chargeable for all of war. When they succeed in passing on the virus of
bestiality to American mothers, it is high time to call the turn on them,
and to interpose unbendingly where they attempt to prescribe.
Rational discipline is as the spine of any schooling. Juridic prison
discipline differs from like free-life practice, in that it must
presuppose the integrity of a charge brought against an inmate by a
regularly appointed State agent. In such instance, the burden of proof is
justly upon the alleged offender to establish his innocence, not upon the
State to assume it. This, if for no other reason than that the strongest
of motives decides offenders for denial of guilt. Not only does the
individual lie naturally come easy when part of a prisoner's liberty is
threatened; but cumulative untruth must be searched out of testimony
motivated by a common criminal camaraderie.
Gulfs of criminal practice may separate different grades of prisoners;
yet, when it comes down to incriminating evidence of a serious nature
against their fellow prisoners, they usually fight shy, and that, on
occasion, not ignobly.
As to different offenses that are met with indifferent impositions, an
inmate agent will clasp hands in measure with the local authorities; but
he usually steers clear of testimony that establishes him a "rat"
informer, and very probably marks him for condign reprisal.
A prison population is bound by ties which the hardiest of "trusties"
breaks at his grave peril; therefore when it is told that a junta of
imprisoned felons is given over inequivocably to support of penal law,
reach for the salt.
In the first place, no set of men have legal authority to build to
corrective procedure that runs counter to the binding predicates of penal
law.
Secondly, no man has call to conclude that he can devise safer checks upon
the marauding criminal than are those written into penal codes, out of
the cumulative judgment and experience of mankind.
Nevertheless, the single-seeing and idiosyncratic practically have
controlled discipline in most of America's prisons during recent decades.
Besides, they have specified for overdrawn activities in essence banal and
baldly opposed to actual reformative measures, maimed in the process to
the point of practical disuse.
Time was when managerical members of institutional staffs demanded that
"up for parole" prisoners shall have sustained saving trades and
scholastic averages. Now, gentlemen mostly have their eyes glued to
sporting schedules and conduct records, the one of which commonly cross
reformation; and the other of which are at no time reliable guides on
which to base the free-life intentions of intelligent prisoners.
The result is hodgepodge of cross-matched correction, little of which
escapes knowing condemnation, and less of which is strung to the keynote
of reformative harmony.
The keynote of reformative harmony is struck in a prison régime that
ministers meticulously to marketable knowledge and skill. This, unmoved by
the counter machinations of the minority of the mass, expressed either
individually or collectively; indeed, collective manifestations against
the like of insistence upon fairly-won averages throughout the system,
should be met at their inception by the State with power so impressive as
to make repetition of such opposition highly improbable. Failure thereof
to take up disciplinary stitches in time, is what ultimately works mob
mischief.
As a matter of fact, radical resistance to rational measures seldom issues
in a correctional plant that is consistently dedicated to those measures
under an all-around square deal. Contrariwise, that institution is always
ripe for disciplinary loot, wherein disruptive privileges and perquisites
are heaped upon inmates who do not earn them.
There is no satisfying such laggards with gratuitous largesse. The more
yielded to them, the more they demand. Furthermore, once having yielded to
them way beyond that which should have been yielded, it takes years to get
back to the normal again--if at all.
Basic reformative cogs can be slipped in a second out of purblind vision
not, so to put it, within the focus of comprehension: whereas readjustment
resolves into a long, hard pull, up hill all of the way. In one of the
writer's many talks with Mr. Z. R. Brockway, relative to the capital
matter in question, Mr. Brockway let fall this cryptic conclusion: "I've
tried it out every known way, and I say: _don't do the first darn-fool
thing_."
In the light of eventualities, it seems a great pity that Mr. Brockway
should have been held up just as he was about to perfect balance of parts
in a work to which he had given the best in him for fifty years; it does,
because up to the time when he was so ruthlessly broken--literally
broken--his "best" was incomparably better than any other man had dared in
application.
It will be recalled that Mr. Brockway's alleged capital sin consisted in
the fact that he would not yield belief in corporal punishment as a means
of "shocking"--as he had it--persistently refractory prisoners into at
least respect for the major voice. Whether Mr. Brockway was right or wrong
in the conviction to which he clung to his dying day, does not call for
contention here. But it may be noted that certain forms of prison
punishment that have supplanted corporal punishment, are infinitely less
humane, and infinitely more destructive of the divinity in man, than is an
honest spanking, inflicted in a fatherly way, out of a fatherly heart.
Moreover, final reversal of public opinion in the matter further may be
noted in editorials, such as are adumbrated in the following excerpt
clipped from one of the papers that joined in the hue and cry for
"investigation" of Mr. Brockway and his methods, to no other purpose than
to break Mr. Brockway, and to abolish corporal punishment in the
correctional plants of the State of New York: "How then is ruthlessness to
be held securely in check? Not by making all nations humane, and
scrupulous, and tender-hearted. It is the actual, not a millennial world
with which we have to deal. _It is not conversion of evil men that must be
aimed at, but their control._ A nation tempted to be brutal as Germany
was, must be given to understand that the first display of barbarism in
warfare would bring all other civilized countries on its back. In short,
nothing but a solemn international agreement unitedly to oppose and to
_punish_ the ruthless making of war can assuredly prevent it." The
underscoring is the writer's.
Bear in mind that a State bears relatively the same relation to the
combined States of the world, as does the unit of a nation to the mass of
that nation; in very fact, it comes about in America that the State is an
enlargement of the international unit--thanks to the melting pot fallacy;
then change the wording of the preceding paragraph to agree with the case
as put up to America by polyglot pistol-toters who show no mercy. And then
say why it is good to visit the extreme of corporal punishment on a
"barbarous" nation, and bad to "shock" physically an individual bandit who
cares not a wisp of straw about anything in the way of "punishment" short
of physical pain? Say it, refusing at least the premise worn threadbare
and stripped of ballast, to the effect that the injured sensibilities of
the crudest of parasities are paramount over the common safety and
progress; and say it realizing that the paper quoted now blares solemn
truth for which it bitterly scored Mr. Brockway, who never went so far for
pure repression as that paper now goes.
The fundamental principle germane to the underscored words in the
editorial excerpt given is precisely that which is so frequently involved
in the issue between the individual and the State. In any case, correction
is spurious which does not carry to high-grade skill, backed by the
highest grade of recreation, amusement, and moral teaching.
If mercy multiplied can be made to effect for the main object, that were
well, since "A man convinced against his will is (usually) of the same
opinion still"; yet, shall the subject persist in making use of the soft
pedal as a "soft thing" through which to draw out devious, determined,
long-drawn-out devilment, the sooner the State stops his bullish rush for
the abyss, the sooner he will take a flashlight photo of himself.
Such, in substance, has been the contention of practical penologists. In
line with that contention the pendulum of public opinion must swing back;
it must, for the very good reason that self-preservation leaves no other
choice to the American people or to any other people. That country limps
to the dogs which essays to hold murderous rounders in check by aesthesia.
The Almighty fits the punishment to the offense. Man can do no less and
endure in the image of his Maker.
The first necessary step in the regeneration of a license-mad world is to
put teeth into the restraint of those who seek to make permanent the
present chaotic social conditions. Moreover, the movement against the
international social marauder will necessarily take on international scope
and solidarity. Pecking at him here and there, driving him from this to
that base of operations, won't get the world anywhere in coming up with
him who does not balk over indiscriminate use of the crudest of
death-dealing tools in determination to stand society on its head.
International control over and isolation of the red-handed, are the only
weapons that will make a dent in them. Therefore employ those weapons
before misled maulers of law and order engage the standing armies of the
civilized nations of the globe. Will they not? Maybe not, but they do,
right now, in appreciable measure, in several European States; also, they
go right on "boring in" to the heart of things in America, for which they
do not, as a rule, get so much as a slap on their murderous wrists.
Cardinal bungling in relation to present cosmic lawlessness, resided in
allowing Russia to be taken by the throat by a few addle-brained social
hyenas; they who use an intrinsically fine-hearted people as a foil for
destructiveness the most heinous ever garnished by inhuman ghouls.
That Russia remained deaf to the pleas of statesmen of the stature of
Baron Rosen, then rushed to loot and wholesale killings, alone concerned
Russian autonomy. If Russia chose to wear sackcloth while ordering her bed
for terrorism and bad dreams, that was distinctively Russia's affair; but
the moment she sought to underwrite propaganda aimed at the world's social
structures, that moment the international screw should have been turned on
her. For her own salvation she should have been brought to an even keel,
say naught of the broil to which Russian mongrels were bringing the
international pot.
But why the apparent diversion from the text? Why roam for similes that
seem so far removed from consideration of the psychology of American
criminals? First off, nothing is distant by suggestion from America
farther than the time required to cable it to America and there spread it
in the public press. As the bird flies between the nearest points of
opposite shores, Siberian Russia is but about thirty hours by boat from
Alaska. Uncle Sam is cogitating the best means by which to quicken the
life flow in Alaska's veins. When that flow is quickened, Alaska will be a
convenient, engaging, and comparatively safe base from which such as
Russian radicals may strike at and sieve into America.
Secondly, the psychology of such as those directly responsible for
measures that leave Russia stripped of about all but the saving grace of
a long-suffering God, is substantially the psychology of habitual
criminals, place them where you will. As a distinct class of humans, each
is out to get something for nothing. With specious and polished phrases,
the one class of educated plunderers play up to the dumb avarice of
ignorant underdogs. The other class, equals of their blood-brothers in
hatred of biblical government, usually manifest their crooked curves in
the most direct way with the individual weapon. Anarchistic agitators seek
to strike through the masses from center to periphery of the social
circle; criminals usually make their forays in pairs or packs from the
fringes of society; yet both are impelled to anti-social action by the
ever same capital motive, which is to get something for nothing.
And so, no matter what un-American or anti-American stripe he bears; and
no matter in what language he may shriek for social disintegration because
he is of that stripe, America must meet him with a fist that knows no
relaxation. He should not be allowed to land on American soil until he had
taken unqualified oath to support American institutions. Thereafter, upon
the first evidence on his part of backsliding as regards that oath, he
should be given his ticket of leave and published to the police
authorities of the world for what he is, viz.: a man without a country who
doesn't mean to merge with any but those of his class.
Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden for committing mere carnal sin in
disobedience of divine command. America, then, has the highest authority
on which to purge herself of lawless blood-spillers; indeed, so much of
obligation is upon America, judged either from the spiritual or material
standpoint.
America cannot, if she would, do other than pulse to the international
pulse, so long as she out-breeds to all of the Caucasian races of mankind.
Having bred to the cold-blooded from here, the hot-headed from there, and
incorrigible enemies of public law from everywhere, she may make the best
of it; but if she really has in reserve common sense sufficient to do it,
she can break the strangle hold with which social wreckers seek to place
her in chancery. Contrariwise, if she persists in attempt to wash the
world of its human barnacles, she will pass of a leprous poisoning for
which there is no known antidote.
RÉSUMÉ
While a common mode of operating and the wastrel's way of satisfying
abnormal demands of the senses usually tag criminals of different types,
the ultimate psychology of a given criminal will be his very own. Surface
signs may or may not differentiate him appreciably from thousands of those
of his particular grade. In very essence of soul he will seem to match
another as closely as his facial lines and moulding duplicate the lines
and moulding of scores of others; still, as to the prime impulses that
impel him, he will be more or less the individual slave and law unto
himself.
In the sense that he himself will not be cognizant of the subconscious
quicksand that sucks him down, the case of a given criminal will parallel
that of most all of criminals; but while the undertow may initiate in
substantially the same subjective causes for all, he will run to objective
emphasis for his criminousness in accordance with the cardinal instincts
that drive him. Hence, since he is just like no other criminal in every
way, there will be a deep shading of difference in the manner in which he
acts and reacts, as compared with the action and reaction of any other
criminal.
Like the time-locked safe, each criminal has his particular "combination,"
the key to which it is up to the State to forge--if it can.
Whatever his "combination," be surprised if the convicted criminal does
not assert stoutly that he was not guilty as convicted, but "framed."
Then, if you pin him into position where he cannot "stall," be surprised
again if he fails to rebut with parallels involving moral thieves, whose
defense of wholesale pocket-picking is substantially that made by Falstaff
to accusing Prince Henry in King Henry IV: "Why Hal, 'tis my vocation,
Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation."
The natural criminal is nearly always a self-faking, hard-bitted social
rebel, who cuts to fit the garment of his mind. He is usually pitiable
much of the way, he should be succored all of the way, but he must be
controlled in any humane way. He must, else human society will wax worthy
of him while ridden by him.
Even so, the writer utterly disowns rating of "Slippy McGees" as
thick-skulled savages predestined for incurable criminousness. Such rating
is disproved in the reclamation to social service of thousands of lads who
pulled out of the very slough of crime. Moreover, the right kind of
free-life and correctional treatment of and for the crime-driven, will
stamp wholesale damning of them as duty-shifting myth.
Shall America continue to make all kinds of bald bids for habitual
criminals; and shall America at the same time so order her reformative
régimes that they shall establish rather than arrest criminals of habitual
potentiality, America will perforce multiply her flippant brood of bad
actors. Still, that consummation shall have been chargeable in such
instance to purblind, drifting, license-breeding America, and not to the
withholding hand of God.
XII
SUMMARY
Suspended sentences; probation; discharges; quashing of indictments; bail
under bond, pending trial for ominous crimes; and early paroles from
prison houses are now stretched far beyond the practice of previous years.
Schemes for lifting social blight from backsliders have been broadened and
quickened notably during recent decades.
Children's courts of probation constantly have risen in numbers, and the
gratuitous offices of ever-increasing thousands of laymen and women nobly
second service for children haled to those courts.
From the mode of operating most of America's prisons has been deleted all
but the semblance of repression and compulsion: and in their stead,
powers-that-be boast of having capitalized activities which fit for the
sporting limelight, rather than for saving averages at bread-winning work.
After-parole efforts for, and supervision over, ex-prisoners, are vastly
more inclusive than like endeavor of any foretime. Moreover, the public
at large has been minded to do its duty: fact adumbrated in the vital
circumstance that a prisoner is seldom held long in duress for want of a
free-life job, albeit millions of crime-free hands remain idle.
In every conceivable way--inclusive of political pull, chicanery, graft,
and criminal participation that remind of rottening fruit--the legal
paddle has been padded for application to the predal felon; the same,
until he construes criminal law in execution to be written agreeably with
such interpretation as his nefarious necessities dictate.
Self-adjudged reformers of both sexes and of all stripes baldly palliate
the chosen occupation of the thief, while him commiserating beyond the
period placed by the Saviour.
The patrolman who wields his nightstick so as to shock the aesthetic
sensibilities of an attacking marauder, is liable to be "broken" if the
bandit is one of the many who make irresistible appeal to the
super-emotional.
A peace officer probably will be condignly "disciplined," shall he have
dared, in self-defense, to man-handle an underworld vote-herder for them
to whom the officer must either kowtow or cash in.
The chances that a lawbreaker will be apprehended, are about three to one
in his favor; that he will be convicted under the wording of a charge or
charges brought against him by legal agents, they are about ten to one;
and that he will pay with his life if he kills, they are so nebulous as
to be nearly negligible.
An escaping prisoner may count on the sympathy of at least eight of ten of
the human mass, many of whom actually shield him.
Most any old alibi, offered by aids-de-camp of crooks, will serve the
accused on trial.
Wrest what he will, from whom he will, by what method he will, the predal
felon is not held to monetary restitution in so much as a red cent. The
looted can sweat for the loot the thief "plants," then employs in another
swing around the criminal circle.
The least elastic of the predicates of penal law are held at bay in all
but a temerous few of America's secondary prisons.
Far from being the crowded-out derelict he is painted by those who are
either ignorant or perjured, the ex-convict usually can go to work at
honest work, if he wills to do so. If he is a skilled workman, work almost
surely will be provided for him. If he is unskilled, yet of parts such as
"undercover" Fagins cultivate, he can always dodge artfully and profitably
as skirmisher for them. Hence, for one governing reason, "discharged," or
"sentence suspended," is so frequently written over the faces of
indictments against habitual and consecutive scoundrels.
Public opinion still makes hair-trigger response to lament over the
lacerated feelings of heartless killers.
Otherwise far-seeing men applaud the frayed platitudes of criminological
academicians who are primarily responsible for the low-down dance-hall
atmosphere of the bulk of America's reformative plants; and for the
nauseous fact that in those plants thief-sport parasities are suffered to
derail industry.
Search where you may, and there America practically "turns the other
check" to thrusts of the rough-riding drone.
It hasn't worked, it doesn't work, and it won't work. It has builded to
the most brutal of expression in human history, and it does threaten
fatefully.
Well, then, since bidding for crime and compromising with criminals won't
do, what's the answer? What's to be done about it, and how is it to be
done?
Most unfortunately, such questions now sink to the bottom of an angry
social sea, the depth of which the mind of no one man can plumb; but the
troubled waters shall have subsided for something like safe passage, when
criminals and potential criminals shall have been required to pay after
the manner in which nature exacts reactive penalties.
Inclusive of moral criminals, the first logical step in arresting
criminousness is to make criminousness the most expensive luxury man can
essay.
First off, oblige predal felons to make restitution in kind: as to
offenses against property, dollar for dollar under reasonably elastic
legal limitations; and as to offenses against the person, very much as
civil courts award damages for bodily injuries.
At the same time, drag out and set down hard, those who make a business of
beating equitable exchange.
Bow out of reformative management all who would build cardinally to other
than earnest, consecutive endeavor on the part of prisoners for
occupational skill with which to meet the exactions of the free-life
working day. Essentially, handcuff mawkish sentimentalists who cannot see
the public security for oblique impulse to pamper flippant foragers.
Spare imprisoned, sin-driven lads so much as suggestion of the like of
pug-charged thrills, while ministering just common sense and Christ-like
to their crying needs, and probably the ninety-and-nine of them won't pack
a gun and break for money bags.
When the exceptional freebooter just won't play fair, and just will go
gun-hung for plunder, isolate him and keep him isolated. Do it both in and
out of prison.
There is no call upon the commonwealth to motivate for the commission of
crime, through pyramiding upon clemency that is spurned.