ON THE RAILROAD
No man may serve a term of imprisonment in a modern prison and return
to freedom on the same moral plane as he left it. A man may fall, but
he may rise again, provided he is saved from that lifelong branding
which a penal prison leaves upon its victim. Innocent or guilty the
modern prison system is an invention which must rob its victim for ever
of his confidence, his self-respect, almost of his hope. It is an
institution set up to protect the free citizen, and terrorize the
wrong-doer into better ways. And it does neither of these things.
Instead, it pours upon society, daily, a stream of hopeless, hardened,
bitter creatures, who, through its merciless process, have abandoned
what little grip they ever had upon their moral natures, and drives
them along the broad, ill-lit road of crime. Instead of being the
deterrent it is supposed to be, it is the worst creator of crime known
to civilization.
These were some of the reflections forced upon young Frank Burton after
twelve months' bitter experience in Alston Penitentiary. And now, with
each passing moment of his new freedom, the truth of these painful
observations was more and more surely brought home to him. An innocent
man, he had come out into the light of freedom, dreading and shrinking
before every eye that was turned in his direction. His self-confidence
was shaken. All his old trust and belief in the goodness of the life
about him seemed to have melted into dark and painful suspicion, and,
for the time at least, he was forced into those darkened purlieus which
belong to the world of crime. The light was unendurable.
He had changed terribly from the buoyant lad he had been. He had seen
so much, thought so much during those twelve long months, that now he
was weighted down by a maturity that belonged to twice his years.
He knew he could never go back to the old life. That he had long since
made up his mind up to. More than that, he could not accept benefits
from those who belonged to it, whom he had known and loved. Even
Phyllis, for all her ardent affection, she, too, belonged to a life
that was wholly dead.
The future, his future, lay in his own two empty hands. Those whom he
loved, and those whom he hated and despised could have no part in it.
Were it otherwise he felt that to see Monica would be to bring him into
contact with Hendrie, and such contact could only stir in him all the
evil influences of the prison, influences from which it was his
determination to escape.
Phyllis? Little Phyllis?
No. She must go, too. The band of the criminal had sunk too deeply into
his soul. She must be left free. No such contamination must be brought
into her life. His love for her was far too great for him to submit her
to such a dreadful disaster as marriage with an ex-convict.
He had thought of all these things before, he thought again of them
now. They were rarely absent from his mind.
The moment he read Monica's letter he knew what he intended to do. And
it was the same when he hungrily devoured the words of devotion he
received from Phyllis. Dealing with Monica's letter had been simple
enough. With Phyllis's it was a far different matter. He wanted her to
understand. He knew he must hurt her, but he felt that by presenting
all his feelings to her, she, with her wide understanding, would
appreciate and accept his decisions.
The whole journey from Alston to Fieldcoats, in the old-fashioned
rumbling "stage," was given up to these hopeless meditations of an
outcast. And he was glad of it. He was glad that he had the time to
think of the letter he must send this girl at once.
It was dark when the twinkling lights of Fieldcoats, the nearest town
where he would take train for Toronto, came into view, and he was glad
of that friendly obscurity. His shrinking from the light was no morbid
feeling. With his close-cropped head the story of his recent past was
open for every one to read.
He did not complete the journey to the final halting place of the
stage, but dropped off it in the lower and more obscure part of the
town. It was here that he meant to begin his new life. A cheap, clean
bed was all he desired, just a place where he could rest between
sheets, and write his long letter to Phyllis. He wanted something solid
on four legs. Something which would not remind him of the hammock he
had learned to hate.
He found the place he required without difficulty. It vaunted the
title, "The Alexandra Hotel," and its beds, in cubicles, were let out
at twenty-five cents and ten cents a night. It was a mere "dossing
house," but that was quite a matter of indifference. He felt he had no
right to squeamishness.
He booked one of the higher priced cubicles and ascertained that it was
clean. Then, with a sigh of resignation, and some squaring of the
shoulders, he prepared to face the curious eyes of the derelicts who
haunted the "office" of the establishment.
To face even these, with his close-cropped head, Frank found no light
task, but he knew that for weeks yet he must keep himself hardened to
the consciousness of his prison brand. The only thing possible was a
desperately bold front, a front that would intimidate the curious, and,
if necessary, he must follow it up with all it threatened.
So he entered the room and calmly looked about him. He was big, spare,
and enormously powerful. His hard blue eyes deliberately sought for any
eye that might be turned in his direction. His trouble was wasted. He
forgot that these poor creatures, lounging upon the hard Windsor
chairs, reading papers, or staring hopelessly before them while they
smoked, were derelicts like himself. Nobody gave him the slightest
heed, and he was left to seek out his obscure corner where he could
write in peace.
Once assured of his immunity, Frank began his letter, and promptly
became completely lost to his surroundings. The long-pent thoughts of
the past year flowed passionately as he attempted to show the girl he
loved all that which lay deep down in his simple heart.
It was not, perhaps, the convincing letter of a deep thinker. It was
not a letter full of the refinement of logical argument. He wrote just
as he thought, and felt, and saw, with a mind tinged by the dark hues
of his own sufferings and the sufferings of others.
He told her, simple creature that he was, of all his love for her. He
told her of the aching heart which this definite parting left him with,
and, in the same breath almost, he told her that he regarded it as his
sacred duty to shield her from contamination with a disgrace such as
his. He forgot that where a real woman's love is concerned, duty, and
perhaps any other scruple is willingly flung aside.
His simplicity carried him into deeper water, for he wrote long and
ardently of his own future, a future conceived, and to be founded upon
all he had seen and experienced in prison. Again he forgot the wide
mind of the girl he was writing to, and blindly believed that the
sincerity and honesty of his motives must appeal to her.
It was altogether a headlong sort of letter. He wrote as he thought and
felt, and scarcely paused for a word or phrase. The gist of it was a
yearning for a sort of sublime socialism. He could not longer bear the
thought of self-seeking. He had seen so much of the disastrous results
of it that he felt and knew that the whole process of it was utterly
wrong. The prisons were filled with its results.
Those things, he said, had started his train of thought, and, with each
passing day, his eyes had become more fully opened.
All the old ambitions, he told her, had been rooted out of him for
ever. They were the natural impulses of a heart and mind all untutored,
and far too immature for the real understanding of life. He had desired
wealth and place in the world, and it had seemed good to him to so
desire. Nor was it to be wondered at. Such desires had been inspired by
honest motives, if, perhaps, selfish. They were just the first
teachings of life until--it presented the reverse side of the picture.
He had been shown the reverse of the picture, and it had come in time.
For twelve months he had gazed upon it and learned its lessons. For
twelve months he had groped amid the cobwebs of life and sought among
the darkened corners. That which he had discovered there had plainly
shown him that, for him, past and future ambitions were divided by a
gulf that could never be bridged again. In future his life would be
cast on the side of the helpless and struggling, on the side of the
oppressed, and those who were less endowed for the battle of life.
The battle of life? There should be no battle. There never was a battle
intended. Why should there be? Was there not more than enough to go
round? It was only because the laws of man permitted accumulations to
the individual and so reduced more than half the world to a position
bordering on starvation, a condition which lay at the very root of all
crime. The old belief in the survival of the fittest was a dead one. It
applied to simple physical conditions, not to the right to enjoy a fair
share of those blessings a beneficent Creator had provided for the
benefit of all. Think of it, he appealed, think of the king of beasts
cornering all the food upon which his species depended to support life.
Picture one proud brute standing over a hoard of rotting flesh,
flourishing his tail and snarling defiance at a crowd of starving
creatures of his own kind. Would they permit it? Would they leave him
in possession? No, they would set upon him in their numbers, and, in
desperation, they would tear him limb from limb.
Brotherhood and Equality! That was to be the keynote of his future.
Henceforth all his power, all his heart should be flung into the only
cause that could make the world endurable.
So he wrote to this girl of more than common wisdom, and he told
himself she would understand. He told himself that though their lives
could never come together again, at least he would possess her sympathy.
It was long past midnight when Frank's letter was folded in its cheap
envelope and addressed. But its writing had done him good. It had been
inspired by a big heart, if little wisdom, and he felt that he had
taken his first step upon the new road opening out before him.
There were still stragglers in the office when he finally retired to
his cubicle. Some were sleepily drunk, after an evening spent in
"cadging" drinks among the low-class saloons in the neighborhood. Some
were merely utterly weary with a long day of vain searching for some
means of livelihood. All were unkempt and tattered, and most of them
dirty.
These were some of the poor creatures belonging to the ranks of those,
who, in his lofty ideals of the work that lay before him, Frank hoped
to range himself on the side of. In his youthful blindness he failed
utterly to recognize the workings of the definite laws of compensation.
He missed entirely the most glaring fact of life. It passed him by that
the majority of these were _able-bodied_ men who had wilfully thrown
away the chances which life never fails to offer, for the indulgence of
those selfish passions which in his heart he abhorred.
That night he slept the fitful sleep of a man unused to his
surroundings, but he was sufficiently refreshed when the hour appointed
for arising in such places arrived. He turned out quite ready to face
all that the day might bring forth. He knew that he must endure many
trials of patience and feelings. But he intended to face them with a
brave heart.
Ten cents was all he allowed himself for his breakfast. He required
only sufficient to sustain life, nor did he obtain more for the money.
Then he made his way to the railroad depot, forcing himself to a
blindness for the attention his appearance attracted. Here he made
inquiries as to the train, and booked his passage. The train for
Toronto left just before noon, so he purchased a newspaper and sat down
in the waiting-hall. He intended to pass the time scanning the
advertisements, that he might learn the best means of obtaining
employment when he arrived at his destination.
The train was "on time," and, in due course, Frank boarded it. The car
he selected was fairly empty. At the far end of it a party of people,
evidently a family party, occupied several seats. For the rest five or
six men and two women were scattered about its length.
He took his place in the rear seat of the coach, feeling that it was
preferable to have no inquisitive eyes behind him. Those who displayed
marked attention from in front he felt confident of being able to deal
with. But he reckoned without his host.
The first part of his journey was quite uneventful. But at the first
important town at which the train stopped several passengers boarded
the car. Among them was a man with closely trimmed iron gray hair, and
quick, searching eyes that closely scanned the faces of each person in
the car.
His stare was not wholly rude. It was the searching glance of a man who
is accustomed to studying his fellows, who never fails to do so at any
opportunity. He took a corner seat just across the aisle of the car,
and on the level immediately in front of Frank. He sat turned so that
the whole view of the car came within his focus. Nor was it a matter of
more than moments before Frank's cropped head came under his
observation.
Frank felt that this was so, although he was studiously intent upon his
paper, and, as the fixed contemplation remained, he chafed under it.
For some time he endured it, hoping that, the man's curiosity
satisfied, he would turn away. But nothing of the sort happened. The
stranger's interest became riveted.
Frank felt himself grow hot with resentment. He determined to put an
end to it by the simple process of staring the man out of countenance.
To this end he looked up sharply, and with anything but a friendly
expression in his cold eyes. As their eyes met there was something like
a deliberate challenge in the exchange. The man made no attempt to
withdraw his gaze, and Frank found himself looking into a clean-shaven,
keen, determined face, lit by a pair of hard, satirical eyes.
Promptly the position became more than intolerable, and Frank was
driven to a very natural verbal protest. He sprang from his seat and
crossed the aisle. Leaning across the back of the stranger's seat he
voiced his annoyance deliberately and coldly.
"It seems to me you'll probably know me when you see me again," he
said, with angry sarcasm.
The stranger smiled amiably.
"Just depends when I meet you," he retorted, with a meaning glance at
the close-cropped hair displayed under the brim of Frank's hat.
A sudden anger lit the boy's eyes at the taunt, and a violent protest
leaped to his lips. But the stranger anticipated him.
"Say," he drawled, "sit right down--here. I wasn't meaning offence.
What got me looking was you're so like--an old friend of mine. You
brought the other on yourself. Won't you sit--right down?"
The stranger's manner was so disarmingly cordial that Frank's heat
began to die down. Still, he had no intention of accepting the
invitation.
"Maybe you didn't intend rudeness, but that isn't the point," he said
deliberately. "I'm not the man to stand rudeness from--anybody."
"Sure," said the other calmly. "Guess that's how we all feel. Say, it's
the queerest thing. Guess you're 'bout twenty or so. Just about his
age. You're the dead image of--my friend, when he was your age. You got
blue eyes and his were gray. It's the only spark of difference. Going
up Toronto way?"
Frank nodded. He somehow felt he could do no less, without returning in
cold silence to his seat. Somehow he felt that to do so would be
churlish, in spite of the fact that he was the aggrieved.
The keen-eyed stranger recognized his advantage in obtaining the
admission, and promptly followed it up. He indicated the seat beside
him and persisted in his invitation.
"Best sit," he said, with a pleasant smile. "It's quite a long piece to
Toronto. I'd a heap like to yarn with you."
The stranger was altogether too much for the simplicity of the other.
Besides, there was nothing but amiability in his manner. Perhaps after
all he had been hasty, Frank thought. He was so sensitive about the
brand of the prison he carried about with him. The shame of it was
always with him. Anyway, it could not hurt talking to this man, and it
would help pass the time. He allowed himself to be persuaded, and half
reluctantly dropped into the seat.
"Say, that's friendly," commented the stranger, with a sharp, sidelong
glance at Frank's strong profile. "There's just one thing I got set
against this country. It's a hell of a ways between cities. Maybe you
don't get that across in England."
"I've never been in England," Frank admitted.
"Ah. Maybe States?"
Frank nodded. And the man laughed.
"The land of Freedom, Graft and Finance."
"Yes, it's an odd mixture," agreed Frank. "It's also a land of slavery.
A queer contradiction, but nevertheless true. Three parts of the people
are held in bondage to the other fourth, who represent Capital."
The stranger stirred and settled himself. He gazed keenly into his
companion's face.
"Guess you were one of the 'three parts,' and found the
fourth--oppressive."
Frank shifted his position uneasily. Then with a sudden curious
abandonment he spread his hands out.
"Say," he cried, his cheeks flushing, "I don't know what makes me talk
to you--a stranger. You're the first man who has wanted to speak to me
since--I came out. I know you've spotted my cropped head, so what's the
use of trying to deny it. Yes, I've found it, I suppose. But not in the
States. Just right here in Canada, where things are much the same. I've
just come out of Alston Penitentiary. I was sentenced wrongfully to
five years, and now, at the end of one of them they've found out my
innocence, and given me a free pardon--for not being guilty."
"A free pardon?" The stranger's eyes were reading his companion through
and through.
"Yes, a free pardon for an offence I never committed," Frank went on,
with bitter indignation. "It doesn't matter how or where it happened.
But the whole thing was worked. I mean my trial, by a man of--well, one
of the millionaire class--one of the other 'fourth.' Perhaps you'll
understand now why I hated you staring at me."
The stranger nodded sympathetically.
"Guess I'm real sorry," he said.
Frank shook his head.
"It doesn't matter--now. It's done me good to tell--somebody. See." He
drew out his prison discharge and showed it to his companion, who read
it over carefully. "You don't need to take my word. That'll tell you
all you need to know."
The other looked up.
"Frank Smith?" he said.
"Frank Burton's my name. I used the other so as to keep it from folks I
didn't want to know about it."
"I see." The stranger was studying the clean cut of the ingenuous face
beside him. "And now they'll know--I s'pose?"
"They've found out for themselves." The youngster's blue eyes were
shadowed in gloom.
"Ah!" The other glanced out of the window a moment. "And--what are you
going to do? Go back to--'em?"
The gloomy blue eyes were turned away. Frank was staring
introspectively down the aisle of the car.
"No," he said at last. "I'm not going back to them." Then he sat up and
looked at his companion earnestly. "To go back would mean to become one
of the other 'fourth.' The ranks of the submerged three-quarters is my
future. I've learned a lot in the last twelve months. Say, have you
ever been inside a prison."
The stranger's sharp eyes lit with a brief smile. It was not a really
pleasant face with its narrow eyes; nor was it a pleasant smile. He
shook his head.
"I've seen 'em--from the outside. I'm not yearning to get a peek
inside."
Frank looked disappointed.
"It's a pity," he said. "You see, you won't understand just how I see
things. Do you know, the prisons are just full to overflowing with
folks who'd be free to-day--if it weren't for the existence of that
other 'fourth'? Oh, I don't mean they've been deliberately put away by
the wealthy folk. I'm just learning that one of the greatest causes of
all crime, is that, under present conditions, there isn't enough to go
round."
The stranger's smile had become more encouraging.
"And the cure for it is--Socialism, eh?"
Frank started. Then he nodded.
"I suppose that's what folks would call it. I call it Brotherhood and
Equality."
"Go a step further," said the other. "It's that 'fourth,' we are
talking about, who get rich and live on the efforts of the worker whom
they sweat and crush into the very ground over which their automobiles
roll. Put it in plain words, man. It is the worker, the poor wretch
that just manages to scrape existence by grinding toil, who feeds the
rich and makes possible the degrading luxury of their lives. And when
the first hope of youth gets swamped by the grind of their labors, and
they see their equally wretched wives and hungry children going without
the barest necessities of life, and before them lies nothing but the
dreary road of incessant toil, with no earthly chance of bettering
themselves, then they grow desperate, and help to fill those hells of
despair we call penitentiaries. That's what you've realized in prison."
Frank stared at the man. The force of his manner was such as to carry
absolute conviction of his personal feelings upon this matter, feelings
which also lay so deep in the heart of the ex-convict. He wondered at
the strange chance which had brought him into contact with a man who
shared these new feelings and beliefs of his. Could it be----?
"You believe that way, too?" he asked eagerly.
At that moment a waiter from the dining-car entered the coach.
"First call for dinner! First call for dinner!" He passed down the car
issuing his invitation in high, nasal tones.
The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat pockets, and, as the waiter
passed, he produced his card, and held it out toward his companion.
"Say," he observed, lapsing once more into his more genial manner.
"Guess you'll be yearning for a billet when you get along to Toronto.
Just keep that by you, and when you're needing one, come and look me
up. We're always needing recruits for our work. I'll take it kindly if
you'll eat with me right now."
Frank took the card and read the name on it--
MR. AUSTIN LEYBURN,
2012 Mordaunt Avenue, Toronto, Ont.
President of the Agricultural Helpers' Society of Canada.
Gen. Sec. Bonded Railroaders.
Asst.-Gen. Sec. Associated Freighters' Combine.