The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1891-06-02
WHAT SHALL WE DO FOR THEM

rains IN the eastern portion; nearly stationary
temperature.
WHAT SHALL WE DO FOR THEM 2
Governor Fifer of Illinois has been
studying the question: What is the duty
OF society towards the discharged GRIM
inal-he who has eXpiated his crime by
the penance Of service in prison? He
comes to the conclusion, as every man
must who reasons out the matter, that
the duty of society is to aid the man to
lead new, an honest life. But what is
the fact-here in California, for instance !?
We drive the discharged prisoner back
to criminal paths. There is not one
chance in thousand of his securing hon
est employment, or of helping hand
being extended to him.
However strong his resolution to i'm
prove by the discipline of restraint in
prison, the ex-convict is met by closed
doors everywhere. The only open portals
are those of the dive and the thieves den.
is it any wonder that, bounded by the
police, tempted by the vicious, rejected
10y the employers of men, boycotted by
labor, he drifts rapidly into criminal
life and becomes an incorrigible?
California had an opportunity last
winter, by enactment of parole law and
the establishment of Board of Charities
and Correction, to do its duty towards the
ex-convict. But there were directors,
mere theorists, sentimentalists and hard
shells alike, who believe that the right
thing to do is to go to mill forever with
a stone in one end of the bag, and so both
bills were killed, choked to death by
retrogressiye and superannuated senti-
ment.
These directors told us that the ex-con-
vict of strong purpose should prove his
mettle "by living down the curse" What
twaddle; the poor devil who attempts it
starves to death before he has an oppor-
tunity to begin the iving-down process.
Is it any wonder that the criminal class
so rapidly augments? We maintain
prisons to restrain men and teach them
that they can master their passions and
live without indulging them. We i'm
prison not nearly so much to punish as
reform. But when, theoretically, this is
done we turn the man adrift with a SPY
upon his every step, back turned at
every approach he makes. If he secures
employment and his past becomes known
he is at once stripped of it, and then if
he walks the street and starves the police
jail him because he is an ex-convict; be-
cause he has offended, but expiated his
offense. Or, he meets with other ex-
convicts who have no disposition to
abandon criminal life, and he falls an
easy victim to their wiles.
Indeed, these tempters really have the
best of the argument. They demonstrate
to him by the evidence of his senses that
there is nothing for him but a lifelong
warfare against society. AS Governor
Fifer says, this is bad for the man and
worse for society. The Governor favors
intermediate sentences as a remedy
that is, sentences that are dependent upon
the conduct of the man; then, when his
probation is at an end, he shall be put in
a way of earning his living, That is true
economy for the State. It is ever so
much cheaper to enable man TO help
himself, than to maintain him as a con-
Vict or pauper. There is nothing new
In this; it is an old idea, and all the better
for that
What our purpose is in occasionally
presenting this subject to readers of the
REcoRD-UNIoN must be apparent. We
wish to so quicken public sentiment and
direct public attention, that when the
time comes on for the selection of another
Legislature there may be wide under
standing of this question and some prob
ability of the enactment of the two laws
referred to, which were defeated last ses-
sion simply and only because the legis-
lators were densely ignorant of the sub
ject. They had not studied it; they
could not, or would not do so during the
session; they saw in the two bills only
cranky ideas, new-fangled schemes
and something they did not comprehend.
They were unaware that the ideas are not
cranky, since they are realized in success
full practice in twenty of the States in one
case, and two of the States in the other.
They were unaware that the subject has
for fifty years engaged, and now enlists
the thought, action and philanthropic
purpose of some of the best minds of
theworld, and of all the most successful
and experienced Wardens and keepers
of convicts on the face of the globe.
DISPOSING OF CHURCH CORPORA
TON PROPERTY IN UTAH.
AT its last term the Supreme Court of
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