Superintendent of the Society for the Friendless, Kansas City, laid
stress on providing the discharged prisoner with work and wholesome
recreations and inspiring him with high ideals. In speaking of the work
of his society, he said: “The men, upon release, are given every
necessary assistance and care. It is the custom in the West to take the
discharged prisoner directly to the home of the Superintendent, that for
a few days he may live under his roof, sit at his table, find a home
with his family and be made to believe that wholesome and clean ways of
living are for him also if he wills it. It is the custom then to find
him congenial employment, to fit him out an extra suit of clothes, a
change of underwear and, if necessary, an overcoat. These are
contributed by friends of the society over the State. A suitable
boarding place is found, new friends are provided, money is loaned and
board bills are guaranteed if necessary, and he is given friendship,
oversight and counsel in his effort to live a new life.
“Little can be known by the public of the heroism and the pathos of the
struggle which many a man makes with the all but overpowering odds
against him. Success achieved by others with hardly an effort can be
attained by him only after an almost superhuman struggle. Right choices
that make themselves for others are absolutely heroic for him. Had he
their habits and self-control, half the effort with which he now barely
escapes failure would bring him splendid success. Knowing nothing of his
battles, others cannot realize the fight he makes for his victories.
“_E. g._, a Scotch-Irishman, forty-six years old, made the remark during
his first meal at our home that it was the first time in his life that
he had eaten at a table where they had napkins. He was not without much
native ability and an instinctive mannerliness. His mother had died
when he was a baby and he had had no home since seven years of age. He
had been a drunkard for years, had been in jail several times for
pilfering when drunk, and finally was sent to prison for breaking into a
box car and stealing merchandise. He was released on parole. There never
was a kinder man about the house, and after he was provided with
employment and a boarding place no week passed without his coming back
once or twice for a little call. He said that it was the only home that
he had ever had. He never drank another drop of liquor; he chose an
entirely new sort of companions, and when discharged from parole had
$200 in bank. During that time, when the family of the Superintendent
were away on a visit and the Superintendent himself away about half the
time, this man was given the keys of the home and stayed there in full
charge for seven weeks.
“Another notable case is that of a man who had been a criminal for
thirty years. He had spent thirteen years in prisons and had stolen
during the other seventeen years an average of more money each year than
any prisoner’s aid society in the United States expends annually. He had
never earned a day’s wages outside the penitentiaries. That man has been
toiling in heat and in cold and has been self-supporting and absolutely
honest for the last year and a half. In the panic last fall he was
temporarily out of work and money, yet his courage did not leave him nor
his success fail.
“Such men are in direst need. It is a happiness to grip their hands and
to strengthen their purpose; to have them sleep under one’s roof, eat at
one’s table and breathe hope and courage at one’s fireside. Some are
good, some indifferent, some bad. It is not for us to choose among them,
but to offer opportunity to everyone who knocks at our doors.”
EVENING SESSION
The presiding officer at the evening session, Mr. Hallam F. Coates,
member of the Board of Managers, Ohio State Reformatory, and President
of the Association of Governing Boards of Penal, Reformatory and
Preventive Institutions, introduced Mr. H. Grotophorst, of Wisconsin,
who addressed the meeting on “State Boards of Control,” and claimed many
advantages for these as compared with the ordinary boards of public
charities. In Wisconsin such a board, consisting of five members (one
of them a woman), is charged with the maintenance and government of all
the reformatory, charitable and penal institutions established or
supported by the State. This board holds in trust all the property and
money conveyed or bequeathed to the different institutions; appoints the
superintendents, wardens, physicians, etc.; discharges these for cause;
directs how the books and accounts of all the institutions shall be
kept; formulates the rules for their government; supervises the purchase
of all supplies; makes all contracts; locates new institutions; and has
the power of parole and of transfer from one institution to another. The
speaker claimed the following advantages for such central control, to
wit, constant visitation of the institutions; proper coördination
between them; the elimination of controversies to which separate boards
often give rise; uniformity in rules, salaries and methods of
administration; freedom from politics; and above all far greater economy
in expenditures.
In his paper on “Prison Management,” Mr. John C. Easley, member of the
Board of Directors of the Virginia State Penitentiary, said in part:
“There has been an increase of about one hundred per cent. in the
proportion of colored felons in Virginia since 1870. There are nine
times as many felonies committed among one thousand blacks as among one
thousand whites. In 1880 we found one white felon for every thirty-nine
hundred and thirty-two of white population, and notwithstanding the more
rapid growth in our urban communities, where the percentage of crime is
always greater, and notwithstanding a very considerable influx of
foreign population, we found in 1900, when the last census was taken,
that the proportion of felons among the whites had been reduced to one
in every forty-eight hundred and forty-nine, thus demonstrating that
with our present system of public education the percentage of crime
among the whites has decreased. Whatever the reason for the increase in
negro crime, whether our system of negro education is faulty, whether
the negro lacks moral tone, whether his political diet is too strong,
whether we are trying to fix the keystone in place while the arch lacks
foundation, the situation must be met, and coming consequences must be
provided for and against.
“So far as I am informed, the annals of history afford no example of two
separate races successfully occupying the same country at the same time,
upon the same terms, and when these separate races represent the two
extremes of humankind, how great the necessity for caution. To each of
you, therefore, I appeal personally to give this subject your most
serious consideration, to the end that the best preventive measures may
be adopted and crime lessened. There is no prison management so good as
that which keeps the prison empty, and there are no measures to keep it
empty so effective as those which prevent crime.”
Mr. Easley’s address provoked some discussion. A negro delegate
explained that the increase in crime among his race is confined to the
lower classes, and does not apply to those who are attempting to elevate
the race.
Prof. Henderson presented a paper on “Foreign Views of Our Indeterminate
Sentence and Reformatory System,” in which he critically analyzed and
answered the objections made against it by some German penologists on a
recent visit to this country.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17
On Tuesday the delegates were given a trip on the James River to
Westover and return, and were entertained by the Local Committee with
the most lavish southern hospitality.
EVENING SESSION
At eight P. M. the Chaplains’ Association held its meeting. In his
address, the President, the Rev. John L. Sutton, of New Orleans, said,
among other things: “Two of the greatest difficulties encountered in
prison reform work are, first, the absolute need of good, moral men as
prison officials--men who will take the spiritual meaning of the law and
be, indeed, their brother’s keeper; for they are the ones who come into
daily contact with the prisoners, and it is from them that the most good
can be derived. Hence, here is a gulf that must be spanned, and how?
Very easily. Physicians, lawyers, teachers, ministers--in fact, all
professional men in positions of importance--must be qualified to take
their places in life, and why should the guardians of eighty thousand
souls be such a flagrant exception to this wise precautionary method?
Why should they continue to be chosen irrespective of ability or
character, and, as a rule, be drawn from the political world?
“Second. The other great need in prison reform work is that the churches
as a whole bear their part in this great work; and I will speak of only
my own church. In seven years’ connection with my conference exhaustive
reports and discussions of educational, missionary and temperance
questions, all problems of importance, and with which I am in sympathy,
have absorbed the time and attention of the preachers, but they have
failed properly to consider the needful work of prison reform.
“I hold that over eighty thousand people behind the prison bars now in
this great country of ours are in as great need of the missionary care
and attention of our churches as the heathen in the wilds of Africa.”
“Reformatory Work from the Standpoint of an Active Minister” was the
subject of a paper by the Rev. Hiram W. Kellogg, D. D., of Wilmington,
Del. Speaking of the church as a factor in such work, he said:
“What are we doing to prevent delinquency? Is the church a real and
determining factor in the life of the community? Is it the guardian of
childhood against the ravages of greed and crime? Is it pleading for
true home life, this citadel of civilization? Is it protecting
motherhood and guaranteeing to every child the right to be born well? Is
it curtailing the power of the saloon, the low theater? Is it cleaning
the streets of suggestions of sin and making them fit for boys and
girls? Is it opening its buildings every night in the week and turning
its awful silence into the glad music of happy children’s voices?
“Is it surrounding boy life with safe associations and making the path
of religion bright with such joys as will conserve him in after years by
sweet memories? Is it supporting public schools and juvenile courts and
every institution not of its own immediate work, but which are essential
auxiliaries to preventing of wrongdoing?
“In short, is the church bringing its concentrated talent intelligently
to the beginnings of human life? This is the hopeful field we have long
known, but is it the most effectively worked? You have the facts, and
facts rule our age; theories have no value beyond the facts that sustain
them.”
Major R. W. McClaughry, Warden of the United States Penitentiary,
Leavenworth, Kan., read the following paper on “The Chaplain from the
Warden’s Viewpoint”:
“The warden is apt to regard the chaplain as a great help or a great
hindrance in his work. The chaplain may often be justified in having the
same opinion of the warden. Whenever the personal relations between the
warden and the chaplain are to any extent strained, the latter is at
great disadvantage. A very few remarks dropped by the warden may so
discredit the chaplain with guards and prisoners as to utterly paralyze
his influence and destroy his usefulness, and this without any charges
having been preferred on either side.
“A friendly and well-meaning warden may often greatly handicap a
chaplain in his proper work by loading him up with duties that do not
belong to his position--_e. g._, making him postmaster, newspaper
inspector, librarian, schoolmaster and general executor and
administrator--ante mortem and post mortem--of estates of sick and
deceased prisoners.
“I do not think a chaplain ought to be required to inspect and pass upon
the incoming and outgoing mail of prisoners. In the first place his
training and education unfit him to read between the lines of letters
that need inspection, while the mental drudgery imposed upon him, if he
carefully reads all outgoing and incoming letters in a prison of
ordinary size, unfits him for the proper work of his office. Besides,
the knowledge that he has read all their correspondence prejudices
against him many prisoners and renders his efforts to help them vain.
“I doubt the wisdom of placing him in charge of the library in a large
prison, save as a general adviser and aid to the prisoners in enabling
them to select helpful books to read, and this work can be done during
his visits to the prisoners in their cells and dormitories. This
visitation is the most important work that he can do in the prison, and
should on no account be omitted. The preaching service that he renders
will be far more helpful and acceptable--as will also his Sunday-school
instruction--if it grows out of and is tempered by his experience in
cell visitation. A pastor who wishes to become helpfully acquainted with
the inner life of his parishioners does not summon them one by one to
his office for interviews and see them nowhere else. No more can the
chaplain follow that plan and hope to succeed with his parishioners.
“Sometimes a warden deems it his duty to apply certain portions of the
thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians to his chaplain and require him
to ‘bear all things, believe all things, hope all things and endure all
things’; therefore it behooves the chaplain to be at all times as ‘wise
as a serpent,’ and sometimes ‘as harmless as a dove’; but where the
occasion arises (which fortunately is but seldom) for the chaplain to
use the language of rebuke, it calls for the highest quality of
courage, and the chaplain who then shirks or quails stamps himself as
unfit for his high office.
“If the prophet Nathan, when he sought that interview with Israel’s
king, had hesitatingly remarked that he had a very unpleasant matter to
talk about, which might get into the newspapers and create a royal
scandal, etc., the proud monarch would probably have kicked him
downstairs. But the fate of a great nation depended upon his courage and
when he said, ‘Thou art the man,’ his shaft of truth pierced the joints
of the royal armor and brought the monarch to his knees. Comparing small
things with great, even so may the fate of a public institution
sometimes depend upon the fidelity to duty of one who esteems himself
the least among all its officials, and when his word is backed by high
courage and a consistent and blameless life, it may prove more potent
for good than the utterances of wardens or commissioners or governors.
“From the warden’s point of view I beg to suggest that the clergyman who
is called for the first time to the chaplaincy of a prison or
reformatory should have the major part of his expectancy of life
_before_ rather than _behind_ him. To make the chaplaincy a ‘snug
harbor’ for the superannuated is unjust to the chaplain and to the
institution. At no time in his life does a minister need to have his
physical, mental and spiritual forces in fuller play than when he
undertakes the chaplaincy of a prison or reformatory. He may grow old in
the service, and his strength increase with his years because of his
manner of life and the experience that faithful service has brought to
him, but under ordinary circumstances the younger man has the best
prospect of success.
“The question may arise, ‘Is anyone sufficient for these things?’ Not in
his own strength, but ‘as thy day thy strength shall be’ is the promise
held out to the sincere and faithful worker. And some of us can recall
the names of men who have achieved splendid success in that particular
line of prison work. Especially does the name of one come to me who took
part in the organization of this Association, who served his Master and
his fellow-men so successfully in the Michigan State Prison that when he
was granted rapid transit ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ from the very
corridor of the prison to the glory which was awaiting him, left a
memory so fragrant and so well beloved that the name of Hecox is still
an inspiration to hundreds of hearts, which, years ago, were turned by
him into the paths of righteousness.”
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18
MORNING SESSION
The morning session of Wednesday was given over to the Prison
Physicians’ Association. Dr. Charles V. Carrington, of Richmond, read a
paper on “Sterilization of Habitual Criminals.” As a believer in the
theory of transmitted criminality, Dr. Carrington proved himself a
strong advocate of sterilization as a method of preventing the
multiplication of criminals.
“Prevention of crime is the motto of our juvenile courts, reformatories,
probation officers and societies for the aid of the discharged convict.
“After ten years of investigation as prison surgeon, I am unreservedly
of the opinion that sterilization of our habitual criminals is a proper
measure, and I believe that if habitually enforced it will lessen their
number.
“The punitive side of our dealings with criminals is always to the
front. Punish him is the first proposition. Lock him up. There are our
Christianizing reformative measures, splendid in their way, but for the
habitual criminal there must be some powerful deterrent remedy, and
sterilization is undoubtedly that remedy.
“When I say sterilize the habitual criminal, I know that an
understanding of the term is necessary before my remedy would be a just
one to enforce. The incorrigible ‘second-term’ man, as well as those
guilty of arson, assault, train wrecking and murder, should be treated
as habituals.
“All of us know that in many instances the criminal inherits his
instincts. The detective of forty years’ experience will tell you that a
large percentage of prison inmates are hereditary criminals. Now, if the
grandfather had been sterilized, what a lot of crime and suffering would
have been prevented. In our enlightened age we should stop this hideous
reproduction of criminals and sterilize the grandson for the good it
will do in the coming years.
“Certain families in Virginia have been regularly represented on our
prison rolls for the past fifty years, and will go on unless the breed
is stopped. I have sterilized two prisoners in my connection with the
State Penitentiary, and in each case it proved as proper a health
measure as the removal of an appendix.”
In a paper on “Tuberculosis and the Colored Convict,” Dr. Julian W.
Sloan, of Richmond, said in part:
“Taking up the colored convict himself as a cause we readily recognize
in his heredity, his racial predilection for tuberculosis, his poverty
with its attendant evils, his almost total ignorance of proper living
methods, factors potent for the propagation and spread of tuberculosis.
“Add to these factors inherent in nearly all our colored convicts the
devitalizing and resistance-lowering factor of cell life--a factor in
itself capable of so increasing the receptivity of convicts as to leap
with a single bound to the first place as a means by which tuberculosis
is propagated and spread. Add again labor in factories where hygiene and
sanitation do not hold sway, where factory dust constantly fills the
lungs of the convict. Add yet again the depressing effects inevitable
from even the best prison discipline--add these causes together, I say,
and we have a sum total that appals us and seems to deprive the poor
convict of every chance to escape this terrible scourge.
“Conquering tuberculosis in our prisons, as elsewhere, is not to follow
upon any one method or agency or from the unaided efforts of the medical
profession. I am here reminded to quote to this effect from Dr. Alfred
Meyer, of New York: ‘The most hopeful sign in the world-wide combat with
tuberculosis is the steady growth and coöperation among all the agencies
engaged. The first impulse in the campaign came from the medical
profession. Then gradually there came to our assistance sociologists,
philanthropists, charitable and religious organizations, and finally
municipal, State and national governments. If the chain which is to bind
the scourge is ever to be forged it will be by the union of all the
links hitherto disunited and by the substitution of systematic for
sporadic efforts. That we are on our way toward this end was well
illustrated during the recent session of the International Congress and
Exhibition on Tuberculosis at Washington.’
“With the municipal, State and national governments awakening, as we see
they are, to their sense of duty toward the man who goes wrong, and in
their awakening providing that the square deal shall be given him--that
he shall no longer be the object of vengeance, but a man to be detained
and reformed and educated, I say, with this awakening a great stride
has been taken toward the control of tuberculosis.
“I believe that Virginia has advanced _pari passu_ with other States. To
begin with, the indeterminate sentence, with its inspiring hope, holds
much not only for the future of the convict, but for every day of his
prison life. It insures, too, to a great extent, better everyday
conduct. This in turn helps largely to eliminate corporal punishment,
which is one of the most potent causes of mental and physical wrecks
among our convicts. Of course, with lessened need for corporal
punishment comes lessened need for other punitive measures, namely,
solitary confinement, bread-and-water diet, dark cell, etc., all of
which present dangers to the physical welfare of the convicts that check
our criticisms of the horrors of barbarism.
“Another step taken here in Virginia that has reached far forward was
the erection and fitting of the modern sanitary building which takes
care in the most approved manner of about one half of our convicts at
the penitentiary proper.
“Another step forward, and one of which the wisdom and far-reaching
consequences for good cannot be over-emphasized, is the law that directs
that, at the discretion of the judge, all men with jail sentences, and
all men sentenced to the penitentiary for from one to five years, shall
serve their sentences at hard labor on the State road force.
“This is a great advance, especially in ridding our jails of
short-sentence men, who formerly served their time in idleness, filth
and disease--men who usually entered jail as criminals and in fair
health, to leave as devils incarnate and probably tuberculous.
“At the Virginia Penitentiary we have the constant and loyal support of
the Board of Directors, Superintendent and their aides in obtaining and
maintaining hygienic and sanitary conditions and in all that pertains to
the health of the convict. I venture the assertion that few places,
whether prisons or private dwellings, are kept more rigidly clean and
sanitary than the cells of the Virginia Penitentiary. As an educating
feature alone to the colored convict, this is well worth treble its cost
and trouble. Sufficient ventilation is looked after constantly. In the
old building we cannot claim perfection on this important score, but in
the new building I believe we can. Ample bed covering is provided--this
appeals to everyone as a very necessary adjunct to proper guarding
against tuberculosis. The food at our penitentiary is ample, and after
hundreds of examinations I can say that I have always found it
wholesome. However, whenever a convict comes before the daily call and
appears to need more nourishment it is our custom to give him milk as
long as it seems necessary. It has been our plan for several years at
the penitentiary to diagnose any cases of tuberculosis as early as
possible and then have them sent immediately to our State farm to
receive the benefits of open air combined with dietetic and other
treatment deemed wise by our farm surgeon. The tent system at our State
farm has been of inestimable benefit.
“It is a blot on our good name that we still have the bucket system in
our old building. I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to
strongly urge the necessity for the abolition of this system here and
elsewhere.
“At the Virginia Penitentiary it is our custom to thoroughly fumigate
the cells that have had in them tuberculous convicts. Our hospital wards
are all regularly fumigated. Especial care is given to the fumigation of
mattresses and convict clothing. Our convicts are taught from time to
time the necessity of not expectorating on the cell and factory floors
and walls, and we post liberally signs admonishing everyone not to
expectorate on the walks.
“As will be seen we are merely endeavoring to put into operation those
methods known nearly universally as the methods whereby tuberculosis may
be prevented and cured.
“One recommendation I desire to make--and it is one that we will all
agree is of very considerable importance--is that all cells, hospital,
kitchen, dining room, factory, etc., be screened from flies.