The habitual user of profane and indecent language was mercilessly
flayed by Bishop Charles E. Woodcock, of the Episcopal Church, at the
Board of Trade noon-day Lenten service yesterday, where in the course of
his sermon the Bishop pronounced the profane man to be intellectually
deficient, corrupt, morally and wholly unchristian.
"No gentleman will use profane language; it is only the low-born and
vulgar-minded person who will do so," declared the Bishop. "No man who
believes in God and in God's commandments can be profane."
Among other things stated by the Bishop of a like nature are the
following:
"The profane man in God's eyes is on the same plane as the murderer or
thief. He violates the ten commandments."
"Swearing, aside from being sinful, is low, vicious, vulgar and most
reprehensible."
"The man who is well thought of in a community is nine times out of ten
the man who does not curse."
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Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God In vain; for
the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in
vain.
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[Illustration: RT. REV. CHAS. E. WOODCOCK, D.D.
Episcopal Bishop of Kentucky]
"The profane man is in many cases and in most cases the man who will
steal, slander, lie and violate the every commandment of God."
In beginning his sermon the Bishop spoke of the work of the noon-day
Lenten services. He said in part:
"By coming before you men and preaching we rectors hope to arouse,
encourage and bring out all the good in you. We aim to plant high ideals
in your hearts and make you better men. It is one of the greatest
pleasures I have--preaching these noon-day Lenten sermons. It is my
earnest and sincere wish to do good and to carry a message to you.
"Christ will lighten your eyes: He will enable you to see things worth
being and worth doing. The worth while in life is what makes life worth
living. He will give you a view of yourself. He will make you see
yourselves as others see you. He will not only do this, but he will set
a guard before your lips.
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The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God,
my strength, in whom I trust.--Ps. 18:2.
--------
"No man ever regretted keeping from impure speech. Habitual obscene
story telling grows like other vicious habits. It is a manly thing to
possess clean lips. Does not the Bible say, 'Blessed are the pure in
heart?' Well, no man can be pure in heart and impure in speech. Would
you tell some of the stories you tell your fellow men to your wives and
daughters? No, I do not think you would. Then say to yourself, 'Thou God
hearest me.'
"Keep your lips from profanity. The profane man in God's eyes is on the
same plane as is the murderer and thief. He, like both, violates the ten
commandments. Swearing, aside from being sinful, is low, vicious and
vulgar and most reprehensible. The man who will curse and swear is in
most cases the man who will steal, slander, lie and violate every
commandment of God.
"I have been in hotels and in public places where I have heard men swear
as though they thought it a virtue. These men I find are seldom well
thought of in a community. The man who is well thought of will not
swear.
"The man who will swear will say mean things about his friend; he will
gossip and slander. If you keep your lips clean you will never besmirch
a man's or woman's character. You will never speak until you know it is
time; you will be restrained from telling vicious things, because you
will reason whether or not it is right, and whether or not it ought to
be told."
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Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your
work shall be rewarded.--2 Chron. 15:7.
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At Cincinnati Workhouse
[Louisville Times]
Never did Mr. Herr have a more interested audience than greeted him in
the Cincinnati work house yesterday when he preached for an hour in the
prison chapel. The men and women wept as his words brought conviction to
their hearts. Were it not for this wonderful gospel, said the speaker,
he himself might be as the worst prisoner among them. At the close of
the sermon he asked all those who desired to lead better lives to bow
their heads in prayer, and almost every man and woman in the chapel fell
on their knees, while the eloquent evangelist lifted his voice in their
behalf. The closest attention was accorded him during the whole time and
when the prisoners were dismissed and passed out of the chapel amid a
stillness that was very impressive, Mr. Herr spoke to a great number
personally shaking them by the hand and urging them to repent and
believe the gospel.
Extermination of Habitual Criminals
The extermination of the habitual criminal--his removal like a weed from
a garden--was advocated today in a startling address made in Minneapolis
to the Interstate Sheriffs' Association by Charles W. Peters, chief
deputy sheriff of Cook County.
The unexpected suggestion that the man who will not reform ought to be
slain by legal means aroused much discussion in Chicago among ministers,
lawyers and laymen.
Leniency for first offenders, parole for the worthy, an adult probation
law, were advocated by Mr. Peters, who then insisted that in cases where
life has proved a failure, where efforts of reformation have been
ineffectual and the criminal is a body sore on the social system, that
extermination should be resorted to.
Only One True Reform.
Furthermore, he created intense surprise by his assertion that in twenty
years' experience in handling criminals he could recall only one case of
true reformation on the part of an "habitual."
[Illustration: THE HON. AND MRS. JOHN L. WHITMAN, CHICAGO, ILL.
Mr. Whitman is Superintendent of the Bridewell. They have been friends
to thousands in need of friends.]
[Illustration: Gospel Service at the County Jail, Chicago, Ill.]
In his address to the Association, Mr. Peters recommended various ways
of dealing with crime and its perpetrators, and then for the
irredeemably incorrigible made this recommendation:
"And then if they fail to embrace the many opportunities offered them,
and after everything has been done that is possible for mankind to do,
they repeatedly persist in returning to their old ways, I think in such
a case life has proven a failure, and they become a menace and a burden
to our social welfare and should be exterminated.
Like Weeds in a Garden.
"They are like weeds in a garden and unless removed will supersede the
useful plants.
"Many students of criminology have suggested life imprisonment, but in
my opinion that has proven a failure. By that method the menace is
removed, but the burden remains.
"I am sorry to acknowledge that in the twenty odd years of my experience
in the handling of criminals I can recall only one case of true
reformation on the part of habitual criminals, and that man is employed
in a bridge works, where it would be impossible for him to carry
anything off."
"Judge Not," Says Pastor.
Among the ministers who commented on the startling theory of
extermination were:
Rev. P. J. O'Callaghan, pastor of St. Mary's Church and the priest who
saved Herman Billik from the gallows--What is man that he should put
himself in judgment on a fellow and say that the culprit is beyond
reformation and redemption and slay him? Man is too fallible to condemn
another as an habitual criminal and exterminate him. No one knows when a
man has passed beyond the pale of reform. As a matter of fact, many and
many a criminal branded as 'habitual' has been saved to a useful life. I
most heartily disagree with any suggestion to execute any man on the
theory that he is irredeemable.
Hope While There Is Life.
Rabbi Tobias Scharfarber--In the first place I am opposed to capital
punishment, but, in any event, I should not agree with this suggestion
of Mr. Peters. It is much like Osler's plan to kill off men of sixty or
more years of age, or Ingersoll's suggestion that when a man believed
himself to be a failure and useless to the world he should go and shoot
his brains out. While a man lives there is hope for him, and no one has
either power or right to say that he will always be a menace to society.
"Christ in His charity taught those who came to Him,
Ill deeds should pardoned be seventy times seven;
Succor the least here and you do the same to Him;
These are his precepts on earth and in heaven.
Oh, then, when laboring hard for humanity,
Never believe that your labor is vain.
Kindness will conquer the criminal insanity;
Speak to him gently and try him again."
Criminal Becomes Minister
[Courier-Journal]
"Do you know who I am?" once said a person in the jail here to the Rev.
George L. Herr, prison evangelist. "I will tell you. I am the worst and
most treacherous man in this prison." Then the Rev. Mr. Herr says he
told him the story of his fearful crimes. "I have been in prison North,
South, East and West, I have been in the dismal, solitary cell for one
year, have been put in large tanks of ice water, have been punished over
and over again, but it has always made me more of a demon. Would you
like to know what the officer who last locked me up said about me?"
"'Take him and lock him up like a brute beast, for that is what he is.'"
Then he turned and said: "Do you think there is any hope for me?" "I was
at once on ground where I could speak without hesitation," said Mr.
Herr, "and I told him simply that if he was through with an evil life,
if he was tired of wrong-doing and was determined to do right, there was
a love that could forgive him, and a power that could help and keep him
in the future. When at last we knelt together there I prayed that God,
who could bring light into our darkness, might dispel the thick clouds
that had shut in this soul from hope, and bring to him the revelation
that would change his life. There were tears in our eyes as we parted,
and, taking my hand in his he said: "I will try, Brother Herr."
"He did try, and, more than that he conquered. At first it was a stern
battle of an awakened will and conscience fighting against desperate
odds. The feeling that friends were watching and waiting anxiously for
good reports proved an undoubted incentive. It was not long before he
sought and found Christ as his Saviour, and he became an earnest
Christian, and to-day is an ordained Methodist minister, at the head of
a great rescue work in an Eastern city, and also chaplain of a model
penal institution."
* * * * *
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"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,
that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have
everlasting life."--John 3:16.
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To Brother George L. Herr
By Joseph M. McGuire
The days are long and dreary,
And the hours go slowly by,
While the prisoner, sad and weary,
Longs for the time to fly.
But one brings joy and sunshine
To the prisoners sad at heart,
And it is but a short time
'Till with him we'll have to part.
We cannot find another,
Search, I care not where,
Who will do as much for a brother
As our Bro. George L. Herr.
He comes early in the morning,
And never leaves till night;
He always seems untiring,
Helping wayward men do right.
He is always up and willing
Whene'er a prisoner call,
To go and do the bidding
Of a man behind the wall.
And then there is another,
Who shares his joy and strife;
She is called by the prisoners "Mother,"
And is Bro. Herr's good wife.
Early Sunday morning,
In rain, snow, sleet, or hail,
You will find him holding meeting
In the Jefferson County Jail.
I love to hear him tell the story
Of the "Prodigal Son,"
And of the "Mighty Prince of Glory,"
From whom salvation sprung.
Round his good face there seems a halo,
His work is for One on high,
He makes sunshine out of sorrow,
Whenever he is nigh.
Success of Reformed Criminals
After Blotting Out the Past
"Once a Thief, Always a Thief," has been disproved in thousands of cases
according to Mr. William A. Pinkerton.
"Do criminals ever reform, really turn over a new leaf and become good
citizens?"
I fired the question at random, little dreaming what a wealth of
interesting and convincing anecdote it would evoke. I expected the time
honored cynical reply, something to the effect of "Once a thief, always
a thief," But I was disappointed--agreeably disappointed. For my answer
was a quick, emphatic, earnest "Yes."
And the man who said "Yes" was William A. Pinkerton, and he knows.
Probably no living man knows more intimate details about the individual
members of the underworld, those who are active criminals to-day, as
well as the notorious crooks of the past, than the head of the Pinkerton
Detective Agency. And every crook will tell you, what every honest man
who knows Mr. Pinkerton will tell you, that when he says "Yes" there
is no possibility that the correct answer should be "No."
[Illustration: WILLIAM A. PINKERTON
Head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency
New York]
"I know what the average man thinks--that a real crook never turns
straight. But it isn't so. Thousands of crooks--and I don't mean
one-time offenders, but men in the class we call hardened
criminals--have become honest men to my knowledge. It is not true, as
some recent writer said, that as many crooks turn honest as there are
honest men turn crooked, but I believe that one of the reasons is that
so few men are willing to lend a helping hand. I don't mean that every
crook is ready to reform if he is encouraged, but I do mean that society
makes it hard for any man who has once been a criminal to lead an honest
life.
"And I'll tell you another thing," continued Mr. Pinkerton: "I'm prouder
of the fact that I have helped a few criminals to become honest men than
of all the work I have done in putting criminals behind the bars. I'm
proud of the fact that every crook knows that Pinkerton will deal
squarely with him if he will deal squarely with Pinkerton--that I
believe it is as important to keep faith with a bank thief as with a
bank president.
"I know a score of business men in Chicago--not saloonkeepers, but
reputable merchants--who have criminal records. These men have done time
and have paid their debt to society for their crimes. I cannot tell you
their names, for it would be unfair to them and to their wives and
families, many of whom have no suspicion that there is anything wrong in
the pasts of their husbands and fathers. Besides, when society discovers
that a man is a former criminal it is not content to cancel the debt no
matter how much imprisonment at hard labor the former crook may have
given in expiation of his sin.
"I know men in trusted positions in New York who were convicts. In many
cases only the man himself and his employer know the secret and
sometimes the employer does not know it. I know men scattered all over
the West--business men, professional men, many of them wealthy and
prominent citizens--who have seen the inside of Joliet, Moyomensing,
Sing Sing or Leavenworth. They have sons and daughters who never have
suspected and never will suspect the truth.
"These are good men--as good men as any living. They have turned away
from their old ways, in many cases have changed their names, and who
shall say they are not as much to be respected as the honest man who
never was tempted, never was forced into crime? I'll tell you about some
of them.
"When I was a boy in Chicago there were two brothers, neighbors, about
the age of myself and my younger brother, and we were friends. When the
civil war broke out I went into the army secret service at the age of
fifteen, and the older of these two boys, John, enlisted in an Illinois
regiment. Jerry, the younger, was not old enough, but a little later,
when the government began offering a bounty for soldiers, he became a
bounty jumper. He would enlist, get the bounty money, then desert and
enlist over again under another name. He was with a band of young
fellows who were engaged in that way of getting easy money, and who
found it so easy that they turned to other kinds of crime.
"When the war was over John came back to Chicago and settled down as a
rather plodding sort of a mechanic. He tried to get Jerry to straighten
out, but the younger brother was too far along the road to prison.
"In those days the Northwestern Railroad used wood for fuel, and the
wood agent of the road was Amos Snell--the same Snell who was later
murdered by 'Willie Tascott.' He lived in a suburb of Chicago, and one
night Jerry and his crowd went out there and 'stuck' up the whole
family--robbed them of everything they had. John was along with them,
lying in the bottom of the hack. The police got a clew through the
hack-driver and rounded up the whole band. All of them, including John,
were sentenced to five years each except Jerry. When he came into the
hands of the police a citizen who had been held up on the street some
time before identified him as the hold-up man, and on the strength of
that the Judge gave him fifteen years. It was an unjust sentence, for
Jerry had not committed the hold-up--that was found out later.
"Well, John's old Colonel and some other army men and my father got
together and got a pardon for John, who had merely gone along with the
crowd and had taken no part in the robbery. He went back to work at his
trade of brass finisher, but Jerry stayed in Joliet, rebelling against
those long unjust years of his sentence.
Jerry was put to work in the engine room of the prison and soon
displayed great aptitude for machinery. He served out his term with time
off for good behavior and finally got out. I met him in Chicago. He was
despondent. He felt that he had no chance to be anything but a crook,
but he knew the terrible chances a once convicted man runs if he returns
to crime. I told him the best thing for him to do was to go to New York,
and I sent him on to my brother Robert, who had also known him as a
boy.
Reform of Jerry.
"Now, here's a part of this story that will interest you. Robert had a
friend who was chief engineer of a building in Ann street. He told this
friend about Jerry, and the engineer said he'd take a chance on him. He
put Jerry to work stoking the boiler at a dollar and a half a day. After
a year or so there was a vacancy and Jerry became assistant engineer. A
little while later the chief engineer resigned and Jerry after awhile,
the ex-crook, became chief engineer. He left there after awhile to take
charge of a big plant on Long Island, and he sent for his brother John
and gave him a job.
"A few years later the two brothers called on me in Chicago. They had
saved about $6,000 between them and were on their way to a new town in
the West to start a manufacturing business of their own. Each had
married a girl who knew nothing of their prison record and had children.
They prospered exceedingly. John died several years ago, but only a few
months ago, when my brother Robert died, an old man, whom nobody but
myself recognized, came from the West for the funeral and shed tears at
the grave. It was Jerry. He is still living, and is the leading citizen
of his town and worth at least half a million dollars.
"Criminals who reform? There are thousands of them. I remember a little
Liverpool Irishman who was a pickpocket around New York. He was known as
'Jimmy the Nibbler'. The police picked him up in Tennessee, where he
lifted somebody's pocketbook, and he was sent to Nashville for seven
years. In the prison they put him to work in the hospital. Then the
cholera epidemic broke out. "Jim" helped the doctors and nurses, and
when the doctors got sick he nursed them and the warden and his family
and helped save a good many lives. After the epidemic was over the
warden and the Prison Board were so grateful they got "Jim" a pardon and
made up a purse of $350 for him. With the money in his pocket he came
right to Chicago to see me. I began to lecture him on the futility of
going back to the life he had led before.
"'I've cut that all out,' he said. 'I'm not going to be a gun any more.
I've been studying medicine down there in Nashville. The doctors have
been telling me things and giving me medical books to read and now I
want to get into one of these colleges where I can get a diploma quick.'
"There were a number of diploma factories, as the lower class of medical
colleges were called, running in Chicago then, and Jim found he had
money enough to go through one of them--in the front door and out the
back. But he got his diploma and license to practise and started for one
of the new towns in the West. I looked him up a while ago. He comes
pretty near being the most prominent citizen in the town. He is a
director in a national bank and the leading physician, and has
officiated at the births of half the present population. Moreover, he is
an enthusiastic church member. But how long do you think it would take
for the whole town to turn against him if they should ever learn out
there that he is 'Jimmy the Nibbler'?
"Crooks that turn straight? Your next door neighbor, your family
physician, even your clergyman, may be one of them. The world is full of
them. There was one man, a professional thief, a fellow who had done
time in half a dozen State prisons and penitentiaries, whom I used to
labor with earnestly every time he got out, but he apparently never
tried to reform. He was always doing time, it seemed.
"I lost track of him for several years. Then two years ago, when the
National Association of Chiefs of Police was in session in Buffalo, I
found a note in my box in my hotel signed by this man's name. He said he
was going to call at seven o'clock. There was a banquet on for that
evening, and hundreds of police officials from every part of the United
States were there. I wondered if he knew what sort of a lion's den he
was walking into. Sure enough he came into the hotel and spoke to me.
"'Don't you know that you are surrounded by policemen, some of whom are
sure to spot you?' I asked him.
"'You're the only man in the world who knows me,' he said, 'My name now
is So and So'--giving me another name--'and I'm a respected and
prosperous man. I just wanted to let you know before you found it out
for yourself, for I knew you'd be on the square with me.' And I was. So
far as I knew he was not wanted for anything, and what good would have
come of exposing him?
"Thieves who resist the temptation to steal? Hundreds of them. There's
one right here, only a few blocks from where we are talking. He's the
watchman in a big silk warehouse--and if there's anything your
professional thief likes to steal, short of money or diamonds, it's
silk, for you can get so much value into so small a package. This man
was a professional safe blower, and did several big jobs. When he got
out of prison I helped him to get the job he has now. His employer knows
his record. I told it to him on the man's own request. When work stops
for the day this man is left alone in charge of hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth of valuable silks. He isn't bonded, for he couldn't get
a bondsman if he wanted to. He has held the job seven years now, and not
a cent's worth has been taken from the warehouse in that time.
"You may say that he does not dare to steal--that he knows a single
false move on his part will bring instant punishment. But I say he has
no desire to steal--that he has reformed. And thousands of other
criminals would reform if society would give them half a chance.
Baffling Hotel Robberies.
"Several years ago there was a series of hotel robberies in New York
that baffled the police. The thief always worked with keys, opening
doors and then unlocking baggage left in rooms, and he always got away
with the goods. At last one night the word came to headquarters that a
man had been caught in one of the big hotels who was suspected of being
the author of all the robberies. I was visiting Chief Devery at the time
and he asked me to go with him to the West Thirtieth street station to
look the man over.
"The man arrested was a well dressed, respectable looking little man,
with a white beard--the last man who would be taken for a thief if seen
in a hotel corridor. His face was vaguely familiar to me, but I had
some difficulty in placing him. Finally it struck me. I had seen him
nearly thirty years before on the occasion of a big prize fight in New
Orleans, when he had been arrested for the same trick. It came over me
like a flash and I told him I knew him.
"'What's the use of making trouble?' he asked. 'These fools don't know
anything about me unless you put them wise.'