of his wards.
Oregon had, up within the past few years, con-
sidered its convicts in the same light as had most of
the rest of the world as dangerous individuals, to
be punished, not reformed, and from whom the State
was to be protected at all odds. To regard them
as men was as foreign to the keepers of Oregon's
prisoners as to those of Old Ludlow.
Today you can take a trip over almost any road
out of Salem and pass convicts at work without
being able to tell them from the ordinary industrious
farm-hand to be met with in any country-side.
There is no "prison look" about them. The hang-
dog shift is lacking from their eyes. There is a
healthy tan on their faces. The feeling of satisfac-
tion that comes from a hard day's work out-of-doors
is noticeable. The cleverest forger, the most ac-
complished safe-cracker, the most daring of porch
climbers seem to have the unhealthy lure of their
crafts driven out of them. There is no room for
106 Prison Problems
crime thoughts when there's a day's work to be
done in the country sunlight, with the knowledge
that they are as free from suspicion and surveillance
as the rich farmer, who is working his own fields
across the road.
They may be road building the roads of Marion
County are a grateful evidence of their employment
in that capacity they may be plowing, milking,
doing any of the jobs that a farm has to offer, per-
haps they drive back to the penitentiary at night
with their own team or perhaps, as is the case with
many, who are working some distance from the pris-
on, they camp out or are given quarters in a house
or a barn. No one has been found who has com-
plained of the quality of their work. For it seems
that the energy it takes to make a truly "successful"
criminal, if turned into other channels, is pretty apt
to make a most excellent workman.
There's little, if any, inclination on the part of
the people living in and about Salem to resent the
liberty given the convicts. One man complained that
he thought a road gang at work near his home
formed an unwarranted menace to his property and
safety. The gang was withdrawn, but all of that
man's neighbors and their wives got together and
gave the convicts a dinner.
It was held in a grove near Sublimity, where the
men had been working. The Governor and other
State officials were invited. The farmers sat at the
big table under the trees with the convicts. The
women of the neighborhood club waited on the
table and saw that everybody had enough to eat.
And when the tables had been cleared away there
were speeches in which the hosts thanked their
Prison Problems 107
guests for the work they had done in behalf of
good roads, and the guests thanked their hosts for
an entertainment that demonstrated the days of
treating convicts as dangerous beasts had passed
away. It was probably one of the most remarkable
dinner parties Oregon ever saw. One of the two
convicts who spoke at this dinner said: "Under a
system like this, where we are treated as men, the
best we can do is scarcely sufficient. Under com-
pulsion, and guarded by cold steel and heartless
men, the least we can do is good enough. We ap-
preciate this dinner which the ladies have given us.
We feel that under such a system as the present
one that incarceration is a help and not a hindrance
in getting us re-established as beneficial members
of society."
It is this idea of treating the convicts as men who
have made a mistake and who are to be taught
better, that seems to be the keynote of the unusual
success the "Honor System" has attained thus far.
The men are watched as they enter the penitentiary,
their conduct, anxiety to work, willingness to obey
rules, are all taken into consideration. The bank
wrecker and the footpad enter on exactly the same
ground. But once a regular inmate of the institu-
tion, the convict naturally drifts into his own class.
The really vicious, so far as close scrutiny on the
part of the prison officials reveals, are a small minor-
ity. Many of the new men are indifferent. Most
of the so-called "repeaters" convicts who are serv-
ing their second or third term in a state's prison
are regarded with suspicion, and yet some of the
best men that are now out on the "honor gangs,"
trusted absolutely with their own liberty and in
108 Prison Problems
some instances, with the property and lives of oth-
ers, are "repeaters."
The penitentiary boasts a baseball team that, if
it were out in the world, would make many pro-
fessionals seek the seclusion of the "brush leagues."
On it are men who have played the game to the re-
sultant glory of their colleges, as well as others who
never threw a baseball outside an alley but who have
developed into players of unusual skill. The con-
tests of a Saturday afternoon, on the brick-enclosed,
Winchester-guarded diamond, with 400 or more
wildly enthusiastic fans recently divorced from
striped suits, to cheer them on, are curious but
inspiring. Love of sport, love of work, belief in one
another unlocked for flowers in a grim prison gar-
den.
There are other ways of occupying the convict's
mind. There is the library common to many prisons.
The readers are mostly men who are mentally or
physically unfitted for work. The proportion of
those who, of their own accord, would sit in the
library reading in preference to performing the hard-
est kind of manual labor out-of-doors is extremely
small. The recently-completed chapel serves as a
theatre several times a month in it are held con-
certs, lectures, and most modern of the outside
world's attractions moving pictures.
And so in work, sport and play, the boys and men
of the Oregon penitentiary are forgetting earlier les-
sons in law-breaking and learning fresh ones in
citizenship. No man is turned out with the feeling
that he is to become the prey of the first detective
or deputy sheriff who hears of his release, a con-
venient scape-goat upon whom to fasten a fresh
Prison Problems 109
offense. He is made to feel that the friends he made
while at Salem are to be relied upon from first to
last. He has acquired a trade, or at least he has
"got his hand in" at working again, so that he need
not fear the necessity of going back to law-breaking
to gain a living that the world owes him.
The old system of turning away a convict upon
the expiration of his term with five dollars and a
suit of prison clothes is a thing of the past, too, and
for this "Honor System" can also claim the largest
share of the responsibility. The State does not con-
sider that the proceeds of a convict's labor belong to
it entirely it shares them with him. For the work
that is done about the State institutions he is paid
twenty-five cents a day. This money is saved and
he is given the cash upon his release from the peni-
tentiary. Those working in the stove factory are
allowed a percentage of their earnings, while the
men in the brick yards, through their willingness to
work longer hours, are each earning about forty
cents a day and have greatly increased the revenue
of the State.
Those brick-yards have been a part of the prison
for some time. The convicts employed there had
been turning out about 16,000 bricks a day. The
prisoners were told that the State was willing to
divide the profits of any brick in excess of that
number with the men in the yards.
They accepted this proposition and the next week
the number of bricks turned out averaged over 20,000.
From then on it has been between 20,000 and 23,000
daily. It meant money for the convicts and it meant
money for the State. It was a simple and effective
method of increasing efficiency in the brickyards.
110 Prison Problems
The results would seem to justify my belief that
three-fourths of the men who are sent to the peni-
tentiary are not criminals at heart, are really not
any worse offenders than thousands who through
some turn of fortune's wheel, escape the stigma of
a penitentiary term.
People say that I am sensational in my dealings.
That may be true but I find their cases are sensa-
tional. To me it is sensational to know that there
are men in the penitentiary who do not belong there,
whose presence there may mean either that they are
shown the right road or the wrong largely as we
deal with them. Here's a young fellow who has
perhaps got in a little trouble through drink. I
find most of these cases result from whiskey. He's
been railroaded to the penitentiary. It is at this
point that he needs a helping hand. He is ashamed
to write to his family to let them know his plight.
He is in constant association with hardened char-
acters there are always a certain number of them
in a large prison. I' have been, and I propose to
continue, letting such a boy out to work on parole.
I don't believe that is sentimentalism. I think it
is good sense.
The practical proof of the "Honor System" at the
Oregon penitentiary, of course, lies in whether it
works or not. If it did not work it might be inter-
esting sentimentally, but scarcely desirable from a
practicable point of view. But it does work. In the
two years just preceding the adoption of the system
in the years 1909-1910 about thirty men escaped
from the prison. Some were killed, some captured,
some are still at large. Since the "Honor System"
went into effect three men have broken their pledges
Prison Problems 111
and, taking advantage of the lack of guards, escaped.
One has since been recaptured. This, in spite of
the fact that the system was tried out through the
long summer months, when the wanderlust, if ever,
is at its strongest, when the temptation to break that
imaginary shackle called Honor is greatest, when
it is easiest to follow the trail through the woods
and over the hills, to sleep out-of-doors under the
firs, and to gather what food one needs to sustain
life until he is out of the danger zone.
In conclusion let me say that I believe in the
prisoners. They are savable. I believe in plenty of
wholesome, cheerful and useful labor. I believe that
Jesus Christ and John Howard and Abraham Lin-
coln were full of gentle sympathy and stern justice,
and did all they could to help the unfortunate. I
want to emulate them.
A PLEA.
Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, the eminent Jewish Rabbi,
in pleading for the victims of the white slave traffic
said: "I plead with the city not to lend official
connivance but to break up this form of vice slavery
which is not reproduced in the mines of Siberia.
Away with the segregated district and then we may
be able to help some of these victims of this ter-
rible vice.
"A segregated vice district is a constant tempta-
tion for the police to corrupt themselves and to be
corrupted. For the sake of the police, if for no
other reason, I say away with the segregated dis-
trict."
112 Prison Problems
A PRISON LYCEUM.
By James Gordon Stell.
Iowa has attained a new distinction. In a field
heretofore deemed unworthy of development, Iowa
has worked out results that have placed its name far
in the van of states which in the past were acknowl-
edged leaders in penal matters. This new honor has
come through the intelligent, practical reforms intro-
duced into the Iowa penitentiary by Warden J. C.
Sanders.
Without question the greatest good, accomplished
by any one change made for the betterment of state
wards confined in the Fort Madison institution, has
come from the introduction of an entirely new form
of educational entertainment. Formerly it was the
custom to secure the low priced vaudeville troupe,
and thus keep the amusement expense within the
stipulated amount set aside for that purpose. This
appropriation, however, being but $25 for each holi-
day, could not command even the best of the poor-
est, and consequently the "comedy team" was doom-
ed to grace the penitentiary's stage no more by
the news of a reform order which spread among
the state wards with unbelievable rapidity. This
order was to the effect that, if sufficient funds could
be raised, a lyecum course of high class, refined
entertainments would be arranged and given. The
announcement made an instantaneous hit, its popu-
larity being manifested by numerous offers of state
wards to subscribe to the fund. This was encour-
Prison Problems 113
agement of the right kind and when one of the wards
passed along the flag and gallery cells with a sub-
scription blank, the men in cells displayed an in-
dividual pride and anxious eagerness to sign their
names and set down opposite, the amount each wish-
ed to donate. When the list was finally computed
it was learned that the sum was more than enough
to pay for a full lyceum course of the first class.
And this desire to give toward the fund was evident
among the guards and friends who placed their
gifts without being requested to do so.
As all important events, which occur behind iron
bars and stone walls, leak out and become public
property through different channels, so did the news
of a "Lyceum course in prison" reach the alert news
writers of the state, who gave the fact much pub-
licity. Able journalists took up the subject with
much vigor. It was something new and catchy.
Pro and con it was debated and both sides indulged
in a slugfest of words without awaiting details or
results. Warden Sanders heeded not the anti or
enthusiast. After an extended correspondence and
carefully weighing, measuring and balancing the
merit of several organizations, contracts were signed
and the first number announced to a chorus of ap-
plause that must have echoed its gratitude to hea-
ven. It was a new "door of light" opened to the sin-
blinded, and even the "long-timers" and gray haired
life men voiced their appreciation by smiles and
nodding heads. Mrs. Florence Maybrick, whose
voice has touched the responsive sympathetic note
in countless American audiences, was the first num-
ber and it was a huge success in every way. Her
lecture, "The Story of My Life," unfolded her ex-
periences of twelve years' imprisonment in an Eng-
114 Prison Problems
lish penal institution and her recital elicited the
closest attention. During this number which was
given in the penitentiary's chapel, the state wards
exhibited no sign of misbehavior or ungentlemanly
conduct. As was expected the conduct of the in-
mates was scanned closely at this first entertain-
ment, but no breach of discipline occurred and their
faultless conduct was commented upon freely and
approved even by those who had doubted the wis-
dom of the plan.
There are three remarkable facts revealed in
this new field of uplift ; first, the initiative, foresight
and business ability necessary to build, with no
precedent, a new institution of human endeavor to
"make a man understand himself" by examples
placed within his sight; second, the spirit of the
state wards to give financial assistance to help them-
selves out of the rut of mental darkness ; and, third,
the result. It can be stated with no fear for ques-
tioning that this entertainment feature is by far the
greatest educational and uplifting reform that has
as yet been tried. Every number has, for a funda-
mental keynote, an appeal which thrills the hearer
and leaves some principle of Christ's teachings in-
delibly impressed on the hearer.
One prisoner said: "I had to come to the peni-
tentiary to know the value of the lyceum course."
And many of the state wards confess they had never
viewed a lyceum number before entering this insti-
tution. Since the beginning of these entertainments
there has been a marked improvement in the mental
and moral tone of the wards evidence undisputable
that the future of these now wall bound men shall
be better and truer in the full sense of honest en-
deavor to "live within the law." Iowa may well be
Prison Problems 115
proud of the new distinction. The first lyceum
course is a wonderful step forward in penal prog-
ress and toward the prevention and cure for crime.
"From the opening number, the Iowa Penitentiary
has slowly yet surely, changed, transformed. The
gloomy, sullen face is seen no more. Cheerful, con-
tented smiles are now evident on every face; the
short, jerked-out growls are gone pleasant, courte-
ous replies are given to every order, slouchy, unkept
appearances have passed away, and clean gentleman-
ly manners are the present mode; the men march
erect and soldierly instead of shuffling along with
averted, downcast eyes; the general conduct as
shown by the monthly reports, has improved until
there is a minimum of infractions ; the discipline was
never administered as fairly, as humanely as at
present; and it is through the messages taught by
the entertainments embraced in the lyceum courses
that these changes have been brought about. Every
number has opened some new door of hope, some
new window to light, and the lessons learned have
changed the life courses of many of the men. New
ideals have been presented to eager seekers ; new
thoughts, and new truths and the influence has
always been for the betterment of the hearers, and
must effect a like result on the little folks who shall
come to the homes of these now wall-bound men in
after years.
"As every good seed must in time, if sown in
fertile soil, make fruitful return, so should every in-
telligent person recognize the potency of the inspir-
ing, uplifting mental and moral tone of clean, intel-
lectual entertainments such as have been served
by the lyceum entertainers who have appeared in
the. Iowa Penitentiary."
116 Prison Problems
THE DEATH OF THE PRISON-POET.
The greatest responsibility that ever came into
my hands was placed there on August 20th, when I
received a letter from James Gorden Stell, the Prison
Poet of Fort Madison, Iowa, who a few days after
he had penned this letter was a corpse in that same
prison where he had served the State for four long
years, and let us hope that he served humanity
while he served the state, for his insight into those
forms of grief, remorse, suspicion, fears, hopes, joys,
dreams and despairs that are known only to the
man behind the bars will serve to awaken a new
interest in those Prison Problems that are every-
where calling for a new solution.
Here is the letter that made me sit up nights :
Read it.
"Dear Mr. High :
"Don't write 'finis' to your 'editorial introductory'
to 'Prison Problems' until after coming here and
seeing me. If I am sunk in here for good, as indi-
cations and observations appear, I want to make
this book do a lasting good. Evidence tends to
show it is the real cause of my being detained and
I am willing now to pay a price of years that I
can look back and say, with satisfactory solace in
elder times : 'It is well.'
" 'Prison Problems' is too good to be wasted.
Ideas like it do not come to men every day. Praise
to men of now may prove a punch to men of tomor-
row. We are Punch and Judys after all. But I
want my 'stunt' to be worth the entry fee. Actors
Prison Problems 117
only visualize. One 'ok'd' today is condemned to-
morrow. Old Omar was a sensible warbler. But
his song was not dictated. He sang the 'faded
flower' uncaged. I am gloriously glad to lose my
years of usefulness for a worthy cause if that must
be the price. My sherbet is a sunset.
"Arrange to overnight here soon. Deduct ex-
penses from book. Maybe we can arrange a settle-
ment and I believe it is the only way out. The game
is worth the candle. So come out."
But where did the triple tragedy come in? Well,
the following is taken from a letter from Warden
Sanders and it speaks for itself: "Replying to yours
of the 29th will say that Stell stays out after Sun-
day school on Sunday afternoons to clean up the
chapel. The photograph room is immediately east
of the chapel. Stell broke into this room and got
about a pint of what he thought was grain alcohol,
but it was wood alcohol and denatured at that. He
drank some himself and passed it around to several
other prisoners. As a result three are dead, Stell,
Dimmitt, the celebrated negro singer, and Louis
Busse, a life man. Stell had relatives whom we
advised of his death and they requested us to bury
the body here as they did not want to come. Stell
was born and raised in Cedar Falls and his right
name was . His father and mother are
both living in Minnesota."
That Stell felt himself slipping away was evi-
denced from the following letter which was received
only a few weeks before his tragic exit from the
stage of action. "Some days ago I forwarded to
you a few subscribers (to Prison Problems), to help
the work along. My limitations are so narrow that
118 Prison Problems
I can do very little. In regard to the tenor of
Mr. Russell's and Mr. Leavitt's articles, I would
state that I believe anything they may state can
do me no harm nor good. If my host of friends
can do nothing, I see no reason to think anything
can be done by pen. However, though conditions
in regard to Iowa parole laws need harsh treatment,
there is one man who has stood by me and whose
name can only be justly mentioned with praise
Warden J. C. Sanders, my friend. I would ask you
to observe that fact, because I would have nothing
said or done that would in any way reflect discredit-
ably to him or tend to injure his kindness toward
me. Other than he, you have my approval to rip
into vigorously, as I now feel I am doomed to do
my full time.
"If there were any such thing as recognition in
Iowa of worthy effort to 'be square' I should have
been given a chance long ago. As it is the records
prove that a large majority of the few paroles given
are granted the worst characters among us. We
have come to look upon the 'called and chosen' with
disgust and contempt.
"I speak from the depths of my heart when I
say, 'I would that Warden Sanders were in a posi-
tion to measure out justice to me and all in my
position in Iowa.' As you know, my case came up
in April for action after several months of 'stalling.'
I haven't a pen-scratch since then. Such delay
fills the insane ward and you need not be surprised
if I am among the future transferred. It is inevit-
able as I feel myself slipping mentally every day.
Of course, I am fighting it, but each day brings
some new fact of broken faith and unfairness that
Prison Problems 119
cannot be forgotten. I have been here over four
years a greater crime than I committed to come
here! One thing is certain, I have made my last
effort to get out because I know it is useless."
Immediately after the sad tragedy that ended the
life of the author of many of the poems in this
volume of Prison Problems there was a whispered
suggestion to drop the volume, but those poor weak-
lings who are either moral cowards, or mere oppor-
tunists seem unable to comprehend the fact that
this volume was never undertaken to help an indi-
vidual, it is to serve a cause. That cause is the
lyceum, as a help in the moral uplift of the men
behind the bars.
It is only fair to James Gordon Stell to relate
that there are many who by letter and by conversa-
tion have vehemently urged that Stell and his com-
panions either committed suicide, or the poison was
not labeled, in which case it was criminal negligence,
and not a case of suicide. They hint that his death
was perhaps a greater tragedy than the world knows
aught of.
But whether these are mere suspicions or are
facts we have no way of knowing, for the secrets
of all prisons are locked up and I have not the key
to more than the outer entrance.
James Gordon Stell has finished his life work.
Peace to his memory may he, in a measure, serve
humanity even as did the thief who gave up his
life on the Cross, who little dreamt that when he
spoke the comforting words to the crucified Christ
that he had thereby brought a last ray of life and
hope to millions of despairing men and women.
120 Prison Problems
FOREWORD.
There be music-makers sitting in the sun,
Writing of their longings, of their love and fun;
But if night come on them, and the heavens fall,
Could they utter music, would they write at all?
We, the music-makers who have written here,
Know of heaven's fallen, and the hopeless tear;
Sit we in the darkness, singing of the light,
Singing as if sunshine glowed in halls of night.
JOHN NULL.*
JAMES GORDON STELL.f
Fort Madison, Iowa.
Colored.
tDeceased.
Prison Problems 121
DIVOECED BY BAES.
The peopled din of Toyland thrilled
With shoutings of a fight
Between a host forever killed,
And baby's marshalled might.
Small crooner, he, of griefs and joys,
When visioned Toyland warred;
Commander of the clashing toys,
Their Spirit and their Lord.
A man of tin fought in the van,
To many battles shoved,
And sheltered, like a dauntless man,
A doll that baby loved;
Till on his mystic world of things
Where life and death were one.
Where spools were either queens or kings,
There beamed the setting sun.
Its rays slid through the open door,
And, with a noiseless tread,
They stole across the littered floor,
To touch the baby's head ;
They kissed his chin, his lips, his face
Then baby ceased his play
And gazed toward that soundless space
Where slips the end of day.
And while he gazed, shop-whistles blew,
Then all the world was still,
And what did little baby do
But babble with a will;
* 22 Prison Problems
"Daa-da turn! Daa-da turn!"
The little one had learned
That stilling of the "shops 'at hum"
Meant that his "dad" returned.
Then there were sounds of passing feet
While workmen clattered by;
And baby's face was wistful sweet,
And wide each watching eye,
He looked beyond the open door,
His flower-face upturned,
His toys unnoticed on the floor,
The pet tin soldier spurned.
While baby watched, the world went still ;
And baby's watch was vain,
His outward eager stare was crushed
By inward baby pain ;
And baby, with a trembling lip,
Eyes wondering and wide,
Eyes with great baby tears adrip,
Ran to his mother's side.
"Oh, mamma, where is dada dear?
He used to turn you know,
An' now he never does turn here,
An' oh, I want him so!"
Then baby's eyes grew wider yet
Those eyes of mist and blue
He saw his mother's face tear-wet,
And whispered, "So does oo!"
The selfsame tender rays that beamed
Upon the babe at play
Prison Problems 123
Shone in the place where men blasphemed
The spirit and the clay;
They called this place a prison men
Who knew it none too well ;
But they who knew it said, "the pen" ;
And they with feelings, "hell."
And there was one left well alone
By every man within
This place defined by walls of stone,
This bounded place of sin;
He lived as one who has no plan,
No dream of manhood's worth
They said he hated God, and man,
Himself, and day, and earth.
They said (the wise ones in this place)
That he was dull and blind ;
That his line-marked and scowling face
Betrayed a brutal mind;
Yet, in the sun's departing flame,
I saw his face aglow,
I heard his strangled voice exclaim :
"I want my baby so!"
124 Prison Problems
BACKWARD TO PULSELESS CLAY.
Four times upon an iron gong
The keeper swings with might;
Four times it cast a clanging song
Of farewell to the night;
The echoes lingered, loud and long,
Then came a flood of light;
And all the sleep-drowsed prison throng
Saw rest and dreams take flight.
Then came the tread of heavy men
And clang of bolt and key,
And bars crashed back, till each small pen
On flag and gallery
Belched forth its thing and closed again
To hide what men might see
The shameful hole for sleep (and then,
On to work's misery).
He heard the clanging morning call
And watched, with wistful eye,
To see the men far down the hall,
In grim files marching by.
He counted shadows on the wall,
And dumbly wondered why
He was alone and had lost all
That he must die must die.
His hours were haunted with weak fears,
And when he tried to sleep
His dreams were nightmared by past years,
And tortured shapes would creep
Prison Problems 125
About his bed and taunt with sneers,
The thoughts that he would keep
Unread by men his doubts, his tears,
His horror, hidden deep.
Always he looked toward the west,
Beyond the fast-barred door,
As if his soul was on some quest
Not found in crime's red lore;
Or yet, as if the dark cowled Guest
Were due to tread the floor
And lure his soul unto that rest
Where sin comes nevermore.
A noon-high sun; a curious throng;
A breathless, guarded, way;
And shuffling steps that pass along
To where the gallows sway;
And he who was condemned for wrong,
Whose life the debt must pay,
Went bravely, in his heart a song,
Backward to pulseless clay.
WEAKNESS.
How old one is, how great or wise,
Count not a whit if he have fears;
And still he sees from childish eyes
If they be blurred by passioned tears.
126 Prison Problems
FRUSTRATION.
I am about
To turn a page ; perhaps, or linger on a line
Of artful wit or jeweled thought that seems divine
When, by the Rule, but of no will or wish of
mine
"The Light goes out."
When man's about
To turn the page; when eager, straining eyes,
would scan
The mystery of Life or Death, of God and Man,
I wonder if according to a Power's plan
"The Light goes out?"
ABOVE, BEYOND.
The sun-kissed walls reflect their borrowed light;
Beyond them is the world ; above, the skies.
The sun-kissed walls are things of awful might
I may but look Beyond, Above, with eyes
That fill with tears.
I know that the Beyond with sweet perfume
Is bathed; there man and nature, hand in hand
As comrades, work to bring forth bud and bloom,
And multiply the life of sea and land
Through countless years.
What once were wounds in Nature's troubled breast
Now fruitful are with fields of ripened grain
Prison Problems 127
That seem to s^ek, in sleep, a noonday rest
Or wait for death the reaper's might and main ;
The doom that nears.
Above is that great deep of blue, cloud-draped
And filled with more to marvel at than man
Has builded with his bungling hands or shaped
In greatest dreams : There is God's mighty plan
Of suns and spheres.
Above, Beyond all mine ! Yet, I must linger where
The walls forbid the pathways that my feet
Would tread or my soul, in pathless air,
Would find and go to speak, glad, strong, com-
plete,
To God's wise ears.
Debarred from what is mine Beyond, Above!
God will that I may claim my own, may roam
On, on, away from walls and bars, till love
Has whispered to my soul: This is your home;
Have done with tears.
BRAVELY AND WELL.
Bring out your trophies from closet and chest
A sword, a gun, or a faded blue vest,
A moth-eaten blanket, a bullet-torn flag,
An old rusty buckle hid in a bag.
Then stand (if you can) and tell (as you may)
Of why tomorrow is Memorial Day.
128 Prison Problems
Rebs to the left of us, Rebs to the right of us,
Rebs to the front of us, shooting like hell !
None to the rear of us, God saw the fight of us,
Helped us to battle them bravely and well.
Soldier, Gray soldier, you fought with despair;
Where are the honors and glories you share?
What of the house that, divided, must fall?
What of the Watcher that guarded you all?
What of the words and what can you say
Of why tomorrow is Memorial Day?
Yanks to the left of us, Yanks to the right of us,
Yanks to the front of us, shooting like hell!
Yanks to the rear of us, crushing the might of us,
God helped us battle them bravely and well.
Soldiers, my soldiers, your battles are done !
What, when the vanquished and victor are one?
What when the fields, once spattered with red,
Now peaceful are with green o'er the dead ?
To Man of the Gray, and Man of the Blue,
This is your comfort that you were true,
This be your glory the Master will say
"Bravely and Well" on Memorial Day.
Peace to the left of you, peace to the right of you,
Peace all around you has woven her spell,
God over all of you, He saw the fight of you,
Helped you to battle, men, bravely and well.
Prison Problems 129
RESIGNATION.
The twilight's gray enshrouds me,
A prison cell entombs,
The hate of life beclouds me,
Mine is the gloom of glooms;
Yet, by some necromancy
My thoughts are led astray
Down paths of flowered fancy
To You and Yesterday.
Why do you come to haunt me
With dream-born face aglow,
With eyes that ever taunt me
With joys I used to know?
Past pleasures waken sorrow,
My hopes are crumbled clay,
So grief is all I borrow
From what is Yesterday.
Fade back into the essence
Wherefrom your glory came!
Back with your taunting presence
And leave me to my shame!
My longing, dear, I banish,
I dare not bid you stay!
With dawn my dreams must vanish,
And You and Yesterday.
130 Prison Problems
A QUESTION BROTHER!
How would you like to wear such clothes
Where such clothes are the style,
With stripes like these and stripes like those
That run 'round all the while,
That circle 'round and 'round one's frame,
Until the ugly rings
Wind one so close to one's own shame
That to the shame he clings?
Oh, yes, I know that ancient saw,
"Clothes cannot make a man."
It's not by words but common law,
It's not by saws, but plan,
That nature makes or nature mars
Both soul and plastic clay,
And ugly stripes make ugly scars
That mark the shamed alway.
Say, if you wore such clothes as these,
Would you feel like a man
A pulsing life with one long lease
On God's eternal plan?
Could you breathe deep in noble pride
And call the Great One, good,
His mercy sweet, His power wide,
His kindness understood?
If you would pray, how would your speech
Untangle from these stripes?
How could your noblest yearnings reach
Beyond each ring that gripes,
Prison Problems 131
Not flesh alone, but hopes and dreams
And all your heart may feel,
How could you look beyond this scheme
Of stripes and stone and steel?
One cannot be a man and wear
His sorrow on his breast!
One cannot be a man and bear
His longings, half expressed!
And, can one be a man at all
Held by these stripes of shame,
Entomed behind a prison's wall,
A number for a name?
SUPPLICATION.
Tell me if the half-infernal
Are denied the heavenly home
Is the brand of sin eternal?
Must the earth-marked ever roam?
Do the angels, ever seeking,
Meet the crimson at the door
Welcome blood, and in their greeting,
Make it clean forevermore?
Read me, O ye Wise One, read me!
Pierce me with all-seeing eye
Rend my heart and soul, if need be !
Answer me then, let me die.
132 Prison Problems
BEYOND THE BARS.
Beyond the bars my tired, straining eyes
Look out upon a garden no hands shaped,
That seems to mirror back to sapphire skies
In various shades of green and gold, the hills
flower-draped
With nature's gorgeous splendor, perfect planned ;
And thru its very heart earth's greatest stream,
Burdened with the harvest of the land
Rushes, on and on, but I must wait and dream
Beyond the Bars!
Beyond the bars the call of life I hear,
The luring voices echo day and night,
From that free world I ever love and fear,
Which ever hideous bars mask from my sight.
I know that all my dearest hopes are there,
Those child-pure dreams in which sin has no part;
Of men that win the love of women fair
And Truth and Justice are I nurse my bruised
Heart
Beyond the Bars.
Beyond the bars I feel that I may go
Some future day and claim my native right
To toil and earn a Free-man's wage, and know
The thrill that comes with free, unfettered sight
Of earth and sky. And, oh, the greatest hope to me
Is to forget forever that this plan
Of walls and bars and all its misery
Is but the scheme of heartless, greedy man
Beyond the Bars.
Prison Problems 133
Beyond the bars I count each passing day
And sadly watch the fairest flowers fade ;
The reddest rose has paled to a deep gray,
And green has taken on a yellowish shade;
The mighty river shrinks, and dim the early stars
Twinkle and disappear; with tired eyes, alone,
I watch and wait and know, beyond life's bars
There is no thought of steel or walls of stone,
Beyond the Bars.
THE CRUCIBLE.
A child-man came complaining to
The stalwart God of sin,
Came with a plea unto the throne
Where none may mercy win.
"Oh, Satan, dear," he weakly cried,
"My punishment is great!
I ask you, beg you for relief
From this, my low estate?"
"Whence come you, Thing, that you can shrink
From tortures Hell may hold?
From earth ! Indeed, I thought that world
Spewed phantoms tough and bold."
"How can an earth-tried spirit come
To Hell and feel its pain?
I think you're shamming get, you Thing
Into the flames again."
134 Prison Problems
THE PAST.
I am the past, the evil, the fiend of leering gaze,
The shape you dare not question, the ghost of
traveled ways;
I am that which you have hidden
But shall ever come unbidden,
To break the peace of solitude
And make you curse your days.
Wherever you may wander, your heart is mine to
guide ;
However bold your features, you'll fear me at your
side;
Though with men you may decry me
Or by silence may deny me,
You know my scorn can sear your soul
And blast your lofty pride.
The tenderer your conscience, the deeper sinks my
sting;
The dearer be your visions, the closer shall I cling;
I, that poison love and beauty,
I, who threaten hope and duty,
Shall make you writhe and know yourself
A doubting, craven thing.
I give a sickly pallor to what you dare to do;
I make your blood and honor and faith to flow un-
true ;
I flay, then turn and taunt you,
By night or day I haunt you
To goad you on unceasingly
From ancient grief to new.
Prison Problems 135
I am the past, the evil; I smite you with a rod;
Upon your soul I trample, my feet are iron-shod ;
I shall jeer you ever, ever,
Shall forsake you never, never,
Shall go with you to the end
And mock you by your God.
BLOOM-TIDE.
Far to the East, and high, a flush of gold ;
Below, the earth-lines merge in black and gray;
Then, as the night-mists stir and float away
On perfumed breezes up from the dew-starred
mold
A myriad melodies are flung; earth-bold
They echo on and on. New buds and bloom dis-
play
Their glory proudly. Sun-pulsed comes the Day
And Man and Beast awake. Man, up! Behold,
Gone is the winter, and enthroned is Spring
Forever gone those cheerless cloud-tombed hours
Of yesterday. Arise, and swell the tune
Of kindled life until the echoes ring
Up to the sky, so He, who planned the flowers
And all, may hear your gratitude for June.
EFFICIENCY.
Life is but loss, and from it all
He gains the most who takes the best ;
Who looks for neither rise nor fall
But loves his doing for its test.
136 Prison Problems
THE BALANCE.
On fancy's height in castled dream
I tried to build both strong and well ;
Beyond the night I saw the gleam,
That brought far heaven to my cell.
I wrought to score my humble name
In other than the sands of time,
To turn to gold the dross of shame
That law grinds out of common crime.
So I was free; each prison bar
Was spaced for me as star to star;
The muted silence of the cell
Held naught but flesh within its spell.
Now pause I near the iron-jawed gate
I would go singing on my way
Leap from this rock-ribbed pit of hate
Free both in spirit and in clay.
Yet, hesitant, I look beyond
For that which is, means much to me,
I weigh the worthy hearts here found
Against the heart I'll find when free.
And lo, the balance tells me not
Which weigh the more this sin-bruised lot,
Or those with sins, brought not to light,
Who dwell beyond this house of night !
Prison Problems 137
LAHK I NEVAH CARE.
Always trouble, trouble, hoodoos evahwhere!
So Ah keep ah-movin' lahk Ah nevah care.
Soldjah in de battle, bullets flyin' fas'
Dohn waste time ah-duckin', hopin' 'at he'll las'.
Soldjah mighty busy lahk he nevah care;
Ain't no time foh dodgin', bullets evahwhere.
See de debil comin', ain't no use toh run,
He kin do de hot-foot, beat yoh jes foh fun.
Bettah stan' an' face 'im, lahk yoh nevah care;
Boun' toh get yoh sometime, debil's evahwhere.
Ef de sun ain't shinin', guess it shine some day;
Dohn b'lieve it nohow, sun kin go toh stay.
Whistle froo de dahkness lahk Ah nevah care;
Ain't no use in mournin' dahkness evahwhere.
Scholar mans dey tell me dat the worl' am roun';
Can't side-step from off it, dohn care where yoh
boun'.
Spec dah's tears an' heart-aches mos'ly evahwhere,
So Ah totes mah trouble lahk Ah nevah care.
138 Prison Problems
LYIN' IN DE SHADE.
Breezy on de margins, breezy all within,
Feel lahk God's foun' me, took ahway mah sin.
Bobolink ah-singin' "Phu tu-weet! tu-weet!"
Sunshine jas ah-sizzlin' ovah yondah wheat.
Wondah if Ah's lazy layin' in de shade,
Lookin' at de beauty dat de Lord's made?
Sunny on de margins, sunshine ovah all
Feel lahk God's nevah made ah man toh fall.
All de worl' am callin' askin' me toh dine,
Hush dah! Heah de cohnfiel'? "Brudder, won't yoh
jine?"
Leaves ah rustlin', rustlin', jes 's if dey say,
"Cohn am mighty lushus bout dis time o' day."
Yondah watah-millyun Golly ! how he grin ! !
See de stripes ah winkin' lahk de eyes of sin.
Guess Ah go on farther, can't stay heah at all !
By 'm by its darker, den Ah'll make a call.
Rooster he am crowin', "Ut-et-uu ! et-uuu !"
Wondah ef he's tellin' what Ah's gwine toh do?
Bet a silvah dollah rooster'll fin' de pot
Wen de night am sulky, an' de watah hot.
Prison Problems 139
Howdy, Massah Johnson! Howdy, Massah Ted!
Wha dat? Massah Johnson! Heah each word Ah
said?
Lordy, Massah Johnson, Ah jes' makes b'lieve
Dat Ah makes up p'otry, da's all, jes' b'lieve.
Golly ! dat a close un ! Won't ask dem toh jine
Wen de meal am ready, w'en de things am mine.
JUNE.
When you see me listen, no one near at all,
June from breezy hilltops sends a throaty call.
Should I wear a stare and grin that's near sublime.
Know my soul is outward with the hymning-time?
If you hear me singing in a wordless croon,
Know my heart is talking to the heart of June.
June, the merry maiden, tiptoe in her glee,
Calling, calling, calling to the heart of me!
June and I have heard her ! That's the reason why
I am looking outward, upward to the sky.
June she courts a fellow as a maiden should
Brings so much of glory that she makes him good.
Never yields a promise ; hers are simply deeds
Gifts of love and kindness things a fellow needs.
140 Prison Problems
Pansies for his garden, daisies for the field,
Clover in the open, violets concealed.
Juicy fruits for hunger when the day star gleams,
Scented breeze for kisses, spangled shade for dreams.
Like a vestal virgin, that is what she is
Knowing not, nor caring, what be hers or his.
Giving all for nothing if your heart be young
And you come to woo her with a singing tongue.
Oh, to be a laddie just to go along
Up to knees in clover, heaven-high in song!
Oh, to be a laddie with a soul of worth
Careless of the import of the heedless earth!
There would be no shadow hung between the sun
And the unblazed pathway that my life must run.
There would be no straining of the weary mind
For a faint reflection of the joys behind.
Living would be pleasure, summer would be joy
That's enough of import for a healthy boy.
June would be a present from the very throne,
Sent by the Great Father for my very own.
There would be no blackness at the hour of noon
Were I but a laddie and afield with June.
Little pagan lordling, singing in the sun,
I would live, not pray it, "Lord, thy will be done."
Prison Problems 141
DE COOPAH-BONE.
Ah has ah premonition
Wha' dat ! why, say yoh fool,
What am de tings dey teach yoh
Up in dat prison school?
Ah premonition's sumfin'
A talkin' in yoh eah
Erbout ah ting toh happen
Befoh de ting am heah.
Ah has ah premonition
Dat on T'anksgibin' day
Ah'll prance in foh mah dinnah,
An' Ah'll be feelin' gay.
Ah'll sit down toh de table,
An' den Ah know Ah'll groan
Mah premonition tells me
Dar'll be no coopah-bone.
Mos' any part of turkey
Am worth yoh while toh eat,
But, u-um! foh juicy sweetness
De coopah's hard to beat.
An' Ah jes feels it, Buddy
Mah dice of fate am thrown
Ah'll round up on dat dinnah
An' miss de coopah-bone.
Now dohn yoh t'ink Ah'm kickin',
Foh Ah, Ah t'inks lahk dis:
No bit of use toh grumble
At all de tings yoh miss.
It's bes' toh grin at sorrow
Or leave yoh fate alone,
Although on all T'anksgibins
Yoh miss de coopah-bone.
142 Prison Problems
KOLLIN' DE BONES.
Seben come 'leben roll 'long bones!
Hop-pah dice an-ah git 'im !
Done throwed eight roll on bones !
Hop-pah dice an-ah hit 'im !
Little Jo! an-ah dime Ah come
(Fade me, fellah, quick!)
Money heah an-ah sure git some
(Ride me, fellah, quick!)
Di-se-dice an-ah hit 'im hard !
Roll up seben an-ah bim 'im hard !
Down in Georgia come again
Mama's due on de railroad train.
Big Dick dat? u-um Lordy Lord!
Hit 'im dice an-ah hit 'im hard!
Baby want ah-new shoes,
Baby want ah-new shoes
Eighty days an-ah great Big Dick!
Eighty git dat money quick
Hop-pah dice, an-ah Richard come!
Hop-pah dice, an-ah hit dat bum!
Hi yi Dice ! jes roll 'im dumb !
Dice-ee-dice an-ah Richard come!
Eight she is! Dat's rollin' some!
Dime Ah Play.
TOH MAKE DE HOODOO GET.
Ef yoh shud go ah-walkin'
Aneath de open sky
Jes w'en de moon am drunk'n
An' not ah soul am nigh,
Prison Problems 143
An' heah de night-owls hootin'
Jes lahk dey wuz toh die ;
An' heah de bullfrogs tootin'
An' yoh dat skeart yoh'd fly
Jes stop an' fin' yoh shadder,
Den mahk jes whar it stays,
Den stomp yoh feet upon it
An' cross yoh hands dis ways,
Den bow tohwahds er medder,
An' turn right whar yoh stand,
An' den, why, den doggone it!
Jes run toh beat de band !
De hoodo den cahn't catch yoh
Jes run toh beat de band.
ECSTACY.
Voices in de tree-tops
Wen de breezes pass,
Whispers in de cohnfiel'
An' de humble grass.
What yoh 'spec dey's sayin-
Grass an' cohn an' tree?-
Sayin', Miss Lucinda
Gave her love toh me !
Sunshine on de meadow,
On de hill an' wood
Jes ah golden glory
Dat am berry good.
Why yoh tink it's shinin'
Lahk it nevah shone?
Shinin' kase Lucinda
Said she'll be mah own.
144 Prison Problems
REFORMED.
Ah hasn't jined no Temp'rance but
Ah's cut de licker out,
An' knows exactly why Ah has
An' jes' what Ah's erbout;
Ah's lahk de man de Good Book says
Declared de worl' is vain
Bekase he couldn't fin' ah way
Toh cheer his soul again.
Dey's hit mah solah plexus wif
Ah legal uppah-cut,
Dey's put me where de licker talk
Dohn have no if an' but ;
Dere's iron bars aroun' me
An' great thick walls of stone
Ah hasn't jined no Temp'rance but
Ah leaves de drink alone.
RAPTURE.
Nachur in de mornin'
Toots ah golden fife,
Keeps yohr feet ah-dancin'
Toh de song of Life.
Asks yoh, "Is yoh livin' "
On de edge of tings,
So yoh dasn't nevah
Cut no pigeonwings ?"
Prison Problems 145
Nachur chuckles "Howdy,"
Den she plays ah tune
Jes as ef she nevah
Knew ah ting but June.
Mebbe yoh dohn hear her,
Mebbe yoh dohn care
Bless me! Yoh's foolish
As er crazy hare.
Mebbe Ah hears music
From de Ian' an' sea
Kase Ah love Lucinda
An' de gal loves me.
BETROSPECTION.
A streak of dun and dusty road,
A ragged patch of green,
A bit of blue that God has sowed
Till tree-tops intervene.
A little gray, unpainted shed
The branches strive to screen
Ashamed, the thing has backward fled,
Like humble work and mean.
A corner of a house before,
A trellis by my side
This is the spot which I adore,
This is the "world so wide."
Beneath the trees a hammock swings
With whisperings by my side,
I sway into remembered springs
But God ! Oh, God ! she died.
146 Prison Problems
SONNET I.
How now? Give thanks! This is Thanksgiving
day.
What are the mercies that have been bestowed
On us? When has our "Cup of Life" o'erflowed
That we should seek for words our thanks to say?
Go, friend, and offer thanks, if you have sowed
And reaped ; go, thank Him for the precious load
The harvest-fields have yielded ; go, obey
The promptings of your gladdened souls, and pray.
The scorching noonday suns, the bootless quest
In famine-stricken fields ; hands filled with chaff
With which to feed our souls now hungered
long
And ever, ever, seeking and unrest
These are the joys we find upon our path;
For these you ask a grateful prayer or song!
SONNET H.
"Oh, If we come," you plead, "just come and pray
Unto the One whose kindly grace will heal
The aching heart, the bruise we would conceal,
The fever of the woe that burns alway
Then would we learn how sweet it is to feel
Ourselves made glad how good it is to kneel
And from a humble, grateful heart to say:
'Dear Lord, all life is one Thanksgiving day.' "
Prison Problems 147
Yes, if we come as long-ago we came
And knelt and folded little hands and said
"Now I lay." You, perhaps, may come like this
And, child-pure, whisper in the Father's name,
But friends, our white-robed innocence is dead,
We have no thanks to give for what we miss.
SONNET
BEHOLD, we come. Half-ashamed, we bend a knee
To render thanks for what our hearts may find
Is worth our gratitude. Half-shamed, tear-blind,
And faint from longing, Lord, to pray to Thee:
We thank Thee that all men are less unkind
Than men could be. We thank Thee that the grind
Of life has sometimes spared the weak ; that destiny
Holds hope, and slaves may dream of days to be.
Dear Lord, our shredded lives are splashed with
tears
We cannot read the writing on the wall ;
We walked with want upon a lonesome way
With memories clinging to those famished years;
Yet, Lord, we thank Thee, though remembering
all,
That others have a bright Thanksgiving day.
SONNET IV.
Within the prison place, where grievous rules
Deny the right of one to sing aloud
Or voice in trembling words the thoughts that
crowd
148 Prison Problems
The mind which longs for speech with brother
fools
Within the bounded space where men are dumb
Or talk with guarded lip and cautious eye,
I learn that many are who overcome
The things that bid the soul of song to die.
I know not how or why this truth should be ;
I only know that he whose heart is filled
With strains of eloquence from earth and sea
And vagrant ways, escapes much misery;
He holds in keep a music rarely stilled,
And from the law he hates, is often free.
SONNET V.
Hold back the curtain for one moment, Death,
And let me gaze into your mystic land
Of silence. Let me but see the hand
Of God record eternity. A breath
Is life, and I would know, would understand
What means this little breath that we command.
If it mean much, I beg a shibboleth
A pass to Death, and to return from Death.
So pleaded poets, seers of bygone days,
When men could hope to wake a world with song
Or read the scroll that time holds ever furled.
My children, heed : We needs must go the ways
Of Life and Death, must go, both right and
wrong ;
If you would see and know behold the world.
Prison Problems 149
SONNET VI.
MY FATHER, Lord, why should I call to Thee
With wild, impassioned pleas, for strength or
light
Or aid or grace? I look into the night,
And love, thy love is there and it is free ;
And eyes of faith can read the words I write:
"Mine is the hope about thy soul. By might
Of mine, and love for Thee, is held in fee
Eternity." This is enough for me.
So, Lord, I have no little prayer to say,
Nor plaint to make for change in anything
Which Thou hast made, and men call right or
wrong,
At times I start to murmur at the day
But, 'tween the heart and lips which call Thee
King,
The words that I would say are turned to song.
THE LASKEY.
They talked of him and said : "He tries
To be a faithful man" ;
They did not know his deeds were lies
He cursed them while he ran.
Yet, they who ruled approved of him ;
For power has no plan
Nor ways to get beyond the rim
Of man and to the man.
150 Prison Problems
FAME'S COURIER.
Awake !
The dawn is here!
And day waits near;
Make haste
Each moment lost
But swells the cost
Of waste;
Shake off the dreams of ancient schemes-
Awake !
Awake !
Up, lead the race
At such a pace
Men smile
Or cheer your aim
And shout your name
Worth while
To idly wait or hesitate?
Awake !
Awake !
Come, stake your all
For rise or fall ;
A guess?
No! For the man
Who leads the van,
Success
Waits to proclaim his honored name!
Awake !
Prison Problems 151
SPBINGL
I sing of Spring!
But prison walls surround me,
The prison gloom is mine,
My brooding thoughts have bound me
To seasons where the wine
Of Spring
Is not a draught divine.
To sing of Spring?
With petty rules to trouble
The souls that mourn alone.
With cold, dead hopes that double
The chilling crush of stone
Of Spring?
When freedom lacks a throne!
To sing of Spring?
To chant in tuneful measures
Of life by laughter led,
When all of earth's young pleasures
Are dying or are dead !
Of Spring?
When youth is dead !
To sing of Spring
The heart and mind must answer
The speech of birds and grass,
Must be a gay romancer
Of miracles which pass
Of Springs
That come and pass.
152 Prison Problems
SHADOWS.
I see gray shadows climb a hill
And sway toward the west;
I hear a song bird's plaintive trill,
He calls his mate to rest;
Warm breezes, cloyed with rose perfume,
Sigh soft from shrub to tree;
The sun sinks slowly to its tomb
Of time beyond the sea.
Just where the sun's last molten ray
Burns red across the brine,
And rose-hued shines upon the bay
So water glows like wine;
Two lovers in a boat adrift
Are blended with the scene,
And through a cloud-bank's narrow rift
They view their soul's demesne.
Soft lights, soft grays, and dreaming love:
"Oh," sighed I, "earth is fair !
And hearts beat warm ; is God above
Always to curb despair?"
And then I turned ; my heart went sore ;
Where day was whelmed by night,
I saw an old man bowed before
A tombstone's ghastly white.
Prison Problems 153
A FOOL'S ART.
Music? No, friend, I can't pretend
To know a thing about it;
But I revere its noisy cheer
Whenever children shout it.
Just boys and girls in shifting whirls
And streaks of play and laughter,
That seems to me like music free
The kind that God looks after.
A dirty face, without a trace
Of beauty as you see it
Can be a sight that's lined aright
By Art as masters see it.
Perhaps your creed and mine may need
To clash a bit together;
Artistic joys and girls and boys
Alive in any weather.
A little girl can set awhirl
My scanty hopes of heaven;
I hear her laugh and fail to scoff
And Lord ! She's only seven.
I don't despise the chunks of cries
And pudgy bits of trouble;
A baby's squall is never all
Its "goo" is pleasure double.
I'm just a fool of nary school
With little time for preachers
Don't need to look in any book
When wee folks are the teachers.
154 Prison Problems
They're book enough, and tame or rough,
When one has learned to love them;
The slicked-up head, the tousled head
God guide the fools above them!
Oh, yes, I pray ; that's all I say :
"Make wise the fools above them!"
'Tis only fair that He should care
I can't do more than love them.
MEMORIES.
The new morn's sun, across the way,
Had turned night's tears to gold,
And blazed a path for blushing day
Across the dew-wet mold,
When I, with prison bars between
My earth, heaven, and hell,
Gazed out upon the rise of green
That lies before my cell.
A fair-haired boy of tender years
Romped on the velvet sod,
And as I gazed forbidden tears
Welled in my eyes and, God!
The morn, the child, the slope of green,
The sunlight's mellow glow,
Recalled to me a memoried scene,
And joys I used to know.
The memoried scene was of my youth,
My childhood, and my play,
Prison Problems 155
When all my paths were paved with truth,
When life was ever gay;
When I, a child, unspoiled, unstained,
Dreamed life was but a song
But now Ah, now by sin profaned,
I know the price of wrong!
I steeled my heart (the night I came
Within the prison gate)
To pay my debt with voiceless shame,
To stifle love with hate;
To still my sobs, my hopes, my fears,
But when I saw that child,
I welcomed back love, hope, and tears,
I mourned, and, mourning, smiled.
GKACELESS.
To lie in a convict graveyard,
To mix with the graceless dead
No word of glory near me?
No marble above my head?
But there is the earth around me,
The arch of the sky above,
And how can a sculptured marble
Be sign of a greater love?
I smile at your words of pity,
For what is a stone to one
Asleep in the breast of nature
With all of his toiling done?
156 Prison Problems
OPTIMIST'S MORNING SONG.
With joyful heart bid night depart,
Then greet
The victor, Fate, across the gate
Where manly toil wins honest spoil,
Life's sweet,
Cursed by no debt of dull regret,
Arise !
Arise !
Blot out the thought that life has brought
But pain;
Forget the scars, the falls, the jars,
The foolish fears of woeful years
All vain!
And sing in praise of better days,
Arise !
Arise !
Go breathe the air that's free from care
Or wrong;
And let your heart its joy impart
In kindly smiles, in laughing whiles,
In song
In heart-whole cheer for what is here,
Arise !
Arise !
Oh, man or maid be not afraid
Of day,
Give it your youth, your soul of truth,
Your fearless life and reckon strife as play,
Arise !
Prison Problems 157
THE KING'S CEY.
I saw a king the other day
I know he was a king,
Because he went along his way
As proud as anything.
His step so light, "his eyes so bright
And full of mischief-laughter,
So puzzled me, I turned to see
His court a-coming after.
But no; the king was all alone,
His troubles far behind;
There was no pomp to make him groan,
No flattery to blind.
All by himself, a trousered elf
So filled with his own glory
That I could read (and had no need
Of book to learn his story).
"The king," I mused, "is glad because
He's lost his court of clowns
The funny folk who make his laws,
And lord it in his towns.
He's now about " just then a shout
Came from the kingly rover.
And what he said sings in my head :
"Hey, Billy! School is over!"
ENERGY.
The uplift man is always one
Who's sawing fit to bust;
Who works as if he surely knows
That Rest is only Rust.
158 Prison Problems
IN DEEAMS.
In dreams your eyes peer into mine,
In dreams I see you yet,
The loving one I should resign,
The maid I would forget.
You seem as young, as sweet, and fair
As when long years ago
I smoothed your wealth of tangled hair,
And kissed you so, and so.
We wander on a sunlit day
And come to hills and streams;
You gather violets by the way,
I watch you in my dreams.
Your curving cheek, a wisp of hair
That flutters in the breeze,
Your mingled, shy and care-free air,
I note such things as these.
Why must these prison halls be filled
With meadows, sunlit, wide?
Why should I be so strangely thrilled
When you are at my side?
Long since I wrote beneath my fate:
"Let love and longing die,"
Yet, breathlessly, and, dear, too late,
I watch you passing by.
Prison Problems 159
With wistful eyes I look again
To value love's sweet cost,
Nor can I make my heart refrain
From longing for the lost.
The vision fades and, lo! I sit
Within my prison cell
Where sorrows wait, and evils flit
Between my heart and Hell.
And yet, because I dreamed of you,
And walked where once we trod,
I nearer am to love, the true,
I closer am to God.
IDOL OF LOVE.
The Idol of love lies broken,
Its ruins are here at my feet
Kisses, and each joyous token
That once made worshipping sweet;
Soul, and a love-light tender
That beamed for me in her eyes ;
Hope, and a dear dream's splendor
Dead, and unworthy of sighs.
Idol of fire and glory,
Crumbled as time crumbles clay!
God ! and I told a heart's story
Unto this thing one day!
Spoke with my thrilled lips of passion,
Prayed with a boy's stumbling tongue-
O woe for the idols we fashion
If the heart of the maker be young!
160 Prison Problems
The idol of love is broken
Thing that I worshipped as one
Who, thinking- his dear God has spoken,
Dreams that all heaven is won;
O, it had deep eyes of dreaming!
And love-light there burned for a day !
No wonder I worshipped this seeming,
This idol that was only clay.
Idol of fire and glory,
Maid whom I thought was divine
Whose laugh was a musical story
Whose smiles could enthrall me like wine,
It is that your soul has departed,
The mystery of you is dispelled,
That I am as one broken-hearted,
With sorrow that will not be quelled.
THE "NEAB POET."
I have no storied thunder
That outward may be hurled
To wake, to startled wonders ;
This listless, working world.
Nor have I angel voices
Wherewith to pulse my song,
So he who hears rejoices
And smiles the whole day long.
Yet life, dear life, forever
I turn to poesy sweet;
And write lest I should never
Have coins for bread and meat.
Prison Problems 161
A SHUT-IN'S SPRING SONG.
I love to watch the dawn's dream hush,
The turn of gloom to gray;
It comes so like a pure maid's blush
Too fair and sweet to stay;
It leaves the sky a crimson flush,
A smile for earth and day.
I love to meet the first-born breeze
That stirs the leafy boughs,
To listen to the birds and bees
Re-sing their matin vows
To sense the life of things like these
And feel my heart arouse.
I love to greet the new morn's sun,
Its kiss to gain, to hold
And have new strength for heights unwon,
Or find my heart more bold,
As I with lighter footsteps run
To work that brings no gold.
I love to live! the earth is fair;
There is God's mellow sun ;
A hint of flowers in the air,
And sounds of childish fun
I turn to look, but everywhere
My view with steel is spun !
162 Prison Problems
A SPRING IDYL.
An alien song-bird in a tree
Sat singing to his alien mate;
Two lovers heard his minor key
And, lover-like, they would translate.
SHE
He sings, she said, of summers when
A day is fit to live in,
And, unafraid of gunning men,
One dares a song to heaven ;
One dares to sing his soul-self free,
Nor look alarmed at shadows,
Nor start at sudden booms of bee
Or cloud-shade on the meadows.
HE
He sings, he said, a boastful song
Of how he'll sing forever,
And how his love as life is long,
Though this be ended never!
Hear that? he chirps, "Tu weet c-cheet!"
It means "God's peace above you !"
And now, "Ee-eee !" "a fine day, sweet !"
"Tu Kee !" and "Oh, I love you !"
And when he pipes in little turns,
Our feathered music-spender
Tells to his mate how much he yearns
To be more kind and tender;
"Ti-ee," "I shall," "e-ees," "be true,"
"Tucee!" "desert you, never!"
"Twikee cee chee," "I'll love but you,"
"Ceeeee !" "forever !"
Prison Problems 163
SHE
He sings, she said, no such a song!
How can you be so silly?
You talk as if he runs along
Just like a smooth-tongued Willie.
A bird may sing his soul away,
And do it well, and gladly;
A man may tell what song-birds say
But, sir, you've told it badly.
He sings um, stop ! he si quit, John !
He sings You'll make me cuff you !
He si Oh, you ! There, now he's gone
Why, yes, of course I love you.
LOVE NOTES.
Your love is vain and dead? Ah, well,
Go, dear, along your way,
Forget of the woven spell
Which was, for but a day.
I will not lie and say I weep
For love of yours, the dead,
May silence close around its sleep,
Deserted be its bed.
The quickened sense that droops and dies,
Be it of love or hate,
But proves it were a worthless prize,
Why should I mourn its fate?
For love or hate with death awing,
Or dead for days or years,
Was, living, but a tortured thing;
Arid dead, not worth my tears.
164 Prison Problems
You write as if love goes amiss,
Or love that was had died,
That they who loved may never kiss
Nor wander side by side.
Is love a shape with eyes and hair?
A form to clasp and hold?
And, losing these, does love despair
And curse the spirit's mold?
Can it be love that makes complaint
To earth and moon and stars
Because its mate is pale and faint
And caged by walls and bars?
Love finds the bars, and to the place
Where waits the captive mate,
It calls and bids a heart take grace
And strength for any fate.
I cannot think that life or death
May alter love a jot,
That it is vain, is but a breath
Which comes and then is not.
If love were vain, a thing that seems,
What draws me to the light?
What gives a glory to the dreams
I dream by day and night?
How could I look beyond the haze
Wherein I wait, entombed, i
And have no sigh for vanished days
Nor know my future doomed?
How could I bear a soul of^song
With all my present pain
And bravely walk where shadows throng
If love, and life were vain?
Prison Problems 165
It may be that your love is dead
Mine is unmourned as yet;
There is no sorrow in its stead,
No ashes of regret.
Nor can I sound a note of care
While spirit hands renew
The flame upon the altar where
I've placed my dreams of you.
A SONG.
Why should I harbor sorrow?
Does it make burdens less?
Bring new strength for tomorrow
Or enlarge tenderness?
A day or so a moment !
Is all of life I hold ;
Why should I myself torment
With what the hours unfold?
Choose, you, the fretful morning,
The stern or worried gaze,
The attitude of scorning
The joy along your ways.
For me, the day of pleasure,
The way not overlong,
A child to spill love's measure,
My lilt a laddie's song.
166 Prison Problems
EASTER LAY: TO THE HEN.
One year ago I did not know
Our prison bill of fare, ah, no !
Nor did I then think that to men
I'd praise the humble cackling hen.
I knew that farms had rural charms
Such as the hen and her alarms
When in the haze of pleasant days
She cackles o'er her spheriod lays.
I knew of quests for hidden nests
Amid a storm of wild protests,
And how the meek may have a beak
With which to pick my yellow streak ;
And I could tell the thrilling spell
For one who holds a broken shell
That golden drips on pouted lips
When boyhood from straight nature sips.
But, oh, not then could I to men
Have said one word to praise the hen
Or mentioned how she beats the sow
Likewise the horned or muley cow
It took a year of dwelling here
To learn the homely hen is dear;
Took eggless days in eggless ways
Before I thought to sing her lays !
Through all my years of doubts and fears,
Of busted hopes and warmed-up tears,
Is seen that I have made no sigh,
Until my pleasures passed me by.
Prison Problems 167
So I relate it must be Fate
That palmed me off unto the State,
So that my pen might tell all men
There's poetry in the cackling hen.
THE HARVEST.
My eyes looked out, the harvest throng
Toiled in the summer sun;
I heard them sing a thankful song
After their task was done
I wondered why they all passed by
The prison, one by one.
The hills were robed in faded gold ;
The lowlands, bare and gray;
The harvest lay safe in the hold,
Stored for a winter day;
The reaper's meed, the miser's greed,
The toiler's honest pay.
The hills and fields woke memories
Dear to my brooding heart,
Of days before earth-miseries
Became of me a part
Fair days that fled, and hopes so dead
They hardly stir my heart.
The iron bars and walls of stone
Woke thoughts I dare not tell
Of how a soul must still its moan
And hide it in a cell
Woke thoughts that crawled and writhed and
sprawled
Like phantom things of hell.
168 Prison Problems
All showed how void my days on earth,
How fettered by my fears,
How little idle hands are worth,
How weak are after-tears
All showed how vain the core of pain
In fruitless wasted years.
My eyes looked out! the harvest throng
Toiled in the summer sun ;
I heard them sing a thankful song
After their task was done.
I wondered why they all passed by
The prison, one by one.
INDIFFERENCE.
How can I care if evils loom
Along the darkened ways
And threaten me with awful doom
Of many bitter days?
What matter if the future state
Be one of ceaseless pain?
My heart is steeled for any fate,
My soul cannot complain.
Have I not lived and borne the life
Of life with other men?
Endured amidst their foolish strife,
And, striving, laughed at them?
Have I not watched and mourned beside
The spirit of my youth?
It died, betrayed, bereft of pride,
Ashamed of earth's untruth.
Prison Problems 169
What matter if the future state
Be one of ceaseless pain?
This life makes welcome any fate
Except this life again.
BUDDING DAYS.
Where the poet worth the singing
Who has never made a lay
To the early bluebird's winging
"Feathered harbingers of May?"
If he's sent no words a-wing
Of the lilt and life and bubble
In the days of gracious Spring?
Has there ever lived a lover,
Worthy of the sacred name,
Who did not see skies above Her
From his own heart-throbs aflame?
Who has not thrilled with the passion
That the south-warmed breezes bring,
And, in his own stumbling fashion,
Tried to tell her "Love is Spring?"
When our life was worth our living,
When the day was filled with song,
When our thoughts were kind, forgiving,
To an evil or a wrong.
When we had fair words for others,
And a heart for everything,
Was it not when we were brothers
To the budding days of Spring?
170 Prison Problems
THE CONVICT'S WIFE.
There are no happy children in the home of Shard
tonight,
There are no merry voices where they used to
sound so clear,
Nor shall I hear a tumult and a rush of footsteps
light
To tell me someone comes and that whoever
comes is dear.
The mother sits beside the stove, her face is sorrow-
gray,
Her eyes are strained as if they see some awful-
ness of hell ;
So did she look when I peeped in, and then I stole
away,
My heart so thick with pity that remembrance
is not well.
I wonder if the man now gone to prison for his
crime
Has felt one-half the woe she feels who only
loved in vain,
I wonder if he sits and stares, unmindful of the time,
His form without all calm and cold, but lashed
within by pain.
I wonder if he ever thinks how she who bears his
name
Must bear the burden of the deed her love could
not control ;
His hands alone have done the wrong, and his
should be the shame ;
Yet she, the wife who has not sinned, sees shame
upon her soul.
Prison Problems 171
Oh, who can tell the measure of the sin that men
may do
When judgment strikes the lightest on the one
who is a beast?
How can we think the laws of men are wise and
good and true
While they who suffer most are those whose sins
are of the least?
It is a lie that innocence fears not the light of day,
That sweetest dreams are for the one who has
the laws obeyed ;
This woman when she walks abroad will shrink
upon the way
And what may come to her in dreams will make
her more afraid.
They've taken him to prison, but she has no place
to go
A grave alone could hide and hold the fearsome-
ness I saw;
O wide strange eyes and tight-clenched hands !
hands clean and white as snow,
Tight-clenched on thorned eternity, condemned
by life and law.
The prison doors are high and wide, and farther in
is gloom,
And men go by these iron doors to rest within
the shade ;
His sin is taken to a place where it may find a
tomb
Her heart must bear the shadow and the Thing
will not be laid.
172 Prison Problems
THE MOURNERS.
Hush a little while your tears and wailing!
'Tis wrong to weep because your babe has died ;
Tears, the mother tears, are unavailing
As vain as mother love, or dreams or pride.
Foolish one ! To mourn that death has claimed him !
You should rejoice and sing aloud instead;
Sing, because your thoughts have never blamed him,
Nor almost cursed his birth nor wished him dead.
You shall never turn, with mother yearning,
And meet a strange and cold untrustful gaze;
Come to him, with mother kindness burning,
To be repulsed by chilly, sullen ways.
Never shall your heart, tormented, flutter
Because he lives and still his love you lack;
Never shall you kneel and madly mutter
A plea to God to bring the living back.
Oh, the joy the future years shall bring you
When you shall muse of him forever fair!
Sweet and fair and not a thought to sting you,
Nor burn your soul with anguish or despair!
God, oh God! If mine when young and tender
Had slipped away to follow voiceless death,
Memories of him had thrilled with splendor,
And throbbed with song at fancy's softest breath.
Prison Problems 173
THE PEISON WALL.
A spirit breathes in what we build,
A presence haunts the deed,
No matter if the thing we willed
Be charity or greed.
Or work for good or work for sin,
Or work of simple fun,
A spirit smiles or scowls within
The thing that we have done.
As if some sullen shape of hate,
Gigantic, tried to hew
A record of his awful fate
So men may know it, too,
So seems the wall of gloomy stone,
A mightiness brought low,
A cursed thing that stands alone
To mock me and my woe.
Almost it seems to have a face
Of masked but leering scorn
When I look forth and try to trace
Life's glory in a morn ;
It scowls when in the noonday sun
Its face is swept by light,
And when I rest, my labor done,
It threatens in the night.
My heart is not complaining no;
I only wonder why
A wall should mount to heaven so
And blot fair earth and sky ;
174 Prison Problems
And wonder if its heartless scheme
Was in the maker's plan
When into mud He wove a dream
And called the union man.
TODAY IS BEST OF ALL.
When winter came with storm-cursed days,
With biting winds and snow,
Did you not wish to tread the ways
Where nodding daisies grow?
Did you not long to see again
The lightning's zigzagged flash,
And hear the pelting of the rain
Go pitty-pat and splash?
Did you not wish, the same as I,
For things you may not hold,
Young love or aged, or hours that fly,
Or fading hope, or gold?
Or stared into the vanished years
Where priceless things are lost
And wondered through a mist of tears
If God knows what they cost?
But summers pass, and friends and gold
And loves and hopes depart
However much we strive to hold
Their dearness to the heart;
And so we learn, the learning few,
That, though the heavens fall,
Or Fate betray or Time undo,
Today is best of all.
Prison Problems 175
A WOKD OF EXPLANATION.
The penitentiary at Stillwater, Minnesota, is
looked upon as being one of the advanced penal in-
stitutions where the criminal class in the great
school of life is being taught. We present here ex-
hibit "B" in the form of poetry, prose and pleas
that reveal the soul of that institution.
These pages, from 176 to 194 inclusive, reveal
the hopes and longings of the average man in that
monstrous cage. This was written by one who
signs his name : A. N. Apache, and is reproduced
here for the reason that we believe it better to study
the many sides of a type than it would be to have
a mere look at one angle of many individuals.
Much of this was written by Apache for publica-
tion in The Mirror, the newsy, breezy, well edited
weekly newspaper, issued by the inmates of that
state institution. Some of these verses have had a
rather wide circulation, and we hope to extend their
usefulness.
These papers are fair samples of what the pris-
oners prepare and read at their weekly chautauqua
meetings.
Some of these selections admirably lend them-
selves to the use of the lyceum and chautauqua
reader, and a hint to the wise is sufficient.
176 Prison Problems
THE "CHAUTAUQUA CIRCLE" AT
STILLWATER.
One of the greatest educational features of the
Minnesota State Prison is the little "Pierian Circle"
of chautauqua work which has been successfully
maintained for over twenty-five (25) years. I be-
lieve the circle was organized under Warden Ran-
dall and favored and encouraged by each succeeding
warden until its influence has been felt even among
the members of the chautauqua movement all over
the United States. There has always been the most
intense interest manifested by its members and the
papers read and discussed at its meetings every two
weeks are as full of vital force to the every day life,
and as brilliant and full of genius and depth of
thought as any circle of the kind can show. Many
able writers of toda'y who are filling positions of
clerical work with credit to themselves and their
employers began their career in the M. S. P. chau-
tauqua. And it is a noticeable fact that its members
stand at the head of the Prison Roll of Honor and
deportment. The membership averages generally
from 20 to 35 members and ought to be far larger,
but the interest never flags, and has run its meet-
ings through hot summer months with as much in-
terest manifested as in the winter and early spring
and fall. The little circle was the first of its kind
in the United States and at once became a member
of the great chautauqua movement taking up its
regular course of studies, and using the same text
books. It was from the membership of the circle
that the first Prison Paper ("The Mirror") was
Prison Problems 17?
founded, and which has become such an important
factor in the reform and betterment of prison life.
And its twenty-five years of successful operation is
due in a large measure to the talent developed from
the chautauqua students, while its entire staff of
editors, printers and contributors are with but few
exceptions, members of the little "Pierien" circle.
It is considered a very high honor to be the Presi-
dent, Vice President or Secretary and some of its
annual elections develop much interest.
Outside of certain privileges that its officers en-
joy in the prison, there is a certain feeling that its
officers have a distinctive standing of credit among
the members and officers of the Great Chautauqua
Movement. One of the most intensely interesting
and fascinating records that has ever been produced
is the recorded history of its doings by its many
gifted and talented secretaries during the twenty-
five 'years and over of its existence.
A PLEA, O MINNESOTA.
(The editor of the Thief River Falls Times gave
the "minor" staff an excellent "write-up" recently,
and this plea was inspired by the editor's closing
lines:)
"THEY MEET AGAIN, TAKE THEIR
PLACE IN SOCIETY, WELCOMED AS ONE
WHO HAS BEEN ABSENT ON A JOURNEY."
Fine stuff that, prose poetry. It has been clinging
to us ever since it was written. The machine in the
178 Prison Problems
shop pounds it to us: YOU ARE ONLY AWAY
ON A JOURNEY.
Good, think that of us when next we meet, will
you? Ah, there's the rub. How do the lines ap-
peal to you, O Minnesota? For about a week or
more all sorts and conditions of men grasped each
other's hands in a spirit of good will. Shylocks for-
got their ten per cent and men forgave all injury
done them. The cold heart found joy in the fact
that it could love a little, and the ill-fed factory girl
dried her eyes and claimed it a good world after all.
A wanderer warmed his hopes by alien fires, he
found many a kindred spirit with whom he could
speak, heart to heart, and with the full assurance of
sympathy, without being misunderstood.
Hester Prynne trod the city streets, caught the
laughter and gladness of all that makes life fair and
she forgot forgot the Scarlet Letter. And why?
All because a little Babe was born in a barn over
nineteen hundred years ago.
From platform and pulpit the gospel of His Divin-
ity was launched forth to men. We were told of His
being born to save a blundering world ; were told
that His love was ceaseless, that He was a Man of
Sorrow. Told to forget our own pain, and to medi-
tate more on the pain of others. He was a man that
suffered pain. We were carried out of ourselves,
beyond our existence by the new significance put
into the words, "For unto you is born this day, in
the city of David, A Saviour!"
We have been thrilled with the intensity of their
meaning; thrilled so that we were forced to grope
back over our yesterdays and acknowledge to our-
selves, we had been living a lie.
Prison Problems 179
We have been overwhelmed with His sublimity
and majesty; His brightness has shone forth in
flashes of lightning and it was impossible for us not
to have recognized some higher glory. Now we
have a question to ask you, Minnesota, a plea to put
before you. Is the atmosphere still laden with glad-
ness? Does He stand for your idea of an ideal man?
Does His creed of universal love mean anything to
you today? We would like to know, for our new
law proclaims a chance for each of us, and it will
send us out to mingle with you.
Are you your brother's keeper? We will not
ask much of you. We will not infringe on your
higher duties.
All we ask is this : don't whip us with the "has
been" lash. Take us for what we will try to be,
not for what we have been. Don't remind us of
what we have lived, boost us for what we are go-
ing to live. Don't harp about our past, paint to
us rather a glowing picture of our future. We are
children, gone astray, wa'yward and erring. We
felt the thrill of the Christ day, deep down in our
hearts. We want to profit by the story of Him who
lived and died to save such as we.
How is it with you today? Has the customafy
gloom settled over your towns and cities? Are the
streets lonely? Are you cold and self-centered?
Are you careless and indifferent to all beauty? Have
you so soon, lost the influence that emanated from
His birthday? Do you govern yourself by the law,
"Love ye one another?"
We want to know, for by these things we can
judge you, and by the same you will judge us.
There is always room for progress towards our
180 Prison Problems
ideals, no matter what our conditions or environ-
ments may be, and if you see the glorified humanity
of Christ in the right light, then we, with our fail-
ures, may still look to you for encouragement in
our "building up" efforts. We know what life has
to offer in the way of misery, if we are scorned by
you we may once more find ourselves on the edge
of things where a flutter sways the balance. If you
tell us that our recommendation, with its term of
imprisonment, is not the best of references, then,
we may cry out against the cruelty of society, cry
out in the loneliness of a city supposed to contain
human souls. We have been wanderers yet we have
preserved some of our manhood. Don't sever the
link that binds us to you ; don't mock us in our
misery; don't see humor in our damnation. There
is in all of us a height, or depth, it depends on how
the chords are touched. Christmas day was an ap-
peal to you and to us, the something it stands for
met a something in you, and in us. It will be earth's
greatest triumph if you can, and will lift us up to
your heights, especially if your chords are attuned
with His divine strains. He who was born in a
manger.
We have stopped gazing backward; we have
shifted our point of view, and we look to you, O
Minnesota, for the word of encouragement and
cheer. We will not believe that we are lost, for the
book with its wonderful love, tells us that a man
cried out from his cross : "Lord, remember one when
Thou comest into Thy kingdom." Yes, even the
thief on the cross had a new birth. We will leave
here full of hope, but class pride can and may play
havoc with our hope. "It's up to us," you tell us,
Prison Problems 181
but isn't it just a wee bit up to you? Shall we get
the lift or the shove, the boost or the knock? Shall
slander drive us away from the town wherein we
dreamed our beautiful dreams, from the place where
we forgot, and fell ; where we lost in a mad moment,
our manhood ; where we forfeited our right to live
and mingle with our kind? Or shall it be as a wel-
come, to one, "Who only went away on a journey?"
THE GREAT BLACK WAY.
THE GREAT WHITE WAY, it is called, and
yet I know at least three persons who can bestow
on it a better fitted name.
THE BOY who was unafraid after spending a few
short weeks on it, gave it a different name. THE
LITTLE COUNTRY GIRL who dared live on it
but a short time, called it by another name. WHILE
I, even I, who know it well, damn it and call it, the
GREAT BLACK WAY.
The great lighted way is to me a picture of dark-
est night. I see a great part of all the broken faiths
of humanity piled here in reckless abandon. The
gay throng wears a mask and the merry peals of
laughter are but artificial covering for hearts that
sob. All of the faces lie. Read them through the
mask and they express all the emotions of the hu-
man soul.
The momentous victories cannot efface the pain
and the sorrow and the defeat, defeat of worthy
ambition that was mired on the street of broken
souls.
THE BOY, who was unafraid, entered the Great
182 Prison Problems
Black Way with quick, eager step, with a freedom
that bespoke the undefeated soul, free from the
blights of disillusion and discord. But after a few
months the Boy, who was unafraid, had seen it all,
and then he grew afraid, afraid of the day. He came,
he saw, and he was conquered. The juggernaut of
the Black Wa'y passed over him, and crushed out
all the fellowship. Now he is a broken husk, un-
lovable and impossible, yet with no outward, de-
jected mien. The head is not bowed in helpless-
ness; he laughs, and sighs and watches for the other
fellow who is seeing the bright lights for the first
time. But behind the mask is a c'ynic whom the
street has bandoned and now but tolerates.
THE GIRL who dared, made a shrine of the
Great Black Way. It was a golden way with its
days of enchantment and flower decked joys. She
laid her fresh, young soul down before the shrine.
Then came the juggernaut. Its wheels are not
padded, as the girl will know who places her faith
on the street of Broken Hopes. Now for the GIRL
who dared, the pink and white of the way looks
stale and void of all coloring. Bitter, defeated and
broken on life's road she passes on, and her laugh
rings out in the merry madness and some times she
sings, but she wears a mask for in the laughter
and song is a false note, brought there because of
the fear that some one will open the toll-gates of
memory some day and she will grow afraid.
Oh ! you poor, life-wrecked GIRL who dared, and
BOY who was unafraid, I pity you, for I recall on
my blue days and on days of gloom, the tempta-
tions and pitfalls to be found in that venturesome
and wandering life along The Great Black Way.
Prison Problems
MICKEY.
Yesterday he died, a wee bit of a lad hardly six-
teen, just in the golden noon of his boyhood, and
he died a convict, and now sleeps in a convict's
grave. I do not know much about the lad, but what
I saw of him attracted me. He was one of those
quiet, unassuming chaps with a not unattractive
habit of minding his own business while his smile
was a sad, forlorn one, seen more often in a frail
girl battling for health, rather than in a convict.
We wonder if heart-ache did not help to bring
about his end, for he knew the sadness of a bleeding
heart before his time. Many a hard thought must
have found harbor in his breast, for through a mist
of tears, he saw himself an exile from all the joys
of fair boyhood, cast among the sternest realities of
life, that might have been turned into the never
can be. I would like to bring before all mothers,
the lonely grave where our convict boy lies, and
to bring to you the great big pity of it all, so that
you may awaken to the fact that there are other
boys on the road that leads to this prison.
There are hosts of boys who do not belong below
the dead-line. We do not want them to come here.
What are you doing to keep them from meeting
the fate of the boy Mickey who has just died?
There's a red headed boy making a trip in the
patrol wagon today, and tonight in a dismal cell, he
.will cry and moan all night long. The path before
that boy is a crooked one, as crooked as the check-
ered careers of those who went before him.
The police may call him Mickey, the thief, and
184 Prison Problems
they may tell you he is a hopeless case, but it is
false. Ask Mickey why he doesn't behave and he
will answer: "Nobody gives me a show, they are
always pinching me, they think I do everything."
There's many a Mickey ends here because he was
misunderstood. Some deed is committed in St. Paul
at two o'clock. Mickey did it! At ten minutes
after two on the same day, some wrong is done in
Minneapolis. The same Mickey did it ! If you ask
the police how such a thing could be done by Mickey
with the distance so great they will answer : "The
little Devil is everywhere." Once in a while some
woman goes to the police station to comfort Mickey
and she gives him a tiact, then returns home with
the consciousness of a -luty well performed.
One does not know that the tract is on the "Evils
of Dancing." Mickey does not read it, for it's some-
thing else Mickey wants. He wants some one to
press him close, some one to love him. Perhaps
you had a boy in the long ago, just the age of our
boy and when he went out of your life, he left it
very empty indeed. You moaned over his grave,
and in after years you knew your life was incom-
plete. I want to bring up to you that lamplight of
long ago. I want you to creep back into that hal-
lowed past so that in your great sorrow you might
think of the sorrows of the many neglected Mickeys
on the dead-line of your town today. Your boy may
not have committed sin is that Mickey is sinning, but
they both dreamed the same dreams.
Your boy had a bright future before him. Mickey
has but a sorrowful destiny. I would that I could
bring the tragedy of Mickey's life to you; lay open
the little heart and show to you a thing bruised by
Prison Problems 185
pain and agony, like as to a whip-lash on a naked
soul.
There's many a home today where a mother still
weeps for her son who died. Why not let some
wandering Mickey have his place in your heart.
Don't you think the boy up in Heaven would be glad
to know you are making some heart glad "in his
name and for his memory?" Let the mother in you
be ever in a receiving mood and we will not have
any boys dying in our prisons. I would like for you
to creep into a bedroom tonight and gather together
all the things your boy once wore. The sight of
them may open the old wound ; may pull upon your
heart-strings so hard that you will go out into the
highways and find some Mickey. You can put
aside all legislation and administration by a heart
throb. You can put to shame all machine made
charity by opening your heart to Mickey, only love
will win him. Tracts will never, never do it. Tracts
came from a machine; love came from God. Some
day we will awaken. We have been sleeping long.
We will get untangled from the worldly web of
false idealism, and then Mickey will come into his
own. Some day when he stands up to receive
sentence from a court there will be bands of white
souled women begging for the chance to take him
to their homes and we will bury no more children
in a convict's grave.
This article has little to do with the manner in
which Mickey offended the dignity of a great and
powerful state. Only this, an outraged people sent
the little boy to the great white prison to spend his
life and in so doing threw up their hands saying
"We cannot rectify the Great Cause so must put
186 Prison Problems
all our energy into condemning the sequence."
"Little boys" are not for prisons any more than the
red-breasted robin is for a cage, and as the robin
beats out its short life against its prison bars, so the
little boy wearied of the whitened walls and long-
ing for the open, as little boys will, beat his soul
against the grated door. Thus the time came when
he lay upon his narrow cot, while far away the
church bells echoed over the hills and the last rays
of the setting sun fell across the floor, crept up and
rested for a moment on the head of the little boy
who bartered, in a mad moment, his birthright.
Above his head hung his striped coat, his badge of
dishonor. A nurse in grey knelt beside the cot and
moistened the little fevered lips with lumps of ice.
A long-time-sentence man, but with a heart, mum-
bled from the book of common prayer, while afar off
in the city a heart-broken mother sobbed out her
sorrow, knowing that her boy was near to death.
And there in the evening glow, with the sun sinking
down in the west and the bells faintly calling away
off yonder on the hillside, the little boy convict
clutched his crucifix, heaved a gentle sigh and died.
He had served his life sentence.
The tuning up of a violin is not sweet music, but
if you listen carefully you will hear sweet strains at
last. Mickey may not be an angel but if you care
to try, you will surely find much hidden sweetness.
Remember our boy who died, and that one time
from the burning sands of Galilee came a great
eternal
"Love ye one another."
Prison Problems 187
WITH CLOSED EYES.
I closed my e'yes at noon-day and looked out upon
the world. I saw the torch of liberty, and free-
dom's flag, unfurled. And as I gazed, I saw strange
things which brought this thought to me, Which
of the twain are crucified, the bond slave, or the
free? I saw a mill belch forth its flame amid its din
and noise. I saw machines fed by the hands of little
girls and boys. I saw them crushed by cruel hours,
by routine and by rule, which made of "God's Sinai
Law" a source of ridicule. I saw young girls, with
tired eyes, ill-fed and scantily clad, in desperation
leave the mill, to mingle with the bad. No hand
held out to succor, ignored through mighty pride,
they go down to their shamed defeat, and Christ's
re-crucified. I saw the factory crosses, borne 'til
life is done, and on each cross I saw hung up the
bleeding form of one, who left a country farm-house,
a hopeful country maid; lured by flaring advertise-
ments that promised, then betrayed. I saw society
calmly look with an unseeing eye while men went
boldly through the land to shame and crucify. I saw
men crushed by labor's wheel ; young bodies marred
and slain ; some bore the look, O God, of Christ !
Who bears the brand of Cain?
I saw the old-faced, little girls in tenements, ob-
scure, I heard the mournful cry of them, born but
to endure. No time for rest, for play, for prayer.
A life of toil, no ease, dividends must be piled up by
even "The Least of These." With toil their life
blood given to quench King Mammon's thirst. I
saw girls totter 'neath their load, by brutal drivers
188 Prison Problems
cursed. I looked upon their helplessness and heard
their bitter cry to a blind world, to wake and probe,
love and rectify. And there I saw a mill-death, no
hearse, no funeral grand. The "potter's field," six
feet of earth, a barren unkept land, and then I
thought of the Christ creed : Sisters all, and Broth-
er, no matter what your station, Thou shalt love
one another. We look too high and care too much
for blue blood and its birth. Let's get a little closer
to the "white slaves" of this earth. They cry aloud
for help from us, cry sorely in their heed. Show
them that Christ still lives in you, show them your
faith, your creed. "Wanted a Man" the cry rings
out to you by tongue and pen. "Wanted a thou-
sand Women" also "A thousand men" inspired by
love and virtue who see their duty is to save the
little tot from a master that drives it as a slave, that
children may have some time for play between the
cradle and the grave.
A TRIBUTE.
Scum of scum they called him, offspring of out-
cast and squaw, gambler, loafer, thief, men sitting
before the night-fire spoke in whispers of the deeds
he had done, of the food and clothing he gained by
right of courage. Yet it was also told of him that
he had one virtue in all of his wild, mad career, he
had never wronged or insulted a woman. Men call
him outcast, but I feel that over the "great divide,"
angels will take his one virtue into consideration
when fixing his punishment, for virtue of any kind
will not, and cannot go unrewarded.
Prison Problems 189
f
THE MAN IN THE STRIPES.
(With apologies to Edwin Markham.)
Bowed by the might of prison toil, he leans
'Gainst his cell door and gazes at the stars,
The emptiness of life, shows in his face,
And on his back a suit of prison stripes.
Rapture is not for him, grim despair
Clings to him throughout the dismal years,
A thing that grieves, but ever, always hopes
That in the future, on some distant day,
He'll mingle with his fellowmen once more
And breathe the air of freedom and of God.
Is this the babe some mother suffered for,
Shook hands with Death to bring this life to birth?
Far better had he in his cradle died
Than live a victim of a penal plan.
Loves he the hand that put him where he is?
Does reformation's law appeal to him?
When he steps through those ponderous prison
gates,
Who is the one to guide his feet aright?
Society wants none of him, he's only prey
To all man hunters and for all the years.
Lonely he must ever stumble on
In alien ways, until he falls again,
Blundering, blindly through the dusk of years
Unsatisfied, forgotten and unwept.
O, lawyers, judges and grim jurymen,
How will you rate upon a final day?
Can you look straight into Eternal Eyes,
Speak truth before the Auditor above?
190 Prison Problems
How will you answer for your thoughtlessness?
For in the balance many men you've weighed.
How will you weigh in that grand balance, when
Upon the scales depend Eternity?
CHEER UP.
Be a booster and a smiler, yes, you can
Tell, and prove there is a brotherhood of man;
Brag about the sun a-shining,
'Bout dark clouds with silver lining,
And on worry, fret and pining
Place a ban.
On the brightness of tomorrow lay your bet.
Never soul has ever lost it, not as yet.
If you do not trouble borrow,
You can claim that your tomorrow
Will not hold a bit of sorrow
Not a fret.
Preach aloud the creed of sunshine, good and true,
Take your brightness from the heavens, deep and
blue.
Go your way and sing a song
And you'll see as you go long
Folks will pause out in the throng
To smile at you.
When you see a brother down, a broken thing,
Say a word to comfort him and ease the sting.
Get to doing every day
Prison Problems 191
Some good deed along the way
So the world may rise and say
Love is King.
XMAS MUSINGS.
Somewhere tonight some heart is made the lighter,
Somewhere a word of cheer instead of blame,
Somewhere a soul is now a bit more whiter
Because of something said, done in His Name.
Somewhere a girlie, sinned 'gainst more than sin-
ning
Creeps up to see the Baby in the straw,
Somewhere, tonight, a new life is beginning
Because of Him (not brought about b'y law).
Somewhere, tonight, a mother's tears are falling.
Somewhere an Ishmael kneels, and then a blur
He sends His voice, outward, upward, calling
To God for help and strength, because of Her,
Somewhere She kneels, Ah, who can unite the
Glory?
Bent with the toil of years, long used to prayer,
She sends aloft the oft repeated story,
Asks God to watch o'er him, out there, somewhere.
MY WISH.
Some day I must take thirty from the hook;
When that times comes, I pray you all, forget
The time I was an outcast; lived a crook;
For on that day I pray that you may let
Me lie in some charmed spot, where children go
To play and romp with happy laugh and song ;
192 Prison Problems
I think, perhaps, that I might catch the glow,
The purity that I had missed, so long.
Oh ! Do not lay me where the wild winds blow,
I've had enough of wildness, let me rest
In some calm spot where only flowers grow,
And have some little maid, place on my breast,
With simple prayer, a rose of purest white.
A rose of white because by Angels kissed ;
Ah ! Yes when I have bid the world, good-night
I'll want at last the things I've always missed.
SUCCESS.
I do not know the end of all my planning,
The future wears a veil, I cannot see ;
But this I feel ; the Master in His scanning
Holds out some Hope for me.
I do not know what lies far in the distance,
I am content to watch today, and wait!
I know my path, the one of least resistance.
For I've been given Faith.
I cannot claim all world joys are denied me,
I have one boon to ask, one only plea ;
That I may live that those around may see
I claim some Charity.
I know not if my future holds more sweetness,
I only pray the watchful One above
Will strengthen me, so I may win completeness,
Keep warm my heart with love.
Prison Problems 193
HOPE.
Rudderless like a derelict at sea
I rose and fell,
I drifted and moaned in my misery
My path a hell.
And yet a truth has been taught to me
Came into my red torn agony,
And all is well.
Into the depths you stretched forth a hand
One golden day,
And I who had scoffed now understand
The brighter way,
For the truth in your eyes I cannot forget,
That bids me put by all care and all fret
And kneel to pray.
Today I'm praying for what I've done
(In good cheer).
Life still is good at the set of the sun,
You taught me, dear,
That I can be yet what I want to be,
Last night a convict, today, I'm free,
The goal seems near.
You drove awa'y all hate from my eyes
No trouble I borrow,
I shall not bring you a bundle of lies
To cause you sorrow.
Nothing but truth and sincerity
Then hand in hand, dear, you and me.
Face our tomorrow.
194 Prison Problems
THE PROBLEM OF THE REPEATER.
By.Rollo H. McBride.
The matter of handling men discharged from
prison in such a manner that they will not return
there is not to be mastered by maudlin sentiment. It
is a problem in economics. If the powers that rule
permitted live stock to be treated after the fashion,
and with as little mental direction, as convicts are
treated, public opinion would swiftly make itself
felt upon the subject. After a somewhat protracted
study of the subject, and carefully striving to under-
state rather than to overstate, I am justified in the
assertion that fully fifty per cent of the men and
women sentenced to imprisonment for trivial of-
fenses for shorter or longer terms should never be
locked up at all. I am not arguing the case, I am
merely stating the fact. Here is a frightful waste
of manhood and womanhood. The most expensive
blunder of the city of Chicago is the arresting of
seventy thousand persons annually. If a captain
of industry were to conduct a trust business along
such extravagant and stupid lines for the period of
a year it would spell bankruptcy for the stockhold-
ers.
My beliefs were not born of books. I myself
am a product of that Underworld of which the news-
paper men make "copy," and the preachers, text.
With despair in my heart, and the suicide urge in
my brain, I have tramped the desert of stone and
steel called Chicago, and knocked at the doors of
Prison Problems 195
many "missions." Most of these are manned by
sincere men and women anxious to serve in all good
causes. They desire to help the unfortunate and
the fallen, and they do help them in ways often un-
seen of human eye. Heaven forbid that I should
take up the easy pose of censor of any of these
instruments for the alleviation of human misery.
All, all in their manner and after their kind, are
helpful.
But what is it a discharged prisoner needs when
he is turned out of the Chicago House of Correc-
tion with a nickel in his pocket? If he is friend-
less, without shoes, without clothes, food or lodging,
what is he to do? Where is he to turn? In a word,
what is his prime need? Clearly, his need is credit;
credit, the life force of modern civilization. No
starving man can be normal or sane. Picture for
a moment, if you please, the mental attitude toward
the world of the discharged convict with but a nickel
in his pocket, his feet sticking out of his shoes, his
clothes dirty, torn and frayed, without one available
friend to whom to apply, without food, or a hole to
crawl into to sleep, with the brand of the jail upon
him, and the haunting fear that he may not be able
to "make good" and as a result be forced back to the
practices that lead again to the Bridewell. Picture
that man's outlook upon life. If you who read these
words were in that position, would you wish anyone
to pray with you, or exhort you to be "good," or
invite you to come to Jesus and be "saved?" I have
been there. I have had well-meaning persons hand
me that kind of thing when I was starving, and with
a "God bless you, Brother." turn and leave me help-
less and hopeless in my desperate, despairing mis-
196 Prison Problems
ery. And I say, with all courtesy, and with every
desire to avoid giving offence, that that is not Chris-
tianity. The authentic need, then, of the dis-
charged prisoner is credit. Credit for food, credit
for clothes, credit for lodging, credit with some em-
ployer that he is eager and willing to walk straight,
and a certification to that effect from some responsi-
ble individual in the community who is willing to
take a chance on the man.
Given these credits it is then up to the discharged
prisoner himself to make good. No one can save
his brother's soul to be sure, but he can give that
brother the opportunity to help save himself. When
that is done everything is done.
In November, 1909, some big hearted business
men of Chicago gave me the funds to open "The
Parting of the Ways Home" in Twenty-second
Street at its junction with Clark Street. This is the
centre of Chicago's vice district, the sordid section
with the sense of shame unknown. The Home was
rounded upon the basic idea that if a man is worth
saving he is worth treating like a gentleman. To
treat a man like a man is to trust him. To treat him
like an equal is not to preach at him or admonish
him to be this or that. The instant you begin to
preach to another that instant you arrogate to your-
self a superiority of virtue that quite naturally
arouses antagonism in the other fellow's mind. An-
other thing ; if you tell a man that you are interested
in him, and will not back the statement by DOING
something for him. the man knows instinctively that
you do not mean what you say. The person who
professes an interest in a man's soul but will do noth-
ing for his body is a first-class humbug. In this
Prison Problems 197
light the word dis-interest must be eliminated from
human affairs. There is no such thing as disinterest.
To deny interest is to deny Christ, to deny Life.
"The Parting of the Ways Home" was opened
then in order to extend to the down and out chap a
new credit with the General Interest, with Society.
How has the idea worked out in practice? Admir-
ably, in all ways. I dislike statistics and do not wish
to inflict them upon the reader. But "The Home"
has to its credit the taking of several hundred dis-
charged prisoners fresh from the Bridewell and re-
storing them to lives of usefulness and self-respect.
In the first two years we received 1452 men and se-
cured positions for 1080. In each case, naturally, in-
dividual treatment is called for. I never preach at
the boys who come to me. And I do not permit
other people to preach at them, either. "The Home"
is neither a "mission" nor a church. We have never
permited nor shall we permit "The Home" to be
turned into a show place for the purpose of parad-
ing the boys before the professional philanthropists.
The boys are not associating with us for the pur-
pose of being made "good" but for the purpose of
being made good for something. Mere static "good-
ness" I have never been able to understand, any-
way. A man is good for something or he is not.
If he is not good for something, I fail to understand
how he can be good for anything.
The man who did more than any other in aiding
me to get "The Home" under way was the Hon.
McKenzie Cleland. When Judge Cleland was sit-
ting in the Municipal Court at the Maxwell Street
Police Station he became deeply interested in the
conditions of the men who appeared before him.
198 Prison Problems
When Judge Cleland was on the bench he released
on probation some 1,500 prisoners upon their prom-
ise to reform. Only one man afterwards, so far as
learned, broke faith. About eight per cent violated
their pledge to stop drinking, but none of them com-
mitted crime. Judge Cleland is the father of adult
probation in Chicago. He is one with me in the
belief that fifty per cent of the men com-
mitted to the House of Correction for trivial offenses
should never be sent there at all.
John L. Whitman, the Warden of the House of
Correction, is the authority for the statement, based
on the figures, that since the starting of "The Part-
ing of the Ways Home" the number of regulars
being received at the House of Correction has
dwindled twenty-two per cent.
It costs the city of Chicago $9.00 to send a man
to the House of Correction, and only $4.99 to make
him a good citiz,en at "The Parting of the Ways
Home." Over 12,000 men are released from the
House of Correction every year. In nearly every in-
stance when these men are freed after serving their
terms their credit is exhausted in every direction.
In a majority of instances, of course, their credit was
exhausted before they were locked up. To open the
books with society again for these men and extend
to them a new line of credit that is the function
of such institutions as "The Parting of the Ways
Home." When "The Home" fails to give the down
and out man who seems deserving of it a fresh
credit, then the institution will fail of its purpose.
Such institutions are not working miracles. If a
man's nerve cells are broken down, we cannot re-
build them. Some men who come to me are past
Prison Problems 199
the dead line of human hope or aid. For them there
is pity is sympathy, if you please but "The
Home" is not for them. This is a world of actu-
ality and Life is a march and a battle. It's a good
deal more than a dress parade at any stage of the
game. For the man who has dropped out of the ranks
and wishes to "come back" and has the red blood to
back his ambition, there should be a place for him
to take his first step in the procession. Such a home
should be distinctly not the place for the drone
the shirker or the coward. For the man who is
strong and wise enough to recognize that he alone
is the master of his fate and the "captain of his
soul," the latch-string ought to be always out.
Let us look a few facts in the face. If a man
is arrested on the Fourth of July for harboring an
overflow of patriotism in his system, he is sentenced
to seven months in the workhouse, serves his time,
gets a few days off for good conduct and on Christ-
mas Eve he is liberated.
When he was arrested he wore a summer suit, low
cut shoes, a straw hat and gauze underwear. His
clothes were stored away when he began his sen-
tence, and prison garb was provided for his use.
It is Christmas Eve, and all the world is looking
for Santa Claus, the children are gathered in thous-
ands of churches to sing and say speeches about the
Christ who came to bring "Peace on Earth, Good
Will to Men."
An iron gate creaks and a poor shivering, half-
scared stranger steps from the prison in a summer
suit, low cut shoes, straw hat and gauze underwear.
He has just been given five cents by the prison offi-
cials. He has been staked, it's up to him to make
good.
200 Prison Problems
This is not the saddest part of our story, for per-
chance we may have a woman to deal with, as is
frequently the case.
Think of a woman, maybe your own flesh and
blood, turned loose upon society with five cents as
her available assets. Can we wonder that she gives
up the struggle, yields to the temptations of the
city's depravity, falls into the toils of the cunning
ones who live on the weakness of their fellows?
Some day the state will take care of its released
prisoners, just as the up-to-date church looks after
its new converts, or the business college looks after
its graduates.
If the National Harvester Company were to sell
farm machinery giving as little thought to repair-
ing and replacing the weak parts as society does in
dealing with the most delicate, intricate and won-
derful machine ever constituted man it would
go broke inside of a year.
If a doctor were to have a sick man come to him
a hundred different times with the same complaint,
he would be considered a criminal Quack if he were
to prescribe the same medicine continuously, when
he saw it did no good.
Yet that is exactly what the court does. It sends
the same patient to the work house for as many
as a hundred times. Each visit only weakens the
victim. It is the duty of the state to make it as
hard as possible to do wrong and as easy as possible
to do right.
We aim to drive out anger and revengeful
thoughts which corrode the heart that generates
them by instilling love, sympathy and hope, coupled
with material help for the ex-cortvict, who needs
help, to help himself.
Prison Problems
201
Analysis of the first one thousand men received
at the "Home," showing countries and creeds :
Countries.
402 Americans
207 Irish
102 Colored
85 Germans
35 Polish
32 English
28 Scotch
22 Sweden
15 Jews
12 Bohemia
11 Norway
9 France
8 Austria
7 Italian
7 Russia
6 Denmark
3 Finland
2 Wales
2 Canada
1 Japan
1 Spain
1 Hungary
1 Ludwig
1 Holland
Church.
496 Catholics
127 Methodists
94 Baptists
89 Lutherans
71 Presbyterians
44 Episcopalians
18 Congregational
15 Jews
14 Ch. of England
13 Christian
5 Reformed
3 Christian Science
3 Unitarian
2 United Presby.
2 Disciple
Evangelical
Ch. Catholic Zion
Nazarine
United Bro.
1,000 1,000
24 countries ; 19 creeds.
P. S. Since this article was written a new Parting
of the Ways Home has been started at 32 Lacock
St., Pittsburgh, Pa., with Rollo H. McBride in
charge. Ed.
202 Prison Problems
COURTS FOR THE POOR.
Any one who has ever attended a police court,
squire's trial, or watched the legal proceedings of
the officers that have to do with the poor, the needy,
the unfortunate, the down-and-outer has been
shocked at the speed with which the victims are run
through the legal mill.
The writer once saw a young man, who lived in
Piedmont, W. Va., arrested outside the corporate
limits, charged with stealing chickens at Luke, Md.
The Mayor of Piedmont was kept from sending this
young fellow to the penitentiary in West Virginia
for stealing chickens in Maryland only because it
was the Maryland officials who had arrested him and
claimed the right to try him in that state, so they
took him to Westernport, Md., and arraigned him
before a man whose sign above his so-called office
announced to all the world that he was a "Justice
of the 'Piece.' " At this hearing it was unmistaka-
bly proven that it was this young man's father and
brother who stole the chickens, whereupon the
Judge, who used his vest as an adjunct to a cuspi-
dor, sentenced his victim to serve a year in the
Maryland reformatory for living (in West Virginia)
without visible means of support. He served his time.
Compare his case with that of Harry K. Thaw or
any other rich or well-to-do man or woman who has
money to pay a lawyer to twist and untwist the
legal tangles just as long as the ducats are forth-
coming.
We have heard much of reforming the judiciary,
Prison Problems 203
recalling judges and their decisions, but all of this
is only for the upper class. What is needed is
the abolition of the fee system whereby "artificials"
of every type are made to prosper by the misfortune
of others.
All judges should be elected at a salary to serve
the people instead of serving the ordinary under-
strappers who live by the lucre they coin from crime.
Kansas has made a start in the right direction in
establishing courts for the poor.
At least $3,000,000 in small unpaid debts is lost to
the poor in the United States annually because they
have not the means to bring prosecution, according
to Judge Eli Nirdlinger of the small debtors' court,
which was established at Leavenworth, Kansas,
May 1st.
The small debtors' court, the first of its kind in
the United States, was established entirely for the
poor, who are unable to deposit costs or to employ
a lawyer. Provision for the court was made in a law
drafted by the attorney general of Kansas, John
S. Dewson.
Mayors or councils of cities of the first class may
appoint a judge to sit in the court or, in the case of
counties, the county courts make the appointment.
Leavenworth is the first city to take advantage of
the law.
All that is required of a plaintiff in the small
debtors' court is to show that he is too poor to make
a deposit for the costs or to employ counsel. Upon
such showing, he is permitted to file his complaint.
The judge then summons the defendants. The serv-
ice may be oral, by mail or telephone. On appear-
ance of the defendant, the case is tried. The judge
204 Prison Problems
inquires into the merits of the case and renders his
judgment according to justice of the complaint.
No lawyer or any other than defendant and plain-
tiff are allowed to take part in the litigation. The
defendant may, however, appeal his case to the
higher courts, providing that such appeal is accom-
panied by a bond in double the amount of the judg-
ment and $15 additional for the payment of a lawyer
to prosecute the case for the plaintiff in the district
court.
In the debtors' court no costs are assessed or
charged to either party. The defendant pays the
debt, if the judge decides he owes it, and is dis-
charged.
Since the establishment of the court forty cases
have been disposed of. Every cent paid into the
court was due unfortunate persons who were unable
to collect money due them for work, because they
couldn't afford to go into the district courts and
stand the expense of costs and attorney's fee.
The litigants included carpenters, plasterers,
house cleaners, washerwomen, dressmakers, cooks
and waiters. Judge Nirdlinger, who is a former
judge of the Leavenworth county district court,
serves in debtors' court without compensation.
"It is surprising," he said, "that people of means
show such neglect in the payment of the poor for
the labor they perform. Among the claims that
came before the court was one against a lawyer who
owed a poor washerwoman $18.46 for more than
two years. Upon notice from the debtors' court
the claim was paid promptly."
On the first day that Judge Nirdlinger sat in his
court, he had the folllowing cases before him :
Prison Problems 205
Bill for $11.90 for painting barn and back of
fence. Paid.
Bill for $2.70 for washing for family for two
weeks. Paid.
Bill for 55 cents for washing for bachelor. Paid.
Bill for $20 of waiter in restaurant; $10 ordered
paid and case settled.
"According to the figures I have gathered, and
from the money paid into this court since its estab-
lishment, there must be at least $3,000,000 lost to
the poor in the United States annually in small
debts that simply go by the board," said Judge Nird-
linger.
"Every lawmaker in the country should see that
his state enacts such a law. It is the greatest thing
that ever happened in Kansas to protect the poor
working people from being cheated out of their just
claims."
Lincoln Steffins has said : "There will come a
time when crime will disappear, but that time will
never come or be hastened by the building of jails
and penitentiaries and scaffolds. It will only come
by changing the conditions of life under which men
live and suffer and die."
This move to establish courts for the poor is a
step forward and one that means a now and here
effort to bring about that very condition that Steffins
has foretold.
206 Prison Problems
FORTY YEARS OF SOLITARY CON-
FINEMENT.
Forty years in solitary confinement! What for?
Picture will you a lad of only eleven years of age, be-
ing sent to the Reform School, and again we ask
what for? Because he and another boy were sup-
posed to have whipped a saloon keeper's son, and
this tender hearted agent of mercy, who had never
brought trouble into a home, this friend of the
drunkards' children, this orphans' protector, this
saintly bloat, who had made his money out of the
wrecked homes and wasted lives of his patrons,
offered $500.00 for the arrest of the boys who had
trounced his own dear, little weakling, who couldn't
take what every boy has had, a sound thrashing.
Everyone who has studied into the antiquated
methods of most of our present reform schools can
guess at what these juvenile crime hot houses must
have been forty years ago.
Still the record of the boy's service shows that
he was promoted and never punished while at the
school, and his own testimony is that he saw little
to criticise while there. But when he returned home
he began to pay the real price of his supposed crime.*
A young girl by the name of Kittie Curran sud-
denly and strangely disappeared, and of course the
finger of suspicion was pointed at once to the
Pomeroy boy as he had just returned from the re-
form school.
Then a boy was found murdered in the Boston
Marsh and soon the officers were certain that no
Prison Problems 207
one could have committed these horrible deeds but
an ex-convict. The whole story is a revolting one,
and its details have almost been lost in the labyrinth
of time, but the verdict of that jury, as commuted
by the governor, still stands as one of Massachu-
setts' unfinished tasks.
The great state that gave the lyceum its birth and
its first real purpose, the state that wept over the
sins of black slavery in the South, the state that
morally gagged every time the word "bondage" was
mentioned, has for forty years maintained a worse
form of slavery than ever existe-d in South Caro-
lina and the New Orleans slave mart, which stirred
the soul of Abraham Lincoln to righteous wrath
was an altar of justice as compared to the den of
gloom where this human being, made in the image
of his Creator, has been confined for forty long
years. To me, Simon Legree was a merciful bene-
factor as comparel to Warden Russell, who for
twenty-one years has carried out the blind verdict
of a jury, perhaps long since dead.
There are only two conclusions that a thinking
mind can arrive at. First, this man, Jesse Pomeroy,
is a degenerate, unsound of reason, with defective
mental and moral faculties. If this be true, he
should have had medical treatment, he should have
been in a hospital, had fresh air, God's sunshine, a
mother's love in more constant potions, not a
monthly capsuled dose. Shame on the state ! Thrice
shame on the officials if Jesse Pomeroy is as de-
scribed!
Second, he is sane, fully equipped, mentally and
morally ; therefore responsible for his every act and
his punishment has been deserved.
208 Prison Problems
More shame to the stupidity of those who wish to
be looked up to as reformers, who prate of their large
percentage of regenerated souls who have been
saved to the world after having tarried for a spell
in their paradise regained ! More shame to the
stupidity of those who are still administering the
same treatment that a dead jury, and perhaps a dead
governor, have prescribed. Surely this is another
case of "The Calf Path" described by Sam Walter
Foss. It is on a plane with the doctors who bled
George Washington to death to cure a cold "A
little vestige of that cold still remains," said the
medicine men, and again they let still more blood,
and the pow-wow was kept up until death ended
the farce tragedy.
If forty years of solitary confinement has failed
to cure Jesse Pomeroy, then in God's name, in hu-
manity's name, how many more years must this an-
tiquated, inhuman remedy be adminstered before the
patient is cured, or like "the father of his country,"
dies in the process of being cured?
Either Jesse Pomeroy ought to be given the liber-
ty that he has earned, or he ought to be treated as
a sick man. Which shall it be?
Read, will you, this pitiful letter:
47 Pearl St., North Weymouth, Mass.,
February 3, 1913.
Mr. Fred High.
Dear Sir: Your letter of January 14th came safe.
Should have answered sooner, but I am old and
feeble and there are days I cannot write. The book
of "Prison Problems" also came. I am deeply in-
terested in it and thank you and those with you that
Prison Problems 209
are interested ; if you and your friends can do some-
thing for my son, you will have the heartfelt thanks
of a mother that has suffered all these years. I
have tried repeatedly for years in my son's behalf,
but you see I am only a woman and we have no in-
fluence so they shut me off.
\Yhen Governor Foss was elected I thought he
might do something. I went to him and he received
me very kindly. I talked with him over three hours
and I came away hopeful, but somehow there has
been nothing done.
I have never believed my son guilty of these
crimes, NEVER! I never had any trouble with him
until we moved to South Boston. It was there I
received my death blow. We moved to South
Boston the first of August, 1871. Jesse was born
in Charleston and we lived there. He went to
school with other children and lived in the house
with another son and never had any complaints of
him. He grew up as others did, was a happy and
bright boy. About a year before we moved to South
Boston, there was a liquor dealer's son in Chelsea, a
boy, beaten and whipped. It was said at the time
there were two high school boys that whipped him
and went in the direction of Everett. My boy was
only eleven years old then, but the father of the boy
offered a reward of five hundred dollars for their
apprehension. As I said, we moved to South Bos-
ton after Jesse commenced to go to the Biglow
grammar school. He only went twenty days. We
were strangers there and there were some boys
whipped and the police knew we were strangers.
Jesse says he was coming up Broadway and he
stopped and looked in at station 6. He said a police-
210 Prison Problems
man came out and took him inside. They kept him
until about 6 p. m., then they came to my house and
asked about Jesse and said they thought he was
the boy that whipped the Chelsea boy a year before.
I told them he could not be the one for he was too
young, but they kept him and would not let me see
Jesse and the next morning he was taken to Bos-
ton. They did not give me time to get a lawyer :
there was no warrant served, they had it all their
own way and sent him to the reform school. I
have always thought if we would have had a lawyer
to have looked into this case that Jesse would not
have been sent to the reform school, and those offi-
cers who got the reward would not have had things
their own way as they did.
I did not know what to do. I was completely
paralyzed. I always had a horror of those institu-
tions and it almost killed me to have Jesse go there.
I visited Jesse at the reform school and they al-
ways spoke well of him. He never was punished
there. He was there over a year and they let him
come home. I can see now I should not have stayed
in South Boston when he come home. I ought to
have moved away, but I did not realize what was
before me. This was the beginning of our trouble
and I have written to you so you might know the
beginning.
Jesse came home in February and the 18th day of
March there was missing a girl eleven years old and
it was said she was carried away in a team. It was
talked in my place, as we kept a little store in Broad-
way across from where we lived. The store was
once a large store, but they made two stores by
putting a metal board partition through the center.
Prison Problems 211
There was a family who lived overhead and two
men who kept the other half of the store on the
right, and one cellar under the whole. The family
upstairs kept their wood and coal in the cellar, but
I did not use the cellar, as I kept my coal across the
street where I lived. I did quite a little business
at dressmaking and everything went well until the
22nd of April it seems there was a small boy found
murdered on the marsh a mile or more from where
we lived.
Some one started the story that the Pomeroy boy
being at home he might have done the deed. There
was no suspicion against him otherwise than this.
The officers came and arrested him. Of course there
was great excitement and some went so far as to
say he had made away with the girl. There was so
much talk that they sent officers and searched the
cellar. They found nothing. There being so much
talk I closed up my store the last day of May. I
procured counsel for my son and we expected every-
thing would come out afi right and my son would
be proven innocent. I had plenty of work ; the store
was sold to a Mr. Nash, a grocery man ; there were
some repairs and had been nearly in the place nine
days when, on the 18th day of July, they found a
body supposed to be the gird, missing. Now they
had searched that cellar, I am told, a number of
times and found nothing, yet when this body was
found it was not utterly covered only a little ashes
strewn over it. \Ye did not put any ashes in the
cellar. Now if Jesse killed that girl she must have
been there four months from the 18th day of
March until the 18th day of July. I am sending you
a little pamphlet. It is very much worn, but is the
212 Prison Problems
only one I have left, besides the original writing,
written by him after his trial. I am afraid it will be
hard for you to read it, but it is the best I can do.
You will see by this he was tried and convicted of
murder in the first degree. When arrested he was
fourteen years and four months old. Mr. Gaston,
who was governor, did not act in the case and left
it until Mr. Rice was elected governor. He with
the counsel commuted the sentence to solitary con-
finement for life. This is why Jesse is kept in soli-
tary confinement. He is not allowed to go to chapel
or have any of the privileges that the other inmates
have, subject to all the punishments but to none
of the privileges.
Warden Bridges has been warden here eighteen
or twenty years and he has carried out the sen-
tence to the full extent; there is no one allowed to
see Jesse but me. I go to see him once a month
unless he is not under punishment, and he is al-
lowed to write me once a month. He has been try-
ing for the last seven years to get the records of his
case, but they will not let him have them. He want-
ed a lawyer some three years ago. I wrote and ap-
pealed to the Suffolk Bar and told them he was
friendless, but no one responded.
Jesse was only a boy of a little over fifteen years
when he went to Charlestown States Prison. In his
solitude he put himself down to study and has
succeeded in educating himself. He has never been
punished for anything but digging out of his cell.
This he has done, the closer they kept him con-
fined the more he tries to get out. Jesse is not a
stupid man. He is a learned man and could do a
great deal of good if out. He has already served a
Prison Problems 213
life-time and ought to come home, but you see
the people do not know the real "Jesse Pomeroy,"
no one gets to see him and he is friendless with the
exception of his mother. I can do but little; I am
old, over seventy, and I feel my time is short here,
but through all these years I have cherished the
hope that before I passed away I might have my
son with me once more. He has just been under
punishment for getting out of his cell, what few
privileges he had were taken away and they put
him in the dark, solitary cell on bread and water for
six days. I do not know what he did do. I went
over to see him, but was told he was under punish-
ment and could not see him until after the fourth
of February. It was very hard for me as I am
feeble and it is quite a journey, a storm came up and
I had a hard time getting home.
I am very sorry this has happened. It has been
twelve years since he has done anything before this
last attempt. I only wish some one could get to see
him and they would find a very different man than
he has been represented. In one of my visits to
him I was talking to one of the officers about Jesse
and he said to me that Jesse is a most cheerful
prisoner, there is not a bit of harm in him. I have
prayed to God to raise up friends to help my son and
to keep him. I do believe He has heard my prayer.
I thank God that I have been spared to visit my son
and bring a little encouragement to him in his
silent life.
Please excuse this letter. Do not know as you
can read it. Thank you for your kindness and hope
and pray you may be able to do something for my
son and may God give you and those with you sue-
214 Prison Problems
cess in bringing about the reforms of prisons and
those who have fallen by the wayside.
Very truly,
(Signed) Mrs. Ruth A. Pomeroy.
Harry A. Rothrock, a young minister, recently
made an investigation of this case and Warden Rus-
sell said to him :
"Jesse Pomeroy is an ordinary prisoner causing
no trouble, only trying to escape."
That disposes of one myth which always pictured
the prisoner as a degenerate, morally and mentally
unsound. Why is he held in solitary confinement?
The warden says that the people of the state are
so bitter against him that if they would let him
out, some one would kill him ; the people would
lynch him.
Is Massachusetts the state that is always railing
against the south for lynching negroes? Did you
ever hear of a southern mob lynching a negro forty
years after a crime had been committed?
Upon the warden's own testimony Jesse Pomeroy
should at least be treated as an ordinary prisoner.
This Simon Legree of cultured Boston outdoes the
famous slave driver that Mrs. Beecher set to the
task of killing Uncle Tom in that he gloats over the
fact that Pomeroy is given an hour every day in
which to fill his system with pure air. There is a
window in his cell, sayeth this kind keeper. There
are also electric lights in his den and the Boston
Theologic student was surprised at the cleanliness
and convenience of the cell-rooms. Sleeping in a
toilet room is certainly the acme of sanitary condi-
tions and ought to be conducive of great spirituality.
Prison Problems 21. 'i
The reason why this prisoner can't even be al-
lowed to attend the prison concerts, as given by the
warden, is that he committed a number of indescrib-
able horrors when he was a boy, forty years ago.
Witches of the Pilgrims save us from such a for-
giving spirit.
Governor Eugene Foss was then appealed to as
follows : "Is Jesse Pomeroy mentally sound, there-
fore responsible for his acts? If so, don't you think
that he has suffered enough for the crimes that he
is supposed to have committed, and why shouldn't
he have at least the freedom of the penitentiary the
same as an ordinary criminal ? Will you kindly state
what the objection would be to giving him a pardon ?
Surely he has suffered enough to merit his release.
"If he is mentally unsound and irresponsible, why
isn't he given medical treatment instead of punish-
ment? It is our purpose to try to raise a fund to
come to the relief of this man and his aged mother,
and I would thank you very much if you would
give me any facts as you may have them."
The Governor answered : "Pomeroy's sanity has
never been questioned. He is a moral degenerate
of the worst type. It would be utterly useless for
you to try and raise money to come to the relief
of this man ; because public sentiment in this com-
monwealth is entirely adverse to his liberation, the
general feeling being that he is not a safe man to be
at large."
We preach in thunderous tones about the coward-
ice of Pontius Pilate who listened to the mob two
thousand years ago, but how many sermons have
been hurled at this political flip-flopper whose record
as a political turn-coat finally became such a stench
216 Prison Problems
in the nostrils of the old Bay State electorate that
at the last election he was thoroughly repudiated as
a candidate for re-election, polling about one-tenth
as many votes as his own Lieutenant Governor
polled.
Ohio has had a case almost similar to the Pomeroy
disgrace. For twenty years a human being has been
pilloried and for three years his meals were passed
into his cell on a pole, but when Governor Cox was
elected he walked right in where the poor trembling,
cowardly guards were afraid to venture even when
armed with rifles, billies, and other accoutrements
of both the murderer and coward.
Today Ohio's incorrigible, her brutal murderer,
has the privilege of the yards, he is harmless under
kind treatment whereas he was a demon when
handled by demons.
Governor Cox said : "If there's anything that so-
ciety has tried and made complete failure of, it is the
old time method of dealing with so-called criminals."
Massachusetts has tried for forty years to crush,
torture, and brutalize Jesse H. Pomeroy and at the
end of this period we find her Governor sanctioning
the inhuman treatment that is still being inflicted
upon this man as a punishment for a crime he is
said to have committed forty years ago.
Pomeroy is even denied the privilege of attend-
ing the concerts. Even the religious services, which
in the light of the prison practices are the cheap-
est mockery, are for the others but not for him.
But think of a so-called newspaper like the Boston
Post stooping to the pusillanimous infamy of coin-
ing a mother's tears into pennies by the sale of a few
extra copies of its miserable sensational "Extras."
Prison Problems 217
July 30th this miserable rag belched forth with
scare-heads that announced the blood-curdling news
that Pomeroy had tried again to escape. He was
foiled, ah yes, just at the psychological moment, the
guard woke up and found Pomeroy had two rusty
nails and a cotton string in his cell. With these
formidable instruments he would have sawed the
iron bars, murdered the state officials, surrounded
the National guard, and in the twinkling of an eye
he would have had the old Bay State shoved into the
ocean. Horrors !
Governor Foss has said that much of this feeling
against this poor fellow has been created by the
yellow journalism of his state; that the sensational
reports about his attempts to break out have been
manufactured out of nothing.
\Yhat manner of man is Jesse H. Pomeroy? Let
us read one of his own letters written to his mother
for it is a good key to the whole mystery.
Charlestown, Mass., April 17, 1913.
Dear Mother:
I write you my usual monthly letter in the hope
that all is well with you, and that you are looking
ahead, with some expectation of a change for the
better, at no distant date. Your letter of April 4th
reached me, and I am greatly cheered to know that
some are thinking of my good, and that some effort
is being made in my behalf. We are grateful to
those fearless souls, who are moved to do and dare
for me, because my case has ever been misrepresent-
ed, and there is a determination to hide the true
state of affairs. Those friends have an inkling of the
truth which has been so carefully hushed up all
these years, and we must do our part to put them
218 Prison Problems
in possession of our side of the case, to strength-
en their hands, that they may speak with confidence,
and act intelligently in the matter. This it is our
lawful privilege to do, no matter what anyone may
think on the subject. Our family affairs are in our
own hands, to be dealt with as we see fit.
For that reason we have a right to get a lawyer,
and we have a right to present our case properly to
him, so he may know what is at stake, and act ac-
cordingly. I trust that you have brought to the
attention of Mr. High and his associates, all that is
said of my case in my letter of March 18, 1913. It
will give them all the facts they need, as a determin-
ation is evident to deny to me an opportunity to
furnish a complete copy of the records in my case ;
but that fact need not cause any worry. Any one
can go to the State House of the Suffolk Co. Social
Law Library, and get copies of the records in my
case and Mr. High or any one can write to Mr. J.
Cronin, clerk of the Suffolk Co. Supreme Court of
Massachusetts, and get copies of all the documents
I filed in 1906, asking a writ of error. These will
put our friends in possession of every essential thing
except what relates to the charge of torture and the
testimony of the coroner Dr. Allen, which I did not
know of in 1906, and which I fully explained in that
letter of March 1st, giving a full list of all docu-
ments, which must be obtained from the State
House ; but first get those from the Supreme Court.
The numbers are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 737. The charge
will not be much, if anything at all, and I think we
should help our friends and get these things our-
selves, and then let Mr. High use them. I hope you
have laid this before Mr. Warren. Tell him I am
Prison Problems 219
anxious to have him name a fearless man, who will
do this for us, and that I will pay the bill. It should
not take a week, and $5.00 a day, I can, and will
account for. Let me know at once what Mr. War-
ren says. It may not cost $5.00 a day either.
The misconduct of the chief justice at my trial, in
the underhand and whispered communications he
had with the jury, for which he was censured finally
by Judge Morton, his colleague, and the audible pro-
test by the audience, "you are taking advantage of
that boy," will clearly prove the unrighteousness of
the proceedings, in violation of law, at my trial, for
the chief justice had no excuse to act so. We need
a lawyer to investigate.
Tell my friends I am refused opportunity to get a
lawyer, refused the documents in my case, as per list
of March 18, 1913, have had no hearing, no decision
on the merits of my case, all of which is in violation
of the laws of Massachusetts.
I got the papers you left me. I hope Charles is
well and has seen you. My regards to all. Holiday
comes the 19th. I hope you will enjoy the day. Our
visit is due the 20th.
I trust the rain is over and that fair weather will
push spring time along that crops may have an
early start. Your son,
(Signed) JESSE H. POMEROY.
W r hy don't the guards, keepers, and state officials
treat Pomeroy with greater kindness?
Why didn't Tammany Hall reform before it was
knocked out? Why don't policemen throw away
their clubs? Why don't thieves reform while they
are stealing, why wait until they are caught?
220 Prison Problems
What ask those men to say they have been
wrong all these years in keeping Jesse Pomeroy in
solitary confinement? Turn state's evidence against
themselves? It's too much to hope for.
But what is needed is for every one who reads
this story to write a letter to Governor David F.
Walsh and ask him to at least treat Pomeroy as a
human being, to give him the privileges of the yard,
the benefits of the entertainments, the blessings of
the chapel, and if it is not asking too much to give
ear to the pleas of this dear mother who has suf-
fered hell on earth.
How long does it take a lie to die? Dr. Frederick
A. Cook has spent a fortune, yea more, he has spent
four years trying to overcome that same brand of
manufactured public opinion that has been fed by
the yellow journals and venal press. Dr. Cook has
found that the battle with Polar hardships was
child's play as compared with his battle to maintain
his honor and self respect in the face of the on-
slaught that was forced on him by one of the mean-
est cowards of all time, the Sultan of the North.
What show then has poor Pomeroy when he
finds himself the victim of a cruel conspiracy and a
hungry mob of newspaper scribblers who are will-
ing to convert an aged widow's tears into slander
for scare-heads?
Why can't we try kindness, love and patience,
abolish brutality, and barbarity, and see if Jesse H.
Pomeroy is not a man who will respond to humane
appeals? Who knows but that he may even yet take
his place in the world of usefulness to comfort and
cheer his faithful old mother who has stood by him
through all these years, faithful and true ; watching,
Prison Problems 221
waiting, working and hoping against hope that her
boy will yet be given back to her.
Clarence Darrow, Chicago's noted Criminal and
Labor Attorney, in that now famous Plea in His
Own Defense to the Jury that exonerated him of
the charge of bribery at Los Angeles, Calif., said :
"I want to say that, when you know the man,
no matter whom I have known men charged with
crime in all walks of life, burglars, bankers, murder-
ers when you come to touch them and meet them
and know them, you feel the kinship between them
and you. You feel that they are human ; they love
their mothers, their wives, their children; they love
their fellow man. Why they did this thing or that
thing remains the dark mystery of a clouded mind,
which all the -science of all the world has never
yet been wise enough to solve."
Do the guards, officials and whatnots of the Mass-
achusetts penitentiary and the yellow journals know
the same Jesse Pomeroy that the faithful mother
describes? How can they? You might as well
hand the score of a symphony orchestra to a band
of Hottentotts, and ask them to bring forth the same
soul vibrations that were born in the brain of
Mendelssohn.
Will you help, dear reader, to prevent this disgrace
from becoming a greater monstrosity and travesty
on justice?
222 Prison Problems
MANUFACTURING CRIMINALS.
One of the most effective pleas of the temperance
orator has always been to show the drunkards by the
hundred thousand toppling into drunkard's graves
while at the recruiting office the young men and
boys were enlisting, 100,000 a year, in this army of
woe.
In the war on the White Slave Traffic, it has
been this same appeal to mothers and fathers, to
brothers and sisters, to sweethearts and friends that
has been so effective in arousing the public con-
science, always asleep but never dead. It's the cry
that 60,000 innocent girls must be brought into the
lives of sin and degradation each year to fill the
places made vacant by the horrible death of the
inmates, that has been the one most effective way
of reaching the public heart-strings.
In the days when Charles Dickens wrote, there
were schools of vice which were presided over by
the Pagans and recruited by the Artful Dodgers. A
crude clumsy system that soon gave w r ay to the
new modern method of having the state operate the
criminal factories with the police and officers of
the law as employment agents.
Let us look at a sample reform s'chool, taking for
instance the one at Pontiac, 111., where the horrors
of negro slavery, the unspeakable shame of the white
slavery, the tortures of industrial slavery, have all
been combined and heaped upon the shoulders of
the little children that were sent there to be re-
formed.
Prison Problems 223
Here are some of the things the board of five
members appointed by Governor Edward Dunne re-
ported :
Physical punishment of the inmates by keepers,
guards, teachers and other officers was the rule
rather than the exception.
Dr. James A. Marshall, reformatory physician,
made a practice of beating up newly arrived inmates
with fists and squeeges and was brutal almost to the
point of ferocity.
Boys were black-jacked by enraged officials upon
slight provocation, and that in the chair-shop and
print-shop, the guards in charge beat up boys with-
out restraint, using fists, boots, clubs and hammers.
The present 600 inmates have been incarcerated
in the "screens" 1,731 times, nearly three times per
boy, each incarceration meaning the loss of a month's
time. The time taken from the boys in this manner
totals 150 years.
Boys placed in the "screens" were given but a
single slice of bread daily and one cup of water and
they frequently drank water from the basins of the
toilet.
Unspeakable practices have been prevalent
throughout the institution, much as the result of
the management not to give the boys a chance, and
part of which was forced upon the boys by torture.
A spirit of depraved commercialism had taken pos-
session of the management of the institution, caus-
ing the boys not only to be overworked, but unlaw-
fully deprived of their right to attend school.
The credit of the state of Illinois was extended
for a period of time to an unincorporated concern
that was a mere selling name.
224: Prison Problems
Of 118 boys whose testimony is the basis of the
report, 97 had been the victims of or witnesses to
cruelties which are seldom inflicted on animals and
testified to depraved elements in the teachings of
the institution. Of the children attacked with clubs,
"billies" and pieces of furniture, many were cripples
and imbeciles.
The punishment records show that for the calen-
dar year of 1912, 3,233 complaints were made against
boy inmates. The prison management sustained
every one of these complaints.
The board recommends that "every vestige of the
system, the natural growth of years of corrupt prac-
tice and gross mismanagement, be wiped out."
Dr. Marshall, institution physician, seemed to be
possessed with the conviction that every boy who
came to the reformatory had been guilty of abomi-
nable practices. He asked each boy if this were true.
If the boy replied in the negative he used the squee-
gee or- his fists upon him. Marshall, during his four-
teen years as physician of the institution, has broken
through the armor of self-esteem and self-respect of
thousands of boys.
In viewing the situation within the institution in
the light of revelations of the investigation, the
board cannot repress a feeling of wonderment that
a considerable percentage of the boys have been
successful in preserving a slight vestige of the finer
feelings they have brought with them into the insti-
tution.
When confronted with these revelations that
shocked and horrified the public, the superintendent
of this "Reformatory" fled between two days and
never stopped fleeing until he reached the mountain
fastnesses of Idaho.
Prison Problems 225
Why were those cruelties and barbarities tolerat-
ed? Why were under-strappers, lazy guards, crooks,
with the "r" dropped out, allowed to beat cripples
and imbeciles? It was the system of graft and greed
built up by the political hucksters who have de-
spoiled even the state eleemosynary institutions in
their greed to convert them into political assets.
Nine so-called salesmen were on the Pontiac pay-
roll to sell desks and other school furniture, manu-
factured at the reformatory, and from July '07 to
April '08, inclusive, the pay-roll was $10,010.35. The
sales by the salesmen were $4,925.29 and the sales
that strayed in through the mails were $11,001.98.
Now the ousted republicans bitterly denounce
the democratic state administration for playing poli-
tics with the children of the state and the democrats
are relentless in their warfare against the wrongs of
the political machine, built by the republicans, on
the wrongs inflicted upon the children.
The Truth is that the reformatory at Pontiac
has been the most prolific criminal factory in the
state as the records of our most notorious criminals
reveal the fact that most of them have first served
time in some so-called reform school.
Are all such schools mere criminal factories? Are
the heads of all institutions as barbarous as Ex-
Judge R. A. Russell, deposed superintendent at
Pontiac? These institutions and many of their
heads are victims of the system. Some are suffi-
ciently strong and brave enough to rise above their
environment and deserve all the more credit for the
good work they have done.
One of the most humane men that it has been
the writer's pleasure to meet, one who, in a large
226 Prison Problems
measure, even unconsciously stimulated the deter-
mination to compile this volume of Prison Problems
is that prince of goodfellows, Pioneer Prison Re-
former, Col. C. B. Adams, now superintendent of the
Boys' Industrial School at St. Charles, 111.
Colonel Adams was formerly at Lancaster, O.,
where, years ago, he was a great believer in the
efficacy of Lyceum entertainment as an adjunct to
education and religion in the process of reformation
and regeneration.
The common testimony of those who have the
children's real welfare at heart is, that at least seven-
ty-five per cent of all boys and girls who are sent to
the reform schools are victims. In most cases it
would be greater justice to punish the parents.
In Georgia a boy was sent to the reform school
for eleven years for stealing a five cent bottle of
Coco-Cola, and the only reason the judge didn't
make it twenty years was that the boy wasn't young
enough to serve that many years before he became
of- age.
What a crime against childhood !
The cure of crime is education, just as the cause
of sin is ignorance. It is to the public school and
not to the reformatory that we must look for
our lasting results for betterment. The public
school holds the solution of our social evil problem.
If we will all quit fighting over whether the Bible
is or is not read in the public schools and get the
crime of sectarianism out of our systems, get down
to fundamentals, study the children's needs, and
provide for them, we will be better able to convert
all prison factories into reformatories, and not until
then will we be doing our full duty.
Prison Problems 227
Cesare Lombroso, the noted criminologist, taught
us that criminals are born, not made. He tried to
throw the blame back on to nature.
Dr. Goring, for years a medical officer in a large
British Prison, shatters Lombroso's theory of born
criminals by a series of brilliant tests and experi-
ments that prove that there is not a definite criminal
type. He asserts that the men, now serving prison
terms as enemies of society, have not chosen a career
of crime, but have been forced into it. Most of them
are physical or mental defectives who needed assis-
tance rather than punishment.
H. Fielding-Hall, head of the largest prison in
the world says, "The cause of crime is 'general' not
'individual.' " He denies the existence of any such
thing as "criminal disposition." The unpleasant
and even inhuman qualities which differentiate the
criminal from the normal man are not innate.
"There is no use trying to exonerate society," says
Fielding-Hall, "by saying that criminals are born,
not made. They are made by society, by its careless-
ness and cruelty."
228 Prison Problems
IT'S THE SYSTEM THAT IS WRONG.
The European system of "tipping" is grafting it-
self onto American ways until today it is almost im-
possible to get a meal or bed at hotels and restaur-
ants without bribing every flunkey, lackey, porter,
waiter, bell-hop, hanger-on, including chefs and
chambermaids. It's all a species of bribery. It
weakens the giver and degenerates the one who re-
ceives it. It builds up a system of graft that finally
becomes a license for petty larceny.
But already it has its fangs so deeply fastened into
our American customs that instead of its being a
gratuity, it is a protection, and is no different in
principle from the filthy bribe that the police wring
from the underworld in the form of protection.
Our penitentiary system is a vile travesty on jus-
tice, but it's a system just the same.
Warden R. McClaughry is perhaps the best
known prison man in the United States. He re-
cently resigned and, as he stepped from his office,
gave as his reasons for leaving:
"After having spent forty years of my life in the
management of prisons and fourteen years constant-
ly in charge of the Federal prison at Leavenworth,
I am convinced that the system is wrong.
"I am retiring from this position because of the
system. I want it understood that I have not one
word of complaint to make against the present ad-
ministration. I cannot say I have ever been mis-
treated by an administration.
"But the system that places the Attorney General
Prison Problems 229
of the United States in direct charge of the Federal
prisons is wrong. His other duties are so important
that he should not be taxed with the petty manage-
ment of these prisons. And yet he is the only per-
son who has real authority.
"The system is wrong from another viewpoint.
The theory of the law is to punish the culprit. As a
matter of fact, in the administration of the law it
is not the prisoners who suffer nearly so much as
the innocent wives and children left behind abso-
lutely at the mercy of the world.
"When the breadwinner of a family is convicted
in the courts and he is sent to prison to pay the
penalty, his wife and children are left helpless.
"The scientists are taxed to provide the most im-
proved facilities for guarding his welfare. The food
he is given is always wholesome and scrupulously
clean. The task of the management is to provide
tasks for him that will fit him to battle with the
world when he emerges.
"But not one thought does the government give
to the despondent wife and the daughters who may
be entering womanhood and who until the head of
the family came in contact with the law may never
have had to struggle for a livelihood.
"Work should be provided in the prison walls for
all the prisoners, so that they could earn something.
The earnings, of course, should not go to them.
The earnings should be cared for by government
officials, and form a fund that should go toward the
support of the families of the men.
"Thus while the man was serving his time he
would know that the fruits of his toil were going
to provide for his family, deprived by law of his
230 Prison Problems
help. He would know that not one cent would go
to enrich the coffers of the man, who because of his
influence makes a profitable contract with the state
or national government and for a ridiculously small
sum owns the output of the prisoner's labor.
"Of course such a plan would meet with disap-
proval of demagogues. But honest labor would not
object to competition such as this, when the fruits
of prison labor went directly towards alleviating
actual want and did not go to create the fortunes
of those contractors who wax fat on the prisoner's
labor.
"The Federal government proudly proclaims, it
does not tolerate prison labor. The institution at
Leavenworth is an example. Not one penny's worth
of work done in this great institution comes in com-
petition with honest labor. And this is true.
"But, if you inspect the theory again you will see
where the Federal prisoners do compete with honest
labor. The government needs larger prisons. We
have not room enough here to house all of the
prisoners.
"Factories should be established in the prison
walls. The prisoners, many of whom merely waste
their time on needless tasks, could be made to feel
that they were in reality paying the debt they owe
society by doing a work that would relieve want
and suffering.
"The system is wrong again when it permits the
sending of a young and inexperienced clerk, repre-
senting the Department of Justice to inspect and
ascertain the condition of a great prison. The
young men are eager and ambitious to accomplish
a great work and win a name.
Prison Problems 231
"They may be ignorant of conditions, but they
will not hesitate to make reports and their untrained
eyes are not likely to penetrate the true condition
as are the men who have passed their lives in the
work of conducting such institutions and who are
familiar with workings of the minds of men over
whom they rule.
"A board of control, composed of eminent men,
one from each of the democratic, republican and
progressive parties would be the ideal manner in
conducting the Federal prisons. The questions of
detail that are now put up to the Attorney General
could be passed on by the board of control, and the
business of the institution would not be hampered
as it now is.
"Let us suppose that a prisoner needs to have a
tooth filled. The physician must first observe the
prisoner and must report to the warden. The
warden must take up the matter with the dentist.
It is found in a length of time that the filling of the
tooth will cost $1.50. The necessary papers must
be drawn and the entire correspondence submitted
to the Attorney General at Washington, more than
a 1,000 miles away.
"Before the order finally comes to fill the tooth
it is so badly decayed it must be extracted and an-
other proposition confronts the management.
"And should by any chance the dentist draw the
tooth without the official order, there comes from
Washington a long, tedious and expensive investi-
gation over a matter so trivial that a board of control
would set the matter right within five minutes."
On September 20, 1913, a booklet of seventy-eight
pages was issued by John Grant Lyman then in
232 Prison Problems
the Los Angeles County Jail, charged with the crime
of being insane.
"In September, 1911, I had a beautiful home at
2068 Hobart Boulevard, Los Angeles, an office in
the Consolidated Realty Building, 6th and Hill Sts.,
and a financial stake in the Panama Development
Company's business, 216 Mercantile Place.
"At that time I was growing cotton at El Centre,
California, with a view of proving costs and later
building a cotton mill in Los Angeles, if conditions
warranted it.
"I was also giving financial backing to an outfit
prospecting for oil in Wyoming, and had other busi-
ness interests in various parts of the world remuner-
ative and prosperous. About the first of September,
1911, I had gone to San Francisco for a short visit
and intended making a business trip to Portland,
Vancouver and Honolulu, where I expected to make
arrangements with the manager of a Hawaiian sugar
plantation to take charge of similar work in Panama.
"Without a word of warning or complaint on the
part of any one with whom I had business dealings,
the Panama Development Company's offices were
raided and all their books and papers carried away,
the offices closed by two postal inspectors. Simul-
taneously I was seized in my rooms in San Fran-
cisco without a warrant, by men not authorized to
make arrests, and placed in the dungeon of the
Eddy St. Jail, San Francisco, one of the vilest spots
mortal man was ever lodged in, the odor from the
excreta of former inmates being almost overpower-
ing. Here I was kept nearly twenty-four hours
without food or drink, denied all communication
with friends, and then taken out and arrested.
Prison Problems 233
"Meanwhile, these men who had seized me, re-
turned to my rooms and stripped them of every
valuable, I possessed, taking all my books and pa-
pers and records of every description, warehouse
receipts, stock certificates, money, heirlooms, and
some trinkets that were priceless to me. Also some
wearing apparel and other personal property, all to
the value of $25,000 no part of which has been re-
turned or accounted for.
"Because of my repeated efforts to recover my
property through the letters which follow, and to
secure a trial (I have now been imprisoned more
than two years and have not yet had a hearing on
the charge under which I am held), it has been
charged that I am insane. Assistant United States
District Attorney Regan might have stated with
equal truth and more candor, that for many weeks
he had sent representatives here to urge me to
plead guilty, offering me a light sentence if I would
so plead, coupled with the threat that I would not
be tried for many months if I did not, until finally,
within a week I have been threatened that if I did
not plead guilty, the pending charges, the date of
trial for which has finally been fixed for October
14th, would be dropped and that I would be re-in-
dicted and held for another year before trial.
"Do you wonder that I am not insane?"
A series of letters follows in which he pleads for
a speedy trial. These letters are addressed to Hon.
James McReynolds, Attorney General, to Federal
Judges, Senators, Congressmen, editors, and even to
President Wilson, and yet only two of those ap-
pealed to thought enough of this man's pleas to even
answer them.
234 Prison Problems
These two men were Hon. Wm. D. Stephens, a
representative in Congress from that district, and
Hon. Brand Whitlock, the well known humanitarian,
then Mayor of Toledo, Ohio.
On July 7, 1913, we find this prisoner pleading
with the United States Marshal to allow the jailer
to take him to a dentist's office. He wrote : "I am
suffering greatly from my teeth and am unable to
eat any solid food." In his letter of August 21st, he
pleads to the Editor of The Los Angeles Tribune as
follows :
"The federal physician as well as three dentists
have examined me and after giving me all the aid
possible, stand ready to make affidavit that the
balance of the work necessary to afford me perma-
nent relief must be done outside. Considering the
fact that there are several dentists who have offices
within the purlieus of this jail, it is absurd to offer
as an excuse for denying me treatment that 'Lyman
will escape.'
"I have been moved about 3000 miles and lodged
in nine different jails since my first arrest and have
not yet had a hearing.
"At times too I have been caged like a wild beast
and exhibited to the populace in chains, yet human
treatment that would not be denied a dog has been
refused me by United States Assistant District-At-
torney, Regan."
The last heard from Lyman he was still trying
to get a requisition, voucher, caveat, or permit or
some other form of red-tape folderol, so that he
could get his teeth attended to.
Warden McClaughry knew what he was talking
about when he said: "Before the order finallv comes
Prison Problems 235
to fill the tooth, it is so badly decayed it must be ex-
tracted."
And still Lyman writes : "My case, while almost
unbelievable, is by no means exceptional."
The system whereby wreck and ruin can be thrust
upon an individual or an enterprise by right of
might or position, is criminal in its baseness.
We lash ourselves into a frenzy over the so-called
"Ritual Murders" of Russia, because in so doing
our politicians have an eye on the Jewish vote and
our editors see new or enlarged department store
ads in this campaign and sales of a few more pa-
pers.
We rave over the wrongs inflicted upon an Amer-
ican in any foreign country, but when the scene is
laid at our own door, we are silent.
Anyone who wishes to become more familiar with
the workings of the "The Spy System" that honey-
combed the administration at Washington under the
reign of "Theodoric" ought to get a copy of "The
Siege of University City" published by E. G. Lewis,
of St. Louis, Mo. There is a tale worthy of Wall
Street. Get House Resolution 109, 62nd Congress,
3rd Session, Report No. 1601, printed March 1, 1913.
This report was signed by William A. Ashbrook,
Ohio; Joshua W. Alexander, Missouri; William C.
Redfield, New York; Walter I. McCoy, New Jersey;
Richard W. Austin, Tennessee ; C. Bascom Slump,
Virginia ; Horace M. Towner, Iowa ; and from it we
gather the following facts:
"For nearly seven years the Government of the
United States, through the Post Office Department
and the Department of Justice, has been almost con-
tinuously prosecuting Mr. E. G. Lewis of the vari-
ous enterprises with which he is connected. The
236 Prison Problems
action of the Government has included fraud orders
against the People's United States Bank, organized
by Mr. Lewis, and against Mr. Lewis personally,
and has involved repeated examinations into the af-
fairs of the Lewis Publishing Company and other
Lewis undertakings. Fourteen indictments or more
have been found against Mr. Lewis and, although
most of them have been quashed, three long and ex-
pensive trials have taken place two resulting in
disagreement, the other in acquittal on four counts
and a disagreement on seven counts. Some indict-
ments are still pending. Meanwhile proceedings re-
lating to the fraud order against Lewis and the
United States Band have taken place in Washington.
Inspectors in the employ of the Government have
scoured the country, hunting up parties who would
complain against Mr. Lewis or testify for the Gov-
ernment at the trials. Every effort that the organ-
ized power of two great departments could exert
has been used at enormous expense. As a result sev-
eral large business concerns managed by Mr. Lewis
have been ruined, among them the People's United
States Bank, the Lewis Publishing Company, and
the University Heights Realty and Development
Company ; many hundreds of small investors have
lost their savings ; and the sad example has been
shown the world of the powers of a great Govern-
ment exerted successfully in an effort to ruin a
single individual, and yet has not been convicted of
any violation of law."
"The Government has been ill-served in this
whole matter. The inspectors who did the detective
work were men who were neither accountants nor
experienced in the lines of business they were called
Prison Problems 237
upon to investigate, and their methods, particularly
in the case of one Swenson were such as to merit
sharpest disapproval."
"The arrangement made by the post-office inspect-
ors with the postmaster at St. Louis, whereby a
large part of the edition of one of the Lewis maga-
zines, some 3,000,000 copies, was seized without the
knowledge of Mr. Lewis, goes far to justify the
claim of conspiracy to damage the business."
"The hearings in Washington before the Assis-
tant Attorney General for the Post Office Depart-
ment, prior to the issuing of the fraud order against
Lewis and the People's United States Bank, were a
travesty on justice, and in no sense were of a judicial
character, although they involved enterprises in
which millions were being invested."
"Lewis, having turned over everything he pos-
sessed, including his home, in an effort to save his
various enterprises for the benefit of those inter-
ested, is now a poor man."
It's the system that is wrong, and the individual
officers are often the victims of the system. In the
light of what we have just read, is it any wonder
then that Julian Hawthorne said when he stopped
out of the penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga., "I feel like
a man who has just come back from Dante's
Inferno."
238 Prison Problems
IT'S A PROBLEM FOR THE CHURCH.
By Ex-Judge McKenzie Cleland of Chicago.
The church has been the greatest builder of all
time. It has built men and women ; it has built
communities and nations. But our jails of today
are destroying more human lives and souls, more
communities and nations than the church even can
build up again. Church services in prison are the
greatest mockeries the good people of the church
ever lent themselves to. It is like striking a man in
the face to preach the Golden Rule to him while he
is in jail. Our excuse, to our consciences, for build-
ing jails and imprisoning men and women in them
is that we want to reform the men and women
and reduce crime. But we now know that jails
make criminals and increase crime.
If our criminal system were even efficient, one
might at least be able to argue for it on that ground,
if not on humane grounds. But it isn't efficient. In
the last two hundred years murder has increased
two hundred per cent. Crime costs the United
States $8,000,000,000, which is more than it takes
to run the government. Yet there are now 100,000
murderers at liberty in the United States.
The church must do something to stop this. It
cannot stop it while society continues to make pro-
fessional criminals, and society now is' doing that,
by our jail system. We imprison a young man,
guilty of a first false step, and a hardened criminal
together. We say we jail the young man to reform
Prison Problems 239
him. But we say we jail the hardened criminal to
punish him. Beautiful paradox, isn't it?
I went once to the million-dollar "reformatory"
at Pontiac, where we send boys under twenty-one
who have transgressed the bounds set by society.
I soon understood why they came out of there deter-
mined to wreak vengeance on society for locking
them up. Hardened, brutal-looking guards, ready
to kill at the first free move of an imprisoned boy,
hurried them at their work. At night they were
locked up in dark, evil-smelling cells. That is the
sort of atmosphere into which we send our boys,
for "reformation." You can't reform any one that
way. Can you imagine Christ approving this sort
of reform? Reformation is a thing of the heart.
Our way only turns these boys out as clever crooks,
ready and anxious to prey on an unjust society.
And you can't blame ; you don't dare.
The crime-teaching value of our jails is not the
only bad thing about them. Jails breed disease
and poverty. A healthy, moral man can't live in
jail without growing like his surroundings. His
surroundings are diseased, sub-normal ; so he be-
comes sub-normal, diseased in mind and body.
We are spending millions in America to fight
tuberculosis. Our jails are the greatest promoters
of tuberculosis. One out of every two men who
go to jail become infected. And it isn't the man in
jail alone. Sixty per cent of the men working on
stockings to be sent out to the public from the
South Carolina penitentiary were found to be suf-
fering from tuberculosis. It is the same every-
where. The man who said we have shopped send-
ing murderers to the gallows only to send them to
tubercular graves told the truth.
240 Prison Problems
Did you ever stop to think of what is likely to
happen to the family of a convict? His family must
starve while he is in jail, and when he gets out he
is not fitted for work. Have you ever seen them
coming out of jail ; their spirits crushed ; their heads
hanging; terror in their eyes and fear in their
breasts? They go to their old homes, and they find
them broken up. They wander about trying to pick
up the threads of their old lives, and they are robbed
and beaten down on every hand. No employer will
take them unless it be some man who wants his
labor cheap and easily driven. And it's all our fault,
the fault of us who attend our church regularly, and
say we send men to jail to be reformed, and after
they are freed, refuse to believe they are reformed
and so will not give them a chance. You break
the man, and you rob his women and children of
his support ; you steal the man's life and you starve
his family. Do you think that's Christianity? Do
you think the Lord wants you to rob and steal
merely to teach other men NOT to rob and steal?
A year ago the governor of Arkansas pardoned
360 convicts. He said he did it as a protest against
cruelty, and he called the state prisons "revengeful
hells." No wonder he did, for he personally had in-
spected them and found convicts whose flesh was
falling from their bones being driven like beasts ;
found men dying of tuberculosis; found men dying
of every disease known. And one of the men he
pardoned was serving a thirty-six-year sentence,
not for murder, but for forging an order for nine
quarts of whisky ! Look at what Governor Sulzer's
commission found in its investigation of Sing Sing.
It found conditions there that made the lives of
Prison Problems 241
the poor in the Dark Ages seem like lives of luxury
and ease.
Of course, there is a reason, a commercial reason*
that has nothing to do with reform or punishment
or humanity. For we run our prisons to make
money. The superintendent of Auburn prison, N.
Y.. testified to that at the recent investigation. The
mutiny in Michigan's hell-hole proved it. The state
prison of Maryland used to make more money than
any other, and the cruelties practiced there were
worse than those in any other prison. If a convict
there happened to pass a guard who was feeling
ugly he was sent to the "black hole," that later was
found to be a dungeon swarming with rats and
vermin and filth.
One day a humane man was elected governor of
Maryland, and he appointed a commission to inves-
tigate these things that long had been whispered of.
If you want to read a report on hell, read the report
of that Maryland commission. It found that two
hundred and sixty men were subjected to physical
torture in this money-making prison every six
months. It found men helping to make the prison
money-making who were dying of starvation and of
tuberculosis and of diseases even more loathsome.
I tell yon this, our prison system has done more
harm to the country than the saloon and the gam-
bling house combined ; that it has killed more men
than war, and caused more crime than Satan. It
is the duty of the churches to put an end to h% and
it cannot be put an end to by seventeenth-century
methods either.
242 Prison Problems
THE REMEDY.
Strange as it may seem we have no remedy, we
offer a few salves, ointments and lotions that will
relieve the trouble, give immediate relief, but that
is all.
The prime thing is to awaken public interest and
this volume was compiled for that purpose. There
are great truths that need to be discussed for out of
these discussions will come the remedy.
Jeremiah Botkin, warden of the Kansas Peniten-
tiary, voices the common cry of all who have given
this subject any thought. He says:
"Conditions at the state prison cry to heaven
for a remedy. The fault has been with no previous
warden, certainly not my predecessor. When I
came into this office he frankly told me he was
'handing me a lemon.' Everything a warden could
do he and most of his predecessors had done. Yet
Lansing is today a blot on Kansas.
"The remedy does not lie in my hands. I wish
that it did. You cannot conceive how strongly
I wish that it did. It lies with the people of
Kansas and the press of Kansas. Legislators will
not spend the money unless the specific expenditure
is urged, and urged vividly, upon them by their
constituents. The constituents will not bring this
matter to the attention of their legislators until
they have had its paramount importance burned in-
to their souls. I welcome the advent of the press
into Lansing. It is the last forlorn hope. Every
unsanitary and uneconomic condition at the prison
Prison Problems 243
can be remedied with money. All that sympathy
and good will on the warden's part can do has
been done. It is up to the people of Kansas to
give us the money lots of it and now.
"I have learned the value of publicity in getting
reform. But perhaps it is because I have served
most of my life as a Methodist parson that I ap-
proach the inmates of our penetentiary with the
idea that they are just folks. Something like the
folks in Winfield and Arkansas City and Topeka and
Kansas City, except that they are behind walls, the
others are outside, and they have sinned and must
be punished. The rights and statutes of Kansas
prescribe that. But also there is prescribed by the
laws of humanity an obligation on the state and
the people of Kansas as to the manner in which they
shall suffer punishment. When the state and peo-
ple of Kansas go beyond the statute of humanity
in punishing them they are the moral sinners.
"Every administration for years has brought be-
fore each legislature the shame of the cellhouses.
It is barbaric, brutal and furthermore, unwise to
condemn men in the awful places we have to con-
fine them. It manufactures criminals, sickly degen-
erates and tuberculars out of retrievable material.
"The prisoners are their own scavengers. There
is no running water of any sort. Ask the doctor
to tell you what disease the occupants have, in the
greatest proportion and how easily men communi-
cate it through the drinking cups. The state of
Kansas has sent many well men to this penitentiary
who have gone out afflicted with the most 'horrible
of all diseases. There is no ventilation. The air
which three hundred men breath in this cramped
244 Prison Problems
space is, in summer still and stifling; in winter still
and sickly warm. How many men condemned to
be confined have been condemned to die of the
great white plague by the neglect of the state of
Kansas to install modern cellhouses can never be
known. The obtainable record is long and certain.
"I demand for these men at least new cellhouses.
I demand it in the name of common decency and
to remove the crime of contributory negligence to
manslaughter from the record of the legislature of
Kansas which has had this matter in charge. New
modern cellhouses, such as the federal government
has installed at Leavenworth, having ventilation and
sanitation and cleanliness, would cost $80,000. That
is five cents for each person in Kansas. There isn't
a person in Kansas able to, who wouldn't walk to
Topeka with their nickle if they could see the
conditions here. The spread of disease through
these cellrooms is a provable matter. The citizens
of Kansas might as well knock a specified number
of these men on the head with an ax as to continue
so to confine them."
How many of us realize the awful meaning of
what 'Dr. Alexander MacNicholl of New York City
had to say in a paper, entitled "Public Health, a
Question of Alcoholic Degeneracy," read before the
re-cent Congress of the American Medical Society
at Philadelphia, of which he is the vice president:
"A wave of degeneracy is sweeping the land a
degeneracy so appalling in its magnitude that it
staggers the mind and threatens to destroy the re-
public; numbering more victims than have been
claimed in all the wars and all the epidemics of
acute diseases that have swept the country within
200 years.
Prison Problems 245
"Modern Scientific methods had reduced the mor-
ality from acute diseases such as typhoid, yellow
fever and the white plague, but such degeneracy is
shown in the increasing rate of morality resulting
from the spread of chronic diseases, that within thir-
ty years the morality from chronic diseases has
doubled and today chronic disorders of the lungs,
kidneys, heart and other organs are responsible for
more than half the deaths.
"What is the cause of this degeneracy? Statis-
tics compiled by the leading insurance companies
and represented by Sir T. P. Whitaker in a report
to the British Parliament show that of every 1000
deaths among the population at large 440 are due to
alcohol. This would mean a mortality from alcohol
in the United States of 680,000 a year."
"We annually drink," says Dr. David M. Paul-
son, "twenty-three gallons of liquor for each man,
woman and child in the land."
Dr. Bertillion, the eminent French expert crimin-
ologist, says : "The users of alcohol are twice as
likely to die from a dozen different diseases as those
who are temperate."
"30,000 new cases are admitted to our asylums
every year. Columbus, O., has 181,511 inhabitants.
There are more people in our insane asylums today
in this country than there are inhabitants in that
city."
To again quote Dr. Paulson : "Twenty per cent
of all the money raised by taxes in the state of
New York has to go to pay for the care of their in-
sane. Only one other item costs more and that is
their education."
246 Prison Problems
When you stop to think that there are more
people in our insane asylums than there are stu-
dents in all our colleges and universities, one be-
gins to comprehend something of the problem.
What is the cure for this disease? What is the
solution of our Prison Problems? It is found in the
few words, that mean so much, Public Opinion.
Not long ago I read an editorial I think it was
written by Arthur Brisbane, in which he said : "Pub-
lic Opinion is the conscience and the intelligence of
the race. As the race progresses public opinion be-
comes higher, fairer, more consistent. It is difficult
for us to realize it now, but the day is coming when
public opinion, man's collective conscience, will do
away with courts, policemen, jails, detectives and
lawsuits. That will be the beginning of a real civili-
zation."
Brisbane gets $75,000 a year for writing just such
philosophy. If he got $1,000 a year what he wrote
would be anarchy. But it's the truth just the same.
As long as parents believe in whipping children
to make them good, the church has to scare Hell
out of the people to get them to Heaven, the com-
munity will lock men up and reform them by cruel-
ty and barbarity.
A full penitentiary is a better therometer as to the
state conscience than is a church filled with Holy
howlers.
Therefore, the first remedy is publicity. Editors
should be asked to write and publish editorials along
this line. Devote space to this question for we are
helping ourselves when we help our brothers. Let's
tell the world that Thomas Mott Osborn, after a
week's self-imposed term in Auburn, N. Y., prison,
Prison Problems 247
said when he emerged, "The prison system is singu-
larly unintelligent, ineffective and cruel. It is ab-
solutely a form of slavery and all the great truths
enunciated by Lincoln and others against negro
slavery are just as applicable to prison slavery.
It takes from the convict his individual initiative and
freedom of action and he becomes an irresponsible
automaton. When he returns to the outside world,
therefore, he finds he is unable to resume his own
initiative and to be the guider of his own destinies.
This accounts for so many men who leave prison
and return as second termers.
"From the moment that a man arrives in prison
he is made to realize he is no longer an individual
human being. He is only one unimportant unit in a
community which is undergoing penance for cer-
tain crimes, and the penance differs only in the mat-
ter of duration. The next companion on my tier of
cells may be a forger, burglar, a murderer, defaulting
cashier; he may be a college graduate or a Bowery
tough, an intelligent Yankee or an ignorant for-
eigner, yet all are clothed alike, treated alike, fed
and housed alike, and each man ceases to be an in-
dividual and becomes a moving automaton in a gray
suit similar to all others.
"There is a frightful waste of human life and in-
genuity because the system is so bad that, while
there is some reform, the principle of the reforma-
tion is not used to anywhere near its measure of pos-
sibilities. Realizing perfectly the considerable num-
ber of degenerates and other undesirable citizens
included in the ranks of the prisoners, I was amazed
at the amount of splendid courage, fine feeling, and
neighborly interest displayed by the inmates toward
each other."
248 Prison Problems
One of the most potent forces for the spread of
truth is the pulpit. Surely the church must lead in
this campaign of education. If each one of you who
read this book, will only take it upon yourself to
see that your minister is asked to preach a sermon,
or better yet, a series of sermons based upon the
contents of this little volume, you will be doing a
public and patriotic service.
Rev. Frank D. Adams, of Indianapolis, Ind.,
preached a sermon on "Prison Problems" and by his
eloquent plea and hearty urging, so enthused his
congregation that the members bought forty copies
for individual use.
Rev. John Welsch, of Wilmington, 111., preached
forty copies into the hands of his congregation.
That noted and dearly beloved Catholic Priest,
Father P. J. Maccorry, of Wichita, Kans., is doing
a father's part in the spread of this new gospel and
the papers of his denomination have been filled with
the product of his pen, advocating a wider reading
of this volume.
The sermons that have already been preached up-
on this theme have made themselves felt in the
moral wave that is sweeping over the conscience of
men.
The men and women on the platform have a
golden opportunity to prove that Senator Robert
M. LaFollette did not over-estimate the importance
of this great and growing institution, when he said :
"I sometimes think that from the days of Wendell
Phillips until now, the lyceum has pretty nearly
been the salvation of the country." How? By fol-
lowing the example of Dr. John Gray who delivered
one hundred chautauqua addresses last summer, and
Prison Problems 249
at every one of them he told the audience that
"Prison Problems" was the best book on the subject
he had ever seen.
Rollo H. McBride, the noted Prisoner's Friend,
drew rounds of vociferous applause by his endorse-
ment of this effort to arouse the nation to a realiza-
tion of the wrongs that are being inflicted upon
our brothers and sisters in the name of reform.
Out in California, Mrs. Mae Guthrie Tangier has
given the book a wide review, especially in temper-
ance and reform circles.
Down at Atlanta, Georgia, lives one of God's
noble women, Emma Neal Douglas, who placed
forty copies of "Prison Problems" in the hands of
the state legislators when the campaign was on for
legislation for the betterment of humanity.
Then there is the little woman in the home who,
after all, is the power that moves the world, what
can she do? Here is an example. At the Racine,
Wisconsin, Chautauqua, Mr. McBride gave his lec-
ture on "Prison Problems." There were in that
audience at least two people with a longing to do,
as well as to say, something for those who are in
trouble and so Mr. and Mrs. Frank Cherdron were
soon at work reviewing "Prison Problems" for their
local papers, urging their friends by letter and by
word of mouth, in season and out, to read "Prison
Problems," and it was through Mrs. Cherdron's ef-
forts that Mrs. Amy D. Winship, the eighty-four
year young 'varsity student, who is a national char-
acter in the field of co-education, became interested
in "Prison Problems."
Mrs. Winship is not only a student in the Univer-
sitv of Wisconsin, but she is a student of human
250 Prison Problems
nature, one who says : "I haven't time to grow old,
besides there is too much to learn and too much to
be done to take the time to be old."
Mrs. Winship wrote the following review of
"Prison Problems" which appeared in the Wiscon-
sin State Journal, published at Madison. It was
widely copied throughout the state:
" 'PRISON PROBLEMS,' AN APPRE-
CIATION.
"Mrs. Amy D. Winship.
"Recent dispatches about the new experiment in
prison management and labor at Camp Hope, Ill-
inois, remind thoughtful citizens that there are
prison problems being solved well in some states.
"How about our own progressive Wisconsin?
Public sentiment and public judgment are slowly
being molded along the right lines of mercy and ref-
ormation for men and women in prison. Brutaliz-
ing confinement for the convict and expensive re-
venge on the prisoners are falling away under the
ban of public censure for such methods.
"Hardened, hopeless convicts, overworked and
not paid by private monopolies operating in prisons,
through dirty politics and their wardens, are but a
heavy burden to society.
"Mothers of men are beginning to see there is a
crushing waste of human life behind our prison
walls, but prison conditions are undergoing a great
change.
"Mr. Fred High of Chicago, the editor of The
Platform, has compiled a stirring book called "Pris-
Prison Problems 251
on Problems," dealing with all these facts. It re-
views the prison situation from all sides.
"Ida Tarbell, Warden Saunders of Iowa, Detective
Pinkerton, and several students of this question, tell
of present conditions and opportunities and plead
for changes.
"As Dickens' works touched all England on the
prison question, so all America will yet be soundly
stirred by High's 'Prison Problems.'
"Social conditions today contribute to the crimi-
nal tendency. Citizens of all classes try to prevent
crime through many agencies. Society many times
abandons the released prisoners. So men like Rollo
McBride established 'The Parting of the Ways
Home' at Chicago to mercifully and sensibly save
the ex-convict from re-committing crime to obtain
food or shelter.
"Editors and teachers, tax-payers everywhere,
will be glad that such books as High's 'Prison
Problems' deal with the prisoner himself, and his
keepers and plead for free men to come to the aid
of prison slaves, in our viciously managed penal sys-
tem, to provide them outside labor, needed music,
education, medical attention in short anything
necessary to complete their reform."
We cannot publish the names of those who have
done service in this good cause, as they are really
too numerous to mention in a volume of this size.
The cases cited have been typical of what can be
done when there is a will.
It is with unbounded gratitude that we send forth
the second edition. The book has grown from 175
pages to its present size.
That America has taken mammoth strides for-
252 Prison Problems
ward since this venture was first conceived, is only
stating a truth patent to the merest casual observer.
Several states have abolished the contract labor sys-
tem, prisoners are being recognized everywhere as
brothers, and as human beings. Hope is being writ-
ten into our laws, cruelties are being abolished, graft
is being exposed, barbarous practices are being pro-
hibited ; and to have played even a minor part in this
human drama of uplift and reform, is reward enough
to repay us all for the effort that we have made.
Prison Problems 253
OUR GUARANTORS.
The second edition of "Prison Problems" has been
made possible by the generosity of the following
who have each given it their generous financial
support : O. J. Kloer, 345 W. 73rd St., Chicago, 111. ;
Harold C. Kessinger, Aurora, 111. ; Chas. W. Fergu-
son, 640 Orchestra Bldg., Chicago; Benjamin
Chapin, 237 E. 163rd St., New York City ; Fremont
S. Gibson, Charles City, Iowa; Thomas Brooks
Fletcher, Marion, Ohio ; T. J. Tjernagel, Story City,
Iowa ; Father P. J. MacCorry, Wichita, Kans. ;
Grace Hall Riheldaffer, 838 Collins Ave., Pitts-
burgh, Pa. ; Roy James Battis, 213 W. 61st St., Chi-
cago; Ewing Herbert, Hiawatha, Kan.; Leonora M.
Lake, 2354 Albion Place, St. Louis, Mo. ; Ross
Crane, Pine Lake, Ind. ; E. A. Wiggam, North
Vernon, 111. ; R. O. Bowman, 511 Railway Exchange,
Milwaukee, Wis. ; W. A. McCormick, Onekema,
Mich. ; Mrs. Emma Neal Douglas, 1225 Peachtree
Road, Atlanta, Ga. ; Montaville Flowers, Monrovia,
Cal.; Rollo H. McBride, 25 E. 55th St., Chicago;
Alexander M. Lochwitzky, 1200 E. 55th St., Chi-
cago ; J. E. Brockway, Wabash Bldg., Pittsburgh,
Pa. ; Prof. Louis Williams, at large.
254 Prison Problems
A CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS.
At the tenth annual convention of the Interna-
tional Lyceum Association, held at Winona Lake,
Ind., September 2 to 11, 1912, a resolution was
unanimously passed pledging the 1,000 members
of this, the first free forum of America, to work for
the Abolition of Poverty in a World of Plenty, by
studying how to eliminate waste.
Crime and criminals is one of the most gigantic
problems before the world today. Mr. Hugh C.
Weir, in the World Today for January, 1910, states
that "Our crimes cost us $3,500,000 per day, and
that the cost of crime in this country for 1909
equalled the amount realized from the wheat crop,
the coal mined and the wool, aggregating approxi-
mately about $1,373,000,000.
Surely the task is great enough to engage the
attention of a hundred such organizations, for these
few pages have only scratched the surface, but if
they will cause the stream of lyceum thought to
flow with a greater power through the channels of
reform, thereby enlisting the co-operation of the
scattered forces who now are swatting flies while the
pesthouses that breed the germs of vice and crime
are not only winked at, but actually defended, and
sometimes patronized by these same "fly swat-
ters," then its publication will have been worth
while.
The International Lyceum Association is com-
posed of one thousand men and women who are
engaged in the great work of spreading the gospel
Prison Problems 255
of good cheer in song, story, literature, oratory and
music. We believe we are public benefactors, for
back of the lyceum and the chautauqua effort is
the spirit of helpfulness ; the purposeful message
finds here its greatest advocates.
In the World's Work for September are to be
found these words: "The chautauqua platforms
were used by the reformers and agitators for many
years with greater effect than the floor of the
senate, or the house, or than national conventions."
We believe the lyceum and chautauqua are the
institutions that can best solve the great prison
problem that confronts us at every hand.
The closing thought of this little volume is,
what am I going to do about these great problems?
Am I, as I read this, going to say they don't effect
me? Will I, right now, pledge myself to this great
work of bettering this world, of helping some
mother's boy, some waif of the streets, some beauti-
ful daughter, or maybe my own flesh and blood?
The one thing that has burned into my soul is
that no man liveth unto himself; the heavy hand of
retribution falls with greater force upon the inno-
cent than the guilty. There is one thing that I can
do send $1.00 for this volume, as it is not a money-
making venture. I will thus enable those who
have given their time and money to make possible
this venture to mail four copies to four more
editors, ministers, lecturers and legislators, and
thereby make this an endless chain to prevent
crime, rather than a spasmodic effort to punish a
few criminals, for I see this is the beginning and
not the end.
University of California
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