Chapter II: Section 1: Be it enacted, etc., That the active or visiting committee of (2)

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.