*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75368 ***





  VOLUME IV, No. 8.      AUGUST, 1914

  THE DELINQUENT

  A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE
  NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION
  AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

  THIS COPY TEN CENTS.      ONE DOLLAR A YEAR

  T. F. Garver, President.
  O. F. Lewis, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor The Delinquent.
  Edward Fielding, Chairman Ex. Committee.
  F. Emory Lyon, Member Ex. Committee.
  W. G. McLaren, Member Ex. Committee.
  A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee.
  E. A. Fredenhagen, Member Ex. Committee.
  Joseph P. Byers, Member Ex. Committee.
  R. B. McCord, Member Ex. Committee.

  Entered as second-class mail matter at New York.




TOM BROWN AT AUBURN

By Hastings H Hart.

Director Child Caring Work, Russell Sage Foundation.

 [This very illuminating book review of “Within Prison Walls,” a book
 by Thomas Mott Osborne, has, by agreement, been published jointly
 in _The Delinquent_ and The Survey. The editor of _The Delinquent_
 had at first planned to give to several persons the pleasant task
 of reviewing Mr. Osborne’s important book. But Dr. Hart has written
 so graphic a review that we shall be content with this. The second
 article in this month’s magazine follows logically this review.]


In his book, “Within Prison Walls,” “Tom Brown,” (Hon. Thomas Mott
Osborne) has given a remarkable study of the mind of the convict.
This book should be read in connection with Donald Lowrie’s book, “My
Life In Prison,” which portrays the prisoner from the vantage point
of actual and prolonged experience but without the advantage of Mr.
Osborne’s wider knowledge of human life and human philosophy.

Mr. Osborne’s study is an astonishing achievement for a single week.
To break the crust of officialism and without legal authority to
command the co-operation of unwilling prison officials; to overcome
the suspicions and the reticence of the prisoners, to secure their
general co-operation in his plan, and to gain admission to the inner
circles of convict life; and then to really put himself in the place of
a prisoner and to realize how he feels, how he thinks and to catch his
viewpoint--to do all this in a week was an astonishing piece of work.

Of course, his work was fragmentary and incomplete, but the writer has
known prison officers who have associated with prisoners for years
without obtaining such a knowledge of their mental processes as Mr.
Osborne gained in a week.

It is much to be regretted that Mr. Julian Hawthorne did not seize the
opportunity of his experience at Atlanta and apply his literary genius
to record and analyze the effects of prison life upon himself and his
associates. He might have written a classic equal to De Quincey’s
“Confessions of an Opium Eater,” but he choose instead to retell the
gossip and scandals of the State prisons, true and false, as given him
by second and third-term convicts.

Mr. Osborne, having been appointed by Governor Sulzer as chairman of
a commission to recommend improvements in the prison system of the
State of New York, resolved to become a voluntary prisoner at Auburn
and to put himself, as nearly as possible, in the place of the actual
convict. He frankly declared his purpose in the prison chapel, asking
the co-operation of the officers and prisoners to make his experience
as realistic as possible; and they took him at his word.

He entered the prison gates in citizen’s clothes and was registered by
the receiving officer as “Thomas Brown, 33,333x.” He was conducted by
an officer to the tailor shop, where in a corner of the shop without
any screens and in full view of all passers in and out, are three
porcelain lined iron bath tubs side by side. He stripped, bathed and
dressed in the conventional prison suit and was supplied with a “cake
of soap, one towel and a bible.” He was admonished by the Principal
Keeper (“P. K.”), was given a copy of the prison rules and was assigned
to work in the basket shop. During the first two days he was catechized
as to his past life, occupations, habits, etc., by the principal
keeper, the chaplain, the doctor, and the clerk of the Bertillon
identification system, with much repetition.

It had been agreed with the warden that Tom Brown should be placed,
at first, with the “Idle Company,” a group of prisoners who were
characterized by one of the officers as “the toughest bunch of fellows
in the prison.” He was disappointed therefore when he found himself
in the basket shop where the men were courteous, communicative and
helpful, and was astonished after two days to discover that this was
the identical “worst bunch in the prison” of which he had been told.
Tom Brown was assigned to a cell 4 by 7½ feet and 7½ feet high.
(Many of the cells are only 3½ feet wide). Many cells of this kind
contain two men each. The cell contained a stool, a folding shelf, a
folding bed, a wash basin, a tin cup, a broom, a small wooden locker,
and an electric bulb.

Tom Brown swung open his cell door at a signal, marched in line,
carried out and emptied his own cell bucket, ate prison fare in the
prison dining-room (including prison hash), did his stint in the basket
shop with refractory material which made his fingers sore, and served
on a detail moving railroad cars with block and tackle. He received
from his fellow prisoners donations of sugar, of doubtful origin, for
his oatmeal. He received communications and newspapers from numerous
sources by underground communication. He learned to talk without moving
his lips and he found himself instinctively joining with his associates
“agin the government.” He details most interestingly the petty items
that make up the life of the prisoner and revealed how much unhappiness
may be caused by things which appear insignificant in themselves, such
as the collapsing of the folding cot, under inexperienced hands, after
the extinguishment of the lights.

Tom Brown reveals startlingly the horrors of prison life to the man of
refined sensibilities--the shock of the first night of cell life when
the lights went out.

 “The bars are so black that they seem to close in upon you,--to come
 nearer and nearer, until they press upon your forehead.... You can
 feel the blackness of those iron bars across your closed eyelids; they
 seem to sear themselves into your very soul. It is the most terrible
 sensation I ever experienced. I understand now the prison pallor; I
 understand the sensitiveness of this prison audience; I understand the
 high nervous tension which makes anything possible. How does any man
 remain sane, I wonder, caged in this stone grave, day after day, night
 after night?”

He tells the ghastly story of the collapse of a poor old prisoner in a
shop:

 “In due time a litter is brought; the pitiful fragment of humanity is
 placed gently upon it and is carried out of the shop into which he
 will probably never return. The look on his face was one not easy to
 forget in its white stare of patient suffering. It seemed to typify
 long years of stolid endurance until the worn-out old frame had simply
 crumpled under the accumulated load.”

He experienced the humiliation of being the object of pursuit by
pertinacious curiosity-hunters and camera-fiends; yet the change in his
appearance was so great that he escaped recognition by personal friends
who were watching carefully for him. The crowning horror he describes
as follows:

 “The cell house has settled down for the night. Only a few muffled
 sounds make the stillness more distinctly felt. Then, suddenly, the
 unearthly quiet is shattered by a terrifying uproar. It is too far
 away to hear at first anything with distinctness; it is all a confused
 and hideous mass of shouting--a shouting first of a few, then of more,
 then of many voices. I have never heard anything more dreadful--in the
 full meaning of the word--full of dread. My heart is thumping like a
 trip hammer and the cold shivers run up and down my back.

 “I jump to the door of the cell, pressing my ear close to the cold
 iron bars. Then I can distinguish a few words sounding against the
 background of the confused outcry: ‘Stop that!’ ‘Leave them alone!’
 ‘Damn you, stop that!’ Then some dull thuds; I even fancy that I hear
 something like a groan, along with the continued confused and violent
 shouting. What can it be!

 “While I am perfectly aware that I am not in the least likely to be
 harmed, I am shivering close akin to a chill of actual terror. If
 anyone near at hand were to give vent to a sudden yell I feel that I
 might easily lose my self control and shout and bang my door with the
 rest of them.

 “The cries continue, accompanied with other noises that I cannot make
 out. Then my attention is attracted by whispering at one of the lower
 windows.... It is so dark outside that I can see nothing, not even the
 dim shapes of the whisperers....

 “The shouts die down. There are a few more vague and uncertain
 sounds--all the more dreadful for being uncertain; somewhere an iron
 door clangs! Then stillness follows, like that of the grave.”

Tom Brown reported this mysterious occurrence to the warden who
promised to investigate. Next day the warden “has inquired into it, he
says, and found it was only a case of a troublesome fellow sent up from
Sing Sing, who was making some little disturbance in the gallery. After
they had admonished him he wouldn’t stop, so they had to take him down
to the jail. When the officer entered his cell, he threw his bucket at
the officer and there was a little row. ‘I’m inclined to think,’ adds
the warden, ‘that he may be a little bit crazy, and I’m ed further
investigation, telling the warden that, from information which has come
to him, he thinks that the officers are “trying to slip one over” on
him.’

From his fellow prisoners Tom Brown obtained what he believes to be
the correct version of the incident, as follows: “There had lately
been sent up from Sing Sing a young prisoner ... pale, thin and
undersized; weight about 120 pounds; age 21.” On charge of impertinence
to an officer he had been kept in a dark punishment cell five days,
on bread and water. (The allowance of water was 3 gills per day).
He was sent back to work but was unfit and next day remained in his
cell ill, but “in spite of his repeated requests, the doctor was not
summoned. The reason probably was that he was in the state known in
prison as bughouse--that is to say at least flighty, if not temporarily
out of his mind”.... “In the evening, he created some disturbance by
calling out remarks which violated the quiet of the cell-block.” “I
understand,” Tom Brown says, “something of this sort: ‘If you want to
kill me, why don’t you do it at once and not torture me to death?’ He
seemed to be possessed with the idea that his life was in danger.”

 “Now here was a young man, hardly more than a lad, in a sick and
 nervous condition that had produced temporary derangement of mind.
 What course did the system take in dealing with that suffering being!
 Two keepers opened his cell, made a rush for him and knocked him
 down.... During the brief scuffle in the cell the iron pail and the
 bucket were overturned. Then, after being handcuffed, the unresisting
 if not unconscious youth was flung out of his cell with such violence
 that, if it had not been for a convict trusty who stood by, he would
 have slipped under the rail of the gallery and fallen to the stone
 floor of the corridor four stories below, and been either killed or
 crippled for life.

 “Then the two keepers, being reinforced by a third, dragged their
 victim roughly down stairs, partly on his back, kicked and beat him
 on the way, and carried him before the Principal Keeper, who promptly
 sent him down to the jail again.” (i.e., the punishment cells).

 “This scene of violence could not pass unnoticed; and the loud
 protests and outcries of the prisoners whose cells were near by,
 ... were the sounds I heard far away in my cell.” A trusty who saw
 most of the occurrence “so far forget his position as to venture the
 opinion that it was ‘a pretty raw deal’. This remark was overheard by
 an officer; and the trusty at once received the warning that he had
 better keep his mouth shut and not talk about what didn’t concern him.

 “If it is realized that these officers have what almost amounts to the
 power of life and death over the convicts it can be understood that
 such a warning was not one to be lightly disregarded.”

After three days further detention in the “jail” the prisoner was
transferred to the hospital, where he received proper care, but “he had
at first no clear recollection of the brutal treatment of which he had
been the victim.”

An interesting side light is thrown upon the official side of prison
life by an episode connected with this case of punishment. Immediately
after the episode, Tom Brown questioned one of the officers who refused
to answer the questions. On the following morning the same officer came
to Tom Brown, who writes:

 “This morning he is exceedingly bland.... He enters upon a long
 rigmarole, the gist of which is how necessary it is for a man to
 do his duty.... Then he casually turns the conversation around to
 show how closely connected he is to various admirers of my father
 and myself, and gracefully insinuates that he also shares these
 feelings.... It is borne in upon me that he not only knows all about
 last night’s disturbance, but that he was probably concerned in it,
 and is now deliberately trying to switch me off the track.”

Another side light upon the official side of prison life is that Tom
Brown discovered that prisoners under punishment were never released
from the jail on Sunday. When he made an appeal to the Principal Keeper
to transfer the sick boy from the dark cell to the hospital, the
Principal Keeper objected strenuously, but when the prison physician
joined in the appeal, “finally the P. K. with an air of triumph brings
out his last and conclusive argument. ‘There is a great deal in what
you say, gentlemen, and I should like to oblige you, Mr. Osborne, but
you see this is Sunday; and you know we never let ’em out of jail on
Sunday.’ ... ‘Sunday!’ I exclaimed. ‘In Heaven’s name, P. K., what is
Sunday? Isn’t it the Lord’s Day? Very well, then. Do you mean to tell
me you actually think if you take a poor sick boy, with an open wound
in his ear, out of a close, dirty, vermin-filled, dark cell, where he
isn’t allowed to wash, and has but three gills of water a day ... and
put him back into the hospital, where the Doctor says he belongs--do
you really think that such an act of mercy would be displeasing to
God?’ ‘Why,’ he gasps, ‘that’s true. I think you’re right. We put ’em
in on Sunday; why shouldn’t we take ’em out?’”

Mr. Osborne certified that this story is fully corroborated by careful
inquiry from different men and comments as follows:

 “Doubtless some will say that the statements of convicts are not to
 be believed. That touches upon one of the very worst features of the
 situation. No discrimination is ever made. It is not admitted, that
 while one convict may be a liar, another may be entirely truthful;
 that men differ in prison exactly as in the world outside. It is held,
 quite as a matter of course, that they are all liars, and an officer’s
 word will be taken against that of a convict or any number of
 convicts. The result is that the officers feel themselves practically
 immune from any evil consequences to them from their own acts of
 injustice or violence. What follows this is inevitable. Our prisons
 have often been the scenes of intolerable brutality, for which it has
 been useless for the victims to seek redress. They can only cower and
 endure in silence; or be driven into insanity by a hopeless revolt
 against the System....

 “The point is this: that no convict has any rights--not even the
 right to be believed; not even the right to reasonable considerate
 treatment. He is exposed without safeguard of any sort to whatever
 outrage and inconsiderate and brutal keeper may choose to inflict
 upon him; and you cannot under the present system guard against such
 inconsiderate and brutal treatment.

 “I should not like to be understood as asserting that all keepers are
 brutal or even a majority of them.” ... But, “we must recognize, in
 dealing with our Prison System, that many really well-meaning men
 will operate a system, in which the brutality of an officer goes
 unpunished, in a brutal manner.

 “The reason of this is not far to seek--a reason which also obtained
 in the slave system. The most common and powerful impulse that drives
 an ordinary, well-meaning man to brutality is fear.... In prison,
 where each officer believes that his life is in constant danger, the
 keeper tends to become callous; the sense of that danger blunts his
 higher qualities.... Undoubtedly there is basis for his fear, for some
 of those men are dangerous, rendered more so by the nerve-racking
 System. I can conceive no more terribly disintegrating moral
 experience than that of being a keeper over convicts.

 “I am not now in any way disputing the necessity of a keeper being
 constantly on his guard; I am not saying whether this view of things
 is right or wrong; and when I use the word fear I do not mean
 cowardice--a very different thing, for a brave man can feel fear. I am
 simply trying to point out that in prison, as elsewhere, when men are
 dominated by fear, brutality is the evitable result.”

In view of this episode, Tom Brown determined to undergo the horrors
of the “Jail.” To this the prison warden very reluctantly consented.
It was agreed that he should be treated exactly like a convict under
punishment except that a “jail suit” should be cleansed for his use,
whereas the ordinary prisoners use them interchangeably, without
cleaning. Accordingly, Tom Brown suddenly knocked off work, declaring
that the material furnished was unfit and he wasn’t going to work any
more anyhow. His shop captain, finding him obdurate, had no option
and was obliged to send him to the Principal Keeper who, finding him
still obdurate, reluctantly ordered him to the “jail,” which Tom Brown
describes as follows:

 “A vaulted stone dungeon, about 50 by 20 feet, having on one side
 the death chamber for electrocuting murderers, and on the other
 side the prison dynamo with its ceaseless grinding, night and day.
 It is absolutely bare, except for one wooden bench along the north
 end, a locker where the jail clothes are kept, and eight cells, of
 solid sheet iron; floor, sides, back and roof. They are studded with
 rivets, projecting about a quarter of an inch. At the time that Warden
 Rattigan came into office there was no other floor; the inmates slept
 on the bare iron and the rivets! The cells are about 4½ by 8 feet
 and 9 feet high. There is a feeble attempt at ventilation--a small
 hole in the roof of the cell, which does not ventilate. Practically
 there is no air in the cell except what percolates in through the
 extra heavily grated door.” Two windows in the vaulted room outside
 admit some light but, except on a bright sunny day, an electric light
 is necessary in order to see the inside of the cell. “Up to the time
 of Supt. Riley’s and Warden Rattigan’s coming into office the supply
 of water for each prisoner was limited to one gill for 24 hours.”

There is a sink in the outer room but “the sink was not used for the
prisoners to wash for the simple reason that the prisoners in the jail
were not allowed to wash.”

On entrance, Tom Brown was instructed to take off his clothes and
put on the jail suit which had been cleansed in anticipation of his
coming. He says: “If these are the clothes which have been carefully
washed and cleaned for me, I should like to examine--at a safe
distance--the ordinary ones. They must be filthy beyond words.” He
was carefully searched by the captain to discover whether he had any
weapon or instrument upon his person. His handkerchief was taken from
him, presumably to avoid danger of suicide, because a prisoner once
strangled himself with his handkerchief. He was given a small tin water
can.

The cell contained no seat, bed, mattress or bedding--nothing except a
papier-mache bucket. A convict trusty handed in through a slot in the
door a slice of bread and inserted the spout of a tin funnel through
which he poured into the prisoner’s can exactly a gill of water to last
through the night. The officers and the trusty departed and very soon
five other prisoners in adjacent cells made themselves known. Then
followed an animated discussion on prison fare; ethics of the jail;
comparative merits of transatlantic liners, politics, prison reform,
etc. Tom Brown says: “On the whole, more intelligent, instructive and
entertaining conversation it has seldom been my lot to enjoy.” To his
surprise he finds that these men, presumably the worst in the prison,
are human and even sympathetic. One has been sent down “because he
had talked back to one of the citizen instructors;” two others for
a little scrap which involved no special bitterness; a fourth for
hitting a convict with a crow bar because he had called him a bad
name; the fifth was a sick boy whose ear was still discharging after
an operation. He had been sent down for making trouble in the hospital
and was not allowed a handkerchief to take care of the discharge from
his ear. All prisoners punished, whatever the character of the offense,
received the same treatment and in addition to confinement on bread and
water were fined 50 cents for each day of confinement; the fine to be
worked out at the rate of 1½ cents per day, allowed each prisoner as
“earnings.” The prisoner also has to wear a mark upon his sleeve from
that day forward indicating that he has been punished and, if he has
previously earned a good-conduct bar by a year’s perfect record, that
bar is taken from him and, finally, some portion, if not all, of the
commutation time which he may have gained by previous good conduct is
forfeited. Manifestly a prison punishment is a serious matter to the
convict.

After four hours confinement Tom Brown was visited by two prison
officers, it having been understood that he would not stay longer, but
to their astonishment he refused to go, having determined to experience
the full limit of jail life. They left him very reluctantly. As the
night wore on he says:

 “Now that all chance of escape is gone I begin to feel more
 than before the pressure of the horror of this place; the close
 confinement; the bad air; the terrible darkness, the bodily
 discomforts, the uncleanness, the lack of water. My throat is parched,
 but I dare not drink more than a sip at a time, for my one gill--what
 is left of it--must last until morning. And then there is the constant
 whir-whir-whirring of the dynamo next door and the death chamber at
 our backs.”

The prisoners seek to mitigate their misery. One asks: “Say fellows!
what would you say now to a nice thick juicy steak with fried
potatoes?” One “sings an excellent ragtime ditty;” another “follows
with the Toreador’s song from Carmen, sung in a sweet, true, light
tenor voice that shows real love and appreciation of music.

“This is the place where I had expected to meet the violent and
dangerous criminals; but what do I find! A genial young Irishman, as
pleasant company as I have ever encountered, and a sweet voiced boy
singing Carmen.”

These entertainments over, the night drags on. The wooden floor proves
a hard bed until a prisoner instructs him how to make a pillow of his
felt shoes and his shirt. Bed bugs infest the place and after killing
one, he imagines multitudes. The sick prisoner accidentally upsets his
water can and soon becomes delirious, seeming likely to become a raving
maniac. There is no way to summon an officer, but one of the prisoners
with amazing tact and patience soothes his agitation until he finally
falls asleep.

At last Brown falls into a doze but is speedily awakened by a
patrolling officer who awakens the prisoners at 12:30 and 4:30 A. M.
but refuses his request to renew the water spilled by the sick prisoner
because it is “’gainst the rules.”

At 6 A. M. on Sunday, Tom Brown is released from his punishment,
convinced that the “System” is illogical, antiquated, barbarous, cruel
and destructive to the character of prisoners and officers alike. He
is exhausted, body and soul; but he finds strength to make a chapel
address to the prisoners, which must have been memorable. The prisoners
are tremendously impressed by the fact that this man of education,
culture and wealth has voluntarily endured for six days the same
treatment as themselves, in the endeavor to understand their situation
and, if possible, to improve it; they recognize that the cell, the
march, the shock and the dungeon affect the man of culture and
refinement more keenly than the ordinary prisoner; but the thing which
affects them most profoundly is the vicarious character of his act.
They would almost apply to it the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Surely
he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”

Mr. Osborne is not content to discover and reveal the vices of the
prison system but he seeks a practical remedy. To this end he has
taken counsel, not only with the prison authorities and students
of penological science, but also with the prisoners who live under
the system and, some of whom, are keenly alive to its destructive
influence. A prisoner in the shops gave him the basic idea. He says:

 “For some years I have felt that the principles of self-government
 might possibly be the key to the solution of the prison problem;
 but as yet I have not been able to see clearly how to begin its
 application. There have seemed to be almost insuperable difficulties.
 In this connection Jack” (Jack Murphy, a prisoner) “made a suggestion
 which supplies a most important link in the chain.

 “In discussing the various aspects of prison life we reached the
 subject of the long and dreary Sundays. Jack agrees with all those
 with whom I have talked that the long stretch in the cells, from
 the conclusion of the chapel service, between ten-thirty and eleven
 o’clock Sunday morning until seven Monday morning--over twenty hours,
 is a fearful strain both physical and mental upon the prisoners.

 “‘Well, Jack,’ I say, ‘from what I have heard Superintendent Riley
 say, I feel sure he would like to give the men some sort of exercise
 or recreation on Sunday afternoons; but how could it be managed! You
 can’t ask the officers to give up their day off, and you don’t think
 the men could be trusted by themselves, do you!’

 “‘Why not?’ says Jack.

 “I look at him enquiringly.

 “‘Why, look here, Tom. I know this place through and through. I know
 these men; I’ve studied ’em for years. And I tell you that the big
 majority of these fellows in here will be square with you if you give
 ’em a chance. The trouble is they don’t treat us on the level. I
 could tell you all sorts of frame-ups they give us. Now if you trust
 a man, he will try and do what’s right; sure he will. That is, most
 men will. Of course, there are a few that won’t. There are some dirty
 curs--degenerates--that will make trouble, but there ain’t so very
 many of those. Look at that road work! Haven’t the men done fine! How
 many prisoners have you out on the roads! About 130; and you ain’t had
 a single runaway yet. And if there should be any runaways you can just
 bet we’d show ’em what we think about it.’

 “‘Do you really think, Jack, that the Superintendent and the Warden
 could trust you fellows out in the yard on Sunday afternoons in
 summer!’

 “‘Sure they could,’ responds Jack.... ‘And there could be a band
 concert.... And it would be a good sight better for us than being
 locked in our cells all day. You’d have fewer fights on Monday, I know
 that.’

 “‘But how about the discipline! Would you let everybody out in the
 yard! What about those bad actors who don’t know how to behave! Won’t
 they quarrel and fight and try to escape?’

 “‘But don’t you see, Tom, that they couldn’t do that without putting
 the whole thing on the bum, and depriving the rest of us of our
 privileges? You needn’t be afraid we couldn’t handle those fellows all
 right! Or why not let out only those men who have a good conduct bar!
 That’s it!’ He continues, enthusiastically warming up to the subject,
 ‘That’s it, Tom, a good conduct league, and give the privilege of
 Sunday afternoons to the members of the league.’”

This suggestion of Jack Murphy bore practical fruit. Soon after his
“discharge,” Mr. Osborne, with the co-operation of the Superintendent
of Prisons and the Warden of Auburn Prison, succeeded in establishing
a Good Conduct League composed of prisoners, with officers elected by
their fellow prisoners. The prisoners are given the liberty of the yard
on Sunday afternoons, with a greatly reduced force of guards. They
march to and from their cells and their work under the direction of
prisoners. They prepare entertainments with the permission and approval
of their officers. This plan has now been in operation for several
months without the slightest disorder or accident and with marked
improvement in the spirit and behaviour of the men.

This inspiring demonstration represents no new discovery by Jack Murphy
or by Mr. Osborne. It is only a re-discovery of what was practiced
by Captain Alexander Machonochie at Norfolk Island with transported
British convicts seventy years ago. The writer saw Colonel Gardner
Tufts doing similar things with convicts at Concord, Massachusetts,
nearly thirty years ago, where prisoners were carrying on evening
literary societies in perfect order without the presence of an officer.
He saw similar things done by Captain Hickox at the Michigan State
Prison more than twenty years ago, where the old chaplain gathered
200 men in a single room for an evening assembly with no officer
present but himself. This same principal is being worked out in the
State prisons of Oregon and Colorado, in the Ohio State Reformatory at
Mansfield and in Doctor Gilmour’s splendid work at Guelph, Ontario. In
all of these places it has been found that when you build a wall around
a man he immediately wants to climb over it and that when you turn him
loose and say, “I trust you and I know that you will not betray me,”
there is almost always an instant response.

Mr. Osborne believes that this is the first instance of the application
of the democratic principle to the management of convicts in a large
convict prison, and that the Auburn experiment differs from others
in that the prisoners there themselves originated the movement. He
says that “the good conduct of the prisoners is in reality an outward
expression of an outward spiritual impulse.” “Hence the name, ‘Mutual
Welfare League,’; hence the motto, ‘Do good, make good.’ By doing good
to others the man makes good for himself.”

Mr. Osborne’s demonstrations make it clear that those who believe
that severity is an essential part of prison methods need not worry.
Every convict is punished. When you pillory a man before the world as
a criminal, transport him by public conveyance and march him through
the streets in irons, put him behind prison walls, deprive him of his
liberty, subject him absolutely to the will of another man who holds
practically the powers of life and death, lock him in an ill-ventilated
prison cell, 4½ by 7 feet (perhaps with an uncongenial cell mate),
dress him in prison garb, exhibit him to curious visitors at 25 cents
per head, subject him to strict compliance with thirty to fifty
exacting rules on pain of loss of privileges and increase of term,
restrict his correspondence to two censored letters per month, permit
him to see his wife and children only in the presence of an officer and
clad in prison garb--under these circumstances no one need question
that the prisoner is punished, even though he may have the privilege
of listening to a band concert and watching a baseball game once a
week, conversing with his fellow convicts in subdued tones at meals and
witnessing a moving picture show once or twice a month. Let it never be
forgotten that the convict is punished!

Those who ridicule or condemn Mr. Osborne’s adventure make a mistake.
It may have been sensational, but there was need of a sensation. His
experiment was valuable because it was sincere and because it has
brought out the truth. But it has brought out only part of the truth.

We wish that Mr. Osborne would secure an opportunity to be installed as
prison guard in some one of the great prisons of the United States like
the Illinois State Penitentiary, the Indiana State Prison of Michigan
City, or the Penitentiary at Pittsburgh, Pa. Let him go incog., unknown
to anyone except the prison warden, and let him come into the same
intimate familiarity with the life and thinking of the prison guard
as that which he has acquired in the case of the prison convict. He
has already discovered the demoralizing tendency of life of the prison
guard, and has discovered its chief flaw, namely, the ruling principle
of fear, to which must be added the lack of psychological understanding
of the prisoner and the entire lack of any adequate preliminary
training. There must be taken into account also the fact that there
exists among prison guards, in an exaggerated degree, the sentiment
that it is dishonorable to “snitch” upon a fellow officer and, while
a superior officer is likely to report a subordinate for cruelty or
misconduct, the exposure of such actions by a guard of equal rank is
very unusual. The difficulty can only be overcome by improving the
personnel and raising the moral standards of prison guards. The day is
not far distant when training schools for prison guards will hold the
same relation to prison work which training schools for nurses hold to
well-conducted hospitals.

We wish that Mr. Osborne, or someone equally discerning, might put
himself in the place of the convict all the way through and tell an
equally convincing story. Let him go forth with a five-dollar discharge
suit on his back so marked as to betray to every passing policeman the
shop where it was made. Let him go out with five dollars or possibly
ten dollars in his pocket to satisfy a sharpened appetite and find a
job in these hard times. Let him meet the watchful policeman, or the
plain clothes man, who advises him that “We’re on to you.” Let him
meet the discharged convict who solicits the loan of a dollar with
implied threat of exposure. Let him take a job in good faith and render
faithful service, only to be discharged at the end of the second week
because somebody has given him away.

Let him be arrested, guilty or not guilty, as a suspect of some
crime. Let him be subjected to the inquisition of “the third degree,”
regardless of the rights which are supposed to be guaranteed to every
citizen that he shall be deemed to be innocent until proven to be
guilty. Let him experience the starvation, buffeting insults and
detectives’ lies which are incident to this inquisition.

Then, by all means, let Mr. Osborne’s representative await trial in a
county jail and discover the beauties of a System which is twice as
vicious as the Auburn Prison System which he describes. Thrust him
into a steel cage and exhibit him to all comers like a wild beast in a
menagerie. Let him share his cell with five other prisoners in a place
where he cannot keep himself free from vermin, where he cannot take a
bath, and force him into intimate association, day and night, with a
mob of prisoners who are kept in idleness, with no occupation except
to corrupt one another and to concoct plans to escape by bribing or
mobbing the jailer or by cutting out of jail.

Let him stand trial in a court whose judge is overwhelmed with
business or is fixed in the tradition that severity is the only remedy
for crime, with a prosecuting attorney whose reputation depends upon
making as many convictions as possible. Let him have assigned to his
defense an attorney who, because of inexperience, incompetency, or
indifference, cannot present his case properly, in order that his
innocence may be demonstrated, if he is innocent, or any mitigating
facts may be made clear if he is guilty.

Or let Mr. Osborne’s representative essay the role of a paroled
prisoner, going out as a ward of the State under the direction of a
parole officer, in order that he may discover the efficiency and equity
of the Parole Board, the fidelity and good-will of the parole officer,
the patience and fair dealing of the employer, and the advantages and
disadvantages generally of the parole system.

It is a good thing to call the attention of the public to the
deficiencies of the convict prisons, and the public ought to know that
Sing Sing is, and has been for many years, far worse than Auburn. Think
of a prison where rheumatism and tuberculosis form an inevitable part
of the prison sentence for a large proportion of the prisoners, whose
number can be definitely predicted! But the prison problem of the State
of New York can only be solved by a thoroughly organized and persistent
attack under the leadership of men and women who have social and
economic vision.

And the prison problem of the State of New York will not be solved
until it is recognized as a technical problem, demanding the services
of tried and expert men. Prisons, like other educational institutions,
should be headed by superintendents of demonstrated training and
efficiency, selected without reference to geographical lines.

THE NEW FREEDOM AT AUBURN PRISON

By O. F. Lewis, General Secretary, Prison Association of New York.

 [This article has been reprinted from The Outlook, by special
 permission of that periodical. The editor of _The Delinquent_ begs
 to say, that although he himself is the author of this article,
 he believes the new development of self-government at Auburn, as
 described in the following article, is of sufficient importance to
 warrant being called earnestly to the attention of our readers.]


The afternoon of the Fourth of July was drawing to a close in the long
building-inclosed yard of Auburn Prison, in the State of New York.
Fourteen hundred gray-suited inmates were playing a score of different
games. The afternoon’s track events had come to an end. The South Wing,
with between four and five hundred prisoners, had won from the North
Wing, with some nine hundred prisoners, in the varied contests. A
silver cup, given by the president of a prominent mortgage company in
New York, was the tangible goal of the exciting battle.

Suddenly the clear bugle notes of the “Retreat” sounded far down the
yard, slowly and melodiously. Instantly the boys in gray began to
fall into line at their appointed places. There was now silence where
a moment before there had been bowling, baseball, running, dancing,
piano, band, and the shouts of swarming inmates. Then came the first
bars of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” played by the prison inmate band.
Off came the caps, and down across the breast. The flag sank slowly,
lowered from the tall pole by three inmates. The music ceased, the caps
were again donned, and from the extreme end of the yard rose suddenly a
cheer:

    “Rah! Rah! Rah!
    Rah! Rah! Rah!
    South Wing! South Wing!
    Rah! Rah! Rah!”

Then, preceded by the band and with banners flying, the victorious
athletes of the South Wing marched up the center walk between the files
of other prisoners, to receive the silver cup from the hands of the
donor, Mr. Richard M. Hurd.

I wish I had the power to make the readers of The Outlook sense in
full the enormous significance for both present and future of this
recent Fourth of July in Auburn Prison. You have read in these recent
months so often of the greatly increased liberties granted to prisoners
that mere games or the unchecked intercourse of prisoners on holidays
seems no epoch-making novelty.

But history was made at Auburn Prison on Independence Day. For the
fourteen hundred men not only ran off their own sports during the
afternoon, but they practically ran themselves, through their appointed
“delegates,” chosen from among their own numbers by their own votes.
And assuredly no more orderly group could have been found on that
Fourth of July anywhere between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

A year ago Auburn Prison was austere indeed. The holidays and the
Sundays were grievously dreaded by the inmates--dreaded as they had
been for generations, because a Sunday or a holiday meant that the
inmates had been locked into their miserable little cells at about five
o’clock on the previous day, and that, except for a few brief hours
for chapel or for an entertainment on holidays, they were locked in
all through the holiday until the next morning, when work recommenced.
Thirty-six hours, more or less, in a wretched little cell, hardly
large enough to turn around in, with no modern conveniences of toilet
or wash-basins--simply a hole in the solid masonry wall of a building
ninety-eight years old, built at a time when prison meant physical
torture and oblivion, and when prison architecture aided to the maximum
that purpose.

Is it any wonder that a prisoner recently said to me, on a Sunday
afternoon at Clinton Prison in New York State, where they still lock
up their prisoners from Saturday until Monday, with the exceptions
noted: “My God! It’s a wonder we don’t all go insane in here!” Is it
any wonder that at Auburn Prison, according to the words of one of the
leading prisoners, the inmates used to consider themselves supremely
lucky if by some means they could get “dope” on Saturday, with which
to “put a shot into themselves” on Sunday morning? Then they would lie
befuddled and bevisioned during Sunday--the Lord’s Day! “And on Monday
morning,” laconically said the prisoner, “we used to have the biggest
number of fights in the shops of any day in the week. The effects of
the drug were wearing off, you know.”

This summer the difference is enormous and fundamental. For an hour or
a little more on each week-day, and for four full hours on Sunday, the
prisoners are turned out to recreation according to their bent. And
coincidentally with this all-important change in the prison’s policy
toward the inmates has come an all-important reduction in the number
of prison guards needed to supervise the prisoners at their play. On
the morning of the Fourth, for instance, an entertainment was given
in the auditorium by a local theatrical company. Practically all the
inmates--fourteen hundred--were present. Many of the guards sat in one
little corner of the room, in the extreme rear. They had been invited
by the Mutual Welfare League, the prisoners’ organization, to attend if
they desired!

In the afternoon there were four keepers in all in the yard, so I
was informed. They were thoroughly inconspicuous. The “P. K.” (which
is short for Principal Keeper) started the afternoon in uniform, but
shortly changed to street clothes. “You’ll find him playing ball with
the boys later today,” said one inmate to me. All the guarding at the
several exits of the yard was done--apart from the few guards--by the
“delegates” of the Mutual Welfare League.

The Mutual Welfare League! To many prison officials, long in the
service, the name undoubtedly has a very sentimental sound. I frankly
confess that several of us in the little party invited by Mr. Thomas
Mott Osborne to attend the League’s celebration of the Fourth of
July were skeptical. We were afraid it might prove to be amateurish
and mushy, even though we knew of the signal value of Mr. Osborne’s
self-imposed incarceration at Auburn Prison last fall, as shown by the
Nation-wide attention given to his subsequent story of the fearful and
unnecessary monotony and desperation of prison life. But, as one of our
party said on Sunday morning, after we had sat for several hours with
the Executive Committee of the League: “I didn’t exactly come to scoff
and remain to pray; but I did come with doubt, and I go away converted.”

What is it, then, about this new freedom at Auburn Prison that has
not only converted a cautious, conservative president of a board of
reformatory managers in another State, but has led him within a week
from his experience at Auburn to urge successfully the introduction
of a similar league in his own institution? Two facts, principally,
I think. In the first place, the Mutual Welfare League plan works.
Secondly, there is a convincing air of sincerity, and even devotion,
about it all.

May I repeat what seems to me the all-important fact about this
development at Auburn? The prisoners, in their hours of recreation, in
their attendance at chapel, in their attendance at Sunday afternoon
concerts or entertainments, _run themselves in large measure_. They
have not only given their promise to be good, but they have chosen
their own inmate officers to see that they keep their promise. There is
all the difference in the world between being run by a group of prison
guards, even under the best of benevolent prison despotisms, and being
run by prisoner guards of one’s own election.

If, then, the most sacred prerogative of the traditional prison
official can thus be usurped by the prisoners themselves, and if,
in their own expressive language, they can “get away with it,” in
the sense of securing better order, more work in the shops, a marked
reduction in the number of offences committed or reported, and a
radical betterment in the always limited joy of life in a penal
institution, what is the inference?

The organization and development of the Mutual Welfare League were
simple enough. Last fall, when Mr. Osborne, as chairman of a prison
reform commission that had been appointed by the Governor, sent himself
to prison for a week, aided thereto by a friendly warden, he informed
the prisoners at a previous chapel service that he was coming into
prison to try to understand the prison life from the standpoint of the
prisoner. He asked the inmates to regard him, “Tom Brown,” not as a
stool-pigeon, nor as simply a foolish amateur, but as thoroughly in
earnest in his desire to better prison conditions by experiencing them,
even if only briefly and partially for a week.

That was point Number One in the development of what has happened at
Auburn. Those who make light of Mr. Osborne’s brief career in prison
may have a certain justification, in so far as the real prison life can
be learned only slowly; but, after all, the results of that October
week of Mr. Osborne’s, measured by general results both upon himself
and upon the prison, have been perhaps the greatest in the history of
the century-old prison.

Point Number Two in the development of the new freedom occurred in the
basket shop, where Mr. Osborne was given as a teacher and side-partner
for the week Jack Murphy, whom Mr. Osborne describes as a very fine and
sincere man. From Murphy’s character came unconsciously to Mr. Osborne
the suggestion that prisoners could be trusted far more than had been
the case at Auburn. “Why couldn’t there be started here,” asked Mr.
Osborne, “a kind of mutual improvement or mutual welfare league among
the prisoners, whereby, in return for pledges of obedience and loyalty
to the prison administration, greater freedom and more privileges
might be obtained?”

The third step toward the present modified form of self-government
occurred after Mr. Osborne, having emerged from his week’s
imprisonment, gave public expression to his indignation at the
alleged mediæval methods of treating human beings behind the bars.
These published accounts, spread broadcast over the country, are
well remembered. He set to work then to establish a league among the
prisoners. And from the beginning he sought to have the League evolve
its principles and its pledges from among the men themselves, not
through him or through officials of the prison.

The organization was simple. Any prisoner could join the League. The
motto was: “Do good, make good.” Unquestionably the incentive in the
minds of most inmates to join the League was that there might be
something in it for them. When similar motives are eliminated from the
minds of men who undertake enterprises on the outside of the prison, it
will be time to criticise unfavorably such motives inside the walls.

From the League members--and at present nearly every prisoner in Auburn
is a member, wearing his little green and white button with “M. W. L.”
thereon--a board of delegates, forty-nine in number, was elected by
the prisoners themselves. This is Point Number Four. The prisoners did
their own choosing of their delegate officers. The officers were not
superimposed upon them by the prison officials. And in consequence,
if these delegate officers did not act on the level; if they became
stool-pigeons, bearing all sorts of tales to the prison officials and
currying favor thereby, then the prison administration would not be to
blame for the choice of inmate officers. It would be squarely up to the
inmates themselves. What was the result? A very simple one. Both the
companies of inmates and their officers instinctively aimed to adjust
themselves to secure the minimum of trouble, at chapel, in the shops,
at recreation. Splendid group psychology, and withal so simple. And
incidentally it can be said that the inmates have been able to handle
most dexterously not a few “tough guys” who had been giving great
trouble to the prison administration.

At this stage the movement became bigger than any one man, even Mr.
Osborne. The latter had imprisoned himself, he had suggested the
formation of the League; he had organized the League; but now it was up
to the inmates to make of the League a success.

The fifth stage in the development of the League came suddenly and
through necessity. Early in June an epidemic of scarlatina struck the
prison. Ultimately, about a thousand prisoners were infected. Few
were in the hospital, but shop work slackened up to a considerable
degree. Were the prisoners in consequence to be locked day after day
in their cells? Was it longer necessary? The answer came one afternoon
when Warden Rattigan took a long chance. He turned all the prisoners
belonging to the League out to exercise or play according to their
hearts’ content in the big yard, principally under the supervision
of the delegates, who until now had been used to move the prisoners
to chapel and to entertainments. It was a crucial test. It worked
perfectly. Order was maintained, and no efforts to escape were made.

“The boys would tear a fellow to pieces that tried it,” one of the
prisoners explained to me. “We’ve pledged ourselves to behave. Besides,
do you think we want to lose the privileges we’ve gained?”

By the Fourth of July the daily recreation period, from four o’clock
on, had been going for about a month. What have been the results?

“Everything,” answered one of the delegates. “Take my own case. Now
I can sleep nights in that small hole in the wall called a cell. I
have been here for years, and hardly ever had I had a decent night’s
sleep. Now I get tired in the recreation hour. And then, too, we have
something to look forward to. It’s a fearful mistake to make prison
life so hopeless. You can’t get the best out of a man, in work or
anything else, if you don’t give him something to work for. Now, if
we behave ourselves and are decent members of the League, we have a
decent amount of freedom and privileges. We have competitive games in
baseball, bowling, and the like. We feel we amount to something. The
boys march now with their heads up. We eat better. The food tastes
better. A lot of the sullen resentment and hatred of the prison
administration is gone. The work in the shops is better. There’s better
discipline.”

“What about dope?” we asked. “They say it’s a curse at Sing Sing.”

“Very little here now,” said several delegates at once. “It isn’t
needed now, and it’s frowned upon.” Then up spoke one of the huskiest
and best proportioned of the Executive Committee of the League. “I’ll
be frank,” he said, emphatically. “I’ve taken pretty nearly every kind
of dope that’s known. I took it deliberately. Now I don’t need it, and
I’ve cut it out.”

“Let me say something else, too,” said another delegate. “There’s
mighty little prison vice here now. You know what I mean. Formerly,
when we were all locked up for sixteen hours a day, and hadn’t had any
decent exercise, or anything to take our minds off of ourselves and
our grievances, all sorts of bad things happened. That’s the curse of
the old prison regime. It turned out, among other things, a lot of
degenerates. Now--well, we get pretty well tired, and our mind’s taken
off of ourselves, and we sleep. There’s a good deal, too, in having
that sort of thing put under the ban by the fellows themselves.”

One of us then asked, “How about the growing criticism that prisoners
are getting to have too easy a time of it? When we tell the public
in general about this Fourth of July celebration, many will say that
the prisoners are having more fun and an easier time than the honest
taxpayer.”

The delegate, in answering, flared up. “Tell those people to try any
prison for a while! What’s a prison for? To torture a man, and send
him out hating society, and determined to get even for the years he’s
spent as the old-line prison made him spend it? Nobody except the
fellow that’s been through it knows what being in prison is. Does the
public want us to go insane, get tuberculosis, contract wretched vices,
rebel in mutinies, live sixteen hours out of twenty-four in a living
tomb, and have day-in and day-out a miserable monotony of existence
that dulls our minds and makes us hate the State that munificently pays
us a cent and a half a day, and then often takes away the earnings
of months in one single fine for some offense that the very manner
of existence here almost forces us to commit? Why, what is this hour
of recreation, anyway? It’s a health measure, a safety measure, a
reformatory measure.

“Do you think fellows would commit crime in order to get into prison to
have this little pittance of pleasure? Let me tell you that the very
people that talk so about putting the clamps on this giving of soft
snaps to prisoners don’t know what that other system did to us. Why,
there are a lot of fellows here that had made up their minds to pull
off another trick just as soon as they got out. Why shouldn’t they? But
now we have something else to work for.”

Much of the above conversation occurred at a meeting of the Executive
Committee of the League, to which we were invited. It was essentially
a novel experience. Here sat, in the warden’s office, and without the
warden or any prison official present, a round dozen of convicts,
gray-suited and thoroughly in earnest. They discussed prison conditions
and prison problems with all the freedom of a board of managers,
and with far greater knowledge of actual conditions. Prisoners know
more about a prison than does the warden, the warden than does the
superintendent of prisons, the superintendent of prisons than do the
inspectors, and the inspectors than does the public. Therefore, if the
best efforts and the best loyalty of the prisoners can be harnessed
up to a reformatory programme of the square deal for both sides, the
possibilities of the future loom far larger than have reformatory
possibilities in the past.

So Auburn Prison is pointing the way, by an almost revolutionary
experiment, to large possibilities in inmate self-government in State
prisons and reformatories. As I write these lines the newspapers
bring a word of a similar Saturday afternoon passed in sports for
the first time in the history of Sing Sing. Within the last week the
State Reformatory of New Jersey, at Rahway, has adopted tentatively a
modified form of inmate self-government. Great Meadow Prison, in New
York State, which has been for several years the conspicuous honor
prison of the eastern part of the country, marched its six hundred men
down to the baseball game on July Fourth, a half-mile from the prison,
under inmate overseers.

Self-government, to the limit of its possibilities, is almost a fetish
with Mr. Osborne. For many years he was President of the Board of
Trustees of the George Junior Republic; there he became convinced that
self-government is workable not only for youngsters but for older
delinquents.

In the old-line prison the ever-present dread of the traditional warden
was an escape. His career was judged largely by his ability to suppress
escapes and frequently by his ability to suppress public knowledge of
the methods he used to keep order. Today the warden is judged able or
poor partly by his ability to develop men out of his prisoners, men
who on going out will make good. The entire theory of the old-line
prison construction was based on the principle that any prisoner would
escape if he could, and use desperate means of so doing. The bars and
steel-work that you see everywhere in prisons throughout the country
show how ingrained the theory has been. But up at Great Meadow, where
the bulk of the prisoners roam unattended by guards at their work
during the day, it is almost ridiculous to see them securely caged
behind several strata of tool-proof steel at night.

In the last few years demonstrations in scores of prisons and other
correctional institutions have shown that, if given the chance, when
on honor, the prisoners won’t run away. The old adage of “honor among
thieves” has taken on an entirely new meaning. It is now “honor among
thieves toward the State that trusts them.”

The power of discipline in the League is very limited. The only
punishment is suspension or elimination from the League. Such action
is delegated to the Executive Committee of the League. Actually, this
exclusion from the body politic--since almost every prisoner is a
member of the League--carries with it two important disadvantages. It
stamps the excluded inmates as _anti-social, not only to the prison
administration, but to the body of prisoners_. Secondly, it bars the
prisoner from enjoying the freedom privileges that the League enjoys.
Therefore the power of suspension, be it for but a few days, has real
force. The powers of discipline given to the League by the warden have
not been accurately fixed as yet. The warden has told the League that
all minor cases of discipline could be punished by them; wisely, I
think, the officers of the League have not been desirous of punishing.

So that at present men are turned back to the prison authorities by
the League for violation of the League discipline. The theory is that
these men will be put back under the old discipline of silence and
confinement, because they are no longer members of the League. The main
body of the prisoners have then no official interest in them, so that
the suspension involves practically a return to the old prison routine.

Recently a new Board of Delegates has been elected, and one of their
first acts was to adopt a probation system instead of the definite
sentence, in the cases of offenders against the League. A committee of
parole has been established, which shall visit the suspended men at
least once a week, and as soon as the committee thinks that the state
of mind of the suspended men warrants the action the Parole Committee
recommends to the Executive Committee the restoration of the men to the
full privileges of the League.

“A big test is coming,” said one delegate, “when the members of the
League go out. It will be up to them to justify by their conduct after
prison the principles they accepted here and the privileges they
received.” And the story was told us of one young man who was the first
of the delegates to receive his release from prison. He is said to have
made a hard fight to stay straight, mainly because he didn’t want to
“put the League in bad” by having one of its officers go crooked.

And here opens up still another far-reaching possibility. Why should
not the members of the League, once released from prison, form
committees in the various cities and communities of the State for the
purpose of helping the still later ones who come out of Auburn to make
good? Heretofore the best that we of the Prison Association of New York
have achieved has been to employ big-hearted and sympathetic parole
officers--real friends of the released inmates. And we have scored good
success. But it has been always a case of supervision and encouragement
by the officer.

And so this was the proposition which we members of the Board of
Managers of the Prison Association made to the Executive Committee of
the League: “Will you co-operate with us in helping released prisoners
from Auburn make their parole satisfactorily? Will you have small
groups of ex-League members ready in various parts of the State to work
with our county committees to the one end of tiding and helping the
discharged and released prisoner over the hard months that immediately
follow his release?”

With enthusiasm the suggestion has been accepted. One delegate spoke
up: “I’m going out next month. I don’t know where I’ll get work, but
I’m willing to go anywhere the League sends me. I’m willing and eager
to give my life to this work, if I’m wanted!”

Such, briefly, is a picture of the Mutual Welfare League. That it is
significant in its possibilities no one can doubt. What its outcome
will be a year from now it would be hazardous to forecast. It may
be but a burst ahead of the general humanitarian movement that
characterizes prison reform throughout the country. It may be that when
the altruistic enthusiasm that now holds the more thoughtful members
of the League wanes, as wane it will to some extent, there will come a
slump, and an arrogance of demand for more privileges that will give to
the reactionary among prison administrators a chance to say, “I told
you so!”

But I much doubt it. The greater danger will come from possible
stupidity of prison administration, a change perhaps of authority at
the prison, and a consequent lack of sympathy with the purpose of the
League.

One thing seems sure. Prisons and reformatories will not go back to
the old-line repressive and often brutal treatment. The transition to
what will ultimately become the new treatment of delinquents is being
attended by various experiments, often startling and sometimes amazing.
We are not a Nation that thinks for a long time before acting in prison
reform. Our successes have come so far largely from experimenting,
retaining the successes and scrapping the failures. How much of the
honor system, the back-to-the-land movement, the road-work movement,
and the increasing classification of prisoners will be scrapped, it is
much too early as yet to say.

The final test will probably be along two lines. We shall determine how
the “new freedom” works within prison walls, applying the acid tests of
health, increased efficiency in labor, reformative value, education,
and general training for a decent life in society. We shall also have
to show, if we are friends of the “new freedom,” that such treatment
within the prison produces a larger number of permanent reformations
after prison, a higher percentage of those who make good.

In short, the ultimate test is going to be not the increased
possibility afforded the prisoner of enduring his prison term, nor yet
the increased ease of administration of correctional institutions,
but fairly and squarely as to whether society, from which all these
prisoners come, and which has been the sufferer by them, is to be
permanently better protected from their further depredations by giving
them what today seems to be a square deal within the prisons, and a
decent chance to make good after they come out.

EVENTS IN BRIEF

[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of
general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the
delinquent.]


_Road Work and Farm Work by Convicts_--(In the clipping service of
_The Delinquent_, road work and farm work by prisoners has become the
most frequent single item of news. All over the country prisoners are
working, or are “being worked.” We cite this month a number of items,
taken at random, and showing the wide scope of the movement to use
prisoners for out-door occupations that will benefit the community and
the men also).

The first gang of convicts from Sing Sing prison are working on
Catskill roads, and are camping. Most of them are short-term men....
In Pennsylvania, at Bellefonte, it is expected that the State will
raise 10,000 bushels of wheat and 5,000 tons of hay on the State
prison farm.... A bill providing that Federal prisoners kept in State
penitentiaries or jails may be used for improving the public roads of
any State has been introduced into the House of Representatives....
20 prisoners have been at work in Franklin county, N. Y., and are
netting $20. a day to the taxpayers, putting in stone roads.... The
State prison of Wisconsin is running two prison camps. The preliminary
work in constructing the new industrial home for women is being done
by the prisoners, making the roadbed, building a railroad spur, laying
the sewer system, digging the tunnels and otherwise excavating. The
workers wear khaki trousers, work shirts, overalls and straw hats.
The road the other camp is working on is the regulation road with a
fifteen-foot macadam driveway.... At Ames, Iowa, the convicts have had
a “raise” in wages, as a result of their first week’s showing. They
were receiving twenty cents an hour; now they get twenty-five. They
have been working for the Iowa State College, first doing “odd jobs”
around the institution, then oiling and cutting roads. “Adams, the
guard with the men, is virtually losing his job as guard and becoming
merely time-keeper for the bunch.” ... There are now three road camps
in New Jersey, with 40, 60, and 60 men respectively. The State Road
Department has a large appropriation for hiring prisoners to improve
the roads of the State.... At the farm of the New York City Reformatory
for Misdemeanants, now under construction in Orange county, the results
are as follows: “Two hundred tons of hay and two thousand bushels of
potatoes already. A promise of ten thousand tons of fresh vegetables
each season.” This farm was started only last spring, and less than
fifty young fellows have been at work on it. The produce is shipped to
the Department of Correction in New York City.... Sussex county, N.
J., requires its prisoners to work on the roads.... Warden Sanders,
of Iowa State Prison, has 175 prisoners at work on farms near Fort
Madison. With a big auto truck he can take gangs of laborers thirty or
forty miles from the Penitentiary where help is needed.... At Auburn
Prison, N. Y., a road camp of long-term men has been established,
and the prisoners to be sent out in this camp have been chosen by the
Mutual Welfare League, who stand sponsor for their good work while
outside. Several men of the gang had never seen an automobile.... In
Mesa county, Colo., prisoners in the county jail will next summer be
allowed to choose whether they will make hay, build or repair roads.
This summer it was hay or the rockpile.... Dr. O. F. Lewis, general
secretary of the Prison Association of New York, has issued a public
statement supporting the plan of Commissioner Davis to establish a
municipal farm of 500 acres on land reclaimed from the sea in Long
Island Sound, to be worked by prisoners of the Department.... Only
one desertion from the Ames, Ia., prison camp had been reported up
to July 22.... Residents of Tybee, Ga., have petitioned the county
commissioners to use convicts in building roads.... Governor Major
of Missouri will ask the next legislature to purchase a farm of at
least 1,000 acres across the river from the State penitentiary, for
the production of vegetables and meats. He estimates that 400 convicts
could be employed. Contracts under the contract system expire at
the end of this year.... Provisions of a bill before the Georgia
legislature are that the county chain gang shall work four months of
each year within the city limits of Macon, under the direction of the
mayor and council.... A survey of the proposed prison farm of Ohio
has been made by students of the engineering department of Ohio State
University. The farm consists of 1,455 acres.... Jefferson county, N.
Y., is contemplating purchasing a county jail farm.... The sheriff
of Washington county, N. Y., is using a garden for prisoners’ labor,
partly because “weeding an onion bed is about the most tiresome work
you can put a tramp to, and you won’t see the fellow again after his
term expires.”... The North Carolina Good Roads Association resolved
in July that all State convicts who are suitable for road work should
be used in the construction of public roads.... Prisoners from Great
Meadow Prison, N. Y., are building a State road in the Adirondacks....
The Lancaster, Pa., Automobile Club asks convict labor for public
roads.... Fifty more prisoners have been sent to the State Prison Farm
of New Jersey. Ultimately about 300 prisoners will be busy there. There
will be about 2,000 acres of land to cultivate.... Governor Stuart
of Virginia has pointed out that there are 1,056 men in the jails of
Virginia of whom no work is required, and he has urged the several
State departments interested in the matter to consider ways and means
to get these prisoners out on the roads.... It has been estimated that
the State of Ohio has realized 88.8 per cent. profit in raising cattle
on the penitentiary farm. 278 head of cattle were bought for 8 cents a
pound in Chicago. It is estimated that the total gain of the cattle,
which will be sold to State institutions, will be about $4,500. A large
dairy will be established on the farm.... From the District of Columbia
Workhouse Farm, which received a maintenance appropriation this last
year of $130,000, $60,000 will be returned in revenue, coming from the
sale of brick manufactured on the farm.... The city of Washington has
purchased 1,800 more acres on which to build a reformatory farm....
Superintendent Peyton, of the Indiana State Reformatory, wants to teach
his inmates scientific farming, after the foundry contracts expire in
November, 1915.... Thomas Mott Osborne has been spending several weeks,
working with the prisoners, at several of the Auburn Prison camps....
City prisoners in Burlington, Ia., will again work on the streets.
Sometime ago the prisoners were removed, but it was found that the
city was the loser thereby, and that the prisoners wanted to work on
the streets.... West Virginia is working State prisoners on roads....
The Sheriff of Suffolk county, N. Y., says that a prison farm is a
necessity, and he has started to get one.... A life convict has run
away from the honor camp at Auburn prison.... It is claimed that at
least a dozen prisoners have escaped in the last few months from the
New Jersey State prison farm.... Motion pictures showing convict road
builders from the State penitentiary of Colorado at work will be taken
in a few days on the Boulder Canon road....

(And the list might be continued almost indefinitely. The above notes
are from clippings received during the first two weeks of August).


_Important Resignations Announced_--A number of important changes
are taking place in executive positions in well-known prisons and
reformatories. Warden Wolfer is shortly to leave the Minnesota State
Prison. Warden Bridges has resigned from his long service at the
Massachusetts State Prison, Warden Brown has been succeeded in West
Virginia by State Senator M. Z. White. Chairman Frank L. Randall of the
Massachusetts Prison Commission is said to be resigning on September
1st, Superintendent Reid of the Minnesota State Reformatory is to take
Warden Wolfer’s place, and Henry K. W. Scott, formerly warden of the
New Hampshire State Prison, is to go to the position left vacant by
Superintendent Reid.

Henry Wolfer has been in prison work 43 years. He began, says the
Minneapolis Tribune, in a day when filth, vermin, brutality and torture
were prominent features of prison life. He ends it as warden of a
prison declared by many authorities to be one of the finest in the
world. Warden Wolfer began as guard at Joliet Prison as a boy of 18.
A recent number of the Delinquent (         ) contained an article
about the Warden’s remarkable work as an administrator and as a
business man.

Warden Bridges has been 21 years at the Massachusetts State Prison. The
Boston Herald says that when he took hold, conditions were chaotic. The
Warden has made a specialty of inmate education. The correspondence
courses, run entirely within the prison, are noteworthy. The prison
paper, the Mentor, is written entirely by hand, and facsimiled. The
prison is a congregate, old, cramped structure. Recently, sports have
been developed in the limited prison yard.

Warden Brown of the West Virginia Penitentiary seems to be making a
place for another appointee. The Wheeling, W. Va., Intelligencer,
says that the prison is losing the best and ablest executive it ever
had. He had in three and a half years renovated the sanitary system,
improved discipline, abolished corporal punishment, elevated the
standard of the prison school, turned over to the State (by contract
labor) $120,000 above expenses, instituted a prison savings bank, with
$35,000 in prisoners’ earnings for the overtime work, and has developed
a prisoners’ aid society for helping the families of convicts. He has
also developed two camps.

Whether Chairman Randall of the Massachusetts Prison Commission is to
leave Massachusetts is at the time of writing unsettled. Rumor has it
that he has been seriously disappointed at the practically absolute
failure of his extensive prison reform program to pass the Legislature,
and also at the failure of the Legislature to appropriate an increase
in salary which he was given to understand would occur this year, in
view of the fact that he left Minnesota last year at considerable
financial sacrifice. There is no question that Massachusetts will be a
serious loser, if Mr. Randall goes. There seems also a certain amount
of hostility toward an “imported” penologist. This is a sad attitude of
mind, but not confined solely to Massachusetts.


_Extension Courses of California University in Folsom Prison._--The
report of the university extension director, in charge of the work at
Folsom Prison, is interesting:

 “We began in January, and the official enrollment is now 324 students.
 As I soon found that many of the men had brains no better developed
 than those of a child of 8 years, classes were formed in elementary
 English, German and arithmetic.

 “The teaching is done by convicts who have proved themselves fitted
 for the positions, 15 being on the staff. Aside from financial
 reasons, this was done because the prisoners need teachers who are in
 sympathy with them.

 “All are not permitted to take the school work; some because of
 conduct, others because they are unable to keep up to the required
 standard; still others do not wish to take it. Any man who is
 unprepared twice in succession is dropped from the class. Many failed
 on this account when the work was first began as they were using it
 merely as an excuse to get out of their prison duties.

 “A man often wants to follow a profession or trade to which he is
 unsuited. Whenever one comes to me asking help in learning a trade, I
 find out what trade or profession he is best suited for.”

 When asked if the convicts appreciated the work, Mr. Jacobs’ face
 lighted up. “They do now,” he said. “My hand is still sore from the
 greetings they gave me when I returned from a trip East, but they
 tried all sorts of tricks to get men when the work was first started.”


_Funds for Deserted Wives._--According to the Pittsburg Times,
Pennsylvania’s law which went into effect a year ago, providing
payment to wives of men committed to the workhouse for non-support
and desertion during the time the husband is serving his sentence, is
proving a wonderful aid to women of Allegheny county, as proved by a
record of the first year’s results. About $5,200 has been paid to 107
women since July, 1913, when the law went into effect, the average
having been $12.50 for each woman.

Lawrence M. Fagan, probation officer in Allegheny county, through
whose hands these funds went, is enthusiastic. “It’s been an excellent
thing,” he said, “an arrangement which has solved a problem that has
confronted probation officers ever since the first man was sent to
prison for non-support. Previously the wives were no better off while
a man was in jail than they had been before and often were much worse
off. They had nothing at all coming in in most cases. Seldom did they
receive more than their earnings which in no case were large.”

These women now can expect help each month. Every man is credited 65
cents a day for every day he works and the money is given his wife.
This has amounted to $17.45 a month in some cases, although often it
has only been a few dollars, but in every case it has been received
with great welcome.

Mr. Fagan explained that men are sent to the workhouse only as a last
resort. They are generally given a chance to support their families
after being arrested for the first time and then if they fail they are
committed to prison. The payments have averaged $400 from this source
alone.

The general funds that pass through the hands of the probation officer
from husbands who are supporting their families on order of the court,
with the probation office as an intermediary, and from the workhouse to
wives, reached $55,500 during the past six months. During June alone
the total was $10,600.




NOTES.

An autobus has been installed to carry prisoners from New York City
to Sing Sing prison. This will do away with the necessity of marching
prisoners from the station at Ossining to the prison, a distance of
about half mile. The prison is thirty miles from New York.

       *       *       *       *       *

A hospital for tubercular convicts is to be established at the Maryland
State Penitentiary, an appropriation of $35,000 having been made by the
legislature. A prison school is also having excellent success.

       *       *       *       *       *

Prison contracts are to be continued “indefinitely” in the New Jersey
State prison, according to the Bayonne, N. J., Review of July 2d,
because there are not sufficient funds for the installation of the
State-use system. About 1,500 convicts are employed at the prison. Were
the contracts permitted to lapse, the prisoners would be idle.

       *       *       *       *       *

The county commissioners of Beaufort county, N. C., have voted that
convicts on the county roads may be whipped. “The superintendent
shall keep in his possession a lash 18 inches long, attached to a
stick 18 inches long and not more than two inches in diameter, and
said lash may split three times half-way from the end,” according
to the resolution. No convict may be whipped more than once during
two consecutive days, shall not receive more than 25 lashes at one
whipping, and must not be beaten on the neck or head. (We append these
details, because relics of barbarism should also be recorded in the
Delinquent. Ed).

       *       *       *       *       *

Out of a total of 1,478 prisoners confined in the Eastern Penitentiary
of Pennsylvania 1,008 have signed a petition which will be submitted to
the next legislature asking Statewide prohibition.

       *       *       *       *       *

The old State prison at Stillwater, Minn, was practically abandoned on
July 31st, when the last shoe contract expired. Hereafter all work at
the Stillwater (new) prison will be done for the State.

       *       *       *       *       *

During July some riots of considerable seriousness occurred on
Blackwell’s Island, New York City. Indictments for assault in the
second degree have now been returned against the five ringleaders in
the riots at the Penitentiary on July 8th. A maximum sentence of five
years is attached to conviction.

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, ETC. of THE DELINQUENT,


Published monthly at New York, N. Y., required by the Act of August
24th, 1912.

                      NAME OF                        POST OFFICE ADDRESS
 Editor, O. F. Lewis,                                135 East 15th St.,
                                                          New York City
 Managing Editor, O. F. Lewis,                       135 East 15th St.,
                                                          New York City
 Business Manager, O. F. Lewis,                      135 East 15th St.,
                                                          New York City
 Publisher, The National Prisoners’ Aid Association, 135 East 15th St.,
                                                          New York City
 Owners, The National Prisoners’ Aid Association,    135 East 15th St.,
                                                          New York City

There are no bondholders, mortgages, or other security holders. O. F.
LEWIS, Editor and Business Manager.

  Sworn to and subscribed before me this 27th day of March, 1914.
  H. L. McCORMICK, Notary Public No. 6, Kings County.
  My Commission expires March 31, 1914.




Transcriber’s Notes

A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.

Issue number corrected from 7 to 8.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75368 ***