[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of
general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the
delinquent.]
_A Correction._--The _Delinquent_ is convinced that after all there is
a “printer’s devil” in every office. For in the January _Delinquent_
there appeared directly following our notice of Miss Davis’s
well-deserved appointment to the commissionership of correction in New
York, a little joke, running about eight lines in length and serving
the printer simply as “filler” on the last page. Unfortunately the dash
that should have separated the two items was omitted. However, we know
that Miss Davis will forgive us, and, after all, we have had to find
fault very seldom with our printer, who from the beginning has given us
a very low rate and good service.
* * * * *
_For a National Prison Commission._--Rev. Samuel G. Smith, of St.
Paul, president of the American Prison Association, has announced
the members of the committee authorized by the Association at its
last annual session in Indianapolis to wait upon President Wilson and
Attorney-General McReynolds in an effort to have the Federal Government
establish a national prison commission.
The members of the commission are Professor Charles R. Henderson,
of the University of Chicago, and United States Commissioner on
the International Prison Commission; Frank L. Randall, chairman,
Massachusetts Prison Commission; Henry Wolfer, warden of the State
Prison at Stillwater, Minn.; W. H. Moyer, warden of the Federal prison
at Atlanta, and Joseph P. Byers, secretary of the Association and
Commissioner of Charities and Corrections of New Jersey.
The Association in adopting the resolution for the naming of the
committee thought that a national prison commission would be of great
service to the Federal and all the State governments. It is part of the
scheme to establish a school for the training of prison officials.
* * * * *
_Payments to Prisoners._--Dependents of prisoners now serving in the
Ohio penitentiary received in January the first payments of money
earned by the inmates of the State prison. Under the prison pay system,
only those who are employed each day and whose deportment record is
good receive any compensation for their labors. Men occupied at trades
are paid the highest.
The prison pay system was installed at the penitentiary in the latter
part of September, and under its ruling no prisoner can earn more
than $2.20 each week. The highest amount sent out Thursday by the
penitentiary chief clerk amounted to $30. This sum went to a woman
whose husband is serving a long sentence. The woman has three children
which she is supporting by being employed as a domestic.
A total of $774.72 was mailed out from the prison Thursday, and Friday
an additional $867.15 was sent out.
In Oregon four wives whose husbands are serving time on the rockpile,
following convictions of non-support of their families, collected
$126.25 from the county for their husband’s work during December. The
law provides that the county shall allow the wife $1 and each child
up to three 25 cents a day for the convict’s labors. During December
two wives received an allowance of $1 a day each, and two received the
maximum allowance of $1.75 a day. Three of those serving the county for
non-support and whose families were reimbursed by the county are in for
six months and the fourth is serving a year.
* * * * *
_The Booher-Hughes Bill in Congress._--“The development of convict
road work in practically every State of the union will be the natural
outcome of the passage of the Booher-Hughes bill, now pending before
Congress,” says L. H. Speare, president of the Massachusetts Automobile
State Association.
“The bill, which will limit interstate commerce in convict-made goods
by subjecting such goods to the laws of the State into which they come,
will strike a fatal blow at the contract system. Under this pernicious
system great quantities of prison-made goods are annually thrown on the
open market, and because of the cheapness of their manufacture are sold
at prices far below those at which similar goods manufactured under
fair conditions can be sold. A cutting of the selling-price of goods
manufactured in free factories and a consequent lowering of the wage
paid free workingmen is the consequence.
“Against this unfair competition organized labor has waged unceasing
warfare, striving to overcome it by limiting the output of the
prisons. Laws requiring the branding of convict-made goods and also
a license for their sale have been written on the statute books of
New York and a dozen other States. These laws, when tested by the
courts, have invariably been held unconstitutional on the ground
that they interfered with interstate commerce. The Booher-Hughes bill
has therefore been introduced into Congress and is supported by the
American Federation of Labor and the national committee on prison
labor. This bill is modelled after the Wilson liquor law, which
restricts interstate commerce in spirituous liquors, and it is hoped
in the event of its passage that the State branding and licensing laws
will be possible of enforcement.
“New York City has long been the dumping ground for convict-made
goods, and once it is possible to enforce the New York branding laws
the profits to be derived from prison contracts will be reduced to
a minimum. So great is the contractor’s fear of the effect of such
legislation as the Booher-Hughes bill that many contracts contain the
proviso that on its passage they shall immediately become null and void.
“The destruction of the contract system would necessitate the building
up of other systems for the employment of convicts. In the constructive
programme which will be worked out in each of the States, road work,
endorsed as it is by the national committee on prison labor and other
agencies for prison reform, would play a large part. The passage of the
Booher-Hughes convict labor bill is therefore of definite importance
to all interested in the movement for placing convicts on the public
roads.”
* * * * *
_Federal Prison Superintendent Appointed._--Francis H. Duehay, of
Washington, has been appointed superintendent of prisons by the
Attorney-General, displacing Robert V. La Dow, who has held that post
through several administrations during the past eight or ten years. Mr.
La Dow becomes assistant superintendent of prisons.
In appointing a new man to this office and displacing Mr. La Dow,
Attorney-General McReynolds gave as his reason the desire to have a
man of his own selection at the head of prison affairs. He found no
fault with the administration of Mr. La Dow, and indicated that his
appreciation of his work was shown by the retention of Mr. La Dow’s
services and experience in the subordinate position.
The Attorney-General has displayed considerable anxiety to bring
about better conditions in the administration of prisons. He has made
it known that he is working on a plan for adequate inspection and
improvement in the parole system. He considers the care of Federal
prisoners as one of the important duties placed in his charge, and has
expressed his desire that the best conditions possible shall prevail.
The problem of what employment to provide for prisoners is one that
is giving the Attorney-General deep concern. With the objection to
competition between prison-made goods and the products of free labor
in mind, he is weighing the possibilities of providing occupation not
subject to such objection. The necessity of finding some employment
to fill in the life of the man in prison he appears thoroughly to
subscribe to. (Washington Star, Jan. 25.)
* * * * *
_The Record of “Camp Hope,” Illinois._--In September, 1913, Warden E.
M. Allen established a camp at Dixon, Ill., the road workers being
State prisoners.
Of the sixty-five men who have been at the camp in the last four or
five months, Harry West, who is now clerk of the camp and has ten
months yet to serve, said:
“The boys are all on the square yet and there isn’t a man who hasn’t
kept his word of honor with the warden given at Joliet before we
started for camp.”
The men have worked eight hours every day since they started on road
building, except Saturday afternoon, Sundays and holidays. The work
accomplished has been highly satisfactory to the local commissioners
and the people.
Fifteen of the original party of forty-five men have been released by
pardon or otherwise. One convict was returned to Joliet because of his
failure to make good.
* * * * *
_Another Step in the Honor System._--Warden Tynan, of Colorado,
who has been a prominent user of the honor system, plans now a
six-acre baseball and athletic field, built for and by convicts,
with accommodations for the general public as well as convicts as
spectators, to be opened this spring.
“To build up a man mentally and morally,” said Tynan in announcing
the innovation, “I know from experience you have to build him up
physically.”
The ballplayers and athletes who are to be allowed to use the field are
those who cannot be trusted to work in the road gangs, at the prison
ranches, or to join the fishing parties the warden allows his honor men.
Permission to use the field must be earned by good conduct, which will
be marked by the presentation of an honor button. The button admits the
bearer to the field or to the grandstand.
The public will be admitted through one gate and the convict-spectators
through another. Provision will be made to prevent breaks for liberty.
After the baseball season closes, a football team will use the field,
and a basketball season will follow.
* * * * *
_The “Movies” and Portland Prison._--A London (Eng.) dispatch to
the Washington (D. C.) Post on January 16 states that the English
Government has, in the opinion of most observers, gone to ridiculous
lengths in its opposition to certain moving picture films, showing a
thrilling escape from Portland prison. “The film has been banned by the
Home Office after the board had passed it. The company producing the
film, which is called ‘Five Hundred Pounds Reward,’ has been curtly
informed that it must not be shown publicly. The pictures were taken in
a private quarry at Portland.
“It is a well-known fact that no convict ever has escaped from
Portland, but, in spite of this, the Home Office has threatened to
confiscate the entire film, which has cost a good deal to produce,
unless the greater portion of it is cut out.
“It is stated at the office of the British board of film censors that
all houses, other than government property, in the neighborhood of
Portland prison and quarries are to be cleared away, and the wall
surrounding the quarries to be raised twenty feet, the authorities
being apparently under the impression that the film was taken with the
aid of a telephoto lens.”
* * * * *
_Shackles in Tennessee._--A Nashville newspaper states that, “as a
result of revolting conditions said to have been found on the county
roads in a tour of inspection, a majority of the members of the
workhouse board has declared that use of shackles on prisoners must be
abolished.
“According to the statement of one of the members who inspected the
camps, the use of shackles on human beings is barbarous, and the
suffering and inconvenience caused the prisoners by being forced to
wear the irons could only be realized by seeing a prisoner who wore
chains which reached from knee to ankle and a cross chain connecting
each leg.
“Squire Allen, in speaking of the conditions which he found to be
caused from the use of shackles, said that several of the prisoners’
legs were almost decayed under the clamps which held the chains. Squire
Allen said that especially in the cases of long-term men--those who
were sent up for eleven months and twenty-nine days--the wearing of
the chains was a horrible thing to think about. He said abolishing
the custom of wearing the irons would be a great reform in the modern
method of caring for the county prisoners.
“The shackles are riveted on the legs of the prisoners the day they are
received at the camps, and the irons are never removed for any purpose
until the day the prisoner is given his liberty. The prisoner is forced
to sleep in the chains, it is said, and it is impossible to remove the
shackles without the aid of a skillful blacksmith.”
* * * * *
_Moyamensing Prison Investigation._--Philadelphia’s old prison is
now being investigated. The January grand jury made, among other
statements, the following:
“No bond of humane feeling existed between the keepers and the
prisoners.
“The closets in the cells are foul-smelling, germ-breeding holes of
sickness.
“The old straw mattresses upon which the prisoners sleep are really
filled with vermin.
“The conditions of the cells of the untried prisoners are worse than
the cells of those serving a sentence.
“He deserves all he gets, let him have it, is apparently the motto at
Moyamensing.”
* * * * *
_The Missouri State Prison._--“The Missouri penitentiary at Jefferson
City is twenty-five years behind the times. It is a source of shame to
all Missourians.” That is the substance of a statement on the Missouri
penitentiary by Dr. C. A. Ellwood, professor of sociology in the
University of Missouri.
Dr. Ellwood says the blame does not rest on individuals so much as the
system. For fifteen years he has been working to secure an industrial
reformatory for the State. He also thinks the “contract system” is a
great force for evil. It makes easier the smuggling of opium, the worst
curse of a prison. Seventy per cent. of the long term prisoners are
slaves of the drug, according to a former warden.
Professor Ellwood blames the present and former officials for thinking
every attack on the system was a personal attack. They resist and make
impossible every effort which is made to ascertain the real state of
affairs. This is in contrast with the Kansas officials, where the
conditions in the penitentiary are just as bad. There the warden and
his helpers are doing all they can to reform the prison system and
conditions.
Dr. Ellwood points out that the general knowledge of these conditions
has done much to defeat the whole aim of criminal law in Missouri.
Judges and juries are inclined to show undue leniency toward accused
and convicted persons. They hesitate to send them into such a place.
Yet with this general knowledge, it is hard to arouse the people of the
State to action because the institution turns thousands of dollars into
the State treasury every year. The only large opposition has come from
labor unions. Several years ago a law was passed abolishing the convict
labor system. It was never enforced and in the last legislature it was
virtually repealed. The authorities were authorized to renew contracts
for labor at 75 cents a day for each prisoner.
Thus the system was continued which made it possible to continue
the traffic in drugs. Also they continue to punish individuals for
crimes for which the system is responsible. With more than a hundred
contractors’ agents within the walls, it is clearly impossible to stop
the smuggling.
The existence of contract labor is not the most serious fault,
according to Dr. Ellwood. In the Missouri penitentiary, first offenders
and hardened criminals intermingle. No school exists in the prison.
Punishment, not reformation, is its dominant note. Several of the
cell-houses are antiquated in their arrangements.
A warden once said he never knew a man who was benefited by his
confinement there. A penitentiary physician told Dr. Ellwood there was
as much dissipation within as outside the walls. The only separation of
prisoners is for punishment.
A full and thorough investigation of conditions is the remedy. An
industrial reformatory is a necessity. These are the two things which
should be done at once by Missouri, says Prof. Ellwood.
* * * * *
_A New Prison for Kansas._--According to the Kansas City Star,
the commission to investigate and suggest plans for a new Kansas
Penitentiary at Lansing is to go to work at once.
The commission is to visit all of the new prisons in the country and
study the plans worked out in those institutions for the humane,
sanitary and convenient housing of the prisoners. The State architect
is to accompany the commission to gather ideas for the rebuilding.
The first proposition the commission must decide is whether or not it
will rebuild the prison on its present site or build on a new site
adjacent to the prison walls. If that is done it will be a complete
new prison as far as housing conditions are concerned and the present
prison will be used entirely as a workshop. If it is decided that the
new prison should be built on the present site then the commission must
first decide what is the most pressing need and urge the legislature
to provide for the most urgent building at once.
* * * * *
_Progress in Nebraska._--According to the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal, “one
year ago Warden Fenton took up his duties at the Nebraska penitentiary.
During the year he has organized the work at the prison in many ways.
The honor system has been used among the convicts both in and out
of the prison. At some times fifty men have been working in various
parts of Lancaster county, unattended by guards and making no effort
to escape. Not one prisoner has escaped from the penitentiary itself
during the year. Baron von Werner was one man who broke his word to
the prison authorities and since he was recaptured at Woodstock, Ill.,
has been deprived of the privileges which he previously enjoyed. He
had been taken to the home of Chaplain Johnson at Tecumseh for a
visit and escaped from that town. Warden Fenton is pleased with the
spirit of co-operation which exists between the prison officials and
the convicts. He says that most of the prisoners are assisting in
maintaining order and that they realize that every effort to help
them is being made. The suppression of the dope traffic is one of the
reforms which Warden Fenton feels has been the most important act of
his administration.”
* * * * *
_Commissioner Randall on the Training of Judges._--At the Twentieth
Century Club in Boston recently, Commissioner Randall urged that the
great law institutions should have special courses in penology. “The
law students of to-day become your district attorneys and judges of
tomorrow. They should have some knowledge of the science which treats
on public punishments in respect to the public and the sufferer.
“Most lawyers,” he added, “know little or nothing of penology. There
are 100,000 persons in prison today for felony. More than 12,000
defectives are freed each year who cannot care for themselves. Thus we
have an army of defence (meaning soldiers) and an army of offence of
about equal numbers.”
* * * * *
_A Sad Commentary on Prison Labor._--Pieces of wood from almost every
interesting spot in history, and from practically all of the countries
of the globe, are contained in a table constructed by John H. Abraham,
of Percy, while he was a prisoner in the Western Penitentiary.
The table consists of 25,497 pieces and is 56 inches in diameter. In
the center is a star representing King Solomon, from which radiate
1,000 pieces of wood, representing his wives. Six Masonic emblems also
surround the center panel; in another panel is an exact copy of the
log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born, the wood used having been
taken from the original cabin in Kentucky. Surrounding the Masonic
emblems are 48 stars to represent the number of States in the Union.
* * * * *
_A Prison Car for Montreal._--The _Delinquent_ has from time to time
published accounts of the indignities heaped upon prisoners by public
transportation in handcuffs or chains in this country. Some European
countries spare prisoners this humiliation, which is no part of a
prison sentence.
Now we learn that the Montreal street railway has recently completed
for the Province of Quebec a 54-passenger car for transportation of
prisoners twice a day between Montreal and the new prison at Bordeaux,
7 miles distant.
According to the Electric Railway Journal the car is divided into two
compartments for the purpose of separating convicted from accused
persons. The front platform is provided with a cab for the motorman,
while the rear platform is arranged as a compartment for the prison
officials who may be required to accompany the prisoners. The guard’s
place is in front of this compartment on a seat which is elevated so as
to give him a better view of the prisoners.
The sides of the car are of sheet steel. The windows, of course, are
placed above the line of vision. The car is run directly into the
prison yard.
The Montreal Tramways Company is the first in America to build a car
of this kind. Prison cars have been built by the Great Berlin Street
Railway. This method of conveying prisoners is cheaper than the use of
the ordinary patrol wagons, and, furthermore, the inmates are saved a
great deal of needless humiliation. “The adoption of the trolley-car
service by the Montreal penal authorities is in harmony with the many
humane features of the Bordeaux institution, which is a splendid
example of a modern prison.”
* * * * *
_What the New Ohio Penitentiary Will Be._--From the Louisville (Ky.)
Herald we learn that “the new penitentiary of Ohio is going to be a
great 1,600-acre farm, modeled after the Cooley farm at Warrensville,
which is used by Cleveland instead of the orthodox workhouses of other
cities.
“In this new kind of penitentiary the prisoners will sleep in white
iron beds--not in cells!
“They will work outdoors without guard!
“They will go to school to learn the interesting things they have never
heard of!
“They will be taught trades so when they leave they can earn an honest
living out in the world!
“They will get exercise, medical attention and the best of foods.
“They will get the benefit of all the latest discoveries in scientific
penology.”
* * * * *
_Good Doctrine._--The New Bedford Standard says that “no amount of
kindly sympathy for prisoners can obliterate the truth that in too many
instances they are in prison because they would not heed their own
moral responsibilities. They are to be pitied, certainly, and helped,
of course. But all the pity and all the help will be ineffectual unless
it leads up to a practical recognition of the truth that to be truly
free, they must strike the blow themselves.”
* * * * *
_The Women of the Civic Federation and Prison Reform._--The American
Clubwoman comments upon the growing activity of club women in
prison reform, a subject in which women always have been especially
interested. It says:
“Prison reform is occupying the attention of several large
organizations of women. The women’s department of the National Civic
Federation, Miss Maude Wetmore, national chairman, will make this one
of its most important topics during the coming year. This powerful
organization will not only act as a clearing house to classify and
prevent duplication of effort, but it will also embrace county
almshouses and city jails in the scope of its constructive work.
“At its last biennial meeting the General Federation of Women’s Clubs
adopted resolutions protesting against the contract and convict lease
system of exploiting the labor of prisoners for the benefit of private
contractors. It endorsed the plan of paying the prisoner wages that he
might contribute to the support of his family and have a little fund to
start life anew when restored to freedom.
“The women of the National Civic Federation also take this advanced
stand, but the first prison work that women find at hand is the
investigation of actual conditions in penal institutions. If political
graft is eliminated from prison management, many reforms may at once be
carried into effect.
“Good sanitary conditions should be imperative in every public
institution. Already it is found that Federal prisons, being
practically free from graft, are the best from a hygienic point of
view. County almshouses and jails nearly always reveal ghastly abuses.
The reason is not far to seek. The latter class of institutions are at
the mercy of the lowest type of political manipulators.
“The moment women begin to investigate, reforms are forthcoming.
Already the women of the Civic Federation have immensely improved the
deplorable state of the jail of the District of Columbia. An awful
condition of affairs had existed there for years, right under the eye
of the legislators of the Nation. They simply did not take the trouble
to acquaint themselves with the facts. That, as usual, was left for the
women to do.
“In a score of States club women have succeeded in improving conditions
of prisons and in some cases they have secured the appointment of
women on the visiting boards of prisons and reformatories.
“With the intelligent women of the Nation working together we may
expect to see great advances in prison management in the next two years.
“This is not sentimentalism. It is good, practical logic. It is
literally an economy to reform our prisoners and send them back to
freedom as useful citizens.”
* * * * *
_The Charge Against the Atlanta Federal Prison._--Grave charges have
been, in recent months, brought against the United States Federal
Penitentiary at Atlanta by Julian Hawthorne, who was released in
October, 1913. The Washington (D. C.) Herald of January 22d, 1914,
prints the following:
The report of Dr. A. J. McKelway, special agent of the Department of
Justice, who investigated the charges against the administration of
the Federal prison at Atlanta gathered by Representative W. Schley
Howard, of Georgia, and submitted to Attorney General McReynolds,
exonerates Warden Moyer and his subordinates and concludes with the
declaration that a satisfactory condition exists at the penitentiary.
As far as the Attorney General is concerned the receipt of the report
from Dr. McKelway ends the situation created by the submission of the
Howard data. No change in the personnel of the present administration
of the affairs of the prison will be made. No change will be ordered
immediately in the management of the institution.
Mr. McKelway began his investigation soon after the publication of
the charges made by Julian Hawthorne. He was instructed to look into
these as well as other charges and statements that had been made from
time to time with regard to the prison. He was in the midst of this
investigation when the Howard data was submitted to the department.
Summaries of the charges included in this data were forwarded to him
by the Attorney General with instructions that they be inquired into
carefully.
The Attorney General did not think it wise to give publicity to the
entire report for the reason that many sections of it contained
information which he thought should be withheld in the interest of
the efficient administration of the prison.
Dr. McKelway, Mr. McReynolds said, had made an extended series of
observations upon the treatment of the prisoners in the penitentiary.
He had examined the food served them; had sought to inform himself
upon whether they are treated humanely, and whether the guards and
prisoners have been subjected to a system of favoritism as had been
charged. Efforts had been made to ascertain if the business affairs
of the prison were administered by the authorities conscientiously
and honestly.
The investigator finally was convinced that Warden Moyer’s
administration should be praised instead of blamed. He believes the
prison is operated in a manner creditable to the government.
Subsequently Representative Howard expressed himself as satisfied with
the results of Dr. McKelway’s investigation.
* * * * *
_A Deadly Battle at the Oklahoma Penitentiary._--On January 19, seven
men were shot to death and three persons wounded when three convicts
attempted to escape from the State penitentiary of Oklahoma and were
slain by guards.
No general attempt was made by other convicts to join in the delivery,
but the three mutineers were encouraged by their less desperate
followers who cheered the onslaught of the armed prisoners.
Before the escaping convicts fell, however, they had killed four men, a
guard, a deputy warden, the superintendent of the Bertillon department
and a visitor, who was formerly a member of Congress and a judge. No
more desperate break for liberty has ever occurred in an American
place of confinement, says the Washington (D. C.) Star. How the men
obtained the weapons with which they were enabled to fight their way
to the doors and to brief liberty is a mystery, but obviously they
were smuggled to them by friends. All three of these were “bad” men,
but only one of them was serving a long sentence. One had two years to
serve in all and one five years, the third man having been sentenced
for forty years for manslaughter, probably covering the remainder of
his life. Doubtless they thought that they could get away, although,
of course, the chances were heavily against them. Even if they had
distanced their immediate pursuers they would have been trailed without
mercy after having taken life so recklessly in their escape.
Such tragedies give pause to the tendency toward a more lenient
system of punishments, and may discourage those who believe in paroles
and probations rather than imprisonments. “Men of the type who broke
from the McAlester prison seem to be absolutely incorrigible. One of
them, he who was serving the shortest term, had a long record of law
violations and punishments. Under an habitual criminal’s act he would
probably have been sentenced for his last offense to a very long term,
but, of course, this would not have altered his disposition. There
would still have remained the desire to escape and the willingness
to kill if necessary to accomplish that end. The shocking slaughter
points plainly to the necessity of a more rigid watchfulness over the
desperadoes confined in prison to prevent them from obtaining weapons
and using them.”
The St. Louis Republic observes that, “to make the better ways of
prison discipline effective a man is needed in whom are combined
enthusiasm, sympathy, firmness and knowledge. It happens that the
Oklahoma penitentiary at this time is the storm center of a political
quarrel, and the real lesson of the riot and murders is not one of
reaction, but merely that partisan politics does not lead to the
discovery of such men.”
* * * * *
_The Responsibility of the Church._--Dr. Frank Moore, superintendent of
the New Jersey State Reformatory at Rahway, and a clergyman himself, in
an address before the Y. M. C. A. at Atlantic City declared “crime is
on the increase in America, and the churches and the ministers are in a
large measure to blame because they do not get the boys and the men who
are unfortunate before they are gotten by the police and hauled into
court and consigned to the reformatories or prisons.” Dr. Moore said
that in 1910 statistics showed there were 125 arrests in the United
States for every 100,000 of population. In New Jersey alone there were
53,000 arrests for crime, exclusive of 9,700 arrests for drunkenness.
In 12 counties in New Jersey there were 44 murders.
* * * * *
_Socrates on Missouri Prisons._--Here is something in the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch which is trying to reform prison conditions in Missouri:
Socrates: Very well. Now this is enough of that light topic. What about
the Missouri prison?
Thrasymachus: We hoped to talk to you about that.
Socrates: Good! It is becoming so easy to get into prison these days
that one should have some concern for what may become at any time his
own future state.
Glaucon: Certainly.
Socrates: You will recall how unexpectedly Julian Hawthorne got into
prison, and how he became interested in prison then for the first time.
Glaucon: Yes.
Socrates: Indeed, none of us has much concern for how other people are
treated in prison.
Glaucon: It seems not.
Socrates: The thing to do, then, is always to view a penitentiary in
the humane light of what we would ourselves require if we got into it.
Glaucon: Certainly.
Socrates: Very well. Viewing it, then, in the humane light of what we
would require for ourselves if we got into it, the average prison is
unworthy of our present-day civilization.
Thrasymachus: Absolutely.
Socrates: The Missouri prison is so bad that one must question the
advisability of living in Missouri and running the usual risk of prison
at all.
Glaucon: Undoubtedly.
Socrates: Probably that is what is the matter with Missouri.
Glaucon: As like as not.
Socrates: Other things being equal, people would rather live in some
State where the prison facilities are more up-to-date.
Thrasymachus: Of course they would.
Socrates: Good, Thrasymachus! Now let us get up in the stand and see if
we can’t help our own courage to do some of the things that ought to be
done.
* * * * *
_The Construction of a Death House._--The State of Pennsylvania is
building, at the new Central Prison at Bellefonte, a separate building
for the housing of condemned prisoners and for executions. In view of
a movement in a number of States to segregate similarly the condemned
men, the following detailed description is timely:
The death house, where is to be placed the first electric chair in
Pennsylvania for the execution of criminals since the passage of the
law providing for the substitution of electrocution for hanging, is to
be a long two-story building, 136 feet in length by 29 feet 4 inches
wide. A cellar under the central portion will contain the heating
apparatus, and on the first floor will be the gasoline engine for
generating the electric current.
But it is on the second story of the severely plain structure of
reinforced concrete and of simple Renaissance type that interest
centers, for here are the cells for the condemned prisoners, rooms for
visitors and the sinister death chamber and post mortem room.
The arrangement is on the corridor plan. To the right, and occupying
nearly half the floor space, are the cell room and cells, six of the
latter, 7 by 9 feet in size, being arranged in a row at the back of the
building facing on a well-lighted room and separated from the rear wall
by what is known as a “pipe corridor.” At the end of the row is a bath
room, and beyond this a room for visitors, opening into the cell room
through a gate protected by a grille.
Beyond the visitors’ room is a room known as the “Lock,” access to
which is had from the first floor by means of a curved stairway, and
opening into a sort of antechamber to the cell room through a gateway
and steel door. It may be said that all of the gates, grilles and metal
doors in the building are to be of “tool-proof” steel.
On the other side of the ante-chamber is the apparatus room, where the
rheostats and other electrical devices will be placed and where the
assistants of the chief electrician will be stationed during executions.
Through a solid wood door, in contradistinction to the steel doors used
elsewhere, entrance is given into the death chamber, which will be a
spacious room, 26 by 29 feet, lighted by six windows, three on each
side, all, of course, heavily barred. The door is near the front wall
of the building, and that sinister piece of furniture, the death chair,
is close to the door on the right. Behind and to the one side of it is
the electrical wall cabinet, at which the electrician stands, watching
the signals given by the physician in charge of the electrocution.
Running nearly around the other three sides of the room are benches for
the witnesses required by law.
The last room on the floor, into which a door opens directly from the
electrocution chamber, is the post mortem room, 19 by 26 feet 8 inches
in size, and equipped with two operating tables, one of soapstone, the
other covered with rubber.
The execution chair will be constructed of solid oak, with a high
back, from the top of which the head electrode, or cap, will project.
Attached to one of the legs will be a connection for the other
electrode which is strapped to the calf of the condemned person’s leg.
Heavy straps will be attached to appropriate parts of the chair for
securing the body, arms and legs of the criminal.
The design and arrangement of the chair and of the electrical
apparatus is practically the same as used in all of the States where
electrocution is prescribed as the death penalty.
The necessity for the erection of the death house as the first of
the group of the new penitentiary buildings is evident when it is
remembered that death by hanging is now abolished by law, and that
at present no person condemned to death can be executed until the
facilities for electrocution have been provided.
* * * * *
_The Crucial Period._--A prisoner writes, in “Good Words,” as follows:
“There is no other situation incident to mortal life more powerfully
conducive to searching and even creative thought than is enforced
sojourn in a great prison. This is true of every inmate in his degree;
but in all prisons there are a number of prisoners who, in the outer
world, had been accustomed to apply the energy of strong and able
intellects to dealing with the problems of external life--chiefly,
of course, such are concerned with wresting wealth and position from
the world. When these men are suddenly removed from their activities
and prevented from further use of their faculties on the lines they
have been pursuing, a phenomenon of singular psychological interest
takes place. The immense mental energy which the man has hitherto
been applying to the management of material things, is suddenly and
violently thrown back upon himself, and it generally creates there,
at first, a condition of bewilderment and distress. In the majority
of cases, however, this chaotic state will be of brief continuance: a
reaction occurs, and the man now directs the force which had been used
in the ordering and subjugation of concrete matters, to the region of
the immaterial--that is, of thought. He begins for the first time--and
he has time to spare--to investigate and dissect the causes of things;
to determine what are the principles and objects of existence, and of
his own part in it; to ask himself what is worth doing, and avoiding,
and why; and to measure and weigh the scope and value of his personal
abilities and resources. The result of such an investigation must
be worth; and the benefit of it might be, and should be imparted to
others, instead of remaining shut up in the man’s private breast.”
* * * * *
STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, ETC. of THE DELINQUENT.
Published monthly at New York, N. Y., required by the Act of August
24th, 1912.
NAME OF POST OFFICE ADDRESS
Editor, O. F. Lewis, 135 East 15th St., New York City.
Managing Editor, O. F Lewis, “ “ “ “ “ “
Business Manager, O. F. Lewis, “ “ “ “ “ “
Publisher, The National
Prisoners’ Aid Association, “ “ “ “ “ “
Owners, “ “
“ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “
There are no bondholders, mortgagees, or other security holders.
O. F. LEWIS, Editor and Business Manager.
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 30th day of September, 1913.
CHARLES D. IMMEN, JR., Notary Public No. 2, New York County.
My Commission expires March 31, 1914.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
The one footnote has been moved to the end of its article and relabeled.
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.