beautiful and unselfish of all affections, but the belief has been
intensified since I have learned to know the many sorrowing mothers
of our "boys" in prison, who despite all they have suffered; shame,
disappointment and wrong, have loved on and stood faithfully by their
erring ones. I believe such mothers are the great hope and very sheet
anchor to men who can never quite forget them, however far they may go
astray and disregard their prayers and wishes.
Just as we find within prison walls men of every class, so the homes
on which the blow has fallen are widely different, and the needs
represented are often in great contrast. One mother surrounded by
wealth in a home of ease and comfort may not need material help, but
craves that which comes from true heart sympathy. Another may, in her
old age, be left utterly destitute and have to face sickness and want,
yet with both, the boy in prison is the first thought, and any one who
can help him is welcome as their friend. No work especially organized
to help the mothers and families of men in prison and commencing with
them, could be successful. They are not to be found by inquiries from
tenement to tenement; they certainly would not be attracted by an
announcement over an office building proclaiming it as a bureau for
their special assistance. They have their pride and self-respect and
rather than go and seek help or pour out the story of their woes and
wrongs to strangers, they would hide away and bear their burden alone.
From the very commencement of our prison work I realized that it must
be a movement of natural growth, that each want as it was found must be
met by the method that developed to meet it. As the men grew to know
and trust us, they began to tell us of the dear ones at home. Many a
time a young man in prison under an alias would confide his real name,
and give us the duty of breaking gently to his dear ones the knowledge
of his whereabouts. With others there was the feeling that long silence
spoke of unforgiveness at home, and it was for us to try and bring
about a reconciliation. Very often the distress and suffering of his
family has caused a man worry almost to the point of madness and a
letter has been hurriedly written asking us to go post-haste and render
the needed help.
On the other hand, as the men became interested in the League and the
new experience deepened in their hearts, they wrote the good news to
their homes, sometimes away over the seas, and back from every part
of this country, and from very many distant lands came to us loving,
grateful letters from mothers who felt they could pour out to us the
heart-longings and anxiety that had been so long borne in solitude. The
tie of friendship and understanding is much stronger and draws hearts
together much more surely than that of charitable bounty. We can do far
more in every way for these women for the reason that we are introduced
to them by sons or husbands. My dear friend and helper, Mrs. McAlpin,
has especially taken this work on her heart, so far as the prisons
of this state are concerned, and through her talks with the men, she
has been enabled to put us in touch with numbers of families who in
this great city were in dire need of a helping hand. From the western
prisons the work comes to us mostly through the mail, and we find that
this new and unexpected field of usefulness has developed so rapidly
that we have had to appoint one worker to do nothing else but visit the
families thus referred to us. Before I write some of the stories of
those materially helped, I want to speak of the mothers who have been
cheered and comforted by good messages of their boys returning to the
right path within prison walls.
At the first meeting ever held in Sing Sing a little company of
men took their stand for the new life, and among them was a tall,
fine-looking young fellow whose deep emotion and evident sincerity very
much impressed me. He stood with his face sternly set, showing in its
pallor the effort that it cost him to rise before that great crowd of
fellow-prisoners, and yet, determination was written in every feature.
As I watched him, I saw the tears course their way down his cheeks. It
was such a striking and earnest face that the chaplain also especially
noticed him and found out his name for me. Shortly afterwards my mail
contained a letter which brought me into closer touch with him, and
then my interviews from time to time gave me his history link by link,
until I knew the whole. It is one that has undoubtedly a thousand
counterparts. He was the only black sheep of a bright, happy family,
the youngest son and his mother's darling. Associating with wild
companions, he went astray, saddening and bringing constant trouble
to his home. His mother and sisters clung to him, pleaded and wept in
vain. He went on in his wild course until he got into trouble in his
home state, from the consequence of which his people saved him. Then
he broke away entirely from home restraints and came east. By this
time drink had gained a strong hold on him and he mixed in his drinking
sprees with the roughest crowds. One night he was arrested in a saloon
with a gang that had committed a burglary, and soon after found himself
in state prison with a long term of years to serve. In that lonely cell
a picture hung over his cot that carried his mind away over the country
to the sunny Californian village where she, whose face smiled down upon
him, prayed still for her boy, knowing nothing of this last disgrace.
After enduring silence for some time, his longing for letters from home
compelled him to write, but he hid the fact of his imprisonment, giving
the prison number of the street as the place where he was working.
It happened however that a friend left their home village to visit
in New York state, and he was commissioned by the mother to see her
boy. Inquiring for the street and number in Sing Sing, he found the
prison, so that sad news winged its way to the distant home. Through
this trial the mother's love stood firm, and the most tender, helpful
letters came month after month to the little cell where time passed
all too drearily. When this boy took his stand for God and became
a Christian, he wrote the news home, and very shortly I received a
long, loving letter from his mother. She rejoiced in the change that
had come to her boy and then asked all about his prison life and
surroundings, begging me to watch over him and to be to him as far as
possible what she would be, if she were near enough to visit him. For
two years we corresponded, and I had much good news to tell her of the
boy's earnest, faithful life. Once we met and I shall never forget
that mother's face and words. I had been having a heavy programme of
engagements in San Francisco and was resting between the meetings.
The news came that two ladies wanted to speak to me, and I sent my
secretary to explain that I was very weary and had to rest. She came
back in a few moments to tell me their names, and at once I went to
them, realizing that it was the mother and sister of that "boy" in Sing
Sing. When I entered the room I found a truly beautiful young girl with
a sweet, refined face, and a dear old lady dressed in widow's weeds.
As she rose to greet me, the words died on her lips and she could only
sob, "Oh, you've seen my boy, my boy!" When she was calmer she told me
she had come forty miles that day to meet me. She had been ill in bed
and her daughters tried to dissuade her from the effort, but she said,
"I could not stay away; I think it would have killed me to miss this
chance of seeing one who had seen my boy." Then she began to talk of
him in the tender intimate way only a mother can talk. She asked me
many questions that were difficult to answer: just how he looked, what
they gave him to eat, what his cell was like, what work he had to do,
etc. When we parted, she put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me
saying, "Oh, you have lifted such a heavy, heavy burden from my heart,"
while the sister added, "There was an empty place in our home we never
expected to have filled again, but you have brought us the assurance
that our boy will soon be there with us again." As I turned back again
to my work, I said to myself, "It is all worth while, if only to bring
the grain of comfort to such loyal, loving hearts."
On his discharge from prison the "boy" came to us, waited at Hope Hall
until I could get his ticket, and then went back to the home from which
I received the brightest news of their happy reunion. During the late
war, he served under Dewey at Manila and I have a letter written just
before he entered into action, a letter full of earnest Christian joy
and courage.
Many a time, as I travel, I meet mothers whom I have not known through
correspondence, but who seek me out to tell the glad news of homes to
which a real change has come with the dear ones' restoration, with a
new purpose in life and the strength to fulfill it.
Here is a letter lately received from a village in Germany:--"Dear
Mrs. Booth:--Since a long time I had the intention to write to you and
to express you my deepest thank and veneration for the Christian love
and care you have for my poor son Hans, which is fallen so deep. You
may imagine what a relief it is for my heart to hear that in foreign
land is found a soul who take such interest at heart for my poor son,
to guide him again to Christian love. For me it is unfortunately quite
impossible to do anything for him, only I pray for him to the Lord, who
never wills the death of sinner and who alone can reform him truly. I
beg, dear Mrs. Booth, help him as much as you can for the Saviour. All
you have done and your exhortations have quite won his heart and he is
full of trust and confidence in you. You may believe with what grief
and sorrow I ever think of my son. He once got such a good education,
and was trained with care and love in a positive Christian home. May
God you assist in your blessed undertaking that Hans may turn over a
new leaf and be again a useful and smart fellow. I am so very sorry
that I can do nothing at all than lay all my cares and troubles in your
hand and assure you that I feel exceeding thankful. You will oblige me
very much if you will be so kind to give me once a little note upon my
son and please excuse my bad English. I hope you will understand it
but I have no exercise at all in writing. I hope this lines will come
to your hands and with kindest regards, I am, Yours truly."
As I lay down the letter, I have a vision of a dear soul with her
dictionary at her side laboriously putting these thoughts on paper and
I imagine the longing and yearning with which her mother heart goes out
over the seas to her boy in prison, beyond her reach, but not beyond
her love.
Often the letters have come written in German, French or Italian, but
in all the same story "watch over my boy, give me tidings of him." Once
or twice the letters have been from those in high social position, and
often the poorly written efforts of a very humble folk, but the message
is always the same. Love and forgiveness, yearning through the shame
and sorrow. Several times we have had the joy of sending the boy back
to his far away home, and getting good news from him when he is again
under the safest, strongest influences on earth.
Perhaps the most pathetic letter from over seas came to me from a
mother in Australia. I had had the duty of breaking to her the news of
her son's imprisonment, and afterwards forwarding his letters to her
each month and receiving hers for him. She was an earnest Christian and
though quite old and feeble, wrote him very long and loving letters
by every mail and prayed without ceasing that she might see his face
once more before she died. At last a letter reached me that told me
of a very dangerous seizure; the doctor had informed her that she had
perhaps but a few hours to live and at most could not last many days.
The writing was very shaky and in many places almost illegible, while
gaps here and there told where the pencil had dropped from the fingers
that were already growing cold in death. She had had to rest often to
gain strength to finish it. Her letter is too sacred for reproduction.
In it she poured out to me her anguish and heart's longing for her boy.
She told me his weak points, and begged me to stand by him. She asked
me to break the news of her death and to pass on her last message. The
last few lines were literally written in the anguish of death, and she
closed with the words "if you get no news by the next mail you can tell
my boy his mother is gone." The next mail brought a letter but it was
black edged and from another member of the family, telling me that she
had died with his name on her lips.
Such instances as this add much to the sacredness of our work and to
our intense desire for its lasting results where so much is often at
stake. I remember one young man in Sing Sing whose earnest efforts to
do right made him a very marked and successful member of our League.
He was among the first to enroll and when I talked with him personally
I found him very happy in his new found experience. He told me frankly
that his past had been a wretchedly unworthy one; and it was not his
first imprisonment. Drink had been the cause of his downfall every
time, as it is with most of the "boys," and he had over and over again
broken the law when under its influence. "But," he said, "that is not
my worst sin; what I feel most now, is the wrong I have done my poor
old mother. I have well nigh broken her heart, and over and over again
brought her sorrow and disgrace, but she has loved me through it all.
She won't believe I am half as bad as I really am." With tears and the
deepest emotion, he told me how he would with God's help make up to
her what she had suffered. Sometime later the mother called on me. She
came to tell me of her joy over her son's letters. He had told her that
at last her God had become his God and that her prayers were answered.
No pen could paint a word picture of that mother's face. Transfigured
with the divine love she felt for her wandering boy, as she told me of
all his good points and tried to make me see as she did how well worth
saving he was. Behind the love there were so many lines of pain and
anxiety, that coupled with her story, I could realize something of the
tragedy, but the tears that fell so thick and fast were of the quality
that would make them precious in heaven, and they surely would not
pass unremembered by the One who fully knows and understands all the
suffering of which the human heart is capable.
On a Good Friday, I saw him in prison for the last time. Very cheerily
he greeted me with the news of his approaching release and promised
he would come to our office the first hour of his arrival in New
York. On my engagement list I entered the initials of his name, that
when the day came, we might watch for his arrival. The morning hours
passed; we thought some slight delay had arisen. The afternoon went
by, still he did not come. Very reluctantly we closed our desks and
went home. The next day we waited and watched and still no news. I
suppose if I had had any "Job's comforters," on my little staff, they
would have suggested to me that the first saloon had proved too much
for him, and that our returning wanderer had most likely drowned all
his good resolves in the same stuff that had been his undoing in the
past. Fortunately we were all of us workers on the sunny side of the
street and evil shadows were not hunted up to cloud our confidence. We
felt sure all was well, and the mail four days later told the story.
He explained how sorry he was not to report at headquarters, but on
reaching New York his brother had met him with the news of the mother's
illness and he hurried at once to her side. The next day he had found
work and he added, "Now, Little Mother, I fear I shall not be able to
see you, for I must work every day for my mother's sake, for you know
what I have promised. I want to build up a home for her and make up for
the sorrow I have caused her in the past." Some days later the mother
came herself to tell me of her boy's home-coming, and the tears that
fell now were tears of joy. The most pathetic part of the story to me
was this; she said that, as the time grew near for his home-coming, the
old dread crept into her heart. She had so often watched for him, not
knowing in what condition he might return, or whether he would come at
all, that the habit of fear triumphed over her faith, and though his
letters had been so different and his promises seemed so earnest, her
heart misgave her. She said, "What do you think my boy did? The very
first thing he went to the telegraph office and sent me this message,
'Don't worry, mother, I am coming.'"--Ah, God grant that we may help to
flash that message to the hundreds of sorrowing mothers whose hearts
turn anxiously to those opening prison doors! Are not all the efforts,
all the toils, all the dollars expended well worth while to bring back
brightness and comfort to these hearts, that for so long have sat in
the gloom of the most tragic bereavement? As the months passed, good
news came to me of this happy family. The young man joined the church
in the village where his mother had long been a respected Christian.
He became attached to temperance work, and by his warnings many other
young men were induced to take the pledge. He and his brother went into
business; they prospered, and at last they fulfilled his ambition,
building with their own hands the home that they had promised to their
dear old mother.
These are stories of mothers; what of the wives and little children?
It seems hopeless to give any adequate idea of that sad side of the
picture. In many cases the imprisonment of the man means absolute want
and suffering to the innocent family. I remember a very strong letter
I received from one of the "boys," in which he said, "I cannot tell
you, Little Mother, how bitterly I reproach myself for the suffering
I have brought upon my wife and little children. My lot is easy to
theirs. They are the real sufferers for my wrong-doing. I have shelter
and clothing, with three meals a day provided by the state, while
they have to face want and perhaps absolute starvation. No words can
describe the anguish I suffer on their behalf." This is only too true.
The state takes away the mainstay of the family and for them there is
suffering worse than his to be faced. I do not blame the state; I am
not so irrational as to plead that for their sake he must be given his
liberty, but I do say that some hand must be stretched out to help
them, and that here is a great field where there is no fear of misspent
charity.
Many of these women have not been accustomed to work for a living,
and when left to their own resources they have no trade or any means
of livelihood, while such work as washing or scrubbing often proves
far too heavy for their strength. They are not the kind of women who
can beg. They dread making an appeal to public charity, because they
would have to tell of the husband's whereabouts and of his crime, and
in their loyal hearts they long to shield him, so alone they battle
on, trying to keep the wolf from the door and to hold the little
family together, until they almost drop with exhaustion or are driven
to desperation, when faced with temptations that are worse than death
itself.
I remember a letter I received one day from Sing Sing with a special
delivery stamp announcing its urgency. The man was at that time a
stranger to me, but he turned to us in this darkest moment of despair.
The letter was written as the gray light of dawn crept into his cell.
It told how all night long he had walked back and forth and how in his
anguish and helplessness, he felt as if his brain would give way. He
had a young wife and baby; she had had a hard unequal struggle, and
was not a woman of strong nature or any skill as a worker. At last he
received a letter in which she said she could stand the struggle no
longer. She was at the end of her resources; she and her child could
not starve. Anyway, an easy though evil way, was open and she was going
to take it. "For God's sake," he wrote, "go and find her and save her
from what would be worse than death." Before many hours were passed
we had her in our care. She was sent to a position and her little one
watched over and the good news flashed back to that anxious heart
behind the bars.
Another man who was serving five years in prison, wrote to us to say
that he had heard his wife and five children were in dire need. I
copy the report of the case as it stands on our books from the pen of
our representative who investigated and afterwards watched over the
family: "We took hold of this case about two years before expiration
of sentence. Eldest child, a girl, was eleven years of age; next a boy
of nine; all the rest were little ones. Baby was born three days after
father went to prison. Mother worked from five in the morning until
dark in the summer, picking peas and other such work for sixty cents a
day. I have waited until eight o'clock at night for her to come home.
Children were all locked out in the street for fear they would burn
the house down. They spent their time making mud-pies in a lot. The
neighbors used to help them sometimes, but they were poor themselves.
They reported that the children often came at night under their windows
and cried for bread when they were starving. When first found, they
were half naked and very hungry. When fed, which had to be done at once
with what could be purchased at a near-by store, they fell on the food
like little wild beasts, literally tearing it in their hunger." For two
years we helped them with clothing, food and in many ways. Then the
father came home, found work and has written us very grateful, happy
letters.
Here is another story: The husband was an almost prosperous man,
keeping a county hotel and having an interest in a factory. He was
murderously attacked by a man whom he afterwards shot, as he thought,
in self-defense. Had he shot the man on his own property, he would
have been guiltless in the eyes of the law, but as he shot him after
he had forced him from the gate, he was sentenced to five years'
imprisonment. For four years his wife fought bravely with starvation.
When we found her, the three children were down with scarlet fever;
they had previously had measles. The mother worked at the hardest kind
of labor for a living, and was herself sick, first with malaria and
then with hemorrhages of the lungs and was often found in a fainting
condition. We took this family on our list, and Mrs. McAlpin also
helped them generously. Had they not been tided over the hard places
during sickness, severe cold and in other emergencies, this family must
have gone under in the unequal struggle. On his return from prison, the
father found work and was enabled to provide them with a home. Now they
are comfortably off, and the mother with proper care is regaining her
health.
A German who had held splendid positions before his incarceration,
wrote us in great distress about his wife and children. She had with
indomitable courage maintained herself and the little ones, but at
the time of writing, he informed us, he had just received news that
the children were down with diphtheria and that she was quarantined
with them, which meant of course, that she was unable to work, hence
the necessary money for rent and food would not be forthcoming. We
sent at once to investigate, paid the rent and sent in a supply of
groceries, with some of the nourishing food which the sick children so
much needed. From that time we kept them under observation, until the
father's return made them independent.
Another letter sent from prison led us to hunt up a family where we
found the woman helpless with a new-born babe, and she had besides a
boy of seven and a girl of three and had just buried her eldest child,
a girl of nine years. They had gone behind in rent and as she was in no
condition to work, we sent her with her two little girls to our Home.
The boy was placed in a school where he is having a good education
and every care. We have watched over and provided for the family ever
since, and hope shortly to get the father paroled so that he may again
make a home for them.