[* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was greatly interested in securing for
Chiara Cignarale a commutation of the death sentence to imprisonment
for life. In view of the fact that the great Agnostic has made a
close study of capital punishment, a reporter for the _World_ called
upon him a day or two ago for an interview touching modern reformatory
measures and the punishment of criminals. Speaking generally on the
subject Colonel Ingersoll said: ]
I suppose that society--that is to say, a state or a nation--has
the right of self-defence. It is impossible to maintain society--
that is to say, to protect the rights of individuals in life, in
property, in reputation, and in the various pursuits known as trades
and professions, without in some way taking care of those who
violate these rights. The principal object of all government should
be to protect those in the right from those in the wrong. There
are a vast number of people who need to be protected who are unable,
by reason of the defects in their minds and by the countless
circumstances that enter into the question of making a living, to
protect themselves. Among the barbarians there was, comparatively
speaking, but little difference. A living was made by fishing and
hunting. These arts were simple and easily learned. The principal
difference in barbarians consisted in physical strength and courage.
As a consequence, there were comparatively few failures. Most men
were on an equality. Now that we are somewhat civilized, life has
become wonderfully complex. There are hundreds of arts, trades,
and professions, and in every one of these there is great
competition.
Besides all this, something is needed every moment. Civilized man
has less credit than the barbarian. There is something by which
everything can be paid for, including the smallest services.
Everybody demands payment, and he who fails to pay is a failure.
Owing to the competition, owing to the complexity of modern life,
owing to the thousand things that must be known in order to succeed
in any direction, on either side of the great highway that is called
Progress, are innumerable wrecks. As a rule, failure in some honest
direction, or at least in some useful employment, is the dawn of
crime. People who are prosperous, people who by reasonable labor
can make a reasonable living, who, having a little leisure can lay
in a little for the winter that comes to all, are honest.
As a rule, reasonable prosperity is virtuous. I don't say great
prosperity, because it is very hard for the average man to withstand
extremes. When people fail under this law, or rather this fact,
of the survival of the fittest, they endeavor to do by some illegal
way that which they failed to do in accordance with law. Persons
driven from the highway take to the fields, and endeavor to reach
their end or object in some shorter way, by some quicker path,
regardless of its being right or wrong.
I have said this much to show that I regard criminals as unfortunates.
Most people regard those who violate the law with hatred. They do
not take into consideration the circumstances. They do not believe
that man is perpetually acted upon. They throw out of consideration
the effect of poverty, of necessity, and above all, of opportunity.
For these reasons they regard criminals with feelings of revenge.
They wish to see them punished. They want them imprisoned or
hanged. They do not think the law has been vindicated unless
somebody has been outraged. I look at these things from an entirely
different point of view. I regard these people who are in the
clutches of the law not only as unfortunates, but, for the most
part, as victims. You may call them victims of nature, or of
nations, or of governments; it makes no difference, they are victims.
Under the same circumstances the very persons who punish them would
be punished. But whether the criminal is a victim or not, the
honest man, the industrious man, has the right to defend the product
of his labor. He who sows and plows should be allowed to reap,
and he who endeavors to take from him his harvest is what we call
a criminal; and it is the business of society to protect the honest
from the dishonest.
Without taking into account whether the man is or is not responsible,
still society has the right of self-defence. Whether that right
of self-defence goes to the extent of taking life, depends, I
imagine, upon the circumstances in which society finds itself
placed. A thousand men on a ship form a society. If a few men
should enter into a plot for the destruction of the ship, or for
turning it over to pirates, or for poisoning and plundering the
most of the passengers--if the passengers found this out certainly
they would have the right of self-defence. They might not have
the means to confine the conspirators with safety. Under such
circumstances it might be perfectly proper for them to destroy
their lives and to throw their worthless bodies into the sea. But
what society has the right to do depends upon the circumstances.
Now, in my judgment, society has the right to do two things--to
protect itself and to do what it can to reform the individual.
Society has no right to take revenge; no right to torture a convict;
no right to do wrong because some individual has done wrong. I am
opposed to all corporal punishment in penitentiaries. I am opposed
to anything that degrades a criminal or leaves upon him an unnecessary
stain, or puts upon him any stain that he did not put upon himself.
Most people defend capital punishment on the ground that the man
ought to be killed because he has killed another. The only real
ground for killing him, even if that be good, is not that he has
killed, but that he may kill. What he has done simply gives evidence
of what he may do, and to prevent what he may do, instead of to
revenge what he has done, should be the reason given.
Now, there is another view. To what extent does it harden the
community for the Government to take life? Don't people reason in
this way: That man ought to be killed; the Government, under the
same circumstances, would kill him, therefore I will kill him?
Does not the Government feed the mob spirit--the lynch spirit?
Does not the mob follow the example set by the Government? The
Government certainly cannot say that it hangs a man for the purpose
of reforming him. Its feelings toward that man are only feelings
of revenge and hatred. These are the same feelings that animate
the lowest and basest mob.
Let me give you an example. In the city of Bloomington, in the
State of Illinois, a man confined in the jail, in his efforts to
escape, shot and, I believe, killed the jailer. He was pursued,
recaptured, brought back and hanged by a mob. The man who put the
rope around his neck was then under indictment for an assault to
kill and was out on bail, and after the poor wretch was hanged
another man climbed the tree and, in a kind of derision, put a
piece of cigar between the lips of the dead man. The man who did
this had also been indicted for a penitentiary offence and was then
out on bail.
I mention this simply to show the kind of people you find in mobs.
Now, if the Government had a greater and nobler thought; if the
Government said: "We will reform; we will not destroy; but if the
man is beyond reformation we will simply put him where he can do
no more harm," then, in my judgment, the effect would be far better.
My own opinion is, that the effect of an execution is bad upon the
community--degrading and debasing. The effect is to cheapen human
life; and, although a man is hanged because he has taken human
life, the very fact that his life is taken by the Government tends
to do away with the idea that human life is sacred.
Let me give you an illustration. A man in the city of Washington
went to Alexandria, Va., for the purpose of seeing a man hanged
who had murdered an old man and a woman for the purpose of getting
their money. On his return from that execution he came through
what is called the Smithsonian grounds. This was on the same day,
late in the evening. There he met a peddler, whom he proceeded to
murder for his money. He was arrested in a few hours, in a little
while was tried and convicted, and in a little while was hanged.
And another man, present at this second execution, went home on
that same day, and, in passing by a butcher-shop near his house,
went in, took from the shop a cleaver, went into his house and
chopped his wife's head off.
This, I say, throws a little light upon the effect of public
executions. In the Cignarale case, of course the sentence should
have been commuted. I think, however, that she ought not to be
imprisoned for life. From what I read of the testimony I think
she should have been pardoned.
It is hard, I suppose, for a man fully to understand and enter into
the feelings of a wife who has been trampled upon, abused, bruised,
and blackened by the man she loved--by the man who made to her the
vows of eternal affection. The woman, as a rule, is so weak, so
helpless. Of course, it does not all happen in a moment. It comes
on as the night comes. She notices that he does not act quite as
affectionately as he formerly did. Day after day, month after
month, she feels that she is entering a twilight. But she hopes
that she is mistaken, and that the light will come again. The
gloom deepens, and at last she is in midnight--a midnight without
a star. And this man, whom she once worshiped, is now her enemy--
one who delights to trample upon every sentiment she has--who
delights in humiliating her, and who is guilty of a thousand nameless
tyrannies. Under these circumstances, it is hardly right to hold
that woman accountable for what she does. It has always seemed to
me strange that a woman so circumstanced--in such fear that she
dare not even tell her trouble--in such fear that she dare not even
run away--dare not tell a father or a mother, for fear that she
will be killed--I say, that in view of all this, it has always
seemed strange to me that so few husbands have been poisoned.
The probability is that society raises its own criminals. It plows
the land, sows the seed, and harvests the crop. I believe that
the shadow of the gibbet will not always fall upon the earth. I
believe the time will come when we shall know too much to raise
criminals--know too much to crowd those that labor into the dens
and dungeons that we call tenements, while the idle live in palaces.
The time will come when men will know that real progress means the
enfranchisement of the whole human race, and that our interests
are so united, so interwoven, that the few cannot be happy while
the many suffer; so that the many cannot be happy while the few
suffer; so that none can be happy while one suffers. In other
words, it will be found that the human race is interested in each
individual. When that time comes we will stop producing criminals;
we will stop producing failures; we will not leave the next generation
to chance; we will not regard the gutter as a proper nursery for
posterity.
People imagine that if the thieves are sent to the penitentiary,
that is the last of the thieves; that if those who kill others are
hanged, society is on a safe and enduring basis. But the trouble
is here: A man comes to your front door and you drive him away.
You have an idea that that man's case is settled. You are mistaken.
He goes to the back door. He is again driven away. But the case
is not settled. The next thing you know he enters at night. He
is a burglar. He is caught; he is convicted; he is sent to the
penitentiary, and you imagine that the case is settled. But it is
not. You must remember that you have to keep all the agencies
alive for the purpose of taking care of these people. You have to
build and maintain your penitentiaries, your courts of justice;
you have to pay your judges, your district attorneys, your juries,
you witnesses, your detectives, your police--all these people must
be paid. So that, after all, it is a very expensive way of settling
this question. You could have done it far more cheaply had you
found this burglar when he was a child; had you taken his father
and mother from the tenement house, or had you compelled the owners
to keep the tenement clean; or if you had widened the streets, if
you had planted a few trees, if you had had plenty of baths, if
you had had a school in the neighborhood. If you had taken some
interest in this family--some interest in this child--instead of
breaking into houses, he might have been a builder of houses.
There is, and it cannot be said too often, no reforming influence
in punishment; no reforming power in revenge. Only the best of
men should be in charge of penitentiaries; only the noblest minds
and the tenderest hearts should have the care of criminals.
Criminals should see from the first moment that they enter a
penitentiary that it is filled with the air of kindness, full of
the light of hope. The object should be to convince every criminal
that he has made a mistake; that he has taken the wrong way; that
the right way is the easy way, and that the path of crime never
did and never can lead to happiness; that that idea is a mistake,
and that the Government wishes to convince him that he has made a
mistake; wishes to open his intellectual eyes; wishes so to educate
him, so to elevate him, that he will look back upon what he has
done, only with horror. This is reformation. Punishment is not.
When the convict is taken to Sing Sing or to Auburn, and when a
striped suit of clothes is put upon him--that is to say, when he
is made to feel the degradation of his position--no step has been
taken toward reformation. You have simply filled his heart with
hatred. Then, when he has been abused for several years, treated
like a wild beast, and finally turned out again in the community,
he has no thought, in a majority of cases, except to "get even"
with those who have persecuted him. He feels that it is a
persecution.
_Question_. Do you think that men are naturally criminals and
naturally virtuous?
_Answer_. I think that man does all that he does naturally--that
is to say, a certain man does a certain act under certain circumstances,
and he does this naturally. For instance, a man sees a five dollar
bill, and he knows that he can take it without being seen. Five
dollars is no temptation to him. Under the circumstances it is
not natural that he should take it. The same man sees five million
dollars, and feels that he can get possession of it without detection.
If he takes it, then under the circumstances, that was natural to
him. And yet I believe there are men above all price, and that no
amount of temptation or glory or fame could mislead them. Still,
whatever man does, is or was natural to him.
Another view of the subject is this: I have read that out of fifty
criminals who had been executed it was found, I believe, in nearly
all the cases, that the shape of the skull was abnormal. Whether
this is true or not, I don't know; but that some men have a tendency
toward what we call crime, I believe. Where this has been ascertained,
then, it seems to me, such men should be placed where they cannot
multiply their kind. Women who have a criminal tendency should be
placed where they cannot increase their kind. For hardened criminals
--that is to say, for the people who make crime a business--it
would probably be better to separate the sexes; to send the men to
one island, the women to another. Let them be kept apart, to the
end that people with criminal tendencies may fade from the earth.
This is not prompted by revenge. This would not be done for the
purpose of punishing these people, but for the protection of society
--for the peace and happiness of the future.
My own belief is that the system in vogue now in regard to the
treatment of criminals in many States produces more crime than it
prevents. Take, for instance, the Southern States. There is hardly
a chapter in the history of the world the reading of which could
produce greater indignation than the history of the convict system
in many of the Southern States. These convicts are hired out for
the purpose of building railways, or plowing fields, or digging
coal, and in some instances the death-rate has been over twelve
per cent. a month. The evidence shows that no respect was paid to
the sexes--men and women were chained together indiscriminately.
The evidence also shows that for the slightest offences they were
shot down like beasts. They were pursued by hounds, and their
flesh was torn from their bones.
So in some of the Northern prisons they have what they call the
weighing machine--an infamous thing, and he who uses it commits as
great a crime as the convict he punishes could have committed.
All these things are degrading, debasing, and demoralizing. There
is no need of any such punishment in any penitentiary. Let the
punishment be of such kind that the convict is responsible himself.
For instance, if the convict refuses to obey a reasonable rule he
can be put into a cell. He can be fed when he obeys the rule.
If he goes hungry it is his own fault. It depends upon himself to
say when he shall eat. Or he may be placed in such a position that
if he does not work--if he does not pump--the water will rise and
drown him. If the water does rise it is his fault. Nobody pours
it upon him. He takes his choice.
These are suggested as desperate cases, but I can imagine no case
where what is called corporal punishment should be inflicted, and
the reason I am against it is this: I am opposed to any punishment
that cannot be inflicted by a gentleman. I am opposed to any
punishment the infliction of which tends to harden and debase the
man who inflicts it. I am for no laws that have to be carried out
by human curs.
Take, for instance, the whipping-post. Nothing can be more degrading.
The man who applies the lash is necessarily a cruel and vulgar man,
and the oftener he applies it the more and more debased he will
become. The whole thing can be stated in the one sentence: I am
opposed to any punishment that cannot be inflicted by a gentleman,
and by "gentleman" I mean a self-respecting, honest, generous man.
_Question_. What do you think of the efficacy or the propriety of
punishing criminals by solitary confinement?
_Answer_. Solitary confinement is a species of torture. I am
opposed to all torture. I think the criminal should not be punished.
He should be reformed, if he is capable of reformation. But,
whatever is done, it should not be done as a punishment. Society
should be too noble, too generous, to harbor a thought of revenge.
Society should not punish, it should protect itself only. It should
endeavor to reform the individual. Now, solitary confinement does
not, I imagine, tend to the reformation of the individual. Neither
can the person in that position do good to any human being. The
prisoner will be altogether happier when his mind is engaged, when
his hands are busy, when he has something to do. This keeps alive
what we call cheerfulness. And let me say a word on this point.
I don't believe that the State ought to steal the labor of a convict.
Here is a man who has a family. He is sent to the penitentiary.
He works from morning till night. Now, in my judgment, he ought
to be paid for the labor over and above what it costs to keep him.
That money should be sent to his family. That money should be
subject, at least, to his direction. If he is a single man, when
he comes out of the penitentiary he should be given his earnings,
and all his earnings, so that he would not have the feeling that
he had been robbed. A statement should be given to him to show what
it had cost to keep him and how much his labor had brought and the
balance remaining in his favor. With this little balance he could
go out into the world with something like independence. This little
balance would be a foundation for his honesty--a foundation for a
resolution on his part to be a man. But now each one goes out with
the feeling that he has not only been punished for the crime which
he committed, but that he has been robbed of the results of his
labor while there.
The idea is simply preposterous that the people sent to the
penitentiary should live in idleness. They should have the benefit
of their labor, and if you give them the benefit of their labor
they will turn out as good work as if they were out of the
penitentiary. They will have the same reason to do their best.
Consequently, poor articles, poorly constructed things, would not
come into competition with good articles made by free people outside
of the walls.
Now many mechanics are complaining because work done in the
penitentiaries is brought into competition with their work. But
the only reason that convict work is cheaper is because the poor
wretch who does it is robbed. The only reason that the work is
poor is because the man who does it has no interest in its being
good. If he had the profit of his own labor he would do the best
that was in him, and the consequence would be that the wares
manufactured in the prisons would be as good as those manufactured
elsewhere. For instance, we will say here are three or four men
working together. They are all free men. One commits a crime and
he is sent to the penitentiary. Is it possible that his companions
would object to his being paid for honest work in the penitentiary?
And let me say right here, all labor is honest. Whoever makes a
useful thing, the labor is honest, no matter whether the work is
done in a penitentiary or in a palace; in a hovel or the open field.
Wherever work is done for the good of others, it is honest work.
If the laboring men would stop and think, they would know that they
support everybody. Labor pays all the taxes. Labor supports all
the penitentiaries. Labor pays the warden. Labor pays everything,
and if the convicts are allowed to live in idleness labor must pay
their board. Every cent of tax is borne by the back of labor. No
matter whether your tariff is put on champagne and diamonds, it
has to be paid by the men and women who work--those who plow in
the fields, who wash and iron, who stand by the forge, who run the
cars and work in the mines, and by those who battle with the waves
of the sea. Labor pays every bill.
There is one little thing to which I wish to call the attention of
all who happen to read this interview, and that is this: Undoubtedly
you think of all criminals with horror and when you hear about them
you are, in all probability, filled with virtuous indignation.
But, first of all, I want you to think of what you have in fact
done. Secondly, I want you to think of what you have wanted to
do. Thirdly, I want you to reflect whether you were prevented from
doing what you wanted to do by fear or by lack of opportunity.
Then perhaps you will have more charity.
_Question_. What do you think of the new legislation in the State
changing the death penalty to death by electricity?
_Answer_. If death by electricity is less painful than hanging,
then the law, so far as that goes, is good. There is not the
slightest propriety in inflicting upon the person executed one
single unnecessary pang, because that partakes of the nature of
revenge--that is to say, of hatred--and, as a consequence, the
State shows the same spirit that the criminal was animated by when
he took the life of his neighbor. If the death penalty is to be
inflicted, let it be done in the most humane way. For my part, I
should like to see the criminal removed, if he must be removed,
with the same care and with the same mercy that you would perform
a surgical operation. Why inflict pain? Who wants it inflicted?
What good can it, by any possibility, do? To inflict unnecessary
pain hardens him who inflicts it, hardens each among those who
witness it, and tends to demoralize the community.
_Question_. Is it not the fact that punishments have grown less
and less severe for many years past?
_Answer_. In the old times punishment was the only means of
reformation. If anybody did wrong, punish him. If people still
continued to commit the same offence, increase the punishment; and
that went on until in what they call "civilized countries" they
hanged people, provided they stole the value of one shilling. But
larceny kept right on. There was no diminution. So, for treason,
barbarous punishments were inflicted. Those guilty of that offence
were torn asunder by horses; their entrails were cut out of them
while they were yet living and thrown into their faces; their bodies
were quartered and their heads were set on pikes above the gates
of the city. Yet there was a hundred times more treason then than
now. Every time a man was executed and mutilated and tortured in
this way the seeds of other treason were sown.
So in the church there was the same idea. No reformation but by
punishment. Of course in this world the punishment stopped when
the poor wretch was dead. It was found that that punishment did
not reform, so the church said: "After death it will go right on,
getting worse and worse, forever and forever." Finally it was
found that this did not tend to the reformation of mankind. Slowly
the fires of hell have been dying out. The climate has been changing
from year to year. Men have lost confidence in the power of the
thumbscrew, the fagot, and the rack here, and they are losing
confidence in the flames of perdition hereafter. In other words,
it is simply a question of civilization.
When men become civilized in matters of thought, they will know
that every human being has the right to think for himself, and the
right to express his honest thought. Then the world of thought
will be free. At that time they will be intelligent enough to know
that men have different thoughts, that their ways are not alike,
because they have lived under different circumstances, and in that
time they will also know that men act as they are acted upon. And
it is my belief that the time will come when men will no more think
of punishing a man because he has committed the crime of larceny
than they will think of punishing a man because he has the consumption.
In the first case they will endeavor to reform him, and in the
second case they will endeavor to cure him.
The intelligent people of the world, many of them, are endeavoring
to find out the great facts in Nature that control the dispositions
of men. So other intelligent people are endeavoring to ascertain
the facts and conditions that govern what we call health, and what
we call disease, and the object of these people is finally to
produce a race without disease of flesh and without disease of
mind. These people look forward to the time when there need to be
neither hospitals nor penitentiaries.
--_New York World_, August 5, 1888.