CHAPTER VII

At the time of my first visit to the penitentiary of my own State the warden surprised me by saying: "Among the very best men in the prison are the 'life' men, the men here for murder."

How true this was I could not then realize, but as in time I came to know well so many of these men the words of the warden were fully confirmed.

The law classes the killing of one person by another under three heads: murder in the first degree; murder in the second degree; and manslaughter. The murder deliberately planned and executed constitutes murder in the first degree; and for this, in many of our States, the penalty is still capital punishment; otherwise, legal murder deliberately planned and officially executed, the penalty duplicating the offence in general outline. This is the popular conception of fitting the punishment to the crime; and its continuance ignores the obvious truth that, so long as the law justifies and sets the example of taking life under[Pg 122] given circumstances, so long will the individual justify himself in taking life under circumstances which seem to him to warrant doing so; the individual simply takes the law into his own hands. War and the death penalty are the two most potent sources of mental suggestion in the direction of murder.

In every execution within the walls of a penitentiary the suggestion of murder is sown broadcast among the other convicts, and is of especial danger to those mentally unsound. As long as capital punishment is upheld as necessary to the protection of society each State should have its State executioner; and executions should take place at the State capital in the presence of the governor and as many legislators as may be in the city. In relegating to the penitentiary the ugly office of Jack Ketch we escape the realization of what it all is—how revolting, how barbarous—and we throw one more horror into the psychic atmosphere of prison life.

Several factors have combined to hold the death penalty so long on the throne of justice. Evolution has not yet eliminated from the human being the elementary savage instinct of bloodthirstiness, so frightfully disclosed in the [Pg 123]revolting rush of the populace eager to witness the public executions perpetrated in France in the present century; public executions in defiance of the established fact that men hitherto harmless have gone from the sight of an execution impelled to kill some equally harmless individual.

Many good men and women, ignoring the practical effect of anything so obscure as "suggestion," honestly believe that fear of the death penalty has a restraining influence upon the criminal class. In those States and countries which have had the courage to abolish the death penalty the soundness of the "deterrent effect" theory is being tested; statistics vary in different localities but the aggregate of general statistics shows a decrease in murders following the abolition of the death penalty.

A silent partner in the support of capital punishment is the general assumption that the murderer is a normal and a morally responsible human being. Science is now leading us to a clearer understanding of the relation between the moral and the physical in human nature, and we are beginning to perceive that complex and far-reaching are the causes, the undercurrents, the abnormal impulses which come to the surface[Pg 124] in the act of murder. Some years ago in England, upon the examination of the brains of a successive number of men executed for murder, it was ascertained that eighty-five per cent of those brains were organically diseased. Granting that these men were criminally murderers, we must grant also that they were mentally unsound, themselves victims of disease before others became their victims. Where the moral responsibility lies, the Creator alone can know; perhaps in a crowded room of a foul tenement an overworked mother or a brutal father struck a little boy on the head, and the little brain went wrong, some of those infinitesimal brain-cells related to moral conduct were crushed, and years afterward the effect of the cruel blow on the head of the defenceless child culminated in the murderous blow from the hand of this child grown to manhood. And back of the blow given the child stand the saloon and the sweat-shop and the bitter poverty and want which can change a human being into a brute. Saloons and sweat-shops flourish in our midst, and cruel is the pressure of poverty, and terrible in their results are the blows inflicted upon helpless children. When the State vigorously sets to work to remove or ameliorate the social conditions[Pg 125] which cause crime there will be fewer lawless murderers to be legally murdered.

Time and again men innocent of the crime have been executed for murder. Everything is against a man accused of murder. The simple accusation antagonizes the public against the accused man. The press, which loves to be sensational, joins in the prosecution, sometimes also the pulpit. The tortures of the sweat-box are resorted to, that the accused may be driven to convict himself before being tried; and one who has no money may find himself convicted simply because he cannot prove his innocence—although the law professes to hold a man innocent until his guilt is proven.

For years I was an advocate of the death penalty as a merciful alternative to life imprisonment. Knowing that the certainty of approaching death may effect spiritual awakening and bring to the surface all that is best in a man; believing that death is the great liberator and the gateway to higher things; knowing that a man imprisoned for life may become mentally and spiritually deadened by the hopelessness of his fate, or may become so intent on palliating, excusing, or justifying his crime as to lose all sense of guilt, perhaps eventually to believe himself a[Pg 126] victim rather than a criminal; knowing the unspeakable suffering of the man who abandons himself to remorse, and knowing how often the "life man" becomes a prey to insanity, in sheer pity for the prisoner I came to regard the death penalty as a merciful means of escape from an incomparably worse fate.

So far my point of view was taken only in relation to the prisoner for life. Later, when I had studied the subject more broadly, in considering the effect of the death penalty upon the community at large and as a measure for the protection of society, I could not escape the conviction that in the civilized world of to-day capital punishment is indefensible. Christianity, humanity, sociology, medical science, psychology, and statistics stand solid against the injustice and the unwisdom of capital punishment. Public sentiment, the last bulwark of the death penalty, is slowly but surely becoming enlightened, and the final victory of humanitarianism is already assured.

Throughout the United States the legal penalty for murder in the second degree is imprisonment for life; then follows the crime called manslaughter, when the act is committed in [Pg 127]self-defence or under other extenuating circumstances; the penalty for which is imprisonment for a varying but limited term of years. Practically there is no definite line dividing murder in the second degree from manslaughter. A clever expert lawyer, whether on the side of prosecution or the defence, has little difficulty in carrying his case over the border in the one direction or the other. Money, and the social position of the accused, are important factors in adjusting the delicate balance between murder in the second degree and manslaughter.

Various are the pathways that lead to the illegal taking of life; terrible often the pressure brought to bear upon the man before the deed is done. Deadly fear, the fear common to humanity, has been the force that drove the hand of many a man to strike, stab, or shoot with fatal effect; while anger, righteous or unrighteous, the momentary impulse of intense emotional excitement to which we are all more or less liable, has gathered its host of victims and caused the tragic ruin of unnumbered men now wearing life away in our penitentiaries.

And terribly true it is that some of the "life" men are among the best in our prisons, the "life"[Pg 128] men who are all indiscriminately called murderers. That some of them were murderers at heart and a menace to the community we cannot doubt; doubtless, also, some are innocent of any crime; and there are others for whom it would be better for all concerned if they were given liberty to-day.

It seems to be assumed that a man unjustly imprisoned suffers more than the one who knows that he has only himself to blame. Much depends upon the nature of the man. Given two men of equally sound moral nature, while the one with a clear conscience may suffer intensely, from the sense of outrage and injustice, from the tearing of the heart-strings and the injury to business relations, his mental agony can hardly equal that of the man whose heart is eaten out with remorse. The best company any prisoner can have is his own self-respect, the best asset of a bankrupt life. I have been amazed to see for how much that counts in the peace and hope, and the great power of patience which makes for health and gives strength for endurance.

I was deeply impressed with this fact in the case of one man. His name was Gay Bowers, a name curiously inconsistent with his fate, and, "life man" though he was, no one in that big[Pg 129] prison ever associated him with murder; no one who really looked into his face could have thought him a criminal. It was the only face I ever saw, outside of a book, that seemed chastened through sorrow; his gentle smile was like the faint sunshine of an April day breaking through the mists; and there was about the man an atmosphere of youth and springtime though he was near forty when we first met; but it was the arrested youth of a man to whom life seemed to have ended when he was but twenty-two.

Gay was country born and bred, loved and early married a country girl, and was known throughout the neighborhood as a hard-working, steady young fellow. He lived in a village near the Mississippi River, and one summer he went down to St. Louis on some business and returned by boat. On the steamboat a stranger, a young man of near his age, made advances toward acquaintance, and hearing his name exclaimed:

"Gay Bowers! why my name is Ray Bowers, and I'm looking for work. I guess I'll go to your town and we'll call each other cousins; perhaps we are related."

The stranger seemed very friendly and kept with Bowers when they reached the home town;[Pg 130] there Ray found work and seemed all right for a while.

And here I must let Gay Bowers tell the rest of the story as he told it to me, in his own words as nearly as I can remember them. I listened intently to his low, quiet voice, but I seemed reading the story in his eyes at the same time, for the absolutely convincing element was the way in which Bowers was living it all over again as he unfolded the scene with a certain thrill in his tones. I felt as if I was actually witnessing the occurrence, so vividly was the picture in his mind transferred to mine.

"My wife and I had just moved into a new home that very day, we and our little year-old girl, and Ray had helped us in the moving and stayed to supper with us. After supper Ray said he must go, and asked me to go a piece with him as he had something to say to me.

"So I went along with him. Back of the house the road ran quite a way through deep woods. We were in the middle of the woods when Ray stopped and told me what he wanted of me. He told me that he had been a horse-thief over in Missouri, that his picture was in 'the rogues' gallery' in St. Louis over his own name, Jones;[Pg 131] that it wasn't safe for him to be in Missouri, where he was 'wanted' and that he had got on the boat without any plans; but as soon as he saw me, a working, country man, he thought he might as well hitch on to me and go to my place. But he said he was tired of working; and farmer Smith had a fine pair of horses which he could dispose of if I would take them out of the barn into the next county. Ray wanted me to do this because of my good reputation. Everybody knew me and I was safe from suspicion; and he said we could make a lot of money for us both if I went into the business with him.

"All of a sudden I knew then that for some time I'd been feeling that Ray wasn't quite square. There had been some little things—of course I said I wouldn't go in with him; and I don't know what else I said for I was pretty mad to find out what kind of a man he was and how he had fooled me. Perhaps I threatened to tell the police; anyway Ray said he would kill me before I had a chance to give him away if I didn't go into the deal with him, for then I wouldn't dare 'peach.' Still I refused.

"And then"—here a look of absolute terror came into Bowers's eyes—"then he suddenly[Pg 132] struck me a terrible blow and I knew I was in a fight for my life. He fought like the desperate man that he was. I managed to reach down and pick up a stick and struck out: I never thought of killing the man; it was just a blind fight to defend myself.

"But he let go and fell. When he did not move I bent over him and felt for his heart. I could not find it beating; but I could not believe he was dead. I waited for some sign of life but there was none. I was horror-struck and dazed; but I knew I could not leave him in the road where he had fallen, so I dragged him a little way into the woods. There I left him.

"I hurried back home to tell my wife what had happened; but when I opened the door my wife was sitting beside the cradle where the baby was. Cynthy was tired and sleepy with her day's work, and everything seemed so natural and peaceful I just couldn't tell her, and I couldn't think, or anything. So I told her she'd better go to bed while I went across the road to speak to her father.

"It wasn't more than nine o'clock then, and I found her father sitting alone smoking his pipe. He began to talk about his farm work. He[Pg 133] didn't notice anything queer about me and I was so dazed-like that it all began to seem unreal to me. I tried once or twice to break into his talk and tell him, but I couldn't put the horror into words—I couldn't.

"Perhaps it wouldn't have made any difference if I had told him; anyway I didn't. When the body was found next morning of course they came right to our house with the story, for Ray had told folks that he was a relation of mine. I told just what had happened but it didn't count for anything—I was tried for murder and not given a chance to make any statement. Because I was well thought of by my neighbors they didn't give me the rope, but sent me here for life."

Bowers had been sixteen years in prison when I first met him. He had accepted his fate as an overwhelming misfortune, like blindness or paralysis, but never for a moment had he lost his self-respect, and he clung to his religion as the isle of refuge in his wrecked existence.

"Mailed in the armor of a pure intent" which the degradations of convict life could not penetrate, as the years passed he had achieved true serenity of spirit, and that no doubt contributed to his apparently unbroken health. His work was[Pg 134] not on contract but in a shop where prison supplies were made, canes for the officers, etc. One day Bowers sent me a beautifully made cane, which I may be glad to use if I ever live to have rheumatism.

Bowers, like all life men, early laid his plans for a pardon and had a lawyer draw up a petition; but the difficulty in the case was that there wasn't a particle of evidence against the dead man excepting Bowers's own word. But Bowers's mind was set on establishing the truth of his statement regarding the character of the other man, and he saw only one way of doing this. Ray had said that his real name was Jones, and his photograph was in the rogues' gallery in St. Louis under the name of Jones. Now, if there was such a photograph in St. Louis Bowers determined to get it, and at last, after ten years, he obtained possession of the photograph, with the help of a lawyer, and again he looked upon the face of Ray, named Jones, with the record "horse-thief." The proven character of Jones did not alter the fact that he had been killed by Bowers; nor in that part of the country did it serve as a reason for release of Bowers; and the years went on the same as before.

[Pg 135]

Bowers's wife had not learned to write, but the baby, Carrie, grew into a little girl and went to school, and she wrote regularly to her father, who was very proud of her letters. When still a little girl she was taken into a neighbor's family. After a time the neighbor's wife died and Carrie not being equal to the work of the house her mother came to help out—so said Carrie's letters. And Bowers, who still cherished the home ties, was thankful that his wife and child were taken care of. Every night he prayed for them and always he hoped for the day when he could take them in his arms.

His letters to me were few as he wrote regularly to his daughter; but after he had been in prison eighteen years he wrote me the joyful news that he would be released in a few weeks, for his lawyer had proven a faithful friend. The letter was a very happy one written in December, and the warden had allowed Bowers to tinker up some little gifts to be sent to the wife and daughter. "They stand in a row before me as I am writing, and I think they are as beautiful as butterflies," his letter said.

On his release Bowers, now a man past forty, had to begin life over again. He had lost his[Pg 136] place in his community, he had no money, but he had hope and ambition, and as a good chance was offered him in the penitentiary city he decided to take it and go right to work. He wrote his daughter that he would arrange for her and her mother to come to him, and there they would start a new home together.

Little did he dream of the shock awaiting him when the answer to that letter came, telling him that for several years his wife had been married to the man who had given Carrie a home. Both the man and the woman had supposed that when Bowers was sent to prison for life the wife was divorced and free to marry. She was hopeless as to her husband's release, and tired and discouraged with her struggle with poverty. Her brief married life had come to seem only a memory of her youth, and she was glad of the chance to be taken care of like other women, but a feeling of tenderness and pity for the prisoner had caused her to protect him from the knowledge of her inconstancy.

The second husband felt that to Bowers must be left the decision as to the adjustment of the tangled relationships, and Bowers wrote me that he had decided that the second husband had the[Pg 137] stronger claim, as he had married the woman in good faith and made her happy; one thing he insisted upon, however—that if the present arrangement were to continue, his former wife must take her divorce from him and be legally married to the other man. And this was done.

To find himself another Enoch Arden was a hard blow to Bowers, but the years of work and poverty must have wrought such changes in the girl wife of long ago that she was lost to him forever; while the man who came out of that prison after eighteen years of patient endurance and the spiritual development that long acquaintance with grief sometimes brings was a different being from the light-hearted young farmer's boy that the girl had married. They must inevitably have become as strangers to each other.

With the daughter the situation was different. From childhood she had faithfully written to an imaginary father whom she could not remember, but with whom a real tie must have been formed through their letters; and Carrie had now come to be near the age of the wife he had left. The daughter was to come to him, and she must have found in the real father something even finer than her imagination could have pictured.

[Pg 138]

Gay Bowers had been a prisoner for those eighteen years, with never a criminal thought or intention. As human courts go he was not the victim of injustice nor could "society" be held in any way responsible. There was no apparent relation between his environment or his character and his tragic experience. It was like a Greek drama where Fate rules inexorable, but this fate was borne with the spirit of a Christian saint. What the future years held for him I do not know, since through carelessness on my part our correspondence was not kept up.