With segregated criminals supporting themselves, as they might be
made to do under our plan, the enormous cost of penitentiaries would
at one step be done away with. A penal colony such as Mr. Wooldridge
proposed would be placed in such a situation that the convicts could
be compelled to raise every bit of food they put into their mouths
and every bit of clothing they put upon their backs. Out in one of
the western states or territories a reservation might be made of
several thousand acres of land, around the rim of which the convicts
could be made to build a great wall shutting themselves away from
the rest of the world. On its surface would be built in the same way
habitations for them, and they would live there, tilling the soil and
manufacturing their necessities, until death.
The time will come when this plan will be carried out. The law-abiding
citizens of the United States will not continue forever to be taxed
enormously for the support of a class of persons who are enemies of
public order and decency.