Mr. William Ordway Partridge, in "Art for America," says to us: "Let us
learn to look upon every child face that comes before us as a possible
Shakespeare or Michael Angelo or Beethoven. The artistic world is
rejoicing over the discovery in Greece of some beautiful fragments of
sculpture hidden far beneath the _débris_ of centuries; shall we not
rejoice more richly when we are able to dig down beneath the surface of
the commonest child that comes to us from our great cities, and discover
and develop that faculty in him which is to make him fit to live in
usefulness with his fellow men? Seeking for these qualities in the child
we shall best conserve, as is done in physical nature, the highest type,
until we have raised all human life to a higher level."
I hope that some day Mr. Partridge will write a plea for elementary art
classes in our prisons. For in every prison there are gifted men and
boys whose special talents might be so trained and developed as to
change the channel of their lives. What chances our prisons have with
these wards of the state, to discover and develop the individual powers
that might make their owners self-respecting and self-supporting men!
We are doing this in our institutions for the feeble-minded and with
interesting results, but in our prisons the genius of a Michael Angelo
might be stifled--the musical gift of a Chopin doomed to eternal
silence.
Mr. Partridge's belief in the latent possibilities in our common
children went to my heart, because I had known Anton Zabrinski; and yet
I can never think of Anton Zabrinski as a common child.
The story of his life is brief; but his few years enclosed the circle of
childhood, youth, aspiration, hope, horror, tragedy, pain, and death;
and all the beautiful possibilities of his outward life were blighted.
Anton's home was in the west side of Chicago, in that region where
successive unpronounceable names above doors and across windows assure
one that Poland is not lost but scattered.
In back rooms in the third story of the house lived the Zabrinski
family, the father and mother with Anton and his sister two years
younger. The mother was terribly crippled from an accident in childhood,
and was practically a prisoner in her home. Anton, her only son, was the
idol of her heart.
When scarcely more than a child Anton began work tailoring. He learned
rapidly, and when sixteen years old was so skilful a worker that he
earned twelve dollars a week. This energy and skill, accuracy of
perception and sureness of touch, gave evidence of a fine organization.
His was an elastic, joyous nature, but his growth was stunted, his whole
physique frail; sensitive and shy, he shrank with nervous timidity from
contact with the stronger, rougher, coarser-fibred boys of the
neighborhood. Naturally this served only to make Anton a more tempting
target for their jokes.
Two of these boys in particular played upon his fears until they became
an actual terror in his existence; though the boys doubtless never
imagined the torture they were inflicting, nor dreamed that he really
believed they intended to injure him. It happened one evening that Anton
was going home alone from an entertainment, when these two boys suddenly
jumped out from some hiding-place and seized him, probably intending
only to frighten him. Frighten him they did, out of all bounds and
reason. In his frantic efforts to get away from them Anton opened his
pocket-knife and struck out blindly. But in this act of self-defence he
mortally wounded one of the boys.
Anton Zabrinski did not go back to his mother that night; this gentle,
industrious boy, doing the work and earning the wages of a man, had
become, in the eye of the law, a murderer. I have written "in the eye of
the law"; a more accurate statement would be "in the eye of the court,"
for under fair construction of the law this could only have been a case
of manslaughter; but----
I once asked one of Chicago's most eminent judges why in clear cases of
manslaughter so many times men were charged with murder and tried for
murder. The judge replied: "Because it is customary in bringing an
indictment to make the largest possible net in which to catch the
criminal."
Anton Zabrinski had struck out with his knife in the mere animal
instinct of self-defence. The real moving force of evil in the tragedy
was the love of cruel sport actuating the larger boys--a passion leading
to innumerable crimes. Were the moral origin of many of our crimes laid
bare we should clearly see that the final act of violence was but a
result--the rebound of an evil force set in motion from an opposite
direction. It sometimes happens that it is the slayer who is the victim
of the slain. But to the dead, who have passed beyond the need of our
mercy, we are always merciful.
Had an able lawyer defended Anton he never would have been convicted on
the charge of murder; but the family was poor, and, having had no
experience with the courts, ignorantly expected fairness and justice.
Anton was advised to plead guilty to the charge of murder, and was given
to understand that if he did so the sentence would be light. Throwing
himself upon "the mercy of the court," the boy pleaded "guilty." He was
informed that "the mercy of the court" would inflict the sentence of
imprisonment for life. It chanced that in the court-room another judge
was present whose sense of justice, as well as of mercy, was outraged by
this severity. Moved with compassion for the undefended victim he
protested against the impending sentence and induced the presiding judge
to reduce it to thirty years. Thirty years! A lifetime indeed to the
imagination of a boy of seventeen. The crippled mother, with her heart
torn asunder, was left in the little back room where she lived, while
Anton was taken to Joliet penitentiary.
It did not seem so dreadful when first it came in sight--that great
gray-stone building, with its broad, hospitable entrance through the
warden house; but when the grated doors closed behind him with
relentless metallic clang, in that sound Anton realized the death-knell
of freedom and happiness. And later when, for the first night, the boy
found himself alone in a silent, "solitary"[8] cell, then came the
agonizing homesickness of a loving young heart torn from every natural
tie. Actually but two hours distant was home, the little back room
transfigured to a heaven through love and the yearning cry of his heart;
but the actual two hours had become thirty years of prison in the
future. The prison life itself was but a dumb, unshapen dread in his
imagination. And the unmeaning mystery and cruelty and horror of his
fate! Why, his whole life covered but seventeen years, of which memory
could recall not more than twelve; he knew they were years of
innocence, and then years of faithful work and honest aims until that
one night of horror, when frightened out of his senses he struck wildly
for dear life. And then he had become that awful thing, a murderer, and
yet without one thought of murder in his heart. If God knew or cared,
how could he have let it all happen? And now he must repent or he never
could be forgiven. And yet how could he repent, when he had meant to do
no wrong; when his own quivering agony was surging through heart and
mind and soul; when he was overwhelmed with the black irrevocableness of
it all, and the sense of the dark, untrodden future? One night like
that, it holds the sufferings of an ordinary lifetime.
We who have reached our meridian know that life means trial and
disappointment, but to youth the bubble glows with prismatic color; and
to Anton it had all been blotted into blackness through one moment of
deadly fear.
When young convicts are received at Joliet penitentiary it is customary
for the warden to give them some chance for life and for development
physically and mentally. They are usually given light work, either as
runners for the shops or helpers in the kitchens or dining-rooms, where
they have exercise, fresh air, and some variety in employment. Anton
came to the prison when there was a temporary change of wardens, and it
happened when he was taken from the "solitary" cell where he passed the
first night that he was put to work in the marble-shop, a hard place for
a full-grown man. He was given also a companion in his cell when
working-hours were over.
As he became fully adjusted to prison life he learned a curious thing:
on the outside crime had been the exception, a criminal was looked upon
as one apart from the community; but in this strange, unnatural prison
world it was crime which formed the common basis of equality, the tie of
brotherhood.
And again, the tragedy of his own fate, which had seemed to him to fill
the universe, lost its horrible immensity in his imagination as he came
to realize that every man wearing that convict suit bore in his heart
the wound or the scar of tragedy or of wrong inflicted or experienced.
He had believed that nothing could be so terrible as to be separated
from home and loved ones; but learned to wonder if it were not more
terrible never to have known loved ones or home.
When his cell-mate estimated the "good time" allowance on a sentence of
thirty years, Anton found that by good behavior he could reduce this
sentence to seventeen years. That really meant something to live for. He
thought he should be almost an old man if he lived to be
thirty-three--something like poor old Peter Zowar who had been in prison
twenty-five years; but no prisoner had ever lived there thirty years;
and this reduction to seventeen years meant to Anton the difference
between life and death. Even the seventeen years' distance from home
began to be bridged when his sister Nina came to see him, bringing him
the oranges and bananas indelibly associated with the streets of
Chicago, or cakes made by his own mother's hands and baked in the oven
at home.
Life in prison became more endurable, too, when he learned that
individual skill in every department of work was recognized, and that
sincerity and faithfulness counted for something even in a community of
criminals. Praise was rare, communication in words was limited to the
necessities of work; but in some indefinable way character was
recognized and a friendly attitude made itself felt and warmed the
heart; and the nature so sensitive to harshness was quick to perceive
and to respond to kindness.
It is hard to be in prison when a boy, but the older convicts regard
these boys with compassion, touched by something in them akin to their
own lost youth, or perhaps to children of their own. Little Anton looked
no older and was no larger than the average boy of fourteen; and to the
older men he seemed a child.
Human nature is human nature, and youth is youth in spite of bolts and
bars. The springtime of life was repressed in Anton, but it was working
silently within him, and silently there was unfolding a power not given
to all of us. His work in the marble-shop was readily learned, for the
apprenticeship at tailoring had trained his eye and hand, and steadfast
application had become habitual. As his ability was recognized
ornamental work on marble was assigned him. At first he followed the
patterns as did the ordinary workmen; these designs suggested to him
others; then he obtained permission to work out the beautiful lines that
seemed always waiting to form themselves under his hand, and the
patterns were finally set aside altogether. The art impulse within him
was astir and finding expression, and as time passed he was frankly
recognized as the best workman in the shop.
He was homesick still, always homesick, but fresh interest had come
into his existence, for unawares the spirit of beauty had come to be the
companion of his working-hours. He did not recognize her. He had never
heard of art impulses. But he found solid human pleasure and took simple
boyish pride in the individuality and excellence of his work.
The first year and the second year of his imprisonment passed: the days
dawning, darkening, and melting away, as like to one another as beads
upon a string, each one counted into the past at night as meaning one
day less of imprisonment. But toward the end of the second year the
hours began to drag interminably, and Anton's interest in his work
flagged. He became restless, the marble dust irritated his lungs, and a
cough, at first unnoticed, increased until it constantly annoyed him.
Then his rest at night was broken by pain in his side, and at last the
doctor ordered him to be removed from the marble-shop. It was a frail
body at best, and the confinement, the unremitting work, the total lack
of air and exercise had done their worst; and all resisting physical
power was undermined.
No longer able to work, Anton was relegated to the "idle room." Under
the wise rule of recent wardens the idle room has happily become a thing
of the past, but for years it was a feature of the institution, owing
partly to limited hospital accommodations. By the prisoners generally
this idle room, called by them the "dreary room," was looked upon as the
half-way station between the shops and the grave. Most cheerless and
melancholy was this place where men too far gone in disease to work, men
worn out in body and broken in spirit, waited together day after day
until their maladies developed sufficiently for them to be considered
fit subjects for hospital care. Usually no reading-matter was allowed,
and free social intercourse was of course forbidden, although the
inmates occasionally indulged in the luxury of comparing diseases. Under
the strain of that deadening monotony courage failed, and to many a man
indifferent to his own fate the sight of the hopelessness of others was
heart-breaking. The influence of the idle room was not quite so
depressing when Anton came within its circle, for a light industry had
just been introduced there, and some of the inmates were employed.
And at this time Anton was beginning to live in a day-dream. His
cell-mate, a young man serving a twenty years' sentence, was confidently
expecting a pardon; pardons became the constant theme of talk between
the two when the day was over, and Anton's faith in his own possible
release kindled and glowed with the brightening prospects of his friend.
Hope, that strange characteristic of tuberculosis, flamed the higher as
disease progressed; with the hectic flush there came into his eyes a
more brilliant light, and a stronger power to look beyond the prison to
dear liberty and home. Even the shadow of the idle room could not dim
the light of his imagination. No longer able to carve his fancies on
stone, he wove them into beautiful patterns for life in freedom. The
hope of a pardon is in the air in every prison. Anton wrote to his
family and talked with his sister about it, and though he made no
definite beginning every day his faith grew stronger.
It was at this time that I met Anton. I was visiting at the
penitentiary, and during a conversation with a young English convict, a
semi-protégé of Mary Anderson, the actress, this young man said to me:
"I wish you knew my cell-mate." I replied that I already knew too many
men in that prison. "But if you would only see little Anton I know _you
would be mashed in a minute_," the Englishman confidently asserted. As
to that probability I was sceptical, but I was impressed by the
earnestness of the young man as he sketched the outline of Anton's story
and urged me to see him. I remember that he made a point of this: "The
boy is so happy thinking that he will get a pardon sometime, but he will
die here if somebody doesn't help him soon." To gratify the Englishman I
consented to see the happy boy who was in danger of dying.
An attractive or interesting face is rare among the inmates of our
prisons. The striped convict suit, which our so-called Christian
civilization so long inflicted upon fellow men, in itself gave an air of
degradation,[9] and the repression of all animation tends to produce an
expression of almost uniform dulness. Notwithstanding his cell-mate's
enthusiasm I was thrilled with surprise, and something deeper than
surprise, when I saw Anton Zabrinski. The beauty of that young Polish
prisoner shone like a star above the degrading convict suit. It was the
face of a Raphael, with the broad brow and the large, luminous,
far-apart eyes of darkest blue, suggesting in their depths all the
beautiful repressed possibilities--eyes radiant with hope and with
childlike innocence and trust. My heart was instantly vibrant with
sympathy, and we were friends with the first hand-clasp. The artistic
temperament was as evident in the slender, highly developed hands as in
his face.
At a glance I saw that his fate was sealed; but his spirit of hope was
irresistible and carried me on in its own current for the hour. Anton
was like a happy child, frankly and joyfully opening his heart to a
friend whom he seemed always to have known. That bright hour was
unclouded by any dark forebodings in regard to illness or an obdurate
governor. We talked of pardon and freedom and home and happiness. I did
not speak to him of repentance or preparation for death. I felt that
when the summons came to that guileless spirit it could only be a
summons to a fuller life.
During our interview the son of the new warden came in, and I called his
attention to Anton. It was charming to see the cordial, friendly fashion
in which this young man[10] talked to the prisoner, asking where he
could be found and promising to do what he could for him, while Anton
felt that at last he was touching the hand of Providence. The new
authorities had not been there long enough to know many of the convicts
individually, but at dinner that day the warden's son interested his
father in Anton by recounting their conversation that morning. The
warden's always ready sympathy was touched. "Take the boy out of that
idle room," he said, "take him around the yard with you to see the dogs
and horses." This may not have been discipline, but it was delightfully
human--and humanizing.
When I left the prison I was assured that I could depend upon the
warden's influence in furthering my purpose of realizing Anton's dream,
his faith and hope of pardon. The following Sunday in Chicago I found
the Zabrinski family, father, mother, and the young sister, in their
third-story back rooms. On the wall hung a framed photograph of Anton as
a little child. The mother did not speak very clear English, but she
managed to repeat, over and over again: "Anton was so good; always he
was such a good boy." The young sister, a tailoress, very trim in her
dark-blue Sunday gown, discussed intelligently ways and means of
obtaining her brother's release.
Our plans worked smoothly, and a few weeks later, when all Chicago was
given over to the World's Fair, the desire of Anton's heart came true
and he was restored to home and freedom. Or, as the newspapers would
have put it: "Our anarchist governor let loose another murderer to prey
upon society." Poor little murderer! In all that great city there was no
child more helpless or harmless than he.
The image of little Anton Zabrinski, as of the prison itself, grew faint
in my heart for the time, under the spell of the long enchanting summer
days and magical evenings at the White City.
The interest and the beauty of that fusion of all times and all
countries was so absorbing and irresistible that I had stayed on and on
until one day in July when I braced myself for the wrench of departure
next morning. But the evening mail brought me letters from home and
among them one forwarded from Anton, entreating me to come and see him.
I had not counted on being remembered by Anton except as a milestone on
his path toward freedom--I might have counted on it, however, after my
many experiences of the gratitude of prisoners--but his longing to see
me was unmistakable; and as I had broken my word so many times about
going home that my reputation for unreliability in that direction could
not be lowered, I sent a final telegram of delay.--Oh, luxury of having
no character to lose!
The next morning I took an early start for the home of the Zabrinskis.
In a little back yard--a mere patch of bare ground without the
possibility of a blade of grass, with no chance of even looking at the
sky unless one lay on one's back, with uniform surroundings of back
doors and back stairs--what a contrast to that dream of beauty at
Jackson Park!--here it was that I found Anton, listlessly sitting on a
bench with a little dog as companion. All hope and animation seemed to
have died out within him; even the lights in his deep-blue eyes had
given way to shadows; strength and courage had ebbed away, and he had
yielded at last to weariness and depression. He had left the prison,
indeed, but only to face death; he had come back to his home, only to be
carried away from it forever. Even his mother's loving care could not
stop that racking cough nor free him from pain. And how limited the
longed-for freedom proved! It had reached out from his home only to the
hospital dispensary. Weakness and poverty formed impassable barriers
beyond which he could not go.
As I realized all this I resolved to give him the most lovely vision in
the world to think of and to dream of. "Anton," I said, "how would you
like to take a steamer and go on the lake with me to see the World's
Fair from the water?"--for him to attempt going on the grounds was not
to be thought of.
For a moment he shrank from the effort of getting to the steamer, but
after considering it for a while in silence he announced: "When I make
up my mind that I will do a thing, I do it; I will go with you." Then we
unfolded our plan for adventure to the mother. Rather wild she thought
it, but our persuasive eloquence won the day and she consented,
insisting only that we should partake of refreshments before starting on
our expedition. With the connivance of a neighbor on the next floor Mrs.
Zabrinski obtained a delicious green-apple pie from a bakery near by and
served it for our delectation.
I find that already the noble lines, with their beautiful lights and
shadows, in the Court of Honor of the White City are blending into an
indistinct memory; but the picture of Anton Zabrinski as he leaned back
in his chair on the steamer, breathing the delicious pure, fresh air,
sweeping his glance across the boundless plain of undulating blue, will
be with me forever. Here at last was freedom! And how eagerly the boy's
perishing being drank it in!
There was everything going on around us to divert and amuse: crowds of
people, of course, and a noisy band of musicians; but it all made no
impression upon Anton. We two were practically alone with the infinite
sky and the far-stretching water. It was easy then for Anton to tell me
of his deeper thoughts, and to speak of the change that he knew was
coming soon. Life had been so hard, only fruitless effort and a losing
battle, and now he longed only for rest. He had felt the desire to give
expression to beautiful form, he had felt the stirring of undeveloped
creative power. We spoke of the future not as death but as the coming of
new life and as the opportunity for the fair unfolding of all the higher
possibilities of his nature--as freedom from all fetters. His faith,
simple but serious, rested upon his consciousness of having, in his
inmost soul, loved and sought the good. His outward life was hopelessly
wrecked; but he was going away from that, and it was his soul, his true
inner life, that would appear before God. It was all a mystery and he
was helpless, but he was not afraid. _He had forgiven life._
As we talked together the steamer neared the pier at Jackson Park. "And
now, Anton, you must go to the other side of the boat and see the
beautiful White City," I said. It was like alabaster in its clear
loveliness that radiant morning, and all alive with the lilting colors
of innumerable flags. It was Swedish day, and a most gorgeous procession
in national costume thronged the dock as our steamer approached, for we
had on board some important delegation. A dozen bands were playing and
the grand crash of sound and the brilliant massing of color thrilled me
to my fingertips. But Anton only looked at it for a moment with unseeing
eyes: it was too limited; it was the stir and sound and crowd of the
city. He turned again eagerly to the great sweep of sky and water; "You
don't know what this lake and this fresh air are to me," he said
quietly, and he looked no more toward the land until we had returned to
Van Buren Street.
After we left the steamer Anton threw off the spell of the water. He
insisted on my taking a glass of soda with him from one of the fountains
on the dock; it was his turn to be entertainer now. I drank the soda and
live to tell the tale. By that time we had caught the bohemian spirit of
the World's Fair, Anton was revived and excited by the hour on the
water, and as we crossed over to Michigan Avenue the brilliant life of
the street attracted and charmed him, and I proposed walking slowly down
to the Auditorium Hotel. Every step of the way was a delight to Anton,
and when we reached the great hotel I waited in the ladies'
reception-room while Anton strolled through the entrances and office,
looking at the richly blended tones of the marbles and the decoration in
white and gold. I knew that it would be one more fresh and lovely memory
for him to carry back to the little rooms where the brief remnant of his
life was to be spent.
At an adjoining flower-stand we found sweet peas for his mother. I saw
him safely on board the car that would take him to his home; then, with
a parting wave of his hand and a bright, happy smile of farewell, little
Anton Zabrinski passed out of my sight.
Through the kindness of a friend I had the very great happiness of
sending Anton a pass, "For bearer and one," that gave him, with an
escort, the freedom of the World's Fair steamers for the summer--the
greatest possible boon to the boy, for even when too weak to go to the
steamer he could still cherish the expectation of that delight.
Anton's strength failed rapidly. He wrote me one letter saying: "I can
die happy now that I am with my mother. I thank you a thousand times
over and over for your kind feeling towards me and the kind words in
your letters, and the charming rose you sent. I cannot write a long
letter on account of my pains through my whole chest. I can't turn
during the night from one side to another. Dear Friend, I don't like to
tell my misery and sorrows to persons, but I can't help telling you."
Another letter soon followed, but not from Anton. It was the sister who
wrote:
"DEAR FRIEND:
"With deep sorrow I inform you of my dear brother's death. He died
at four o'clock in the morning. He had a great desire to see you
before he died. We should be glad to see you at the funeral if
convenient Wednesday morning.
"Pardon this poor letter
"from your loving friend
"MISS NINA ZABRINSKI."
FOOTNOTES:
[8] These "solitary" cells in which a prisoner passed his first night
were in a detached building in which the punishment cells were located.
The solitude was absolute and terrible.
[9] The striped convict suit was practically abolished at Joliet the
following year.
[10] This young man, Edmund M. Allen, is now warden of this same prison,
and has so developed the humanizing methods of his father as to bring
Joliet penitentiary into the front rank of progressive prison reform.