“To promote efficiency to the system of measurement and photography
throughout the country, Congress will be asked to enact and establish
such a National Bureau. When that has been secured, many facts as
to crime and criminals can be made plain to all. For the repeater,
severity is mercy. On that thought much could be said, for it underlies
all systems and methods of modern prison discipline. If we contrast the
conditions, methods, and laws now the rule in all prisons with those of
one hundred years ago, there is great reason for thankfulness and hope
for the future.”
At the adjournment of the evening session a reception was held in the
parlor of the Y. M. C. A., where all the visitors shook hands with
Governor Nash.
The headquarters were at the Colonial Hotel, where most of the
delegates stopped. The delegates were furnished with a badge, and also
a package of twenty trolley-car tickets to ride on any of the lines.
These were donated by the car line management.
SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 23d.
The delegates met at the Colonial Hotel and marched to the Epworth
Memorial M. E. Church to listen to the annual sermon by Rev. Ward
Beecher Pickard, D.D. It was a masterly production, so well filled
with good thoughts, that it was constantly referred to throughout the
sessions.
The theme of Dr. Pickard’s sermon was “God’s child, the criminal.”
I refrain from any extracts as it is to be published for general
distribution, as a leaflet, for a help to prison workers.
Sunday evening, at the Old Stone Church, Chaplain Rev. John L.
Milligan, General Secretary, made the invocation prayer, Chaplain
William J. Batt read the Scripture lesson, and the evening was taken
up with short popular addresses on prison reform, by President Wright
on the aims of work of the Association, Hon. Samuel J. Barrows on the
International Penitentiary Congress, held at Brussels, Belgium, General
R. Brinkerhoff of Ohio, Hon. H. H. Hart of Illinois Children’s Home and
Aid Society, Professor Rev. C. R. Henderson, University of Chicago.