An habitual criminal of the pronounced type was my friend Dick Mallory.
I have no remembrance of our first meeting, but he must have been thirty
years old at the time, was in the penitentiary for the third time, and
serving a fourteen-year sentence. Early in our acquaintance I asked him
to write for me a detailed account of his childhood and boyhood, the
environment and influences which had made him what he was, and also his
impression of the various reformatories and minor penal institutions of
which he had been an inmate. This he was allowed to do by special
permission, and the warden of the penitentiary gave his indorsement as
to the general reliability of his statements. The following brief sketch
of his youth is summarized from his own accounts.
One cannot hold Dick Mallory as a victim of social conditions, neither
was he of criminal parentage. One of his grandfathers was a farmer, the
other a mechanic. His father was a working-man, his mother a
big-hearted woman, thoroughly kindly and to the last devoted to her son.
There must have been some constitutional lack of moral fibre in Dick,
who was the same wayward, unmanageable boy known to heart-broken mothers
in all classes of life. Impulsive, generous, with an overflowing
sociability of disposition, he won his way with convicts and guards in
the different penal institutions included in his varied experience. I
hate to put it into words, but Dick was undeniably a thief; and his
career as a thief began very early. When seven years of age he was sent
to a parish school, and there, he tells me, "A tough set of boys they
were, including myself. There I received my first lessons in stealing.
We would go through all the alley ways on our way to and from school,
and break into sheds and steal anything we could sell for a few cents,
using the money to get into cheap theatres."
This early lawlessness led to more serious misdemeanors until the boy at
thirteen was sent to the reform school. This reform-school
experience--in the late seventies--afforded the best possible culture
for all the evil in his nature. This reform school was openly designated
a "hotbed of crime" for the State. Inevitably Dick left it a worse boy
than at his entrance. Another delinquency soon followed, for which he
was sent to jail for a month, the mother hoping that this would "teach
him a lesson." "It did. _But oh, what a lesson._ Oh! but it was a hard
place for a boy! There were from three to seven in each cell, some of
them boys younger than I, some hardened criminals. We were herded
together in idleness, learning only lessons in crime. In less than six
months I was there a second time. Then mother moved into another
neighborhood, but alas, for the change. That same locality has turned
out more thieves than any other portion of Chicago, that sin-begrimed
city. From the time I became acquainted in that neighborhood I was a
confirmed thief, and a constant object of suspicion to the police.
"One evening I was arrested on general principles, taken into the police
station and paraded before the whole squad of the police, the captain
saying, 'This is the notorious Dick Mallory, take a good look at him,
and bring him in night or day, wherever you may find him.'" This
completed his enmity to law and order.
Soon after followed an experience in the house of correction of which he
says: "This was my first time there and a miserable time it was. Sodom
and Gomorrah in their palmiest days could not hold a candle to it. You
know that by this time I was no spring chicken, but the place actually
made me sick; it was literally swarming with vermin, the men half
starved and half clad." This workhouse experience was repeated several
times and was regarded afterward as the lowest depth of moral
degradation of his whole career. "I did not try to obtain work in these
intervals of liberty, because I was arrested every time I was met by a
policeman who had seen me before."
Thoroughly demoralized Dick Mallory sought the saloons, at first for the
sake of sociability, then for the stimulant which gave temporary zest to
life, until the habit of drinking was confirmed and led to more serious
crimes.
Perhaps neither our modern juvenile courts nor our improved methods in
reform school and house of correction would have materially altered the
course of Dick Mallory's life, although a thorough course of manual
training might have turned his destructive tendencies into constructive
forces and the right teaching might have instilled into him some
principles of good citizenship. Be that as it may, the fact remained
that before this boy had reached his majority his imprisonment had
become a social necessity; he had become the very type against whom our
most severe legislation has been directed.
But this was not the Dick Mallory whom I came to know so well ten years
later, and who was for two years or more my guide and director in some
of the best work I ever accomplished for prisoners. Strange to say, this
man, utterly irresponsible and lawless as he had heretofore been, was a
model prisoner. He fell into line at once, learned his trade on the shoe
contract rapidly, became an expert workman, earning something like sixty
dollars a year by extra work. He was cheerful, sensible, level-headed;
and settled down to convict life with the determination to make the best
of it, and the most of the opportunity to read and study evenings. The
normal man within him came into expression. His comparison between the
house of correction and the penitentiary was wholly in favor of the
latter. He recognized the necessity of a strict discipline for men like
himself; he appreciated the difficulties of the warden's position and
his criticisms of the institutions were confined mostly to the abuses
inherent in the contract system. Never coming into contact with the
sick or disabled, himself blessed with the irrepressible buoyancy of the
sons of Erin, physically capable of doing more than all the work
required of him, his point of view of convict life and prison
administration was at that time altogether different from that of John
Bryan. He plunged into correspondence with me with an ardor that never
flagged, covering every inch of the writing-paper allotted him,
treasuring every line of my letters, and re-reading them on the long
Sunday afternoons in his cell. For years he had made the most of the
prison libraries. His reading was mainly along scientific lines; Galton,
Draper, and Herbert Spencer he treasured especially. His favorite novel
was M. Linton's "Joshua Davidson," a striking modern paraphrase of the
life of Jesus. His good nature won him many small favors and privileges
from the prison guards, and the time that I knew him as a prisoner was
unquestionably the happiest period of his life.
We always had some young prisoner on hand, whom we were trying to rescue
from criminal life. It was usually a cell-mate of Dick's with whom he
had become thoroughly acquainted. And on the outside was Dick's mother
always ready to help her boy set some other mother's boy on his feet.
Our first mutual experiment along this line was in the beginning
somewhat discouraging. The following extract from one of Dick's letters
speaks for itself, not only of our _protégé_, Harry, but of Dick's
attitude in this and similar cases.
"My brother wrote me that Harry had burnt his foot and was unable to
work for a month, during which time a friend of mine paid his board. On
recovering he went back to work for a few days, drew his pay and left
the city, leaving my friend out of pocket. Now I would like to make this
loss good because I feel responsible for Harry. I have never lost
confidence in him; and what makes me feel worst of all is that I am
unable to let him know that I am not angry with him. I would give twenty
dollars this minute if I knew where a letter would reach him.
"I have never directly tried to bring any man down to my own level, and
if I never succeed in elevating myself much above my present level I
would like to be the means of elevating others." However, Harry did not
prove altogether a lost venture and Dick was delighted to receive better
news of him later.
We had better luck next time when Ned Triscom, a young cell-mate of
Dick's, was released. Dick had planned for this boy's future for weeks,
asking my assistance in securing a situation and arranging for an
evening school, the bills guaranteed by Dick. Our plans carried even
better than we hoped. Ned proved really the right sort, and when I
afterward met him in Chicago my impressions more than confirmed Dick's
favorable report. But Ned was Dick's _find_, and Dick must give his own
report.
"I want to thank you for what you have done for my friend Ned. He has
written me every week since he left, and it does me good to know that he
is on the high road to success. As soon as you begin to receive news
from your friends who have met him you will hear things that will make
your heart glad. He is enthusiastic in his praise of Miss Jane Addams,
has spent some evenings at the Hull House, and goes often to see my
mother. He is doing remarkably well with his work and earned twenty-four
dollars last week. He has no relative nearer than an aunt, whom he will
visit in his vacation. I never asked him _anything about his past_, and
he never told me anything. I simply judged of him by what I saw of him.
I always thought him out of place here and now I wonder how he ever
happened to get here."
I liked Dick for never having asked Ned anything about his past. Now
through Dick's interest in the boy Ned was placed at once in healthy
moral environment in Chicago, and he was really a very interesting and
promising young man with exceedingly good manners. He called on me one
evening in Chicago and seemed as good as anybody, with the right sort of
interests, and he kept in correspondence with me as long as I answered
his letters.
Mrs. Mallory was as much interested in Dick's philanthropic experiments
as I was, and several men fresh from the penitentiary spent their first
days of freedom in the sunshine of her warm welcome and under the
shelter of her hospitable roof. Thus Dick Mallory, his mother, and I
formed a sort of first aid to the ex-convict society.
Another of Mallory's protégés was Sam Ellis, whose criminal sowing of
wild oats appeared to be the expression of a nature with an insatiable
appetite for adventure. The adventure of lawlessness appealed to him as
a game, the very hazards involved luring him on, as "the red game of
war" has lured many a young man and the game of high finance has
ensnared many an older one.
But Sam Ellis indulged in mental adventures also--in the game of making
fiction so convincing as to be accepted as fact, for Sam was born a
teller of stories. Perhaps I ought to have regarded Sam as a plain liar,
but I never could so regard him, for he frankly discussed this faculty
as he might have discussed any other talent; and he told me that he
found endless fascination in making others believe the pure fabrications
of his imagination. I always felt that as a writer of fiction he would
have found his true vocation and made a success. He had a feeling for
literature, too, and I think he has happily expressed what companions
books may be to a prisoner in the following extract from one of his
letters:
"I have been fairly devouring Seneca, Montaigne, Saadi, Marcus Aurelius,
Rochefoucauld, Bacon, Sir Thomas More, Shelley, Schopenhauer, Clodd,
Clifford, Huxley, Spencer, Fiske, Emerson, Ignatius Donnelly, Bryan, B.
O. Flower, J. K. Hosmer, and a host of lesser lights." Of Emerson he
says: "We are friends. It was a great rise for me and a terrible
come-down for him. I've done nothing but read, think, talk, and dream
Emerson for two weeks, and familiarity only cements our friendship the
stronger. It must have taken some extraordinary high thinking to create
such pure and delightful things. He uplifts one into a higher atmosphere
and carries the thought along on broad and liberal lines. Instead of
making one look down into the gutter to see the reflection of the sky,
he has us look up into the sky itself." In hours of depression this man
sought the companionship of Marjorie Fleming. Truly he understood the
value of the old advice: "To divert thyself from a troublesome fancy
'tis but to run to thy bookes." And to think of that dear Pet Marjorie
winging her way through the century and across the sea to cheer and
brighten the very abode of gloom and despair! No desire had this man to
read detective stories--he lived them--his life out of prison was full
of excitement and escapade. When seasons of reflection came he turned to
something entirely different; and were not the forces working upward
within him as vital and active as the downward tendencies?
However that may be, neither Dick Mallory nor I succeeded in getting any
firm grip on that mercurial being; but he never tried to impose on
either of us, was always responsive to my interest in him, and found a
chance to do me a good turn before he disappeared from my horizon in a
far western mining district where doubtless other adventures awaited
him. Dick Mallory always regarded Sam with warm affection, and his
clear-cut personality has left a vivid picture in my memory.
I find that Dick Mallory was the centre from which radiated more of my
acquaintances in the prison than from any one other source. His mind was
always on the alert regarding the men around him, and he was always on
the lookout for means of helping them. In one of our interviews his
greeting to me was:
"There are two Polish boys here that you must see; and you must do
something for them."
"Not another prisoner will I get acquainted with, Dick," was my reply.
"I've more men on my list now than I can do justice to. I've not time
for another one."
"It makes no difference whether you have time or not, these boys ought
to be out of here and there's nobody to get them out but you," said Dick
in a tone of finality.
I saw instantly that not only was the fate of the Polish boys involved,
but my standing in the opinion of Mallory; for between us two was the
unspoken understanding that we could count on each other, and Dick knew
perfectly well that I could not fail him. Nothing in all my prison
experience so warms my heart as the thought of our Polish boys. Neither
of them was twenty years of age; they were working boys of good general
character, and yet they were serving a fifteen-year sentence imposed
because of some technicality in an ill-framed law.
My interview with the younger of the boys was wholly satisfactory. I
found him frank and intelligent and ready to give me every point in his
case. But with the older one it was different; he listened in silence to
all my questions, refusing any reply. At last I said: "You must answer
my questions or I shall not be able to do anything for you." Then he
turned his great black velvet eyes upon me and said only: "You mean to
do me some harm?" What a comment on the boy's experience in Chicago
courts! He simply could not conceive of a stranger seeking him with any
but a harmful motive. And we made no further progress that time, but
when I came again there was welcome in the black velvet eyes, and with
the greeting, "I know now that you are my friend," he gave me his
statement and answered all my questions.
Now it seemed impossible that such a severe sentence could have been
passed on those boys without some just cause. But I had faith in Dick
Mallory's judgment of them, and my own impressions were altogether
favorable; furthermore, my good friend the warden was convinced that
grave injustice had been done.
It was two years before I had disentangled all the threads and
marshalled all my evidence and laid the case before the governor. The
governor looked the papers over carefully, and then said:
"If I did all my work as thoroughly as this has been done I should not
be criticised as I am now. What would you like me to do for these boys?"
Making one bold dash for what I wanted I answered: "I should like you to
give me two pardons that I can take to the boys to-morrow."
The governor rang for his secretary, to whom he said: "Make out two
pardons for these Polish boys." And ten minutes later, with the two
pardons in my hand, I left the governor's office. And so it came to
pass that I was indebted to Dick Mallory for one of the very happiest
hours of my life.
When I reached the prison next day the good news had preceded me. One of
the officers met me at the door and clasped both my hands in welcome,
saying:
"There isn't an officer or a convict in this prison who will not rejoice
in the freedom of those boys, and every convict will know of it."
As for the Polish boys themselves, the blond, a dear boy, was expecting
good news; but the black velvet eyes of the dark one were bewildered by
the unbelievable good fortune. I stood at the door and shook hands with
them as they entered into freedom, and afterward received letters from
both giving the details of their homecoming. And so the purpose of
Mallory was accomplished.
These are but few of the many who owed a debt of gratitude to this man.
Only last year a man now dying in England, in one of his letters to me,
referred gratefully to assistance given him by Mallory on his release
from prison many years ago. Mallory's letters are all the record of a
helping hand. Through them all runs the silver thread of human
kindness, the traces of benefits conferred and efforts made on behalf of
others.
And what of Dick Mallory's own life after his release from prison? He
had always lacked faith in himself and in his future, and now the
current of existence seemed set against him. He was thirty-two years old
and more than half his life had been spent in confinement, under
restraint. In his ambition to earn money for himself while working on
prison contracts, he had drawn too heavily on both physical and nervous
resources. In his own words: "I did not realize at all the physical
condition I was in. If I could only have gone to some place where I
could have recuperated under medical attention! But no! I only wanted to
get to work. _All I knew was work._"
The hard times of '93 came on, a man had to take what work he could get,
and Mallory could not do the work that came in his way. His mother died
and the home was broken up. He again resorted to the sociability of the
saloon, and with the renewal of old associations and under the
influences of stimulants the reckless lawlessness of his boyhood again
broke out into some action that resulted in a term in another prison.
The man was utterly crushed. His old criminal record was brought to
light and he found himself ensnared in the toils of his past. He was
bitterly humiliated--he was in no position to earn a penny, and no
channel for the generous impulses still strong within him was now open.
The old buoyancy of his nature still flickered occasionally from the
dying embers, but gradually darkened into a dull despair as far as his
own life was concerned. But his interest in others survived, and the
only favors he ever asked of me were on behalf of "the boys" whom he
could no longer help. He still wrote me freely and his letters tell
their own story:
"At one time in our friendship I really believed that everything was
possible in my future. I never meant to deceive you-- And when I
realized my broken promises my heart broke too. I have never been the
same man since and can never be again. I cannot help looking on the dark
side for life has been so hard for me. Ah! it is a hard place when you
reach the stage where the future seems so hopeless as it does to me."
And hopeless it truly was; imprisonment and dissipation had done their
work and his death came shortly after his release from this prison.
Since his life had proved a losing game it was far better that it should
end. But was not Robert Louis Stevenson right in his belief that all our
moral failures do not lessen the value of our good qualities and our
good deeds? The good that Mallory did was positive and enduring; and
surely his name should be written among those who loved their fellow
men.
To me the very most cruel stroke in the fate of Dick Mallory was this:
that in the minds of many his history may seem to justify the severity
of legislation against habitual criminals. With all his efforts to save
others, himself he could not save--and well as he knew the injustice
resulting from life sentences for "habituals," the sum of his life
counted against clemency for this class.