CHAPTER XIV

And the time came, in 1913, when the wave of revolution in prison methods struck the penitentiary which formed the background of the lives pictured within these pages. Back of all my friendships with these men had loomed the prison under the old methods, casting its dark shadow across their lives. Many of them died within the walls; others came out only to die in charity hospitals, or to take up the battle of life with enfeebled health and enfeebled powers of resistance and endurance. Almost as one man they had protected me from the realization of what they endured in the punishment cells—from what the physical conditions of prison life really were; but I knew far more than they thought I did—as much as I could endure to know—and in our interviews we understood that it was useless to discuss evils which I was powerless to help; and then, too, I always tried to make those interviews oases in the desert of their lives. But across my own heart also the shadow of the prison lay all those years. Into the bright melody of a[Pg 272] June morning the sudden thought of the prison would crash with cruel discord; at times everything most bright and beautiful would but the more sharply accent the tragedy of prison life. Deep below the surface of my thought there was always the consciousness of the prison; but, on the other hand, this abiding consciousness made the ordinary trials and annoyances inseparable from human life seem of little moment, passing clouds across the sunlight of a more fortunate existence; and I was thankful that from my own happy hours I could glean some ray of brightness to pour into lives utterly desolate. So absolutely did I enter into the prison life that even to-day it forms one of the most vivid chapters of my personal experience. Accordingly, my point of view of the change in the prison situation cannot be altogether that of the outsider. I know what this change means to the men within the walls; for in feeling, I too have been a prisoner.

A little paper lies before me, the first number of a new monthly publication from behind the bars of the prison I know so well. In its pages is mirrored a new dispensation—the new dispensation sweeping with irresistible force from State to State. Too deep for words was the[Pg 273] thankfulness that filled my heart as I tried to realize that at last the day had come when prisoners were recognized as men, and that this blessed change had come to my own State. I knew it was on the way; I knew that things were working in the right direction; I had even talked with the new warden about some of these very changes; but here it was in black and white, over the signatures of the warden, his deputy, two chaplains, the prison doctor, and several representatives of the prisoners themselves: all bearing witness to the new order of things; to the facts already accomplished and to plans for the betterment of existing conditions. Of the fifteen hundred convicts fifty have been for several months employed on State roads under the supervision of two unarmed guards. The fifty men were honor men and none have broken faith. Two hundred more honor men will be sent out in the same way during the summer of 1914. Another three hundred will work on the prison farm of one thousand acres, erecting farm buildings and raising garden and farm products for the prison and the stock, and gaining health for themselves in a life practically free during working hours.

To the men inside the prison walls the routine[Pg 274] of daily life is wholly altered. No longer do they eat in silence with downcast eyes; the table is a meeting-place of human beings where talk flows naturally. No longer is life one dull round from prison cell to shop, where talk and movements of relaxation are forbidden; and back in silent march to prison cell, with never a breath of fresh air except on the march to and from the shops. This monotony is now broken by a recreation hour in the open air every day, given in turn to companies of the men taken from the workshops in which exchange of remarks is now allowed. In pleasant weather this recreation is taken in games or other diversions involving exercise. "Everything goes but fighting" is the liberal permission, and recreation in cold weather takes the form of marching.

From October to May, for five hours in the day, six days in the week, school is in session in four separate rooms, the highest classes covering the eighth grade of our public schools. Any prisoner may absent himself from work one hour a day if desiring to attend the school, and can pursue his studies in his cell evenings. Competent teachers are found among the prisoners, and no guard is present during instruction hours. Arrangements[Pg 275] are now on foot for educational correspondence connected with the State university.

The time given to recreation and to education has not lessened the output of the shops; on the contrary, the new spirit pervading the prison has so energized the men, so awakened their ambition, that more and better work is done in the shops than before. The grade of "industrial efficiency" recently introduced serves as a further incentive to skill and industry and will secure special recommendation for efficiency when the men are free to take their own places in the world.

Nor is this all; for each prisoner as far as is practicable is assigned work for which he is individually fitted. Men educated as physicians are transferred from the shops to the staff of hospital assistants; honor men qualified for positions where paid attendants have hitherto been employed are transferred to these positions, thus reducing expenses. Honor men having mechanical faculty are permitted during the evenings in their cells to make articles, the sale of which gives them a little money independently earned. Also in some of the prison shops the workers are allowed a share in the profits. It is the warden's aim to utilize as far as possible individual talent[Pg 276] among his wards, to give every man every possible chance to earn an honest living on his release; to make the prison, as he puts it, "a school of citizenship." To every cell is furnished a copy of the Constitution of the United States and of the State in which the prison is located, with the laws affecting criminals. Further instructions relating to American citizenship are given, and are especially valuable to foreigners.

But helpful as are all these changes in method, the real heart of the change, the vital transforming quality is in the personal relation of the warden to his wards. In conferences held in the prison chapel the warden makes known his views and aims, speaking freely of prison matters, endeavoring to inspire the men with high ideals of conduct and to secure their intelligent and hearty co-operation for their present and their future. Here it is also that the men are free to make known their prison troubles, sure of the warden's sympathetic consideration of means of adjustment. Heart and soul the warden is devoted to his work, never losing sight of his ultimate aim of restoring to society law-abiding citizens, but also feeling the daily need of these prisoners for encouragement and for warm human sympathy.

[Pg 277]

Mr. Fielding-Hall, after many years of practical experience with criminals, reached the conclusion that humanity and compassion are essential requisites in all attempts "to cure the disease of crime," and the curative power of sympathy is old as the hills; it began with the mother who first kissed the place to make it well; and from that day to this the limit to the power of sympathy has never been compassed, when sympathy is not allowed to evaporate as an emotion, but, hardened into a motive, becomes a lever to raise the fallen.

It is largely owing to the sympathy of the present warden that light and air have come into the moral and mental atmosphere of this prison. In the natures of the men qualities hitherto dormant and undiscovered have come to the surface and are in the ascendant, aroused by the warden's appeal to their manhood; and the warden's enthusiasm is the spark that has touched the spirit of the subordinate officials and has fused into unison the whole administration. And the warden is fortunate in the combination of men working with him. His deputy, the disciplinarian of the place, served for twenty-five years on the police force of Chicago, a position[Pg 278] directly antagonized to crime and yet affording exceptional opportunity for the study of criminals. True to his colors as a protector of society, he now feels that society is best protected through the reclamation of those who have broken its laws; he believes that the true disciplinarian is not the one who punishes most severely but the one who trains his charges to join hands with him in the maintenance of law and order within their little community; and he has already reduced the punishment record for violation of rules to scarcely more than one-tenth of former averages; and the shackling of men in the punishment cells is abolished.

The prison physician is an up-to-date man, fully in accord with the views of the warden, and with admirable hospital equipment where excellent surgical work is done when required. The two chaplains have a missionary field of the highest opportunities, where a sympathetic friendship for the prisoner during six days in the week becomes the highway to their hearts on the seventh.

The faces of the prisoners bear witness to the life-giving influences at work among them; the downcast apathy has given place to an expression[Pg 279] of cheerful interest, and the prison pallor to a healthful color. And the old prison buildings—the living tomb of hundreds of men—are themselves now doomed. On the adjacent farm the prisoners will eventually build new quarters, either one modern prison into which God's sunlight and the free air of heaven will have access, or, better still, a prison village, a community in detached buildings, after the plan which has proven so satisfactory in other State institutions.

And what of the women sent to prison in this State? For fifteen years and more they have been housed in a separate institution. This has never been a place of degradation. Every inmate has a light, well-ventilated, outside room, supplied with simple furnishings and toilet conveniences; white spreads cover the beds, and the home touch is evident in the photographs and fancy-work so dear to the heart of woman. The prisoners in their dress of blue-and-white check are neat and trim in appearance as maids from Holland. They number but sixty-five, and conversation is allowed.

The women have a recreation playground for open-air exercise and an assembly-room for evening entertainments. They are given industrial[Pg 280] training and elementary education; and though the discipline is firm the life is kept normal as possible; and wilful violation of rules seldom occurs. The present superintendent is a woman of exceptional qualifications for the position—a woman of quick, responsive sympathies, and wide experience, with fine executive ability. A thorough course in domestic science is fitting the women for domestic service or future home-making, and some of them are skilled in fine needle-work and embroidery.

The lines in the old picture of prison life so deeply etched into my consciousness are already fading; for while I know that in too many States the awakening has not come, and the fate of the prisoner is still a blot on our civilization, the light has broken and the way is clear. Not only in my own State but to every State in the union the death-knell of the old penitentiary, with its noisome cells and dark dungeons, has struck. The bloodless revolution of the reform movement is irresistible simply because it is in line with human progress.

Not until the present generation of criminals has passed away can adequate results of the widespreading change in prison management be [Pg 281]expected; for a large percentage of our convicts to-day are the product of crime-breeding jails, reformatories, and prisons. The "incorrigibles" are all men who have been subjected to demoralizing and brutalizing influences. In the blood-curdling outbreaks of gunmen and train-holdups society is but reaping the harvest of evils it has allowed. Not until police stations, jails, workhouses, reformatories, and prisons are all radically changed can any fair estimate be made of the value of the recent humane methods.