[This scene gives in special detail Mr. Roland Molineaux’s attitude
toward the present-day treatment of the delinquent. “The Man
Inside,” written by Mr. Molineaux and presented by Mr. Belasco, had
a successful run in New York early in the winter. The following
scene was the original, which was somewhat altered because of the
exigencies of the stage.]
Act II, Scene 16.
Object: Gordon pleads for a better system of justice.
Jim Poor (to Travesty): What shall I do now, sir?
Travesty (to Jim Poor): Gordon has asked me to postpone this case.
Jim Poor: Postpone it! What reason has he got?
Travesty: I’d like to know (holding up the evidence). Don’t you see,
Gordon, that these men are a couple of habitual criminals? Why, they’ve
been in prison time and time again! And even that didn’t do them any
good!
Gordon: Of course, it didn’t! Do you suppose that to take these men and
shut them away in prison--to make them walk in a degrading manner--to
garb them in a humiliating fashion--to force them to the performance
of tasks without compensation--or worse, to submit them to the horrors
of enforced solitude and idleness of mind and body! Is there in such a
system anything influencing them for _good_?--sending them out useful,
honest and ambitious members of society?
Travesty: Why, Gordon, these men are shameless! Nothing will reform
them--not even the severest measures. They go right back to crime at
the first opportunity.
Gordon: Because imprisonment as a means of reformation is known to be
useless! No one will trust the released convict! What chance has Red
Mike got? Who would give Big Frank employment? The State releases them
and tells them to go their way and sin no more, after the State has
made it impossible for them to do anything else but sin! They have no
chance to rehabilitate themselves.
Travesty: They wouldn’t take it if it were given them. You can’t reform
them. “Once a crook always a crook.” They must be taught that if they
break the law they shall suffer for it, swiftly and surely. Am I not
right, your Honor?
Judge Dykeman: Certainly. Punishment is what they need.
Gordon: Oh, no your Honor. That was the old idea of vengeance. “An
eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and life for life.” Surely,
we have outgrown that theory long ago! Punishment for the sake of
punishment--suffering as a curative agent--has always failed.
Travesty: Who says so?
Gordon: History proves it. Torture--death itself did not stop the
pursuit of science: (To Creedon): It could not exterminate the
Christian faith! Punishment never halted virtue and it will never
conquer vice!
(Father Creedon greatly interested.)
Judge Dykeman: What would you suggest in place of punishment?
Gordon (with enthusiasm): Reverse the principle of Punishment--make it
Reward! (Astonishment of all.)
Father Creedon (puzzled and astonished): Reward for criminals!
Judge Dykeman: Ridiculous!
Gordon: Not if we approach the subject in a constructive manner,
abandoning methods which are obsolete and failures and direct our
energies, not to destroying but to building up! Reward! All training
and labor and success is built upon it. Children are trained that way.
In schools, prizes and promotions are Reward. Why does the scientist
and inventor work and study and succeed! Is it because of Punishment?
The explorer sails and suffers--dies! The patriots fought not through
the force of fear, but for the Reward of Glory!
Father Creedon (softly; half aside): The martyr’s crown!
Travesty: All whom you have mentioned were innocent and noble.
Remember, we are discussing felons.
Gordon: Well, do you train an animal by locking it up and making it
miserable? Will a snake dance for you if you hurt it?
Jim Poor (sinking into a chair with assumed weariness): Now, you’ve got
him going!
Judge Dykeman: Ah, but punishment is an example to others! You cannot
deny the deterrent principle.
Gordon: Does the procession of convicted men ever halt? Where there was
one yesterday, there are two to-day and there will be three to-morrow.
Father Creedon (crossing himself): Do not say, Mr. Gordon, that you
quarrel with the great principle of Example! Do not forget what one
Man, divine, has given us!
Gordon: I remember that the Romans crucified that Man as an example.
Did they accomplish what they thought to do? So we, instead of making
the criminal an example to others, should make our treatment of him the
example to the criminal himself. To-day we cannot claim example as our
purpose when the life of the murderer is taken in the pale light of
dawn, in a little room, and in the presence only of a few scientists.
Surely, it is not these that need the warning! If punishment is
intended as an example, let us be consistent; let the executions take
place in the public parks and let the State declare the occasions
holidays.
Judge Dykeman: You have forgotten, Gordon, the most important doctrine
of all--Protection.
Travesty: Yes! Society has the right of self-defense. We are justified
in imprisoning such people; even if it does them no good, because it
protects Society.
Jim Poor: That’s right!
Gordon: Only while imprisonment lasts, and in almost every instance it
releases them a more dangerous menace than before their incarceration.
And all because we deal with crime by a system childishly futile! As
well might we sentence the lunatic to three months in an asylum, or
the victim of smallpox to thirty days in the hospital, at the end of
these periods to turn them loose, whether mad or sane, cured or still
diseased.
Jim Poor (with great dignity): Now listen to me! You’re going to claim
that criminals are mentally diseased. There’s nothing in that idea of
their being abnormal.
Gordon: They must be! No normal man chooses sickness rather than
health, or selects poverty when he might be rich! No one seeks
suffering when he could be happy! Why, then, does a man follow crime
when it brings him only misery in the end?
Jim Poor (with great satisfaction): As some great man once said--I
forget who it was--“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
Gordon: Apply this very theory of Protection which Judge Dykeman urges.
Judge Dykeman: Just so. Protect ourselves against them.
Gordon: No! The protection of society would be doubly sure if we
applied the great principle rightly. Our criminal law aims to protect
society--in this it fails; it should aim to benefit the criminal--in
that it could succeed.
Father Creedon: You’re right!
Gordon: Physicians do not give medicine to those who are well, but to
the sick who need it. The criminal law should protect the criminal
against himself and the influences which have overcome him. It should
cure and armor him with self-respect and courage.
Judge Dykeman: That would be a delightful state of affairs.
Travesty: And now I suppose you are perfectly prepared to substitute
some new method of procedure? An original system of jurisprudence? What
better method than imprisonment have you to offer for bringing a man to
his senses?
(Annie does not understand the following.)
Gordon: I do not know, as yet. Is it fair to expect that I have found
that which has been a mystery through all the centuries? But don’t you
see that the present method is inadequate? We punish crime with fine,
imprisonment, and death, but is the fine given to the one injured? Does
imprisonment of the criminal compensate the victim? Does death restore
the dead?
Travesty: It is the Law!
Gordon: Yes, but the Law is wrong!
Jim Poor: Listen to that!
Gordon: Has not the State, so clear in defining the duties of the
individual to itself, failed in its duties to the individual after
his conviction? Is it not absurd and unjust for the State to wreak
vengeance on the criminal and then abandon him? There must be a
better way! A scientific method which is not based on suffering
and inhumanity! To find it is the duty of the State. The National
Government should undertake it.
Jim Poor: It’s not the National Government’s business!
Gordon: Yes, it is.
Jim Poor: Where’s your precedent? (to Judge Dykeman). That’s right,
Judge,--I beg your pardon, Your Honor,--got to have a precedent for it,
hasn’t he?
Judge Dykeman: Certainly, he should.
Father Creedon: Perhaps he has.
Jim Poor: Go ahead, let’s hear it; but the United States has nothing to
do with it.
Gordon: Why not? It studies questions less important. It maintains
experimental stations in every State and Territory where scientists
investigate preventive measures against the ravages of insects and
fungus growths.
Travesty (interested): You mean the Department of Agriculture?
Gordon (taking book from case and turning the leaves): I do. Here
is the annual report in your library. If you want to know anything
about the eradication of ticks on sheep--hog cholera bacillus--the
chestnut-bark disease--the control of pecan scab by spraying--worms in
dried fruit, the gypsy and coddling moth eradication--the Department
of Agriculture has bulletins and rules and even laws to regulate these
matters.
Travesty: What of it?
Gordon: This! To regulate these _blights_ and _pests_ it costs the
Federal Government twenty million dollars a year.
Travesty: But what has this to do with crime?
Gordon: Nothing! That’s the trouble! The cost of handling crime is
over one billion dollars a year in the United States and there are one
hundred and thirteen thousand men in prison there to-day.
Father Creedon: Incredible!
Gordon: And yet, our National Government spends twenty million dollars
a year to study and exterminate the animal, insect, and vegetable
pests, but not a dollar is appropriated nor an hour of attention given
for the study of preventive measures against the _human_ pest--the man
gone wrong--the criminal! The greatest menace to humanity is not of
such importance as the mould on apple trees; a weevil in the cotton
plant, or even a potato bug! Why a poison squad of scores of men
employed to determine the harmlessness of Benzoate of Soda in tomato
catsup, when there are “procuresses” and “cadets” in every city?
Father Creedon: What a terrible contrast! (to Judge Dykeman). Can
nothing be done to remedy such a condition?
Judge Dykeman: I think there should be; it has never been brought to my
attention before. (to Gordon). Do you think there is a way?
Gordon: Of course there is! Efficiency demands it! Think how much is
lost through the non-productiveness of criminals and of the energy
wasted by reason of our great army of two hundred thousand tramps. And
add to this what must be the amount of the depredation of all criminal
classes. Save this--make this an asset, not a depreciation. Under the
present system, what a waste--what a sin against efficiency! We should
stop this just as we reclaim the worthless land by irrigation and plan
the conservation of our forests.
Travesty: And how do you propose to accomplish it?
Gordon: By taking the treatment of criminals out of local politics.
Jim Poor: Can’t do it.
Gordon: Yes, by enacting a Federal criminal code with a Federal police
to enforce it, and no longer leaving the management of prisons to
keepers and wardens appointed because they are good fellows who can get
out the votes, but providing for their appointment from a Government
school of criminology established for this branch of the service,
similar to Annapolis and West Point. And above all, establishing a
Federal bureau of criminal research and control, which will study
preventive and constructive measures and make crime almost impossible
by doing away with poverty, drunkenness and the thousand and one
causes of crime. Some day a President will come who will make it the
Government’s duty to do something progressive; then there will be less
study regarding the accumulation of wealth and more research for ways
to benefit humanity. That day will come! Oh, God! that this our Land
might be the first to welcome it! The day when crime will be controlled!
Jim Poor (sarcastically): When do you think that time will come?
Gordon: When woman votes!
Travesty (interested in spite of himself): It’s not a bad idea,
“Federal control of crime.” I may use it some day in my campaign. What
do you think of it, Your Honor?
Judge Dykeman: I am impressed by the conclusions shown.
Father Creedon (to Gordon): How did you find this out?
Gordon: From getting at the point of view of criminals themselves.
Father Creedon: But how did you do that?
Gordon: For years I have associated with men of this kind for the
purpose of trying to understand the criminal instinct.
Judge Dykeman: Keeping bad company, as it were.
Gordon: Exactly that! Just what I’ve been doing!
Father Creedon: The end justifies the means, _in this case_.
Travesty: Been slumming in the interest of justice, have you?
Gordon: I have been trying to get at the truth.
Travesty: Worked yourself up into a state of mind in which you are in
sympathy with these felons?
Gordon: Yes, I do sympathize with them! I realize the hopelessness of
their lives and that they must move in the line of the least resistance!
Travesty: Well, you’ve wasted your time.
Gordon (earnestly): No, Mr. Travesty; think of the tremendous
importance of any explanation in that direction. Isn’t it worth while
to have gone into the underworld and to have talked with men who have
been through criminal experiences? There lies the secret of it all--in
their point of view.
Judge Dykeman: But what makes you think there is some secret cause of
crime?
Gordon: There must be some universal law--some influence that
sways--something that binds them all together!
Judge Dykeman: Father Creedon, you who are learned in the deep law of
spiritual things, tell us your opinion--judge this matter for us.
Father Creedon (softly): I think in pictures. To me it is as
if a mariner lost upon some unknown sea; I sailed my ship
astray--bewildered--lost. A sail appears! Answers my signal of
distress--heaves to--gives me my bearings and then passes on. Hail and
Farewell! That’s all--but what it means to me! (to Gordon): You’ve put
me on my course! A new day comes. You were the light illuminating all
the East before Dawn! I want to see the splendid noonday when your
answer comes. “Interested?” I want to see these men--I want to hear the
evidence and the defense--I want to know that they are fairly treated.
Judge Dykeman (going towards door): Reverse your decision; come and sit
with me. I want your help.
Father Creedon (crossing himself): _I_ cannot give you help, but there
is One who can.
(The Judge and Father Creedon about to exit. Creedon stops and comes
back.)
Father Creedon (to Gordon): My son I bless you ere I go. (as if
blessing Gordon): Be strong: Let nothing hinder you. I know that He
will send His kindly light amid the encircling gloom--to lead you on.