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Title: The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 47 and 48, January 1909)
Author: Unknown
Language: English
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NEW SERIES Nos. 47 and 48
PUBLISHED ANNUALLY
BY THE
PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
INSTITUTED MAY 8, 1787
THE JOURNAL
OF
PRISON DISCIPLINE
AND
PHILANTHROPY
JANUARY, 1909
OFFICE: STATE HOUSE ROW
S. W. CORNER FIFTH AND CHESTNUT STREETS
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
OFFICIAL VISITORS.
No person who is not an official visitor of the prison, or who has not a
written permission, according to such rules as the Inspectors may adopt
as aforesaid, shall be allowed to visit the same; the official visitors
are: the Governor, the Speaker and members of the Senate; the Speaker
and members of the House of Representatives; the Secretary of the
Commonwealth; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the Attorney-General and
his Deputies; the President and Associate Judges of all the courts in
the State; the Mayor and Recorders of the cities of Philadelphia,
Lancaster, and Pittsburg; Commissioners and Sheriffs of the several
Counties; and the “Acting Committee of the Philadelphia Society for
Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.” (Note: Now named “The
Pennsylvania Prison Society.”)--_Section 7, Act of April 23, 1829._
The above was supplemented by the following Act, approved March 20,
1903:
AN ACT.
To make active or visiting committees of societies incorporated
for the purpose of visiting and instructing prisoners official
visitors of penal and reformatory institutions.
SECTION 1. Be it enacted, etc., That the active or visiting committee of
any society heretofore incorporated and now existing in the Commonwealth
for the purpose of visiting and instructing prisoners, or persons
confined in any penal or reformatory institution, and alleviating their
miseries, shall be and are hereby made official visitors of any jail,
penitentiary, or other penal or reformatory institution in this
Commonwealth, maintained at the public expense, with the same powers,
privileges, and functions as are vested in the official visitors of
prisons and penitentiaries, as now prescribed by law: Provided, That no
active or visiting committee of any such society shall be entitled to
visit such jails or penal institutions, under this act, unless notice of
the names of the members of such committee, and the terms of their
appointment, is given by such society, in writing, under its corporate
seal, to the warden, superintendent or other officer in charge of such
jail, or other officer in charge of any such jail or other penal
institution.
Approved--The 20th day of March, A. D. 1903.
SAML. W. PENNYPACKER.
The foregoing is a true and correct copy of the Act of the General
Assembly No. 48.
FRANK M. FULLER,
_Secretary of the Commonwealth_.
[Illustration: RIGHT REV. WILLIAM WHITE, D. D., LL. D.
First President of The Pennsylvania Prison Society, from 1787 to 1836.]
NEW SERIES NOS. 47 AND 48.
THE JOURNAL
OF
PRISON DISCIPLINE
AND
PHILANTHROPY
PUBLISHED ANNUALLY
UNDER THE DIRECTION OF “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY”
INSTITUTED MAY 8TH, 1787
JANUARY, 1909
OFFICE: STATE HOUSE ROW
S. W. CORNER FIFTH AND CHESTNUT STREETS
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
THE
PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
(FORMERLY CALLED THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR ALLEVIATING THE MISERIES
OF PUBLIC PRISONS.)
Place of Meeting, S. W. Cor. Fifth and Chestnut Sts., Philadelphia.
The 122d Annual Meeting of “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY” was held
First month (January) 28th, 1909.
The meeting was called to order by the President, JOSHUA L. BAILY, at
whose request the Vice-President, the REV. H. L. DUHRING, D. D., took
the chair.
The Secretary, JOHN J. LYTLE, being absent on account of illness, ALBERT
H. VOTAW was appointed Secretary _pro tem_.
The Minutes of the 121st Annual Meeting were read and approved.
The Treasurer presented a report which was satisfactory. (See page 15.)
The officers and the members of the Acting Committee for 1909 were
elected. (See pages 3 and 4.)
GEORGE S. WETHERELL, on behalf of the Acting Committee, presented a
draft of proposed amendments to the Constitution of the Society. This
report was referred to the Acting Committee for further consideration.
The Nominating Committee presented the following resolution:
“In recognition of the long, faithful and unselfish services of JOHN J.
LYTLE as Secretary of ‘THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY,’ the Nominating
Committee recommend that he be elected Honorary Secretary....”
The resolution was adopted unanimously by a rising vote.
ALBERT H. VOTAW, _Secretary_.
SPECIAL NOTICES.
All correspondence with reference to the work of the Society, or
to the JOURNAL OF PRISON DISCIPLINE AND PHILANTHROPY, should be
addressed to THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY, 500 Chestnut St.,
Philadelphia, Pa.
The National Prison Congress of the United States for the past ten
years has designated the fourth Sunday in October, annually, as
Prison Sunday. To aid the movement for reformation, some speakers
may be supplied from this Society. Apply to chairman of the
Committee on Prison Sunday.
FREDERICK J. POOLEY is the General Agent of the Society at the
Eastern Penitentiary and at the Philadelphia County Prison. His
address is 500 Chestnut St., Philadelphia.
Contributions for the work of the Society may be sent to JOHN WAY,
Treasurer, 409 Chestnut St., Philadelphia.
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY FOR 1909.
PRESIDENT
JOSHUA L. BAILY, 30 S. Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia.
VICE-PRESIDENTS
REV. HERMAN L. DUHRING, D. D., 225 S. Third Street, Philadelphia.
REV. F. H. SENFT, 360 N. Twentieth Street, Philadelphia.
TREASURER
JOHN WAY, 409 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
SECRETARIES
ALBERT H. VOTAW, 300 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
FRED. J. POOLEY, 300 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
COUNSELORS
HON. WM. N. ASHMAN, Forty-fourth and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia.
HENRY S. CATTELL, 1218 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
THE ACTING COMMITTEE
John J. Lytle Moorestown, N. J.
John H. Dillingham 140 N. Sixteenth Street, Philadelphia.
P. H. Spellissy 120 S. Eighteenth Street, Philadelphia.
Dr. Emily J. Ingram Telford, Pa.
William Scattergood West Chester, Pa.
Mrs. P. W. Lawrence 1338 N. Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia.
Mary S. Whelen 1520 Walnut Street, Philadelphia.
William Koelle 1209 Girard Avenue, Philadelphia.
Rev. R. Heber Barnes 600 N. Thirty-second Street, Philadelphia.
Dr. William C. Stokes 2003 Arch Street, Philadelphia.
William T. W. Jester 412 Spruce Street, Philadelphia.
Deborah C. Leeds West Chester, Pa.
Mrs. Horace Fassett 220 S. Twentieth Street, Philadelphia.
George R. Meloney 4809 Springfield Avenue, Philadelphia.
Joseph C. Noblit 1521 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia.
Miss C. V. Hodges 2102 Master Street, Philadelphia.
Rebecca P. Latimer 4131 Westminster Avenue, Philadelphia.
Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, D. D. 1904 Walnut Street, Philadelphia.
Rev. J. F. Ohl 826 S. St.Bernard Street, Philadelphia.
Harry Kennedy Eaglesville, Pa.
Layyah Barakat 236 S. Forty-fourth Street, Philadelphia.
William E. Tatum 843 N. Forty-first Street, Philadelphia.
Mary S. Wetherell 2036 Race Street, Philadelphia.
George S. Wetherell 2036 Race Street. Philadelphia.
Henry C. Cassel 2316 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia.
Albert Oetinger Warminster, Pa.
Rev. Philip Lamerdin Olney, Philadelphia.
David Sulzberger 316 Race Street, Philadelphia.
Mrs. E. W. Gormly Pittsburg, Pa.
A. Jackson Wright 2141 N. Camac Street, Philadelphia.
Frank H. Longshore 2359 E. Cumberland Street, Philadelphia.
Charles H. LeFevre 827 Race Street. Philadelphia.
Mrs. E. M. Stillwell 1248 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia.
Solomon G. Engle 648 N. Thirty-ninth Street, Philadelphia.
Charles P. Hastings 2304 N. Twenty-second Street, Philadelphia.
Isaac P. Miller 409 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
Elias H. White West End Trust Building, Philadelphia.
John Smallzell Haddonfield, N. J.
John D. Hampton Twenty-ninth and Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia.
John A Duncan 257 S. Fifty-first Street, Philadelphia.
Jonas G. Clemmer 2209 N. Franklin Street, Philadelphia.
Charles McDole 812 Race Street, Philadelphia.
Samuel B. Garrigues 1719 N. Twenty-eighth Street, Philadelphia.
Harrison Walton 1706 Columbia Avenue, Philadelphia.
Rev. C. Theodore Benze Erie, Pa.
Rev. A. J. D. Haupt, D. D. Pittsburg, Pa.
Arthur Buckler 2209 Tulip Avenue, Philadelphia.
Mrs. Mary S. Grigg 1235 N. Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia.
C. Wilfred Conard Lansdowne, Pa.
Henry W. Comfort Fallsington, Pa.
COMMITTEES.
_Visiting Committee for the Eastern State Penitentiary_:
John J. Lytle, Rev. Philip Lamerdin, Charles P. Hastings,
P. H. Spellissy, Harry Kennedy, Solomon G. Engle,
John H. Dillingham, Layyah Barakat, Isaac P. Miller,
William Koelle, Rev. J. F. Ohl, Elias H. White,
Rev. R. Heber Barnes, William E. Tatum, John Smallzell,
Dr. William C. Stokes, Mary S. Wetherell, John D. Hampton,
William T. W. Jester, George S. Wetherell, Jonas G. Clemmer,
Deborah C, Leeds, Henry C. Cassel, Charles McDole,
Mrs. Horace Fassett, Albert Oetinger, Samuel B. Garrigues,
George R. Meloney, David Sulzberger, Harrison Walton,
Joseph C. Noblit, Frank H. Longshore, Arthur Buckler,
Rebecca P. Latimer, A. J. Wright, Mrs. Mary S. Grigg,
Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, Charles H. LeFevre, Albert H. Votaw.
_Visiting Committee for the Philadelphia County Prison_:
Fred. J. Pooley, William T. W. Jester, Mary S. Wetherell,
Dr. Emily J. Ingram, Deborah C. Leeds, David Sulzberger,
Mrs. P. W. Lawrence, Mrs. Horace Fassett, Mrs. E. M. Stillwell,
Mary S. Whelen, Miss C. V. Hodges, John A. Duncan.
_For the Holmesburg Prison_:
Fred. J. Pooley, David Sulzberger.
_For the Chester County Prison_:
William Scattergood, Deborah C. Leeds.
_For the Delaware County Prison_:
Deborah C. Leeds, C. Wilfred Conard.
_For the Western Penitentiary and Allegheny County Prison_:
Rev. A. J. D. Haupt, D. D., Mrs. E. W. Gormly.
_For the Bucks County Prison_:
Henry W. Comfort.
_For the Erie County Prison_:
Rev. C. Theodore Benze.
_For the Counties of the State at Large_:
Fred. J. Pooley, Deborah C. Leeds, Mrs. E. W. Gormly.
Layyah Barakat, Albert H. Votaw,
_For the House of Correction_:
Fred. J. Pooley, David Sulzberger, Layyah Barakat,
Deborah C. Leeds.
_Auditors of Acting Committee_:
Charles P. Hastings, Dr. Wm. C. Stokes, John Smallzell.
_Editorial Committee_:
Rev. J. F. Ohl, Rev. R. Heber Barnes, Dr. Wm. C. Stokes.
John Way, Albert H. Votaw,
_On Membership in the Acting Committee_:
Dr. Wm. C. Stokes, Albert Oetinger, Charles P. Hastings.
George S. Wetherell, Elias H. White,
_On Finance_:
George S. Wetherell, David Sulzberger, A. Jackson Wright.
Joseph C. Noblit, C. Wilfred Conard,
_On Discharged Prisoners_:
Joseph C. Noblit, George S. Wetherell, Dr. Wm. C. Stokes.
Mrs. Horace Fassett, Mrs. P. W. Lawrence,
_Auditors of the Society_:
A. Jackson Wright, Elias H. White.
_On Police Matrons in Station Houses_:
Mrs. P. W. Lawrence, Dr. Emily J. Ingram, Mary S. Wetherell.
_On Prison Sunday_:
Rev. H. L. Duhring, D. D., Rev. R. Heber Barnes, Rev. J. F. Ohl.
Rev. F. H. Senft,
_On Legislation_:
Rev. J. F. Ohl, Joseph C. Noblit, Rev. R. Heber Barnes.
David Sulzberger, Elias H. White,
JOURNAL OF PRISON DISCIPLINE AND PHILANTHROPY
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SECOND YEAR.
1787. OF 1909.
THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
ANNUAL REPORT OF JOHN J. LYTLE, GENERAL SECRETARY.
In submitting this, my Eighteenth Report, covering the last two years, I
realize that I have much cause for gratitude. For a large part of this
time, I have been blessed with health and strength to continue my labors
among the prisoners of the Eastern Penitentiary.
I have been an Official Visitor at this institution for fifty-six years,
and for more than a score of years I have given my entire service to
this work for which I have felt that I had a special call.
While providing prisoners at the time of their discharge with a
respectable outfit, it has also been my earnest desire to point them to
the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. I have also
continued my visits to the cells of the prisoners, and I have felt that
a blessing has attended my efforts. While I can never know the result of
these labors, I have worked in faith endeavoring to minister to both
their temporal and spiritual needs. Many have confessed to me that their
imprisonment had been to them a blessing. Arrested in their career of
crime, they had resolved to lead better lives in the future. I have not
doubted their sincerity, and have encouraged such to seek Divine help.
It is right to protect the community, and the law-breaker must suffer
the penalty for his crime, but while he is incarcerated it is our duty
to avail ourselves of the opportunity to instruct him and to plead with
him to follow better ideals. Indeed, I have felt it a great privilege to
sit beside a prisoner in his cell and tell him of the “old, old story of
Jesus and his love.”
From careful inquiries, I am satisfied that the most of the prisoners
can trace their downfall to indulgence in drink and the social evil.
THE EASTERN PENITENTIARY.
At the Eastern Penitentiary several thousand visits are annually made by
the members of the Acting Committee of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
This Committee is composed of clergymen and laymen, men and women. To
each block one or more visitors are assigned, and it is believed that
the interviews held by these with the prisoners, either in their cells
or at the cell doors, are productive of much good. The lady visitors of
the Committee are all assigned to the women’s block. Here a Bible class
is held every Sabbath afternoon; and the matron is also earnestly and
constantly interested in the spiritual welfare of those in her care. On
every Sabbath morning, at 9 o’clock, service is held in each of the
corridors under the direction of the moral instructor, the Rev. Joseph
Welsh. The speakers are supplied by the Local Preachers’ Association of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Protestant Episcopal City Mission
and the Lutheran City Mission.
The total amount expended by the Society during the last two years for
the use of prisoners at the time of their discharge was $5,152.54, and
for tools $93.30.
The following are the statistics of population at the Penitentiary
during 1908.
White Colored Total
Males Females Males Females
Number remaining from 1907 925 12 280 8 1,225
Committed during 1908 524 4 137 8 673
----- -- --- -- -----
Total population 1,449 16 417 16 1,898
Discharged during 1908 318 5 92 3 418
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Remaining December 31, 1908 1,131 11 325 13 1,480
THE DISCHARGES WERE AS FOLLOWS:
By Commutation 357
” Order of Court 8
” Time expired 20
” Pardon 9
” Order of Huntingdon Reformatory 9
” Death 15
---
Total 418
Average daily population for 1908 1,371
Largest number in confinement during the year 1,486
Smallest number in confinement during the year 1,225
PHILADELPHIA COUNTY PRISON
There are two County Prisons in Philadelphia, under the same Board of
Inspectors, one at Tenth and Reed Streets, known as “Moyamensing,” and
the other at Holmesburg. The former is used chiefly for prisoners
awaiting trial and for those serving short terms for minor offenses; the
latter, for those who are sentenced to longer terms.
Cleanliness and good order prevail in both institutions, but both are
overcrowded. “Separate and solitary confinement” may be a part of the
sentence, but the insufficiency of the accommodations renders it
impossible to carry out this provision of the law. Since there is
abundant room for additional buildings at Holmesburg, it is unfortunate
that the county authorities do not erect as many buildings as may be
needed.
Frederick J. Pooley, the Society’s Agent at the County Prisons, also
considers it very unfortunate that those awaiting trial, some of whom
may be found innocent, have their minds contaminated by listening to the
stories of the older criminals. When released from prison they are the
more easily induced to enter upon a criminal career.
Mr. Pooley visits Moyamensing three times a week and Holmesburg twice a
week. He gives special attention to those who have been committed by
magistrates for short terms. These he interviews as soon as they are
committed, and when he feels assured that anyone is being wrongfully or
unduly punished, he takes measures to have him released. He regards the
untried department as an especially fruitful field of work.
OTHER PRISONS
Among other prisons visited by members of the Acting Committee are the
following: Chester County, by William Scattergood; Delaware County, by
Deborah C. Leeds; the Western Penitentiary, by the Rev. A. J. D. Haupt,
D. D., and Mrs. E. W. Gormly; Erie and Warren Counties, by the Rev. C.
Theodore Benze.
THE DOOR OF BLESSING
The door of Blessing, at 4220 Chester Avenue, was founded and is
conducted by Mrs. Horace Fassett. Its object is to provide a home for
women discharged from prison until they shall return to their relatives
or be put in the way of earning a livelihood. During 1908 forty women
and one infant were admitted. Thirty of these women were from the County
Prison, two from the Eastern Penitentiary, one from the House of
Correction and three were sent by magistrates. Of the whole number five
were returned to their homes in other states, seven to their homes in
Philadelphia, twenty-two left to take positions and four to look for
work. Only six are known to have resumed their former evil life. The
Door of Blessing is indeed what its name implies, as many of the women
who have been its inmates are now leading orderly lives.
THE HOME OF INDUSTRY
The Home of Industry, Seventy-third Street and Paschall Avenue, Mr.
Frank H. Starr, Superintendent, is doing for men what the Door of
Blessing is designed to do for women. It provides food and shelter,
gives employment at broom-making, for which regular wages are paid, and
seeks to bring all who seek it under the saving power of the Gospel. Its
success in reclaiming men has been very pronounced.
* * * * *
From the minutes of the Society:
ISAAC SLACK.
Born 1832. Died 1907.
The subject of this sketch was born in Cumberland County, England.
About the time of the Civil War he came to America and located in
Philadelphia.
He joined The Pennsylvania Prison Society about the year 1886, and
subsequently became one of the most interested and active members
of the Acting Committee. Though without educational advantages in
his early life, and therefore self-taught and self-made, he had a
remarkably clear insight into many of the social problems of the
day, and knew how to give his convictions and conclusions forceful
expression when occasion demanded.
His largely attended funeral brought together many friends unknown
to his immediate family, to whom he had been a confidential
adviser, and whom he had befriended in many ways.
The Society, the prisoners, and others have therefore suffered a
genuine loss in his death, and it is with sincere sorrow that we
record his demise.
With the earnest desire that the work of The Pennsylvania Prison Society
may continue to grow and prosper, I submit this report.
JOHN J. LYTLE,
_Secretary_.
SUMMARY OF THE WORK OF THE ACTING COMMITTEE.
With the exception of two months in the summer, meetings of the Acting
Committee have been regularly held every month since the last number of
THE JOURNAL was issued.
An important part of the work of the Society consists in the personal
visitation of prisoners for the purpose of fostering in them higher
ideals and bringing about their spiritual improvement. As will be seen
in the General Secretary’s report, this work has continued to receive
faithful attention.
A committee is at work revising the Constitution and By-Laws of the
Society, and it is expected that their report will be made and adopted
before the beginning of next year.
We desire to extend our sincere thanks to the generous friends of our
cause, without whose contributions we could not carry on our work.
During the last year it has been more difficult than usual to secure
financial aid, doubtless in consequence of the recent depression in
business. We hope that all our friends whose means will admit will
continue their practical assistance.
At the meeting of the committee held June 18, 1908, the venerable
Secretary, John J. Lytle, submitted his resignation, with the
understanding that he would continue his duties as the Society’s Agent
at the Eastern Penitentiary. The following resolution relative thereto
was adopted at an adjourned stated meeting of the Acting Committee held
June 29, 1908:
WHEREAS, our friend, John J. Lytle, having reached the
eighty-fifth year of his age, asks to be released as Secretary of
the Acting Committee, also as General Secretary,
_Therefore be it resolved_, that the Acting Committee, in acceding
to his request, place on record its appreciation of the faithful
performance of his duties in both these positions throughout the
many years he has served the Committee. First elected as Secretary
in 1852, afterward as General Secretary in 1886, John J. Lytle has
served the Society officially for more than fifty-six years.
During this long period he has constantly kept a single eye to the
prisoners’ welfare and through storm or heat has stood ready to
sacrifice himself on their behalf. We are still to have the
benefit of his long experience as Secretary of the Society and as
Prison Agent. May the freedom now gained from arduous secretarial
duties so relieve him that he may, with the more vigor, prosecute
the work at the Eastern State Penitentiary on behalf of the
discharged prisoners, the phase of our work which he feels most
deeply laid on his heart.
Albert H. Votaw was elected as Secretary of the Acting Committee to
serve until the time of the next annual meeting.
The newly elected Secretary was subsequently authorized to make a
systematic visitation of the County Prisons of Eastern Pennsylvania. His
report of these visits will be found below.
On behalf of the Acting Committee.
ALBERT H. VOTAW,
_Secretary_.
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY ON THE CONDITION OF PRISONS IN EASTERN
PENNSYLVANIA.
PHILADELPHIA, PA., 12th mo. 1, 1908.
To the Acting Committee, Pennsylvania Prison Society,
Philadelphia, Pa.
DEAR FRIENDS:
In accordance with a resolution of the Acting Committee, adopted at a
special meeting held 6th mo. 29, 1908, authorizing the Secretary to
visit some prisons in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, I now present
the following report:
Since that time I have visited the prisons in thirty-eight counties,
including the State Reformatory at Huntingdon, and I am gratified to
report that I have been received everywhere with courtesy, and have been
enabled to maintain cordial relations with all prison officials whom I
have met. Interviews at some length have been held with sheriffs,
wardens, under-keepers, inspectors, and the fullest freedom has been
granted to inspect the prisons and to speak with the prisoners. As a
rule these officials appear to be discharging their duties as well as
the equipment of the prisons allows and as faithfully as the conditions
admit. Some of the caretakers seem to have a genuine interest for the
best welfare of those over whom they have been placed.
I am under the impression that there has been improvement in recent
years in the direction of securing a greater degree of cleanliness and
better sanitation, and while much of this improvement is due to the
various county officials, it must not be forgotten that along these
lines the State Board of Charities has rendered important service.
In twenty-four of the prisons visited the prisoners have little or no
labor to perform, although the sentence of the presiding judge may have
been “to separate and solitary confinement at hard labor.” In no prison
is the work arduous. The majority of prisoners welcome opportunities to
work. Such occupation is refreshing, as it aids them in whiling away the
tedium of their hours of restraint. I heard of no complaints arising
from the necessity of laboring, but I did hear complaint arising from
the scarcity of employment. In several places both officials and
prisoners claim that they are hampered by the State regulations on the
subject of prison labor.
“Separate and solitary confinement” is a portion of the sentence which
is honored more in the breach than in the observance. It is almost
impossible, considering the limited facilities of most of the prisons,
to carry out this enactment. In some of the smaller prisons the
prisoners are together during most of the day with entire freedom to
engage in games, conversation and such exercise as their quarters will
permit. At a few of the smaller jails the full freedom of the yard is
allowed at all times of the day. It is a source of deep regret that in
some prisons the juvenile criminals are confined in the same part of the
prison with the older lawbreakers. Usually the boys who have been
convicted are very soon sent to the State Reformatory at Huntingdon, but
while awaiting trial, or while serving short sentences, they are held in
county prisons where there are no arrangements for the segregation of
the male prisoners. The women prisoners are usually entirely segregated,
but in a few prisons they are confined in cells opening into the same
corridors which the men use.
A complete prison ought to have several distinct departments: one for
men, one for women, one for boys, one for vagrants and common drunkards,
and probably a department for those who are for the first time held for
trial. Few of the prisons of the State are so constructed as to admit of
such segregation. It seems pitiful that hardened criminals should have
such opportunity to corrupt the minds of the young or of those who have
committed their first offense under peculiar circumstances of
temptation. Those prisons which are constructed with the cells back to
back, with door opening into a corridor toward the outside wall of the
building, admit more readily of the separation of the various classes of
criminals. This plan affords better facilities for light and
cheerfulness, and commands some view of the courtyard. It does not give
the individual prisoner the opportunity to get air directly from the
outside. When such prisons are built, with an additional narrow corridor
between the cells at the rear, this objection is in part obviated. At
York a prison has recently been built on this general plan. Being three
stories in height, it contains several separate subdivisions. The
addition to the prison at Allentown, now in process of construction,
will have accommodations for about one hundred prisoners, and the
commissioners have adopted some of the distinctive features of the York
prison.
Your Secretary made some inquiries as to the daily rations, and
discovered quite a variety of bills of fare. In more than one half of
these prisons there is a _per diem_ allowance for the maintenance of the
prisoners. This allowance varies in the prisons visited from fourteen
cents to fifty cents. In the smaller prisons this allowance should of
necessity be proportionately larger than in the prisons of the more
populous counties; but there is a constant tendency, where this
allowance is made, to take profit on the transaction, and it appears to
be the understanding in some counties that the sheriff is to receive
some of his compensation from this source. In one large prison, where
there are about one hundred and thirty occupants, the daily ration
consists of bread and coffee, the bread being served three times and the
coffee twice. Soup is given three times during the week. The allowance
for provisions at this prison is thirty cents a day. Those prisoners who
have means are allowed to purchase additional supplies from tradesmen,
and they can make arrangements to have meat, oysters, etc., especially
cooked and served, if they will meet the additional expense. The
privilege of purchasing little comforts and additional provisions is
almost universal. It is a surprising fact that in one or two prisons it
is possible for prisoners to procure, either by purchase or from their
friends, a supply of intoxicating drinks. Generally the supply of food
is ample and the quality fair. In two or three jails the food is sent
from the sheriff’s table. On the whole I am inclined to the belief that
the best diet conditions prevail where the authorities let contracts for
supplies every three or six months. In prisons where the number of
prisoners is fifty or more the daily cost of maintaining a prisoner is
from ten cents to twelve cents. I noted in one small county, where a
rather profuse bill of fare is served, that the cost was about thirty
cents a day.
Vagrants, drunkards and railroad trespassers are often treated with
considerable rigor. They may have bread and water for diet and a plank
for a bed. In one prison a third offense of this kind is punished with
confinement in a small, dark, unfurnished cell for thirty days on diet
of bread and water. But in many of the smaller jails these distinctions
of punishment are not observed.
It is quite possible that men of just that laudable combination of
talent which may fit them for both restraining and reforming the erring
are rarely to be found, but surely more attention should be given to the
selection of men who have adaptation for such an important work. A
faculty for both ruling and governing is an important qualification, but
in no field of labor is there more need of a sympathetic spirit, of
power to implant new motives and to inspire with desires to lead a
better life. These positions should not be regarded merely as a reward
for political services. I am glad to report that some of the men in
charge appear to realize their duties and responsibilities. Let me call
attention to one warden, who, entirely unarmed, calls a company, largely
belonging to the famous “Black Hand,” about him in the open yard and
asks them to relate stories of their homes once under Italian skies. The
same official spoke with feeling of the religious services on the
Sabbath and of the conversions and requests for prayer. It is possible
that those prison officials who report that all religious services
accomplish not the slightest good are themselves not very susceptible to
impressions of a religious nature. On the other hand, if these religious
services are performed perfunctorily, with lack of evidence of Christian
fellowship, the convicts receive little or no benefit.
In most of the counties visited the prisons are under the direct care of
the sheriff, who holds his office for only one term of three years.
Before he has scarcely served an apprenticeship in prison management his
successor assumes the duties and begins a new apprenticeship; hence many
of the county jails, from one decade to another, are under the care of
apprentices. Other things being equal, I have the impression that the
best results in prison administration are found in those prisons which
are under the care of a warden, who may hold his office year after year
so long as he gives satisfaction. This office calls for efficiency,
which is obtained by training and experience, supplemented by good
executive ability, and should not be granted merely as a reward for
political services. Since the care of the prisoners is, in most of the
counties, a minor part of the duties of the sheriff, I think it might
properly be considered whether the county jails should be placed in the
charge of some official appointed by the commissioners. Such a man would
be chosen with direct reference to fitness for such work.
The subject of commutation of sentences has received special attention.
There is much ignorance in some of the smaller counties about the
application of commutation, and prisoners often serve the entire term
for which they have been sentenced, although by statute they have earned
by good behavior a diminution of their sentence. The statute provides
that “every convict confined in any State prison, penitentiary,
workhouse or county jail in this State on a conviction of felony or
misdemeanor, whether male or female, where the term or terms equals or
exceeds one year, exclusive of any term which may be imposed by the
court or by statute as an alternative to the payment of a fine, or a
term of life imprisonment, may, if the Governor shall so direct, and
with the approval of the Board of Inspectors, or Managers, earn for
himself or herself a diminution of his sentence or sentences.” Now while
this statute explicitly mentions those sentenced to a term in county
jail as coming under the provisions of this statute, yet in about one
fourth of the counties visited there is little attempt to secure for the
prisoners the benefit of this statute. As the sheriffs are in office
only three years and have manifold duties, they do not become familiar
with the provisions of all the statutes relative to prisons and
prisoners. It is provided by law that all prisoners sentenced to a term
of one year or more, excepting those sentenced for life, should be
promptly informed of this provision by which, by good behavior, they can
secure a diminution of their sentences. This is neglected in several
counties. It is true that those sentenced for the longer terms are taken
to the State Penitentiary, yet there are many in the county prisons
serving sentences for from one to ten years. In one county the services
of an attorney may be secured to aid in getting the commutation, but
those who lack means to employ an attorney serve out their time. This is
unjust to the prisoner who has behaved satisfactorily, and besides
imposes on the county a charge from which it might readily be spared.
Copies of the law have been given to the officials in charge of the
prisons, the conditions have been explained and blanks indicating the
information which is to be forwarded to the Governor of the State for
his action in the premises have been supplied; and your Secretary has
reason to believe that a large number of prisoners will in the future
receive the commutation which they have earned.
As will be seen from our reports, this Society is engaged in very
important service for the prisoners in the Philadelphia County Prison
and in the Eastern Penitentiary, both while in prison and after they
have been discharged, which work we have no intention to relinquish; but
in whatever way this Society enlarges its present field of labor
throughout the State, its work would in greater degree correspond to its
corporate title, THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY. In conclusion I desire
to call attention to the hope expressed by the retiring Secretary, John
J. Lytle, in the report made in 1907, that the “Pennsylvania Prison
Society may constantly widen its scope of operations and grow in
efficiency and usefulness as it grows in years.”
Very respectfully,
ALBERT H. VOTAW,
_Secretary_.
JOHN WAY, _Treasurer_,
IN ACCOUNT WITH
THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY
RECEIPTS.
1908.
January 21. To Balance on hand $841 26
” Members’ Dues and Contributions 278 00
” Net Income from Investments 1,748 02
” Income from I. V. Williamson Legacy 645 00
” Interest on balances to November 30, 1908 58 46
---------
$3,570 74
PAYMENTS
By Salaries $2,337 48
” Printing and Postage 130 85
” Janitor Service 97 00
” Advertising in P. E. City Mission Directory 5 00
” Expense, Committee on Police Matrons 3 00
” ” Delegates to National Prison Congress 92 83
” Traveling Expenses of Secretaries 114 83
” Office Expenses, Incidentals 23 10
” Engrossing and Framing Minute to J. J. Lytle 8 20
” Amount to Cover Overdraft in Principal Account 40 00
” Accrued Interest on Bonds Bought 44 69
” Balance on hand December 31, 1908 673 76
---------
$3,570 74
SPECIAL FUND FOR RELIEF OF DISCHARGED PRISONERS
RECEIPTS
To Balance on hand January 21, 1908 $608 60
” Contributions 2,455 60
” Income from Investments (net) 135 24
---------
$3,199 44
PAYMENTS
By Discharged Prisoners from Eastern Penitentiary $1,821 92
” ” ” ” Philadelphia County Prison 885 00
” Balance on hand 492 52
---------
$3,199 44
BARTON FUND
FOR TOOLS FOR DISCHARGED PRISONERS
RECEIPTS
To Balance on hand January 21, 1908 $153 13
” Income from Investments 30 87
-------
$184 00
PAYMENTS
By Amount for tools for discharged prisoners $45 26
” Balance on hand December 31, 1908 138 74
-------
$184 00
HOME OF INDUSTRY FUND
RECEIPTS
To Income from Harriet S. Benson Legacy $392 00
” ” ” Caroline S. Williams Legacy 222 41
-------
$614 41
PAYMENTS
By $500 Springfield Water Co. Consol. 5% Bond due 1926
at 101⅜ and interest $506 88
” Accrued Interest on above Bond, one month and
twenty-nine days 4 10
” Balance on hand December 31, 1908 103 43
-------
$614 41
SUMMARY OF BALANCES
On General Fund $673 76
” Special Fund for Discharged Prisoners 492 52
” Barton Fund 138 74
” Home of Industry Fund 103 43
---------
$1,408 45
We the undersigned, members of the Auditing Committee, have
examined the foregoing account of John Way, Treasurer, have
compared the payments with the orders and vouchers, and believe
the same to be correct, there being a balance to the credit of our
deposit account, under date of December 31, 1908, of $1,408 45.
We have also examined the securities in the possession of our
agents, The Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia, and
have found them to agree with an accompanying schedule.
ELIAS H. WHITE,
A. JACKSON WRIGHT,
_Auditing Committee_.
LIFE MEMBERS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY.
*Ashmead, Henry B., Harrison, Alfred C., *Potter, Thomas,
*Baily, Joel J., Harrison, Chas. C., *Powers, Thomas H.,
*Bartol, B. H., *Hockley, Thomas, *Price, Thomas W.,
*Benson, E. N., Ingram, Wm. S., *Reynolds, Mrs.,
Bergdoll, Louis, Ingram, Emily J., Rhoads, Joseph R.,
*Betts, Richard K., *Jeanes, Joshua T., *Roach, Joseph H.,
*Bonsall, E. H., Jenks, John S., *Saul, Rev. James,
Brooke, F. M., *Jones, Mary T., *Santee, Charles,
*Brown, Alexander, Jordan, John, Jr., *Seybert, Henry,
Brush, C. H., Justice, W. W., *Sharpless, Townsend,
Carter, John E., *Kinke, J., *Steedman, Rosa,
Cattell, H. S., *Knight, Reeve L., Sulzberger, D.,
*Childs, George W., *Laing, Anna T., *Thomas, Geo. C.,
Coles, Miss Mary, *Laing, Henry M., *Tracey, Charles A.,
Collins, Alfred M., Lea, M. Carey, *Townsend, Henry T.,
Coxe, Eckley B., Jr., Leaming, J. Fisher, *Waln, L. Morris,
Downing, Richard H., Lewis, Mrs. Sarah, Walk, Jas. W., M. D.
Dreer, Ferd. J., *Lewis, Howard W., Warren, E. B.,
*Dreer, Edw. G., Lewis, F. Mortimer, Watson, Jas. V.,
*Douredore, B. L., Longstreth, W. W., Way, John,
Duhring, H. L., Rev. Love, Alfred H., Weightman, William,
Duncan, John A., *Maginnis, Edw. I., *Weston, Harry,
*Elkinton, Joseph S., *Manderson, James, Whelen, Mary S.,
Elwyn, Alfred, Milne, C. J., *Williams, Henry J.,
Elwyn, Mrs. Helen M., *McAlister, Jas. W., *Williamson, I. V.,
*Fotterall, Stephen G., *Osborne, Hon. F. W., *Willits, Jeremiah,
Frazier, W. W., Patterson, Robert, *Willits, Jeremiah, Jr.,
Goodwin, M. H., *Pennock, George, Wood, Walter,
*Hall, George W., *Perot, Joseph,
*Deceased.
ANNUAL MEMBERS.
Ashman, Hon. William N., Clunn, Herschel, Grigg, Mary S.,
Appleton, Rev. Samuel E., Cadbury, Benj., Harris, Rev. J. Andrews,
Ash, H. St. Clair, M. D., Conard, C. Wilfred, Hart, William H., Jr.,
Allen, H. Percival, Comfort, Henry W., Hagert, Edwin,
Baily, Joshua L., Dillingham, John H., Hackenburg, William B.,
Brown, T. Wistar, Davis, Edward T., Harding, Mrs. W. W.,
Biddle, Samuel, Detwiler, Isaac L., Hallowell, William S.,
Barnes, Rev. R. Heber, Detwiler, Walter L., Heller, Clyde A.,
Burnham, William, D’Invillier, Charles E., Hodges, Miss C. V.,
Baird, John E., Dallett, Alfred M., Hayes, J. H. M.,
Baker, Rev. Lewis C., Dean, Agnes, M. D., Haupt, Rev. A. J. D.,
Boies, Ethel M., Denniston, Mrs. E. C., Hastings, Charles P.,
Boies, David, Daniel, Gustav, Hoffman, Jacob D.,
Boies, Helen M., Emlen, Samuel, Hampton, John D.,
Bartlett, J. Henry, Elkinton, Joseph, Hensell, Mrs. George W.,
Booth, Henry D., Eisenlohr, Otto, Holmes, Jesse H.,
Biddle, Catharine C., Engle, Rev. Solomon G., Jester, William T. W.,
Beatty, Robert L., Fleisher, B. W., Kennard, William,
Benze, Rev. C. Theodore, Fullerton, Spencer, Koelle, William,
Buckler, Arthur, Fricke, Esther, Kennedy, Harry,
Biddle, Hannah S., Fassett, Mrs. Horace, Kemp, Agnes, M. D.,
Bradford, Elizabeth, Franklin, Melvin M., M. D., Koons, J. Albert,
Belfield, T. Broom, Fernberger, Henry, Lovett, Louisa D.,
Bright, Mrs. Robert S., Garrett, Sylvester, Lytle, John J.,
Bradford, Robert P. P., Grafley, D. W., Leeds, Deborah C.,
Barakat, Layvah, Garrett, Elizabeth N., LeFevre, Charles H.,
Conderman, Ethel, Grant, Mrs. W. S., Jr., Lawrence, Mrs. P. W.,
Converse, John H., Gilbert, W. H., Latimer, Rebecca P.,
Clark, Mrs. E. W., Grubb, Mrs. C. L., Latimer, George A., Jr.,
Colton, S. W., Jr., Garrigues, Samuel B., Lewis, Theodore J.,
Colton, Mrs. S. W., Jr., Gerstley, Mrs. Louis, Lewis, Mary,
Clark, Miss F., Gerhard, Luther, Lamerdin, Rev. Philip,
Collins, Henry H., Galenbeck, Louis, Longshore, Frank H.,
Clark, E. W., Jr., Gerhard, Arthur, Layton, Mrs. S. W.,
Callahan, John, Gerhard, Mrs. Arthur, Liveright, Benjamin K.,
Clemmer, Jonas G., Gormly, Mrs. E. W., Mason, Mrs. M. A.,
Cassel, Henry C., Green, Sallie H., Miller, Isaac P.,
Morton, Charles M., Rosenberg, Marie, Tomkins, Rev. Floyd W.,
Martin, Hon. J. Willis, Robinson, Anthony W., Tatum, William E.,
Mayer, Mrs. Henry C., Reeves, Francis B., Unger, Mrs. J. F.,
Meloney, George R., Randolph, Mrs. Evan, Uhler, G. H. S.,
McHenry, Rev. H. Cresson, Randolph, Mary, Vaux, George,
McDole, Charles, Riehlé, Mrs. M. B., Votaw, Albert H.,
Mewes, Mrs. L. M., Senft, Rev. F. H., White, Elias H.,
Meyer, Rev. H. E., Spellissy, P. H., Wentz, Catharine A.,
Maier, Paul D. I., Scattergood, William, Whelen, Emily,
Noblit, Joseph C., Stokes, Dr. William C., Warren, William C.,
Nicholson, Robert P., Schwarz, G. A., Wetherell, Mary S.,
Overman, William F., Snellenburg, Samuel, Wetherell, George S.,
Ohl, Rev. J. F., Snellenburg, Mrs. Samuel, Walton, Harrison,
Oetinger, Albert, Starr, Frank H., Wilbur, Henry,
Pooley, Frederick J., Schafger, R. C., Young, Jos. H.,
Platt, Laura N., Stillwell, Mrs. E., Wright, A. J.,
Platt, Miss L. N., Smallzell, John, Yardley, C. C.,
Parker, George F., Thomas, Augustus, Ziegler, J. W.,
Rosengarten, Joseph G., Thomas, Mrs. George C., Zimmerman, E. M.,
Reger, George J., Thomas, Augusta, Zimmerman, Mrs. E. M.
THE AMERICAN PRISON ASSOCIATION
The American Prison Association met in annual convention in the city of
Richmond, Va., November 14-19, 1908, with an attendance of five hundred
and twenty registered members and visitors. All but ten States of the
Union were represented, together with the District of Columbia, Canada
and Cuba. Pennsylvania had thirty-nine representatives to its credit,
ten of whom were members of The Pennsylvania Prison Society, including
its President, Vice President and the Secretary of its Acting Committee.
The sessions began on Saturday evening in the auditorium of the
Jefferson Hotel. After the invocation by the Rev. Russell Cecil, pastor
of the Second Presbyterian Church, addresses of welcome were made by the
Hon. D. C. Richardson, Mayor of Richmond, and the Hon. Claude A.
Swanson, Governor of Virginia. These were followed by a brief response
by Prof. Charles R. Henderson and the address of the President of the
Association, the Rev. Dr. J. L. Milligan.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15
At 3:30 P. M. the conference sermon was preached in the First Baptist
Church by its pastor, the Rev. George W. McDaniel, D. D. It made a
profound impression, and is here reproduced in full.
SERMON
“He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives.”--Isaiah
61:1-3; Luke 4:18.
The eminent theorists and practical exponents of enlightened prison
administration composing this national congress are arousing public
sentiment to a necessity for an improvement of the physical and moral
conditions in prisons and creating a growing interest in discharged
prisoners.
Their philosophic conception and wise application of penological
principles are hastening the abolition of cruel punishments, the
substitution of reformatory for retributive systems, and the adoption of
preventive instead of punitive measures.
The fruits of their labors are seen in the establishment of juvenile
courts, the appointment of police matrons, the separation of the sexes
and also of new from old, and incidental from habitual offenders; the
humane treatment of the criminally insane; the study of the criminal,
his history and environment; probation without imprisonment for first
offenders, with friendly surveillance; the recognition of labor as a
disciplinary and reformatory agent; the indeterminate sentence of the
prisoner and his commitment to salutary influences; the abolition of
public executions and the substitution of electrocution for hanging, and
the establishment of higher standards of prison construction and
administration.
An organization rendering such unselfish, valuable and abiding service
to the delinquents of the country brings the entire nation under a sense
of obligation, and deserves the gratitude and coöperation of all people.
To have its members as the guests of our city is an honor of which we
are pardonably proud, and to be invited to preach their annual sermon is
a privilege for which I make most grateful and humble acknowledgment.
Leaving the technical discussion to appointed specialists--though to
invade their province is a temptation--I shall bring you a message from
the Book of books, which I pray and hope may be becoming this occasion,
may be blessed to your spiritual enrichment, and may be pleasing to Him
whose we are and whom we serve.
The greatest of the Old Testament prophets was Isaiah. No other climbed
so high the mountain peaks of prophecy or saw so clearly as he coming
events. His anointed vision beheld unfolded in panorama the program of
the Messiah’s kingdom, and his purified tongue described the inner
mission and the external glory of the Messiah’s reign.
In the olden times of which Isaiah told, Jehovah glorified his people in
the building and adornment of the temple, but in the coming days which
he foretold, Jehovah was to be glorified by the binding of broken hearts
and the beautifying of soiled lives.
The prophet with inspired skill drew a picture of Him who was to be the
liberator of the people. Seven hundred years passed, and one quiet
Sabbath day, in a small town in Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth looked upon
that picture and declared that He was its original. Even so did
Hawthorne sketch the stone face in the mountain, which long afterwards
was realized by the youth of the valley who had gazed upon it and prayed
to be like it. The words of the prophecy referred directly to the period
of Babylonian captivity. Israel, in exile, longed for political
deliverance. Dry expositions of the Mosaic law could not satisfy
captives who waited for the proclamation of their freedom. They could
not sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.
They craved the assurance of the _fact_ of God’s love. Our prophecy is
the communication of that fact. It meant more than political
deliverance; it meant the graciousness of Jehovah’s pardon, the beauty
of his love and the pathos and triumph of his passion in their behalf.
“Good tidings” and “proclamation” henceforth became the classic terms
for all communications from God to man.
The words “gospel” and “preaching” were first employed in a religious
sense in the Greek translation of this passage. Regular preaching
developed during this period and took its place with sacramental
worship. Then it was that the synagogue arose with its pulpit and became
no less a factor in religious life than the altar of the temple. And it
was in the pulpit of a synagogue in Nazareth that Jesus reread this
prophecy and affirmed the fact of its fulfillment. Thus, the first
public discourse of the matchless preacher was a proclamation of the
gospel.
The deepest meaning of His message was spiritual. It was to the
spiritually poor and blind and bruised and imprisoned, but its
historical setting suggests the improvement of temporal conditions.
Indeed, the twentieth century test of Christianity is its ability to do
this very thing--to produce social values.
Jesus Christ astonished His hearers by His stupendous claims. His
program sounded pretentious, and it was, for one who was less than the
highest type of man and the very God himself. Do you comprehend the
scope of Christ’s undertaking? He himself defined it:
“To preach good tidings to the poor”--Almshouses.
“To proclaim release to captives”--Prisons.
“Recovery of sight to the blind”--Asylums.
“To set at liberty them that are bruised”--Hospitals.
He proposed a program of happiness for almshouses, health for hospitals,
healing for asylums and freedom for prisons.
He announced that His presence brought the joyful year of jubilee, when
liberty was proclaimed to slaves, release to debtors and the restoration
of family estates to their dispossessed owners. In His mind the jubilee
year typified the Messianic era, the period of the bestowment of a free,
full and finished salvation. Oh! glorious era, foreseen in prophecy,
inaugurated by Jesus, and drawing near through the benevolent efforts of
this and similar organizations.
What then was the message and the meaning of Christ’s life as related to
prisoners? I answer: He preached an evangel of emancipation. He
proclaimed the privileges of the pardon. He promised a supernal splendor
to the penitent.
He sanctioned punishment. Punishment is justified mainly upon three
grounds: The vindication of the law, the protection of society and the
reformation of the wrongdoer.
Jesus Christ sanctioned it for the same reasons. In the sublimest
discourse ever delivered upon this earth he declared: “I am not come to
destroy the law. I came not to destroy but to fulfil; for verily I say
unto you, Until heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no
wise pass from the law, until all be fulfilled.” Many of His acts were
performed in order that “it might be fulfilled,” and the pendulum of His
life swung through the arc of obedience. Among the elements entering
into the mystery of the atonement is Christ’s vindication of that law,
“The wicked shall not go unpunished,” by bearing the penalty in His own
body on the tree.
Another ground for the imprisonment of the criminal is the protection of
society. The Saviour’s entire life gives authority and force to that
position. Did He not teach that it is better for one member to suffer
than the whole body? that the commonweal should control individual
conduct? and did he not leave a violent robber unpardoned on the cross,
whose liberty might have disturbed the public order?
You teach that punishment is also reformatory, and with you the
Scriptures agree. To be very accurate, we should say that justice is
satisfied by punishment, and the wrongdoer is disciplined by
chastisement. Punishment is for the good of the law, and chastisement is
for the good of the sufferer. Incarceration is intended to _reform_ the
prisoner as much as to punish him. While rebuking the lawless, you seek
to help him back to an honorable career. This you attempt, not by a
maudlin and demoralizing sentiment, which minimizes guilt or ignores
wrong, but by a sympathetic and educational administration of prisons.
Sufficient support is found in the Bible for chastisement. Indeed, to
spare the rod would more certainly harm the criminal than it would spoil
the child. The rod of chastening, however, must not be held by a
vindictive hand, but by one of love, and its strokes modified by a
knowledge of the offender. Then it may become the saving agent in the
life of the criminal, as the crosses of the thieves enabled them to see
the cross of Christ.
Society writes over the convict’s Inferno, “Abandon hope, all ye that
enter here.” Even Byron was more cheerful and charitable. His prisoner
of Chillon, doomed to solitary despair, saw a rift in his prison walls.
Dragging his chain, he climbed upward and looked through. There lay the
silver lake framed in the mountains, and the blue heavens over all. As
he gazed through tears for his dead brother, a bird began to sing:
A lovely bird with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seemed to say them all for me.
The gospel sheds upon the prisoner the ray of light, uncovers to him the
glad sky, thrills him with songs of redemption and inspires him with the
hope of a better life. This must ever be the method of all successful
prison reforms.
Reclamation is impossible except by creating self-respect and enkindling
hope. To know that good behavior shortens the term incites all save the
incorrigibly bad to a noble life. To sit in a dungeon of despair must
make the prisoner indifferent to all the good without.
Two young women artists have painted a great picture, which should hang
in every prison where all prisoners can see it. The benignant face of
Jesus, full of love and compassion, stands out in glorious relief. A
poor man, whom each prisoner might take to be himself, kneels with his
back to the observer. The Master’s hand is stretched toward the kneeling
form, and He is saying, not in rebuke, but in hope, “I condemn thee not;
go and sin no more.” We decorate our libraries and public buildings with
suggestive mottoes and inspiring scenes of history. We leave the
prisoner to gaze through iron bars or look upon bare walls. Jesus Christ
would adorn those walls with pictures of hope.
Jesus was not a reformer, but a Redeemer. He reforms man by regenerating
him. His mission was not to Pharisees, but to publicans, and in his day
the publicans and harlots entered in before the self-righteous.
He came to seek that which was lost. The modern church ministers mostly
to the saved. Jesus showed a more excellent way. A convicted robber was
the first fruit of the cross, and Gibbon records that the first
Christian devotees were social outcasts.
Yes, Christ came to set the captives free--free from their old
natures--by making them new creatures, free from the dominion of sin by
providing them with the power of righteousness; free from the bondage of
despair by enkindling a fadeless hope.
While blest with a sense of His love,
A palace a toy would appear;
And prisons would palaces prove
If Jesus would dwell with me there.
If we could completely change the nature of all prisoners in America, so
that they would henceforth love good and hate evil, I venture that this
congress would vote in favor of opening the jails and freeing the
captives. Nothing short of that is the Gospel program.
Do you remind me that this is ideal? I grant it, but our ideals are the
tides of the moon that lift the waters from the ocean of the
commonplace. We shall not lower the standards to our lives, but rather
raise our lives to our standards. When the decree of papal infallibility
was declared there was loud and tumultuous confusion in St. Peter’s.
Archbishop Manning, of England, standing upon an elevation and pale with
excitement, held the decree aloft in his hands, and exclaimed: “Let the
whole world go to bits, and we will reconstruct it with this paper.” To
all of the pessimists and doubters, amid all the clamor and criticism of
the world, we hold aloft the glorious Gospel of the Son of God, and say,
“Let society go to pieces, and we will reconstruct it with this truth.”
Christ proclaimed the privileges of the pardoned. One privilege is to
live without suspicion. A certain writer in a recent and readable book
takes the position that when a man is sent to the penitentiary even for
a year, he is sent there for life, since he will always be regarded as a
convict. Therefore, he concludes that a man ought not to be sent to the
penitentiary at all. The fact which he states must be admitted with
regret, but to adopt his conclusion would encourage wrongdoing and
subvert the moral order.
True prison reformers will prefer the method of Jesus. When He forgives
a sinner, He blots out the memory of his past life. The debt of sin is
not only canceled, but erased. The pardoned are permitted to go in
peace. How long will it take a Christian people to imbibe the spirit and
imitate the example of their Lord?
The only stigma which He allowed to remain was that in the sinner’s own
memory. God forgives and forgets, but the forgiven sinner can never
forget. The nails are out, but the holes are there still; there, mark
you, to be seen only by himself. God remembers them no more, and God’s
people, in beautiful and divine charity, ought to cover them from their
eyes and thoughts.
When we shall have attained to this standard set by our Lord, we shall
have gone a long way toward solving the problem of the ex-prisoner. To
that noble end this Association is moving.
Society has no more perplexing question than the treatment of prisoners
who have served out their sentence and desire to lead new lives.
Minister as I am, I must confess that the average church member is
unwilling to receive the ex-prisoner into his home, or even to look him
in the face. People whose only superiority consists in that they have
never been convicted scornfully raise their skirts and pass by on the
other side. The punishment which society inflicts is more intolerable to
the sensitive soul than confinement in prison walls. The ex-prisoner is
free, but not restored.
Vastly different from modern society was the attitude of Jesus. He
received publicans and ate with them. He went to be the guest of one
who was a sinner, and he welcomed the approach of the shame-covered,
broken-hearted woman, who came with her tears of penitence and alabaster
of affection.
As the last Christmas approached a kind-hearted friend conceived the
idea of securing a pardon for a young man who had committed a crime in
hot haste, and was apparently penitent and reformed.
The Christian man said, “I want to present him to his mother as a
Christmas gift.” Armed with the pardon, he called at the penitentiary.
“Andrew,” he said, “what would you think if I were to tell you I am
going to get you a pardon?”
“Oh, sir, I would think it was too good to be true!”
“What would you say if I told you I had your pardon in my pocket?”
The young man threw himself at his benefactor’s feet, clasped his knees
devotedly and said: “Oh, captain, have you got it? Have you got it?
Thank you, sir; thank you! Thank God! Thank God!”
The friend dressed him in citizen’s clothes and escorted him to the
priest (he was a Catholic), and had him swear faithfulness; then took
him to his own home for supper, and treated him as a member of the
family.
Christmas eve they rode together to the prodigal’s far-away home. The
train did not run fast enough, and the impatient youth, with sleepless
eyes, read the name of every station. Tenderly did he cling to the
friend, and gratefully did he thank him. As the train pulled into the
home depot brothers, sisters and widowed mother were there to receive
with tears and caresses the returning boy, and they were as happy that
night as the home of the prodigal’s father in the long ago.
The friend saw him safely among his family, and turned to go; but, no,
they clung to him, they praised him, they prayed God to be good to him,
and the ex-convict said, “You have treated me like a son and helped me
to be a man.”
My friends, if we had more of the Christian religion in our treatment of
the erring, we would make it harder for them to do wrong and easier for
them to do right.
The lot of the ex-convict is an exceedingly sad one. Be he ever so
anxious to make a new start, he cannot do so without the encouragement
of his more fortunate mortals.
How few concern themselves for him! Who will give him the hand of
greeting? What business firm will trust or employ him? He needs help and
cannot rise without it, and a nominal Christian public refuses to give
it. They let him wander forth like King Lear, with uncovered head, into
the dense darkness and sweeping storm.
Now the people who help that man to his feet again are the true
disciples of Jesus. Excepting alone His purity, Jesus’ most striking
trait was His capacity for tenderness and helpfulness toward the
straying. He believed in giving the unfortunate another chance, and that
is what He meant when He said, “Go and sin no more.” Go, be a clean,
respectable and successful woman. Go, and I am with you.
Paul wrote Philemon to receive back the runaway slave, Onesimus, and
treat him as a brother. A prisoner is not fully saved until he is saved
to society. He is not saved to society until he earns an honest living,
and he cannot earn an honest living without the help of the more
fortunate.
Fiction tells of one injured by his own sin, brutalized by injustice,
and finally changed after nineteen years of imprisonment, who built
factories, became a banker, founded a hospital for sick women, and an
industrial school for children, and made a city and filled it with the
hum of industry.
One day my ’phone rang, and I was asked by a Hebrew merchant and banker
in this city to make an engagement to meet him and a young man in whom
he was interested.
I called at the appointed time at the bank, and the business man said:
“Doctor, this is Mr. Blank. He is one of the unfortunates. He ended his
term in the prison last week, and I have secured him a position in a
shoe factory. His mother is a Baptist, and I tell him he ought to be
under the wing of the church, and I know you will help him and be his
spiritual adviser.”
Beloved, that was a unique and joyful experience. A Jew committing to
the care of a Christian minister an ex-convict!
The young man was full of appreciation. He promised to meet me at the
Sunday school the following Sunday morning. He was there bright and
early. On his face shone the light that never was seen on land or sea.
With joyful emotion he confessed: “I have given my heart to Jesus since
I saw you. He forgave my sins at the tent meeting Wednesday night. My
mother wants me to join her church, and I told her I promised to meet
you here this morning, and I must keep my promise.”
You may be sure the minister was almost as happy as the convert, and
very heartily was the young man urged to join his mother’s church. He
did so, and is now a circumspect Christian and a self-supporting member
of the community.
Jesus in His day found the greatest faith in a Gentile, and, lo! in our
day, I have found the finest flower of Christian charity and helpfulness
in a Jew!
He promised garlands of joy. Reverting to the prophecy in Isaiah, we
find the beautiful promise to captive Israel: “Garlands for ashes, the
oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of
heaviness.” One day they shall arise from the ashes of humiliation and
march forth with garlands of victory wreathing their brow. Their weeping
may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. Their broken
spirits have humbled their frames, but they shall yet stand erect and
beautiful in the garments of praise. The Gospel penetrated the prison
walls with that joyous news. And every chaplain who ministers to those
behind the bars may promise them a salvation as full and free as any
bishop offers to his parishioners.
God is no respecter of persons. If He is on one side more than another,
it is the side of the weak. And often we are reminded that the
compensations of salvation more than balance the losses of sin. “Where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”
Again, our prophecy says: “They shall be called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.” The Gospel
undertakes the task of cleansing the defiled and clothing him in robes
of righteousness. It proposes to make possible the survival of the
unfit. It goes to the prisoner with this message of cheer and
confidence: “You have been weak and wicked. You may be strong and
upright. You have been a brittle reed, bent and broken by the winds of
temptation. You may become a stalwart oak, withstanding all storms.”
And this strength and goodness come through the abounding grace of God,
which flows from Christ into the sinner’s heart through the channel of
faith. It is sufficient for all spiritual needs and is able to save unto
the uttermost. It not only changes the heart, but the life, and brings
forth fruits of repentance and righteousness.
To deny such power in the Gospel is to manifest the deepest _unfaith_
and to doom to despair every repentant prisoner. And any man who does
that is not worthy of a position in penal institutions. To believe it is
to feel a solemn and binding obligation to commend that Gospel to the
prisoner. Every prison official then seeks to better the moral and
spiritual condition of the prisoners. He feels for them the unutterable
compassion of Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost, and
he sees underneath the prison garb the marred image of Deity, which may
yet be restored and glow with the image of the heavenly.
The mission of the prison is for this more than for the protection of
the innocent. It is for the reclamation and _restoration_ of the
delinquent. Leaving such an institution, the ex-prisoner might truly
say: “I came in a thief, I leave an honest man; I entered a murderer, I
depart loving God and man. My conscience, which once made me a coward,
now makes me a true man.”
The supreme hour of Christ’s passion was devoted to two convicts. Let us
stand a moment around that cross and hear the message it speaks to us.
Does it not say, “The law must be executed”? for Jesus refused to accept
the challenge to come down from the cross, and one of the malefactors by
His side said they were receiving a just penalty for their crimes.
Does it not also say, “There is redemption for the penitent thief”? for
when one cried, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom,” the
answer came swifter than light and sweeter than the murmur of the
evening zephyrs, “To-day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.”
Christ gave them both the same chance. One died in stubborn rebellion
and was lost. The other turned in humble supplication and was instantly
transformed from a criminal to a Christian. When heaven lifted up her
gates for the King of Glory to come in, and He swept through the
celestial portals, He took with Him the penitent thief as a first sheaf
of the harvest of prison redemption.
The great poets have as their theme the loss and redemption of the
immortal soul. Homer sings the wrath of Peleus’ son in the “Iliad,” and
shows how one sin destroyed a building that many virtues support. Virgil
sings the wandering of Anchises in the “Æneid,” and describes how youth
sails afar, while maturity seeks out ports of peace. Dante sings of the
soul’s stain by sin in the “Divine Comedy,” and preaches its
purification and perfection. Milton sings of man’s first disobedience
and the fruit of the forbidden tree in the “Paradise Lost,” and
“justifies the ways of God to man” in the victory of “Paradise
Regained.” Tennyson sings of the error that ruins the soul in the
“Idylls of the King” and beholds the Divine Friend, whose ceaseless
efforts recover the undimmed glory.
Victor Hugo sings of the sin which defaces the divine image and which
sears the conscience in “Les Miserables,” and exhibits the melting mercy
and lasting love which recover the pristine splendor. That book is
unique among the world’s literature in showing that in the heart of the
meanest man is a nucleus of good around which a noble character may be
grown.
Victor Hugo could never have written this immortal work had he not known
Jesus Christ. Jean Valjean, the youthful criminal, after nineteen years,
emerged from the prison with a heart as cold as marble and a will as
hard as granite. Tides of revenge tossed through his soul like billows
in a storm. Society has robbed him, and now he will rob society. The
inhumanity of man has all but quenched the last spark of the divine
within him.
In front of this convict, furious with the black wolves of hatred, Hugo,
with the hand of a master, places the good bishop, sympathetic as
divinity and patient as destiny. He speaks as an apostle of love, “We
are ourselves ex-prisoners; let us be charitable.” As an apostle of
justice, he declares, “The State that permits ignorance and darkness for
the youth should now be sent to _jail with the thief_.”
Landlords close their doors to despised Jean Valjean. A woman casts her
bread to dogs while he goes hungry. Coming to the bishop’s door, he is
welcomed. “Sit down and be warmed, sir, and sleep and lodge with me. You
are my brother. Take this money and never forget you have promised me to
employ it in becoming an honest man.”
Conscience whispers, “Jean, you may go up by the bishop and be an angel,
or stay below with the demons and be a devil.”
In that hour the sleeping virtues of his nature awoke, and he arose to
return to God to sanctify his life. The thought of doing wrong went
through him like a knife, and he became incapable of stealing. The
bishop’s smiles filled his heart with unspeakable happiness, and the
power of God transformed the sinner into the saint.
In the end, when emaciated by suffering, scarred by many battles with
wrong, he lay down to die, he said: “My children, remember God is above.
He sees all. He is Love.”
They saw him looking, like Stephen, into the open heavens, and heard him
say, “I know not what is the matter with me, but _I see light_.”
And the waiting angels bore his spirit away to the land of eternal day.
EVENING
The evening session was held in Beth Ahabah Temple. Homer Folks,
Secretary of the New York State Charities Aid Association, presented the
following report of the Committee on Prevention and Probation:
“To the average person the word ‘crime’ suggests some isolated act of an
individual, having as to its origin little relation presumably to his
other acts, still less relation to other persons, and no relation
whatever to the community at large, except in its unfortunate effects.
The instinctive feeling of the average person to the criminal is that he
is an irrational being, and our hope is that he may be put away, or at
least kept a safe distance from us. The average person’s philosophy of
crime is intensely individualistic.
“There are those, however, who challenge this view and deny it
absolutely. Crime, they say, is not essentially individual; it is
actually a social product, the result of a faulty social system. Adopt
their plan of social reorganization and in their opinion crime will
disappear. Without accepting the too easy optimism of the reconstructors
of society, it is evident that their point of view is a valuable
corrective of the extreme individuality of our earlier views. It must be
evident to anyone who keeps his eyes open and tries to be honest with
himself that crime is a joint product of the individual and his
environment. A crime is not an isolated act; it is, as a rule, the last
step in a long process. It is at once a symptom and a result; a symptom
of instability, a result of deterioration. It is the appearance at the
surface of a stream whose source is far back, but which is for the
greater part of the distance entirely hidden or not easily observable.
It is an unwelcome fruit, but it has slowly ripened, in our presence,
and on a tree which we have permitted to grow. The process of
deterioration ending in crime is the resultant of the reaction upon the
individual of the sum total of influences, economic facts and
associations constituting his environment.
“Seen from this point of view our subject becomes bewilderingly
comprehensive. The prevention of crime is one of the important results
hoped for from the long process of civilization. It is an end toward
which many diverse influences are consciously or unconsciously directed.
Many laborers in many fields, unknown to each other, are working for
this result. Among them we may mention every church which is teaching
the subordination of the present pleasure to the future greater good;
every home circle in which dignity and strength of character are being
built up; every health officer who is conscientiously laboring to
restrict the ravages of preventable diseases; every teacher who
inculcates self-mastery by precept and by example; every public official
who is striving to make effective the public will for better things;
every employer who seeks to soften the iron law of competition--in
short, all those who, in individual effort or in organization, are
trying to build up a saner, more wholesome, better-knit community.
“As many forces are working for the prevention of crime; so also many
are working for its production. Wherever the illusory pleasure of the
present is exalted above the ultimate good; wherever luxury is
ostentatiously displayed; wherever human weakness is exploited for
financial gain; wherever the public will is thwarted; wherever the heart
becomes hard and the eye steely; wherever duty is evaded; wherever
disease is unchecked--in all these ways crime is encouraged and
promoted.
“The prevention of crime, therefore, is a topic not for a brief paper
for a portion of one evening’s exercises, but for a constructive program
for generations. We may, nevertheless, single out two or three factors
in the production of crime, as to which the time seems peculiarly ripe
for corrective action.
“We would mention first the frequency with which the very agencies
established and slowly worked out by the community for the punishment of
crime, or for its prevention, become agencies for precisely the opposite
result; and by their action tend to increase and to propagate crime
rather than to diminish it. I have in mind specifically our criminal
courts and our penal and reformatory institutions. Who has had
opportunity for close observation of our criminal courts without being
impressed by the extraordinary element of chance that enters into all
their operations! How many chances there are that the offender will not
be arrested at all; and how many chances there are that if arrested the
technical legal proof will be wanting; and how many chances there are
that if the technical legal proof be forthcoming the resources of an
ample purse will be sufficient to tie up the proceedings in an endless
tangle of complications which an ordinary lifetime is too short to
unravel. Under these circumstances the offender almost invariably feels
himself the victim, not of his own wrongdoing, but of chance. He regards
the operations of the law not as expressing slowly but surely the
community’s sense of right and justice, but as the gambler watches the
cards or the dice, and, with all the gambler’s belief in luck, is
confident that the penalty will not finally be actually inflicted.
“And if we add to such a degree of chance as perhaps must of necessity
exist, the belief spread abroad in the community, whether rightly
founded or otherwise, that political, personal or other improper
considerations reach out and influence the decisions which are supposed
to take cognizance only of the law and the facts, we have gone a long
way toward a state in which every man feels justified in being a law
unto himself.
“But when the law grips and the culprit finds himself behind the bars of
the jail or the reformatory, what processes have we set in motion? I
suppose that of all the factors that have entered into the production
and encouragement of crime, the consensus of opinion among those
competent to judge would place the county jail foremost. With what
inconceivable callousness we have thrown into promiscuous association
those not yet determined to be guilty of an offense (and of whom a
goodly number will finally be declared innocent) and those against whom
the judgment of conviction has been entered! With what inconceivable
shortsightedness we have mingled those guilty of the least offenses with
those to whom vice and crime have become second nature, and under
circumstances of enforced idleness and enforced association! Worst of
all, children arrested for even the slightest offenses, and occasionally
for no offense other than homelessness, have been unintentionally made
the pupils of adepts in every form of vice and crime. I am painting no
imaginary or fanciful picture; I am describing the thing that has
existed, and still exists, throughout practically the entire United
States. The county jail is the classic instance of an institution
established to serve one purpose and actually serving exactly the
opposite purpose, intended to promote the good order of the community,
and actually a most potent factor in every form of demoralization, an
agency by which the traditions of crime are handed on undiminished from
one generation to another, by which the ranks are kept full and new
recruits at least equal in numbers those who drop out.
“And as to our penal institutions for the care only of convicted
offenders for considerable periods of time, what is the net effect of
prison life upon the prisoner? We would like to think that the work of
John Howard has been substantially completed. We gladly recognize the
fact that a large and increasing number of prison officials, such as
those present at this national congress, sincerely desire and earnestly
labor for the good of their prisoners, but I suspect that they would
agree with us that the inherent and almost unescapable tendency of
prison life, even in the best institutions, is not to build up either
the physical or moral stamina; and unfortunately not all officials of
penal institutions are in attendance at this congress, and not all are
represented by the spirit which is here present. The work of John Howard
has to be done over again with each generation. There are only too many
prisons to which the biting words of Oscar Wilde would apply:
“The vilest deeds like poison weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
And the Warder is Despair.
“For they starve the little frightened child
Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool
And gibe the old and gray,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.
“With midnight always in one’s heart,
And twilight in one’s cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
Each in his separate Hell;
And the silence is more awful far
Than the sound of a brazen bell.
“And never a human voice comes near
To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
With soul and body marred.
“The establishment of juvenile reformatories has always indicated a
realization of the evils of leaving children uncared for and equally of
the evil of committing those of tender years to penal institutions. Born
of a benevolent purpose, to what extent have they in practice realized
the intent of their founders? When we contemplate the extent to which
prison methods have been reproduced in juvenile reformatories; the
extent to which cells and bolts and bars have been deemed necessary; the
severe and ofttimes brutal punishments inflicted; the mingling of those
of tender years with those much farther along in the school of crime;
the absence until recently, and in many instances at present even, of
facilities for suitable industrial training; the woeful inadequacy of
any system of care or oversight while on parole, we are obliged to admit
that even the juvenile reformatory has not been an unmixed blessing;
that many have learned within its walls far more about wrongdoing than
they knew before; and that its _régime_ has been too often far removed
from that which would develop strength of purpose and strength of
character.
“The recent revolution in the methods of some reformatories which find
its most complete expression in the New York State Agricultural and
Industrial School of Industry, near Rochester, N. Y., is the strongest
evidence of the weakness of the other plan. At this institution the boys
are subdivided into groups of twenty-two each. These groups are not
placed closely about a central “Village Green,” but are scattered as
widely as possible over an area of fourteen hundred acres of fine
farming land. Each group has not only its cottage, but its barn, its
live stock, etc. The boys lead as nearly as possible the life of the
ordinary farmer’s son. You might drive through the grounds of the
institution without recognizing it as an institution. Its work is
commended to the serious consideration of all those interested in
juvenile reformatories.
“At the outset we indicated, however, that the great forces for the
prevention of crime are to be found not in institutions, but in
influences; not in repression, but in development; not so much in
discipline as in affection; not in coercion, but in care. To provide
these things, it is not always necessary to remove the juvenile
offender, even though he be a real offender, from his home. We have in
the past decade witnessed an extraordinary development in many States of
the Union of a system which is in effect an effort to carry personal
interest, care, affection, uplifting influence, inspiring personality,
into the home. This is the probation system. The probation officer is
simply a representative of the community striving to make up that which
has been lacking; to counteract the slowly acting influences which have
made for deterioration; to set in motion the recuperative factors in the
individual and in his immediate environment.”
The subject of probation was further discussed by the Rev. Dr. A. J.
McKelway, of Atlanta, who spoke on “The Need of Reformatories and the
Juvenile Court System in the South”; and by Henry W. Thurston, Chief
Probation Officer, Juvenile Court, Chicago. Dr. McKelway said in part:
“It is time that our Southern States awoke to the crying need for the
humane and merciful treatment of the children who go astray; it has only
to avail itself of the experience of other States to meet the need. If
it be said that our poverty is yet too great to undertake the additional
expense, be it said in reply that we are too poor not to save to the
State the criminal expenses that inevitably follow the lack of such
reformatory institutions, and that the restoration of one child to a
useful life, from a life of crime and shame, is well worth the attention
of any civilized State.
“And when we learn to treat the young criminal properly, to consider the
unfortunate environment which breeds crime, we should be led to the
consideration of the larger problems involved and the reformation of the
adult criminal, that he also may be, wherever possible, transformed into
a man, instead of being hardened in iniquity.
“In the State of Georgia, during the investigation of the convict lease
system, a pitiful case was presented to the attention of the legislative
committee of investigation. A white boy, sixteen years of age, was
sentenced to the chain gang for stealing a pot of ham. While at work on
the chain gang he resisted the too near approach of one of the warden’s
hogs, and threw upon the hog some of the hot coffee with which he was
supplied. For this crime Abe Winn was beaten until even, in the
judgment of the camp physician, he was fit only for the hospital, and he
entered the hospital, to be removed in a few weeks as a corpse.
“There are many such instances of cruelty to young convicts, white and
black, for which the State has provided no better reformatory than the
chain gang, and yet people of the South are a humane people, abhorring
cruelty.
“The final argument for the extension and complete adjustment of the
juvenile court system in the South and for the building and proper
maintenance of model reformatories is the development of the factory
villages of the South, with their system of family labor, including the
labor of the child. There are now some seven hundred or eight hundred of
these communities in the South, either entirely separate from other
communities or forming a separate section of our municipalities.
“It has been amply proved that the ranks of our criminal population are
not being recruited from the schools, but from the army of neglected
children, especially the army of the toiling children. It is a matter of
commonest complaint of the managers of our factories where children are
employed that both the boys and the girls, especially the boys, so soon
become unmanageable.
“Their arguments in opposition to child labor laws really amount to the
plea that these children of the factory villages must be sentenced to
labor in the mills, either by day or by night, in order that they be
kept out of mischief.
“I hold that the child labor system or the family labor system--in the
one case the mother being kept at work and away from the duties of the
home; in the other case, the children early developing, as
bread-winners, first the spirit of independence, then of irreverence,
disobedience and finally hoodlumism--is responsible for this state of
affairs.
“We are making progress in the South in the correction of this abuse. At
the same time there is urgent need for the proper handling of these
children of the factory districts, under authority of the law, when they
manifest their disposition to recruit the criminal classes.”
On the question, “What Should the Probation Officer Do for the Child?”
Mr. Thurston said: “Two theories are now in conflict in the United
States, one that it is enough to look after the child thirty, sixty or
ninety days, keep it out of court, and then discharge it; the other,
that if something is wrong with the child’s intellectual, physical and
moral adjustment, this must be found and, if possible, corrected.
“The delinquent child is an embryo enemy of society as now organized,”
he said. “The duty of the probation officer is far more than the
collecting of fines, receiving reports and carrying out explicit court
orders. He has an opportunity to get in close touch with the youthful
criminals as few can.
“Of course, the child should be made to obey the law and live up to
court orders. There can be no two opinions on this point, but mere
external conformity is not real obedience, and the probation officer
must strive to reach the sources of the child’s delinquency.
“It is therefore his duty to study each delinquent child as the
physician studies his patient. Successful diagnosis is essential to
intelligent service. It is not enough that a probation officer visit a
child regularly. He must visit with definite plans in mind and make
definite record of the same with results. At least these phases of the
child’s life must be constantly attended to.”
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 16
MORNING SESSION
At ten o’clock the Wardens’ Association held its meeting, with Vice
President W. H. Haskell, of Kansas, in the chair. After paying a
beautiful tribute to the deceased President, Warden C. E. Haddox, of
West Virginia, Mr. Haskell introduced the Hon. R. W. Withers, of the
Virginia House of Delegates, who spoke on “Convict Labor on the Public
Highways,” and explained in detail the workings of the Lassiter-Withers
road law in his State.
“The roads there used to be described in very uncomplimentary terms, but
now there are many miles of good macadam roads in the commonwealth,
thanks to the wisdom of the State and the strong arms of the convicts.
“No prisoner with a sentence longer than five years is allowed to work
on the roads, and jail prisoners are worked in separate gangs and
without stripes. There are twelve gangs now working in different parts
of the State. A prisoner awaiting trial may work also, if he so elect.
If he is afterwards acquitted he is allowed fifty cents a day for every
day that he has worked. If he is fined this amount may go toward the
payment of the fine, and if he is imprisoned the time counts on his
sentence. The success has far exceeded the expectations of the most
sanguine. The men are healthier, happier, better morally; and the
counties are getting good roads.
“The State employs an expert engineer at $3,000 and three consulting
engineers without pay. The county furnishes material and tools, the
State labor and brains. The county makes an application for convict
labor for a certain road to the Highway Commission and the road is
surveyed, a careful estimate given, blue prints prepared and the county
then considers the matter. If it accepts the estimate a requisition for
convicts is made and they are put into tents or portable iron cabins,
where they are housed at night and in stormy weather. At night a guard
with a rifle is on duty, but each convict is also chained by the leg. By
day they wear no chains, but are under the surveillance of a gun.
“When they first come from the prison they are not very strong. None of
them is allowed to do more than ten hours work a day, less in winter.
After a few weeks they show a great change in appearance and in
strength, and statistics show that with the better food and the fresh
air they increase in weight, on an average, fifteen pounds. Last year in
the penitentiary in a population of twelve hundred there were
twenty-five deaths, and of those nineteen died from tuberculosis. Most
of the prisoners are negroes, and tuberculosis is the most deadly
disease among them. During the same period in a road force of seven
hundred and eighty there was not a death.
“But another thing is important. You cannot reform men without healthy
occupation. Crime comes chiefly from idleness, and inability to work
from lack of training. This gives healthful work. Not a man has been
found who, after trying it, would not prefer the outdoor work to
remaining in the penitentiary. The common phrase is, “The road for me!”
Under the old plan the State paid $150,000 a year to keep these men in
idleness, and there was nothing to show for it. Now a smaller amount is
used with the result of good roads.
“The roads cost on an average about $3,000 a mile. It costs about
seventy cents a day for each man, to feed, guard, clothe, transport and
recapture him; forty cents a day for feeding, guarding and transporting.
At present there are four hundred and fifty men in the twelve camps, of
whom more than half are jail men. The long-time convicts naturally
become the best road builders, but the short-time men can do a great
deal. In twelve months there were but eighteen escapes, and eleven of
the fugitives were recaptured. Stone crushers, furnished by the county,
are used, but all the work save running the engine is done by the
convicts. Virginia furnishes abundance of stone. The men get it out of
the quarry, ready for crushing, and after it is crushed pile it by the
road ready for spreading. They also, of course, do the grading and
surfacing.
“On Sundays the local preachers hold services in each camp and reading
matter is provided, but there is no schooling. Whenever possible the
road is cut off from public travel while the convicts are at work.
“The system of conditional pardon exists in Virginia. It is granted
after they have served half their term if they are recommended by the
board, but each man must have honest labor provided for him before he
can thus be paroled. This still applies to these men. If they are sick
or injured the county physician looks after them. This road-making
experiment has been working eighteen months continuously because the
climate is so mild the men can work outdoors all winter.”
Warden W. H. Moyer, of the Federal Prison, Atlanta, Ga., read a paper on
the question, “Should Indiscriminate Visiting to Prisons and Prisoners
Be Permitted?” The speaker distinguished between indiscriminate visits
to _prisons_ and to _prisoners_. He declared himself opposed to both.
Visits to _prisons_ are usually made only to satisfy a morbid curiosity,
and often result in unjust criticism, destructive of public confidence.
They should therefore be prohibited, excepting by those who are engaged
in educational or charitable work. Visitors to _prisoners_ are rarely
prompted by morbid curiosity. With very rare exceptions such visitors
are relatives. But only in specially meritorious cases should even these
be admitted.
“To the young man of fine sensibilities a visit from his wife or mother
would be deplorable. It may seem anomalous to speak of convicts with
fine sensibilities, but the expression is perfectly proper and entirely
applicable. There are such convicts, and that fact cannot be too well
recognized.”
The speaker illustrated this view by relating the example of a young
wife who at first decided to reside near the penitentiary in which her
husband was confined, but who finally wisely decided to await his return
to their distant home rather than to meet him in convict garb and amid
a prison environment.
“Such instances are not isolated; there are many others of a similar
nature which have occurred frequently in my experience, but, after all,
they are at most exceptional, and merely establish what I have already
stated, that a hard and fast rule absolutely prohibiting visits to
prisoners is not now practicable, although such a rule would be
justified in a very large proportion of actual cases.
“Answering, now, the question which is the subject of this paper, I
submit my opinion that indiscriminate visits to the prison and the
prisoners should not be permitted.”
AFTERNOON SESSION
Col. Joseph S. Pugmire, of Toronto, Ontario, submitted the report of the
Committee on Discharged Prisoners. He said in part: “The day of the
prisoner’s discharge is a critical time. So much depends upon how he
starts life again. The attitude of society toward the released prisoner
often hinders those who are trying to save him, and makes his lot hard.
They say: ‘There goes a criminal; give him a wide berth; he is not to be
trusted, but is coming out to do what he did before.’ I do not excuse
his wrong, but I plead for such to have a chance. It is not enough to
lecture him and even pity him. We must go beyond that. What impresses me
with regard to these men (and I have dealt with thousands) is not that
they are resentful and vicious, but that they are as helpless as babes,
powerless to help themselves.
“I contend that we are doing society a great injustice, as well as the
prisoner himself, to allow him to step into liberty again without some
careful oversight. What the discharged prisoner needs is a real friend
who will give him the opportunity to rise and do better on the causeway
of redemption, meeting him at the prison doors, arranging a helpful
environment and providing him with employment of some kind.”
In his address on “The Duty of Society to the Discharged Prisoner,”
Bishop Samuel Fallows, of Chicago, emphasized two points: 1. The
discharged prisoner is a man and a brother; therefore our sympathy must
go out to him. 2. Society must do its utmost to rehabilitate the one who
has infracted the law, and above all to give him employment. If a man is
willing to work it is the best evidence that his reformation has begun.
Statistics show that the majority of those who are again usefully
employed turn out well.
In the discussion which followed, Warden Wolfer, of Minnesota, made the
suggestion that prisoners should be allowed increased earnings for
overtime, to be applied to the support of the families of married men
and to give single men a start in business when they leave prison. In
this he was strongly seconded by Dr. F. Emory Lyon, Superintendent
Central Howard Association, Chicago, and Warden McClaughry, of Kansas;
and the latter was subsequently instructed to prepare a resolution on
the subject to be submitted to the congress.
In his paper on “The Man with the Bundle,” the Rev. Frank G. Brainerd,
Superintendent of the Society for the Friendless, Kansas City, laid
stress on providing the discharged prisoner with work and wholesome
recreations and inspiring him with high ideals. In speaking of the work
of his society, he said: “The men, upon release, are given every
necessary assistance and care. It is the custom in the West to take the
discharged prisoner directly to the home of the Superintendent, that for
a few days he may live under his roof, sit at his table, find a home
with his family and be made to believe that wholesome and clean ways of
living are for him also if he wills it. It is the custom then to find
him congenial employment, to fit him out an extra suit of clothes, a
change of underwear and, if necessary, an overcoat. These are
contributed by friends of the society over the State. A suitable
boarding place is found, new friends are provided, money is loaned and
board bills are guaranteed if necessary, and he is given friendship,
oversight and counsel in his effort to live a new life.
“Little can be known by the public of the heroism and the pathos of the
struggle which many a man makes with the all but overpowering odds
against him. Success achieved by others with hardly an effort can be
attained by him only after an almost superhuman struggle. Right choices
that make themselves for others are absolutely heroic for him. Had he
their habits and self-control, half the effort with which he now barely
escapes failure would bring him splendid success. Knowing nothing of his
battles, others cannot realize the fight he makes for his victories.
“_E. g._, a Scotch-Irishman, forty-six years old, made the remark during
his first meal at our home that it was the first time in his life that
he had eaten at a table where they had napkins. He was not without much
native ability and an instinctive mannerliness. His mother had died
when he was a baby and he had had no home since seven years of age. He
had been a drunkard for years, had been in jail several times for
pilfering when drunk, and finally was sent to prison for breaking into a
box car and stealing merchandise. He was released on parole. There never
was a kinder man about the house, and after he was provided with
employment and a boarding place no week passed without his coming back
once or twice for a little call. He said that it was the only home that
he had ever had. He never drank another drop of liquor; he chose an
entirely new sort of companions, and when discharged from parole had
$200 in bank. During that time, when the family of the Superintendent
were away on a visit and the Superintendent himself away about half the
time, this man was given the keys of the home and stayed there in full
charge for seven weeks.
“Another notable case is that of a man who had been a criminal for
thirty years. He had spent thirteen years in prisons and had stolen
during the other seventeen years an average of more money each year than
any prisoner’s aid society in the United States expends annually. He had
never earned a day’s wages outside the penitentiaries. That man has been
toiling in heat and in cold and has been self-supporting and absolutely
honest for the last year and a half. In the panic last fall he was
temporarily out of work and money, yet his courage did not leave him nor
his success fail.
“Such men are in direst need. It is a happiness to grip their hands and
to strengthen their purpose; to have them sleep under one’s roof, eat at
one’s table and breathe hope and courage at one’s fireside. Some are
good, some indifferent, some bad. It is not for us to choose among them,
but to offer opportunity to everyone who knocks at our doors.”
EVENING SESSION
The presiding officer at the evening session, Mr. Hallam F. Coates,
member of the Board of Managers, Ohio State Reformatory, and President
of the Association of Governing Boards of Penal, Reformatory and
Preventive Institutions, introduced Mr. H. Grotophorst, of Wisconsin,
who addressed the meeting on “State Boards of Control,” and claimed many
advantages for these as compared with the ordinary boards of public
charities. In Wisconsin such a board, consisting of five members (one
of them a woman), is charged with the maintenance and government of all
the reformatory, charitable and penal institutions established or
supported by the State. This board holds in trust all the property and
money conveyed or bequeathed to the different institutions; appoints the
superintendents, wardens, physicians, etc.; discharges these for cause;
directs how the books and accounts of all the institutions shall be
kept; formulates the rules for their government; supervises the purchase
of all supplies; makes all contracts; locates new institutions; and has
the power of parole and of transfer from one institution to another. The
speaker claimed the following advantages for such central control, to
wit, constant visitation of the institutions; proper coördination
between them; the elimination of controversies to which separate boards
often give rise; uniformity in rules, salaries and methods of
administration; freedom from politics; and above all far greater economy
in expenditures.
In his paper on “Prison Management,” Mr. John C. Easley, member of the
Board of Directors of the Virginia State Penitentiary, said in part:
“There has been an increase of about one hundred per cent. in the
proportion of colored felons in Virginia since 1870. There are nine
times as many felonies committed among one thousand blacks as among one
thousand whites. In 1880 we found one white felon for every thirty-nine
hundred and thirty-two of white population, and notwithstanding the more
rapid growth in our urban communities, where the percentage of crime is
always greater, and notwithstanding a very considerable influx of
foreign population, we found in 1900, when the last census was taken,
that the proportion of felons among the whites had been reduced to one
in every forty-eight hundred and forty-nine, thus demonstrating that
with our present system of public education the percentage of crime
among the whites has decreased. Whatever the reason for the increase in
negro crime, whether our system of negro education is faulty, whether
the negro lacks moral tone, whether his political diet is too strong,
whether we are trying to fix the keystone in place while the arch lacks
foundation, the situation must be met, and coming consequences must be
provided for and against.
“So far as I am informed, the annals of history afford no example of two
separate races successfully occupying the same country at the same time,
upon the same terms, and when these separate races represent the two
extremes of humankind, how great the necessity for caution. To each of
you, therefore, I appeal personally to give this subject your most
serious consideration, to the end that the best preventive measures may
be adopted and crime lessened. There is no prison management so good as
that which keeps the prison empty, and there are no measures to keep it
empty so effective as those which prevent crime.”
Mr. Easley’s address provoked some discussion. A negro delegate
explained that the increase in crime among his race is confined to the
lower classes, and does not apply to those who are attempting to elevate
the race.
Prof. Henderson presented a paper on “Foreign Views of Our Indeterminate
Sentence and Reformatory System,” in which he critically analyzed and
answered the objections made against it by some German penologists on a
recent visit to this country.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17
On Tuesday the delegates were given a trip on the James River to
Westover and return, and were entertained by the Local Committee with
the most lavish southern hospitality.
EVENING SESSION
At eight P. M. the Chaplains’ Association held its meeting. In his
address, the President, the Rev. John L. Sutton, of New Orleans, said,
among other things: “Two of the greatest difficulties encountered in
prison reform work are, first, the absolute need of good, moral men as
prison officials--men who will take the spiritual meaning of the law and
be, indeed, their brother’s keeper; for they are the ones who come into
daily contact with the prisoners, and it is from them that the most good
can be derived. Hence, here is a gulf that must be spanned, and how?
Very easily. Physicians, lawyers, teachers, ministers--in fact, all
professional men in positions of importance--must be qualified to take
their places in life, and why should the guardians of eighty thousand
souls be such a flagrant exception to this wise precautionary method?
Why should they continue to be chosen irrespective of ability or
character, and, as a rule, be drawn from the political world?
“Second. The other great need in prison reform work is that the churches
as a whole bear their part in this great work; and I will speak of only
my own church. In seven years’ connection with my conference exhaustive
reports and discussions of educational, missionary and temperance
questions, all problems of importance, and with which I am in sympathy,
have absorbed the time and attention of the preachers, but they have
failed properly to consider the needful work of prison reform.
“I hold that over eighty thousand people behind the prison bars now in
this great country of ours are in as great need of the missionary care
and attention of our churches as the heathen in the wilds of Africa.”
“Reformatory Work from the Standpoint of an Active Minister” was the
subject of a paper by the Rev. Hiram W. Kellogg, D. D., of Wilmington,
Del. Speaking of the church as a factor in such work, he said:
“What are we doing to prevent delinquency? Is the church a real and
determining factor in the life of the community? Is it the guardian of
childhood against the ravages of greed and crime? Is it pleading for
true home life, this citadel of civilization? Is it protecting
motherhood and guaranteeing to every child the right to be born well? Is
it curtailing the power of the saloon, the low theater? Is it cleaning
the streets of suggestions of sin and making them fit for boys and
girls? Is it opening its buildings every night in the week and turning
its awful silence into the glad music of happy children’s voices?
“Is it surrounding boy life with safe associations and making the path
of religion bright with such joys as will conserve him in after years by
sweet memories? Is it supporting public schools and juvenile courts and
every institution not of its own immediate work, but which are essential
auxiliaries to preventing of wrongdoing?
“In short, is the church bringing its concentrated talent intelligently
to the beginnings of human life? This is the hopeful field we have long
known, but is it the most effectively worked? You have the facts, and
facts rule our age; theories have no value beyond the facts that sustain
them.”
Major R. W. McClaughry, Warden of the United States Penitentiary,
Leavenworth, Kan., read the following paper on “The Chaplain from the
Warden’s Viewpoint”:
“The warden is apt to regard the chaplain as a great help or a great
hindrance in his work. The chaplain may often be justified in having the
same opinion of the warden. Whenever the personal relations between the
warden and the chaplain are to any extent strained, the latter is at
great disadvantage. A very few remarks dropped by the warden may so
discredit the chaplain with guards and prisoners as to utterly paralyze
his influence and destroy his usefulness, and this without any charges
having been preferred on either side.
“A friendly and well-meaning warden may often greatly handicap a
chaplain in his proper work by loading him up with duties that do not
belong to his position--_e. g._, making him postmaster, newspaper
inspector, librarian, schoolmaster and general executor and
administrator--ante mortem and post mortem--of estates of sick and
deceased prisoners.
“I do not think a chaplain ought to be required to inspect and pass upon
the incoming and outgoing mail of prisoners. In the first place his
training and education unfit him to read between the lines of letters
that need inspection, while the mental drudgery imposed upon him, if he
carefully reads all outgoing and incoming letters in a prison of
ordinary size, unfits him for the proper work of his office. Besides,
the knowledge that he has read all their correspondence prejudices
against him many prisoners and renders his efforts to help them vain.
“I doubt the wisdom of placing him in charge of the library in a large
prison, save as a general adviser and aid to the prisoners in enabling
them to select helpful books to read, and this work can be done during
his visits to the prisoners in their cells and dormitories. This
visitation is the most important work that he can do in the prison, and
should on no account be omitted. The preaching service that he renders
will be far more helpful and acceptable--as will also his Sunday-school
instruction--if it grows out of and is tempered by his experience in
cell visitation. A pastor who wishes to become helpfully acquainted with
the inner life of his parishioners does not summon them one by one to
his office for interviews and see them nowhere else. No more can the
chaplain follow that plan and hope to succeed with his parishioners.
“Sometimes a warden deems it his duty to apply certain portions of the
thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians to his chaplain and require him
to ‘bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all
things’; therefore it behooves the chaplain to be at all times as ‘wise
as a serpent,’ and sometimes ‘as harmless as a dove’; but where the
occasion arises (which fortunately is but seldom) for the chaplain to
use the language of rebuke, it calls for the highest quality of
courage, and the chaplain who then shirks or quails stamps himself as
unfit for his high office.
“If the prophet Nathan, when he sought that interview with Israel’s
king, had hesitatingly remarked that he had a very unpleasant matter to
talk about, which might get into the newspapers and create a royal
scandal, etc., the proud monarch would probably have kicked him
downstairs. But the fate of a great nation depended upon his courage and
when he said, ‘Thou art the man,’ his shaft of truth pierced the joints
of the royal armor and brought the monarch to his knees. Comparing small
things with great, even so may the fate of a public institution
sometimes depend upon the fidelity to duty of one who esteems himself
the least among all its officials, and when his word is backed by high
courage and a consistent and blameless life, it may prove more potent
for good than the utterances of wardens or commissioners or governors.
“From the warden’s point of view I beg to suggest that the clergyman who
is called for the first time to the chaplaincy of a prison or
reformatory should have the major part of his expectancy of life
_before_ rather than _behind_ him. To make the chaplaincy a ‘snug
harbor’ for the superannuated is unjust to the chaplain and to the
institution. At no time in his life does a minister need to have his
physical, mental and spiritual forces in fuller play than when he
undertakes the chaplaincy of a prison or reformatory. He may grow old in
the service, and his strength increase with his years because of his
manner of life and the experience that faithful service has brought to
him, but under ordinary circumstances the younger man has the best
prospect of success.
“The question may arise, ‘Is anyone sufficient for these things?’ Not in
his own strength, but ‘as thy day thy strength shall be’ is the promise
held out to the sincere and faithful worker. And some of us can recall
the names of men who have achieved splendid success in that particular
line of prison work. Especially does the name of one come to me who took
part in the organization of this Association, who served his Master and
his fellow-men so successfully in the Michigan State Prison that when he
was granted rapid transit ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ from the very
corridor of the prison to the glory which was awaiting him, left a
memory so fragrant and so well beloved that the name of Hecox is still
an inspiration to hundreds of hearts, which, years ago, were turned by
him into the paths of righteousness.”
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18
MORNING SESSION
The morning session of Wednesday was given over to the Prison
Physicians’ Association. Dr. Charles V. Carrington, of Richmond, read a
paper on “Sterilization of Habitual Criminals.” As a believer in the
theory of transmitted criminality, Dr. Carrington proved himself a
strong advocate of sterilization as a method of preventing the
multiplication of criminals.
“Prevention of crime is the motto of our juvenile courts, reformatories,
probation officers and societies for the aid of the discharged convict.
“After ten years of investigation as prison surgeon, I am unreservedly
of the opinion that sterilization of our habitual criminals is a proper
measure, and I believe that if habitually enforced it will lessen their
number.
“The punitive side of our dealings with criminals is always to the
front. Punish him is the first proposition. Lock him up. There are our
Christianizing reformative measures, splendid in their way, but for the
habitual criminal there must be some powerful deterrent remedy, and
sterilization is undoubtedly that remedy.
“When I say sterilize the habitual criminal, I know that an
understanding of the term is necessary before my remedy would be a just
one to enforce. The incorrigible ‘second-term’ man, as well as those
guilty of arson, assault, train wrecking and murder, should be treated
as habituals.
“All of us know that in many instances the criminal inherits his
instincts. The detective of forty years’ experience will tell you that a
large percentage of prison inmates are hereditary criminals. Now, if the
grandfather had been sterilized, what a lot of crime and suffering would
have been prevented. In our enlightened age we should stop this hideous
reproduction of criminals and sterilize the grandson for the good it
will do in the coming years.
“Certain families in Virginia have been regularly represented on our
prison rolls for the past fifty years, and will go on unless the breed
is stopped. I have sterilized two prisoners in my connection with the
State Penitentiary, and in each case it proved as proper a health
measure as the removal of an appendix.”
In a paper on “Tuberculosis and the Colored Convict,” Dr. Julian W.
Sloan, of Richmond, said in part:
“Taking up the colored convict himself as a cause we readily recognize
in his heredity, his racial predilection for tuberculosis, his poverty
with its attendant evils, his almost total ignorance of proper living
methods, factors potent for the propagation and spread of tuberculosis.
“Add to these factors inherent in nearly all our colored convicts the
devitalizing and resistance-lowering factor of cell life--a factor in
itself capable of so increasing the receptivity of convicts as to leap
with a single bound to the first place as a means by which tuberculosis
is propagated and spread. Add again labor in factories where hygiene and
sanitation do not hold sway, where factory dust constantly fills the
lungs of the convict. Add yet again the depressing effects inevitable
from even the best prison discipline--add these causes together, I say,
and we have a sum total that appals us and seems to deprive the poor
convict of every chance to escape this terrible scourge.
“Conquering tuberculosis in our prisons, as elsewhere, is not to follow
upon any one method or agency or from the unaided efforts of the medical
profession. I am here reminded to quote to this effect from Dr. Alfred
Meyer, of New York: ‘The most hopeful sign in the world-wide combat with
tuberculosis is the steady growth and coöperation among all the agencies
engaged. The first impulse in the campaign came from the medical
profession. Then gradually there came to our assistance sociologists,
philanthropists, charitable and religious organizations, and finally
municipal, State and national governments. If the chain which is to bind
the scourge is ever to be forged it will be by the union of all the
links hitherto disunited and by the substitution of systematic for
sporadic efforts. That we are on our way toward this end was well
illustrated during the recent session of the International Congress and
Exhibition on Tuberculosis at Washington.’
“With the municipal, State and national governments awakening, as we see
they are, to their sense of duty toward the man who goes wrong, and in
their awakening providing that the square deal shall be given him--that
he shall no longer be the object of vengeance, but a man to be detained
and reformed and educated, I say, with this awakening a great stride
has been taken toward the control of tuberculosis.
“I believe that Virginia has advanced _pari passu_ with other States. To
begin with, the indeterminate sentence, with its inspiring hope, holds
much not only for the future of the convict, but for every day of his
prison life. It insures, too, to a great extent, better everyday
conduct. This in turn helps largely to eliminate corporal punishment,
which is one of the most potent causes of mental and physical wrecks
among our convicts. Of course, with lessened need for corporal
punishment comes lessened need for other punitive measures, namely,
solitary confinement, bread-and-water diet, dark cell, etc., all of
which present dangers to the physical welfare of the convicts that check
our criticisms of the horrors of barbarism.
“Another step taken here in Virginia that has reached far forward was
the erection and fitting of the modern sanitary building which takes
care in the most approved manner of about one half of our convicts at
the penitentiary proper.
“Another step forward, and one of which the wisdom and far-reaching
consequences for good cannot be over-emphasized, is the law that directs
that, at the discretion of the judge, all men with jail sentences, and
all men sentenced to the penitentiary for from one to five years, shall
serve their sentences at hard labor on the State road force.
“This is a great advance, especially in ridding our jails of
short-sentence men, who formerly served their time in idleness, filth
and disease--men who usually entered jail as criminals and in fair
health, to leave as devils incarnate and probably tuberculous.
“At the Virginia Penitentiary we have the constant and loyal support of
the Board of Directors, Superintendent and their aides in obtaining and
maintaining hygienic and sanitary conditions and in all that pertains to
the health of the convict. I venture the assertion that few places,
whether prisons or private dwellings, are kept more rigidly clean and
sanitary than the cells of the Virginia Penitentiary. As an educating
feature alone to the colored convict, this is well worth treble its cost
and trouble. Sufficient ventilation is looked after constantly. In the
old building we cannot claim perfection on this important score, but in
the new building I believe we can. Ample bed covering is provided--this
appeals to everyone as a very necessary adjunct to proper guarding
against tuberculosis. The food at our penitentiary is ample, and after
hundreds of examinations I can say that I have always found it
wholesome. However, whenever a convict comes before the daily call and
appears to need more nourishment it is our custom to give him milk as
long as it seems necessary. It has been our plan for several years at
the penitentiary to diagnose any cases of tuberculosis as early as
possible and then have them sent immediately to our State farm to
receive the benefits of open air combined with dietetic and other
treatment deemed wise by our farm surgeon. The tent system at our State
farm has been of inestimable benefit.
“It is a blot on our good name that we still have the bucket system in
our old building. I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to
strongly urge the necessity for the abolition of this system here and
elsewhere.
“At the Virginia Penitentiary it is our custom to thoroughly fumigate
the cells that have had in them tuberculous convicts. Our hospital wards
are all regularly fumigated. Especial care is given to the fumigation of
mattresses and convict clothing. Our convicts are taught from time to
time the necessity of not expectorating on the cell and factory floors
and walls, and we post liberally signs admonishing everyone not to
expectorate on the walks.
“As will be seen we are merely endeavoring to put into operation those
methods known nearly universally as the methods whereby tuberculosis may
be prevented and cured.
“One recommendation I desire to make--and it is one that we will all
agree is of very considerable importance--is that all cells, hospital,
kitchen, dining room, factory, etc., be screened from flies.
“In my opinion this one recommendation, if carried out, would be a
strong check to the spread not only of tuberculosis, but to other
diseases as well. Another recommendation that would prove of undoubted
profit to the State and a check to the spread of tuberculosis is that
all convicts be required by law to spend as much as one to two hours or
more a day in the open air exercising systematically. This--shall we
call it recreation-health-exercise?--time, of one or two hours, could be
arranged when contracts for convict labor were made.”
In his paper on “The Position a Physician Should Occupy in the Trial,
Sentencing and Care of Criminals,” Dr. Theodore Cook, Jr., of Baltimore,
made a strong plea for a larger recognition of the medical profession in
all questions relating to the condition and treatment of the degenerate,
sick and insane prisoner. His contention was that a great many
criminals are sick either mentally or physically, and that when these
appear for trial the State should see that their infirmities are
recognized and treated scientifically. A recommendation made by him
before the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland was to the effect
that before a person is tried for a serious offense his mental and
physical condition should be examined into by a committee consisting of
the jail physician and prosecuting attorney of the county where the
defendant is to be tried and an alienist; the alienist to be appointed
by the Governor on recommendation of the State Medical Society at a
stipulated salary, and required to organize this committee in each
county at stated intervals. This committee would be required to pass on
the fitness of the prisoner to stand trial and receive sentence and to
see that any infirmities were properly attended to; the youthful
degenerate being given special attention, the sick healed and the insane
sent to a proper institution to remain there until discharged by this
committee. This committee should have full power to summon witnesses to
investigate the prisoner’s condition. Its findings should be filed with
the other court records before trial. Under these circumstances the
committee would determine the mental responsibility of the prisoner, and
to this extent relieve judge, district attorney and jury of a burden.
Dr. Cook also strongly urged that the physician should be given more
authority in the various institutions for the detention and correction
of the criminal classes, and that for the sanitary and hygienic
condition of such institutions he should be held strictly responsible.
EVENING SESSION
In his report of the Committee on Criminal Law Reform, Mr. Roger Phelps
Clark, district attorney, Binghamton, N. Y., said in part:
“As the law is to-day no power can force a witness to go from the State
of Pennsylvania into the adjoining State of New York to testify there
either before a magistrate or a grand or petit jury in a criminal case
other than federal. Consequently it is often the case that criminals
escape punishment and sometimes even prosecution. The punishment of
criminals should not be a local issue.
“Unfortunately the criminal laws are drafted by criminal lawyers, who,
as legislators, are seeking to protect a line of clientage, present and
prospective, rather than their constituents.
“Corporate interests that now possess as many avenues of escape from
regulation that can be made effective only by criminal prosecution, as
there are different State governments, are unwilling to have these
regulations made and enforced by the undivided power and responsibility
of one sovereign law. To them each State government is as a city of
refuge. One of the great questions to-day is whether government shall
control the corporations or the corporations the government.
“It is a deplorable fact that generally throughout this country the
judges presiding in the trials of criminal cases in courts of record are
not sufficiently versed in criminal law. This branch of law is as
thoroughly distinct from civil law as admiralty law is from
ecclesiastical law.
“Judge Taft, in his address on the administration of criminal law, in
June, 1905, before the Yale Law School, called attention to the small
proportion of murderers that were punished. Possibly this is due in a
degree to the lack of courage on the part of jurors. It seems as though
better results are secured in States that have abolished the death
penalty.
“Insanity to-day is usually the moneyed defense. The fact that a rich
man with a homicidal habit can produce experts, apparently respectable,
who will swear that at the time of the commission of the crime he was
insane by reason of a brain storm, but is sane at the time of trial, has
brought such expert testimony into merited contempt and the
administration of criminal law into deserved distrust. The only thing to
do with such a criminal is to keep him under lock and key away from the
stormy stress of free life.”
The Rev. Dr. A. J. McKelway, in speaking on “The Abolition of the Lease
System in Georgia,” gave a history of the system, described its
inhumanities and traced the steps by which its abolition came about.
Beginning when one hundred convicts were first let out for $2,500 a
year, the system grew to such proportions that in 1903 the price was
$225 a man. Many of the men were sublet at $630 a year, and those who
thus trafficked in human beings became known as “convict kings.” The
abolition goes into effect on the first of April of the present year,
and after that date the convicts are to be worked on the roads under
State supervision, and on farms which are to be established. The reform
was brought about by the overwhelming pressure of an aroused public
sentiment; and Dr. McKelway summarized the present public opinion on
this subject in the South as follows:
“First, it has been burned into the hearts of the people that it is not
good for the State to make a profit on crime.
“Second, that the State should not delegate to any person or corporation
not under its complete control the duty of punishing crime or of caring
for the criminal, old or young, white or black.
“Third, that the working of felony convicts on the public roads or
public works is an infinite improvement on the lease system; and that
the working of misdemeanor convicts in the same way is an immense
improvement over the old county jail system.
“Fourth, that the State farm is the best solution yet offered, with such
manual and industrial training as may be given.
“Fifth, that the retributive idea of punishment is giving place at last
to the reformatory idea.
“Sixth, that at least a fair proportion of the profits of the convict
labor should be set aside for the helpless family, or as a fund for a
start in the life of freedom.”
On motion of Joshua L. Baily, President of The Pennsylvania Prison
Society, a resolution was passed congratulating the State of Georgia on
its abolition of the convict lease system.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19
MORNING SESSION
Mr. T. B. Patton, Superintendent of the Industrial Reformatory,
Huntingdon, Pa., presented the report of the Committee on Prevention and
Reformatory Work; and Mrs. Frances A. Morton, Superintendent of the
Reformatory Prison for Women, South Framingham, Mass., spoke on “Outdoor
Employment for Women Prisoners,” describing especially the various forms
of outdoor work in her own institution.
AFTERNOON SESSION
“Prison Discipline,” especially in reformatories, was the subject of a
most interesting address by Mr. J. A. Leonard, Superintendent of the
State Reformatory, Mansfield, Ohio.
“I wish to speak on discipline for certain exceptional types in our
reformatory prisons. I would first consider _the trusty_. There have
been trusties ever since there have been prisons. In our own work I had
in mind to employ a great many young men committed to the reformatory in
a trusted capacity--not to make them informers, not to make them a
bulwark of safety to the institution, not to pamper them, not to make
them envied by the other prisoners, but because the dictum to treat all
prisoners alike is fallacious. All prisoners under certain given
conditions should be treated alike. The even hand of justice is needed
in a prison above any place else. But there are men sent to
reformatories who would stay there if there was not a lock on the
prison. I think fifty per cent. of the men sent to the Ohio State
Reformatory would prove to be self-governing as to the matter of
custody. It is to their interest to be so.
“In setting aside those who are trusties we appeal to intelligence and
thoughtfulness. What has been the result? We had six hundred acres of
land to farm, first as an economic proposition, and second as an agency
for training. Originally our farm was a burden upon the institution,
because all the farming was done under an armed guard. It was quite a
spectacle for men to go along our public highways and see a boy, a
convict, so-called, plowing corn with an $840 man following him with a
gun. It made expensive corn and was a shock to public sense. What could
we do about this matter? To make the farm profitable, economically and
valuable industrially, it was necessary to employ in this outside work a
large number of men. I believed it possible to find young men who would
go out and work faithfully without a great degree of restraint. I wanted
to make the test and we put out fifteen men without an armed guard.
Three ran away. That was not a comfortable experience. I put out thirty
and five ran away. I put out sixty and four ran away. Last year we had
on an average one hundred and fifty men outside unrestrained by any
physical force, and we did not lose a man. What produced this change? A
change in human nature? Not at all. We simply gave free play to an idea
and the sentiment within the institution underwent a change. Three men
out of the one hundred and fifty tried to get away. Two of them
conspired together, one running this way and one that way. The officer
was fleet-footed and captured one of them. (By the way, I have come to
employ officers because they can run fast rather than because of their
ability to shoot straight.) This officer caught one and supposed that
the other had gotten away, but when he came up over the hills by the
roadside he found him. He was on the ground; a fellow-prisoner was
sitting on him and saying to him: ‘You lie still. We are not knocking
you; we are saving you trouble. You know you will be caught. We are
doing you good, but that is not why we are holding you. You are knocking
the system that the superintendent is trying to start here to give us a
fair show, and we will not stand for it.’ Public opinion in the
institution is what made that possible. How do we bring it about? Public
opinion within the institution is largely influenced by our practical
school of ethics. This school had discussed at great length this trusty
system and had given full support to the idea. Discipline will not do
it.
“The number trusted is growing larger and larger each year. We select
them very carefully. I take a boy out quietly in the evening and have a
talk with him. I ask him if he will voluntarily assume that
responsibility. If he agrees, I produce a bond, one that has been
prepared with some red ink, red ribbon and red seals and burdened with
all the meaningless expressions that our legal brethren have burdened us
with. At the bottom of it there are two clauses of plain English that
the boy is supposed to understand. There is nothing like being
impressive as he signs the bond. I say to him: ‘Now here is the place
for your surety. Where are you going to get it?’ He replies, ‘I believe
my folks will give it.’ ‘That cannot be done, my boy. This is an honor
bond.’ Then, ‘I will do it,’ I tell him. ‘I will be your first friend
and stand for you with the deputy.’
“I have signed ten hundred and eighteen of those bonds and only five
have been dishonored. That experiment has been worth a great deal more
than it costs. It costs some anxiety. Next year I expect to put out
about two hundred men if I live. I shall put out more and more each year
and I shall expect this good record to continue, simply because the
fellows inside are standing for it and even in their language they
distinguish. The fellow who scales the walls gets the applause that
always goes with the deed of daring, but the fellow who goes out after
signing a bond with the superintendent’s name to it, ‘takes a sneak,’
and when he is brought back he is made to feel it.
“Those trusties are never informers with us. We have never let them
inform us. The other boys have no prejudices against them. They want to
be with them, but I keep them as far separated as possible. If I were
building a new reformatory the ground plan would look like a spider’s
web and I would have a detached cottage for those who have proven their
trustworthiness.
“The second exceptional class calling for special discipline is _the
bankrupt_. You men who have to deal with the indeterminate sentence know
that no board of managers or set of men can make rules that will meet
the peculiar needs of individual cases. You and I know that in every
prison there are boys who cannot gain eligibility for parole under rules
made for the average, notwithstanding the fact that they are not guilty
of serious offenses, nor are they regarded as malicious or dangerous.
They become bankrupt because of the accumulation of demerits for this
thing and that. What are we going to do? If I excuse those reports it
becomes a personal favor, which is wrong and leads to bad feeling. I
asked myself the question: ‘What has society in all time done to meet
such cases? What is done in the economic world?’ I recently read an
article which said that sixty per cent. of the successful merchants were
bankrupt some time in their life. If a man who has carried on a business
comes into court with clean hands he is given the benefit of bankruptcy;
his obligations are canceled and a new opportunity is afforded him. I
asked myself the question, ‘Why can we not have something of like
character here?’ So I instituted a bankruptcy court. Our general
disciplinarian holds court on all offenses and fixes penalties under the
general rules. There is, however, a right of appeal, first to the
superintendent, and finally to the president of the Board of Managers.
Why then another court? I wanted a court which would be free from any
prejudice on account of the boys’ record, so I selected the assistant
superintendent, who, while charged with the discipline in a general way,
does not pass upon the original offenses, and then the chaplain, who has
no embarrassing relations at all as to discipline. With these two
officers we instituted a court in which were represented both the law
and the gospel. The Board of Managers heartily approved the innovation.
The rules governing that court are as follows:
“Any inmate, who because of misconduct has lost so much time as to
render the prospects of his parole extremely remote, and who, in
good faith, has resolved to establish a good record in the
institution, may make written application to the superintendent
for an exercise of clemency that may come within the
superintendent’s discretion under the rules of the institution.
“If the party making the appeal for clemency has a clear record
for thirty days next preceding the date of the application, the
appeal will be referred to the Bankruptcy Court, consisting of the
assistant superintendent and the chaplain, who will give the
applicant a hearing, carefully review his case, and make a report
of their findings to the superintendent. In case the appeal is
granted, the applicant will be placed in the second grade under
the same conditions as apply to inmates on first entering the
institution, and his consideration for parole will not be
prejudiced by his previous record.
“Any inmate who shall have served one year in the second grade,
and who has failed of promotion to the first grade because of
minor acts of omission or commission, may make written appeal to
the superintendent for promotion to the first grade, and his case
will be dealt with in like manner and on like conditions as stated
above. The superintendent will not remit time lost or make special
promotions except in the manner above indicated.
“People who come to our institution sometimes ask, What is the best
thing you have done? In making reply I do not point to any material
thing. I call attention to the bankruptcy court. It has relieved us of
embarrassment, strengthened our discipline, opened the door of hope,
extracted the teeth of criticism. It has done wonders in this direction.
I had a talk with one of those sinister, embittered boys one day. He was
sullen, not personally insolent to me, except in a degree unconsciously,
and I said to him, ‘I am thinking, my boy, of that good day coming when
you will do just the opposite.’ He said, ‘Why do you think that day will
ever come?’ ‘Simply because you have sense enough in your head; it is
sure to come. You are not so bad. You fancy you are a bad fellow. You
are bad enough for all practical purposes, but you are not so bad as you
think. All you have to do is to turn around. You are a six-cylinder
fellow. You have force and will, and you have obstinacy and lots of
other things you ought not to have, and when you turn around, then we
are going to have one of the best boys instead of the worst.’ He said,
‘You cannot make the officers of this institution believe I would turn
around.’ I said, ‘No, but you and I can make them believe it, not I, but
you and I, and I shall expect it some day.’ After six weeks there came
this letter from him: ‘I have turned around, but in doing so I’m face to
face with a hopeless lot of demerits, and I therefore appeal for the
benefit of the bankruptcy court.’ He was working in the right direction.
I would not take the time to tell you his career afterwards. It was all
I hoped for.
“The third type that requires special methods of discipline is the
sinister ‘smart Aleck.’ A boy of this type came to me in a very insolent
way and said, ‘I am a worse man than when I came.’ I replied: ‘I have
talked to you often, and for the first time your opinion coincides with
mine. I believe you are, as you declare, a worse boy than when you
came.’ He said, ‘What is the good of a reformatory?’ I was sorely
puzzled how to deal with that boy. I said to him, ‘Do you think a place
makes a man good or bad?’ ‘This place has made me bad. No reformatory
reforms anybody.’ ‘My boy, do you believe heaven is a good place. Do you
think the rules and regulations reasonable up there?’ He replied, ‘I
expect so.’ ‘Do you not know that one of the excellent but opinionated
inhabitants of that place got out of tune with it, found fault with the
management, created dissatisfaction among the weaker angels and created
no end of trouble, and the Creator had to provide another place? Do you
know the identity of this trouble maker?’ ‘Yes, the devil.’ ‘Do you know
where he is?’ ‘Yes, in hell.’ ‘He is not in hell all the time, as long
as you feel as you do now.’
“After a little further discussion he was asked if he saw the point of
the illustration. He said he guessed he saw where he was headed for,
according to the example I had held up for him. I then showed him what a
privilege it is to be able to profit from the example of those who have
made a failure rather than to share their experiences. He thereupon
threw aside his cynicism and admitted in the most candid way that he had
been irritable and ugly and expected to be punished, but that my
patience, taken with the illustration, had made him feel differently,
and that he would demonstrate to me that he was not the devil or his
accomplice, nor would he be a trouble maker. He on more than one
occasion later referred to the fact that the devil had been a saving
agency in his reformation.
“The cynical fellow is apt to have sufficient intellect to which to make
successful appeal. I think of a prison as simply a fulcrum for the lever
of reformatory effort. By the sentence of the court confining these two
young men heretofore referred to, I was afforded the fulcrum to bring to
bear the right kind of discipline.
“The next type calling for special discipline is the _outrageous
fellow_. I have asked myself what reason there is in psychology, in
humanity or in common sense for making a prison a silent tomb. How can
we hope to socialize young men by denying them communication by speech?
If a man refuses to talk or laugh, incipient insanity is at once
suspected. With these thoughts in mind, I thought I would do away with
the rule requiring silence in the dining room. Hoary-headed tradition
forbade it; prison administrators in whose wisdom I have the greatest
confidence questioned it; but I was impelled to try it. All went well
until one day the ‘outrageous fellow’ referred to was brought to court
charged with quarreling with his neighbor at table, hurling a large
porcelain bowl of tea into his opponent’s face, slightly burning him and
cutting an ugly gash in his head. The most serious offense, however, was
creating a condition in a crowded dining room favorable to riot. It was
the opinion of our officers that he should be severely punished, their
idea of punishment including the infliction of bodily pain. I agreed
that he deserved whipping, but reminded the officers that this world was
not entirely established on the basis of desert; that the best of us had
little claim to heaven on that basis. We did not whip him, not because
he did not deserve it, but because we owed it to him and to the
institution to do that thing that would most positively quicken the
moral sense and create a wholesome public sentiment. Calling him up, I
told him that he had put me to shame; that he had justified all my
critics who said that I would get into trouble by allowing the boys to
talk at the table; that he was the only one out of a thousand that
failed to appreciate what had been done for him. ‘Now,’ I said to him,
‘$1’ This method, I believe, had the approval of practically every
inmate of the institution. The boy himself said that he would rather be
whipped, as he felt that he had been whipped every time he came into the
dining room and turned his back to the other inmates; they would all
feel that he was unfit to be with them. After three weeks he made full
amends and was allowed to join his fellows, and never gave trouble
afterwards.
“Another closely allied to this chap is _the rebellious man_. All prison
men will agree that of the troublesome prisoners the rebellious man
must be most promptly and effectually dealt with. I have friends who are
my superiors in knowledge and wisdom who favor corporal punishment or
handcuffs or the dark cell. I would not have a dark cell in the
institution. Instead, I make the punishment cell lighter than any other.
Why? That is not based on sentiment. If a bear wants to hibernate he
hunts the dark cave. If you and I want rest we want the hours of
darkness. If the creeping things of the earth want to get rest and dull
their sensibilities they hunt a board or a log. The light is the most
stimulating thing in all the world, and what I want to do with the
rebellious inmate is to put him in a light cell. I want to stimulate
him. Our reflection chambers are large, light and airy and so arranged
that the occupants can smell every dinner that is cooked and hear the
band and the boys playing ball. It gets to be uncomfortable and they
want out and they want out badly. What is the result? They go to the
deputy and say they are wrong and want to start new. If you whip a boy
in prison he will suffer martyrdom if he can but have one admiring
onlooker. But when you take a fool’s audience away, in prison or out, he
loses the stimulation of his vanity. When he leaves our discipline
department he cannot swagger that he endured this thing or that, because
every person knows that there is only one way to regain his place among
his fellows, and that is by the promise to conform. No handcuffs have
been used in the Ohio State Reformatory for seven years. Our correction
cells, known in the institution as ‘reflection chambers,’ have been
all-sufficient.”
In the discussion which followed Mr. Leonard made the following
additional remarks on the method of parole followed in his institution:
“The boys in our institution are eligible to parole after serving one
year, but not before. When they are eligible, as laid down by law, they
are presented by the superintendent and chaplain jointly to the Board of
Managers for consideration. The Board of Managers has organized with a
committee of six to meet from one to two days before the meeting and go
over carefully the examination of the papers in each individual case.
They make their findings separately and then bring them up and compare
notes and get together. They then present their report added to that of
the full board and the papers are gone over. Each boy is brought in and
given a chance to make a personal plea. I believe that every boy has a
right to make whatever impression he can on the board before they pass
on his parole. After parole has been granted he cannot be released until
there is a place of employment for him. We have regularly engaged,
well-trained field workers who are also employment agents. If a boy
cannot get employment we find it for him. They go out on parole for not
less than a year, sometimes more. Occasionally we have a boy who asks
for longer time for peculiar reasons, but usually not. He makes monthly
reports to the superintendent, and our field officers visit him once a
month until the expiration of the year. The field officer makes a report
to the Board of Managers; then he is discharged and the governor issues
a certificate to that effect.”
EVENING SESSION
At the evening session Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth delivered one of her
characteristic and inspiring addresses, after which the congress
adjourned, to meet at Seattle in the fall of 1909.
* * * * *
Among the resolutions adopted were the following:
That the committee appointed to arrange for the International
Prison Congress be given authority to add to its membership as it
seems desirable, and
THAT WHEREAS, the Congress of the United States had extended
through its President an invitation to the International Prison
Congress, which was first organized under the initiative of this
government in 1870, to hold its Eighth Congress at our national
capital in 1910, and said invitation has been accepted;
_Resolved_, that we respectfully ask Congress to make a suitable
appropriation for the preparatory work of the International
Association and for the entertainment of the Congress, as asked
for in the estimates of the State Department, and we pledge the
cordial coöperation of the American Association in making the
Washington session memorable.
That the Congress of the American Prison Association indorse the
plan advocated by the National Child Labor Committee and other
organizations for the protection of children, for the
establishment of a children’s bureau under one of the departments
of the national government, for the investigation and publication
of facts relating to child labor, including those relating to the
correction and reformation of juvenile delinquents.
The following resolution was referred to the Board of Directors for
action at the next congress:
In recognition of the high moral character of many life men in our
penitentiaries, it is resolved that a committee be appointed who
shall make suitable investigations and report next year upon the
advisability of extending to this class of prisoners the benefits
of parole.
The following are the Presidents for the year 1909: American Prison
Association, Dr. J. T. Gilmour, Toronto; Wardens’ Association, E. F.
Morgan, Richmond; Chaplains’ Association, the Rev. Aloys M. Fish,
Trenton, N. J.; Physicians’ Association, Dr. Daniel Phelan, Kingston,
Canada.
Reported for THE JOURNAL,
J. F. OHL, _Official Delegate_.
JUDGE LINDSAY AND HIS COURT
I first met Judge Ben B. Lindsay in his home city of Denver, Colo., in
1906. A remark he then made impressed itself strongly on my mind,
namely, that he owed his position as judge of the juvenile court to the
women. In Pennsylvania such support could be only moral. In Colorado it
was in this particular case both moral and political, inasmuch as in
said State women have the right of suffrage. It is to the everlasting
credit of the women of Denver that in a struggle involving a great moral
issue they should have stood by the man who has made it his life work to
save children from criminal careers, and whose defeat had been planned
by hostile elements.
I again had the pleasure of meeting Judge Lindsay in the fall of 1908,
on the occasion of a visit to his court. With my personal card, I sent
in my membership card in the Acting Committee of The Pennsylvania Prison
Society, and was promptly shown into the courtroom and given a seat near
the judge. He wore no ermine, not even the judicial silk gown; nor was
he seated behind the usual high desk of a judge. As I entered he was
standing beside an ordinary table, and later sometimes rested against
it. The boys and girls brought before him handed him the reports of
their recent conduct. His manner toward all was the kindest, and his
language was so plain and simple that none could fail to understand. He
would receive a report card from the hand of a small boy, read it, and
then comment on it. If the report was good, he would commend the boy and
encourage him to persevere in his course; if not good, he would express
his sorrow. “Now, Johnnie, what’s the trouble? It makes me feel real bad
to have such a report from you. Now don’t you think you can do better if
I give you another chance? I think you can. Just make an effort and I
am sure your next report will be better. If not, we will have to try
some other plan.”
Presently the hearings began. Several groups of boys, who had in various
ways given the street railway company considerable trouble, were brought
before the judge. Standing between two of the young culprits, and
perhaps laying a hand on the shoulder of each, he would first listen to
the charges preferred by the officers, and then gather from the boys
themselves all the information he could regarding their school
attendance, occupation, family life and surroundings. With this to guide
him he would begin to talk to the boys in the most affectionate and
fatherly manner, and endeavor to make them realize what might have been
the consequences of their misdeeds to others, and how they would bring
to themselves still greater trouble if they persisted in their present
course of conduct. To those who showed a disposition to respond to this
kind and tactful treatment every encouragement was extended, but
perverse ones were given clearly to understand that they could expect no
leniency from the court so long as they refused to mend their ways.
In the fall of 1908 Judge Lindsay was defeated for renomination by the
powerful influence of certain corporations to which he had given
offense. With these he joined issue as an independent candidate, and
though it required thirty thousand “split” or “scratched” ballots he was
triumphantly elected. The women of Denver had made it their cause, and
before these even the corporations were impotent!
One of the most striking proofs of Judge Lindsay’s profound moral
influence over those coming under his authority is the fact that he has
sent hundreds to the reformatory at Golden altogether unattended. The
number who have been unfaithful to this trust and who failed to deliver
themselves at the institution is so small as to be practically
negligible.
Judge Lindsay is working at that end of human life at which results are
most readily achieved. A vessel that has become misshapen can be
remodeled so long as the clay is still plastic. Like a skillful potter
Judge Lindsay seeks to mold human lives, and the success which has
crowned his efforts has deservedly attracted the attention not only of
his own countrymen, but of those in other lands who are interested in
the child-saving problem.
GEORGE S. WETHERELL,
_Member of the Acting Committee_.
PREAMBLE
TO CONSTITUTION OF THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR THE AMELIORATION OF THE
MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS.
Adopted May 15, 1787.
When we consider that the obligations of benevolence, which are founded
on the precept and examples of the Author of Christianity, are not
cancelled by the follies or crimes of our fellow creatures, and when we
reflect upon the miseries which penury, hunger, cold, unnecessary
severity, unwholesome apartments, and guilt (the usual attendants of
prisons) involve with them, it becomes us to extend our compassion to
that part of mankind who are the subjects of those miseries. By the aid
of humanity their undue and illegal sufferings may be prevented; the
link which should bind the whole family of mankind together, under all
circumstances, be preserved unbroken; and such degree and modes of
punishment may be discovered and suggested as may, instead of continuing
habits of vice, become the means of restoring our fellow creatures to
virtue and happiness. From a conviction of the truth and obligations of
these principles, the subscribers have associated themselves under the
title of “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of
Public Prisons.”
FORM OF BEQUEST OF PERSONAL PROPERTY
I give and bequeath to “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY” the sum of ....
Dollars.
FORM OF DEVISE OF REAL ESTATE
I give and devise to “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON SOCIETY” all that certain
piece or parcel of land. (Here describe the property.)
AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE
Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.
SECTION I.--_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in General Assembly met_, and it is
_hereby enacted by the authority of the same_, That all and every the
persons who shall at the time of the passing of this Act be members of
the Society called “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the
Miseries of Public Prisons,” shall be and they are hereby created and
declared to be one body, politic and corporate, by the name, style and
title of “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of
Public Prisons,” and by the same name shall have perpetual succession,
and shall be able to sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded in all
courts of record or elsewhere, and to take and receive, hold and enjoy,
by purchase, grant, devise, or bequest to them and their successors,
lands, tenements, rents, annuities, franchises, hereditaments, goods and
chattels of whatsoever nature, kind, or quality soever, real, personal,
or mixed, or choses in action, and the same from time to time to sell
grant, devise, alien, or dispose of; _provided_ That the clear yearly
value or income of the necessary houses, lands, tenements, rents,
annuities, and other hereditaments, and real estate of the said
corporation, and the interest of money by it lent, shall not exceed the
sum of five thousand dollars; and also to make and have a common seal,
and the same to break, alter, and renew at pleasure; and also to ordain,
establish, and put in execution such by-laws, ordinances, and
regulations as shall appear necessary and convenient for the government
of the said corporation, not being contrary to this Charter or the
Constitution and laws of the United States, or of this Commonwealth, and
generally to do all and singular the matters and things which to them it
shall lawfully appertain to do for the well-being of the said
corporation, and the due management and ordering of the affairs thereof;
and provided further, that the objects of the Society shall be confined
to the alleviation of the miseries of public prisons, the improvement of
prison discipline and relief of discharged prisoners.
SAM’L. ANDERSON, _Speaker of House_.
THOS. RINGLAND, _Speaker of Senate_.
Approved the 6th day of April, Anno Domini Eighteen Hundred and
Thirty-three.
GEORGE WOLF.
LEGAL CHANGE OF NAME.
The Following Confirms the Action Relative to the Change of the Name of
the Prison Society.
Decree:
And now, to wit, this 27th day of January, A. D. 1886, on motion
of A. Sidney Biddle, Esq., the Petition and Application for change
of name filed by “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the
Miseries of Public Prisons,” having been presented and considered,
and it appearing that the order of court heretofore made as to
advertisement has been duly complied with and due notice of said
application to the Auditor-General of the State of Pennsylvania
being shown, it is Ordered, Adjudged, and Decreed, that the name
of the said Society shall hereafter be “THE PENNSYLVANIA PRISON
SOCIETY,” to all intents and purposes as if the same had been the
original name of the said Society, and the same name shall be
deemed and taken to be a part of the Charter of the said Society
upon the recording of the said Application with its indorsements
and this Decree in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds of this
County, and upon filing with the Auditor-General a Copy of this
Decree.
[Signed] JOSEPH ALLISON.
Record:
Recorded in the office for the Recording of Deeds in and for the
City and County of Philadelphia, on Charter Book No. 11, page
1064. Witness my hand and seal of Office this 28th day of June, A.
D. 1886.
GEO. G. PIERIE, _Recorder of Deeds_.
[Transcriber’s Note:
Obvious printer errors corrected silently.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 47 and 48, January 1909)" ***
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