Dick Tobin telephoned me to come in early to San Francisco as he had
something he thought interesting for me to do. I picked him up at the
Hibernian Bank and he took me down to the ferry, gave me a ticket, a
bunch of violets and typewritten directions, and sent me off to St.
Quentin prison across the bay.
At the prison, which stands up like a great fortress on a promontory,
I introduced myself to Warden Johnston. He and Mrs. Johnston gave me
lunch at their house above the flowered terraces, sunbathed, with
its wonderful view of the bay. On their verandah two grey-flannelled
prisoners were tying up the Bouganvillia creeper. Inside we were waited
on at table by a Chinaman who has a life sentence. I asked his crime
... he was just a “Tongman.” After lunch the Warden handed me over
to Miss Jackson who is in charge of the Women’s Section, and for an
hour I sat and talked in their little sitting room, with a group of
women prisoners. Their bedrooms were like cubicles in a girl’s school,
small, simply furnished, full of personal knickknacks, and not at all
suggestive of a prison cell. Their clothes were blue and white narrow
striped linen, made pretty well as they liked. Miss Jackson, I found
a most interesting character. Full of insight and clairvoyance, full
of deep human sympathy, understanding and kindness. One realized how
tremendously these caged souls were hers to help or hurt, and how much
more terrible their fate would be if the Wardress were hard and without
understanding. But Miss Jackson talked to me of some of them (before I
met them) with real interest and even affection.
I asked her whether a life sentence case was as easy to manage as one
who had done a lesser crime. Her reply was illuminating. She said that
whereas a life sentence was pronounced on an individual who might be
clean of character but for the one desperate deed, prompted by God
knows what passionate provocation, the lesser criminal on the other
hand might be an habitual petty malefactor who had merely chanced to be
caught on the hundredth act!
Out of over 2,000 prisoners only about 25 or 27 were women, and of
these about 10 came and talked to me in the sitting room, showed me
their needle work and conversed animatedly about the world outside.
They seemed in their hearts, almost unbeknown to themselves to be
tremendous feminists, and we had quite a heated debate on the subject
of whether men were intellectually superior to women, as a man asserted
to me the day before at lunch. We all granted the physical superiority,
but as to the rest ... well, happily we were all women and no man heard
us!
We discussed the impending disarmament convention, and we agreed that
it would most likely end, as the Versailles conference ended. We
conjured up the picture of all the best brains in the world, gathered
together for months and months, with all their retinue of secretaries,
and their secretaries’ secretaries, and we were of unanimous opinion
that women thus collectively could not have talked more, with less
results. Indeed the result of Versailles is completely nil. Some
of us dared to believe that women _might_ have done better! I like
to think of even the women behind gaol bars, women of varying ages
and nationalities, women with hardened or breaking hearts, putting
aside now and then their personal griefs to watch, humorously, this
conference of men who assemble for the second time, all seriously, to
settle the problems of a perplexing and rebellious world.
At last I asked what I could do for them outside and the request
was for books. New books, the latest publications, “something well
written--and modern!” Classics they had in plenty. The Russian prisoner
wanted “Confessions” by Tolstoi. The Italians, however, said they would
read nothing, not even if I secured Italian editions! To the charming
English girl, with a life sentence, I promised Margot Asquith’s diary,
Strachey’s Queen Victoria and the Mirrors of Downing Street. Then
Warden Johnston came and fetched me and showed me all he could of the
rest of the prison.
I saw the library, the workshops, the chapel and the hospital, but he
would not take me among the male prisoners. The sex problem is not
without interest. One forgets, that to a man with a life sentence it
is not very fair to parade women visitors. I sat up in the balcony
with the guard and watched the men assemble in the yard for lockup.
They were of such varied types and mostly so young. In front of them,
like a giant patio, surrounded by the prison buildings was a huge
parterre of brilliant dahlias all bathed in the setting sunlight.
These flowers have gone forth into the outside world, and won prizes
at the local flower shows. Hanging from the verandah roof in front
of the upper story cells, baskets of growing flowers were suspended
by wires, a curious contrast. There were a few negroes among the
crowd. Some Chinese and one or two prisoners conspicuous by their wide
striped uniforms. These were the men who had broken parole. One man
I noticed who did clerk work in one of the prison offices, he walked
across the patio at lockup time and he held his head high and walked
with an almost insolent assurance. His hands were the hands of a man
of breeding and he smoked a cigarette through a long amber holder--I
pointed him out to the guard--“a forger--” he said, indifferently. I
asked about the negroes--“I suppose they have done desperate things--?”
The guard shook his head, “they’re not half such bad chaps, most of
them, as some of the white men--”
I stayed till the big bell sounded and the motley humans were locked up
for the night. Then I went back and talked to Warden Johnston. He is
severe and looks hard, but his theory is to accomplish the regeneration
of men’s souls through kindness and trust, and not the brutalization of
a man into a stone. He hopes that most of these men when they come out
may have a new chance in life and make a success. When I got home late
for dinner, I told where I had been. Constance looked surprised and
even perplexed. “Did you _want_ to see another prison--?” “Well, _such_
a prison, yes,” “How did you get from San Raffaele to the prison?” “In
a taxi--” ... Exclamations--how did I dare trust myself to an unknown
taxi, how did I know when I told the driver to go to St. Quentin prison
three miles off that he was taking me there? I didn’t quite know what
to say. But it seemed to me that if I wasn’t safe to go in a taxi from
San Rafaele to St. Quentin this must be a far more dangerous country
than Russia or Mexico and then she asked me this strange question in
reply to my account!
“Did you _want_ to talk with the women prisoners for an hour--?”
I thought of all the hours we had spent talking with women in the
sheltered verandahs of Burlingame, and I did not dare to tell her that
the women of St. Quentin had roused in me a desire to go to prison, so
as to gain some human understanding.