The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1894-05-10
JUSTICE WILL TRIUMPH.
To Be Convinced of Error Is a Long
Step Toward the Practice of Virtue.

Step Toward the Practice of Virtue.
with wonderful slOwness do we pro-
gress toward the sane, wholesome
rational idea of dealing with the disease
called crime. Between the savages who
would treat it with club, and the SEN
timentalists who would cure it with a
bouquet, the world has hard time.
Yet sound sense and immortal Justice
will triumph in the end" says the St.
Paul Pioneer Press. eve have created
a vast machinery for the administration
of justice. We have got past the point
where the punitive thought is upper
most, and reached plane where the
community as whole is really DESTROYS
of helping convict. The mere exist
ence of the reformatory system proves
that. But we have not taken the next
step, which is to steady the infirm feet
of the discharged inmate of the prison,
when once again the familiar world
looks coldly on him and the old inevi-
table choice between good and evil pre-
sents itself. The state cannot take it.
The individual can. And with all the
multitudinOus associations for the pro-
motion of public and private morals
that exist, it is strange that there should
be as yet no organization existing for
the purpose of aiding the half-cured
subjects of the criminal impulse.
Habit, so strong with all of us, is
perhaps strongest with the class of men
who find themselves within prison walls.
Released from that stern discipline,
made blind and giddy by the sudden
step outside into the world of freedom
once more, all the old associations, the
old thoughts, the old motives and plans
OF life throng about the discharged con-
Wet with clamOrOuS mouths and impet-
uous hands. He knows the prison life,
but all its restraints and safeguards are
absent here. He knows the old life of
crime, but he has been led just little
way from that; far enough to prevent
him from welcoming it back again.
10 all others he is stranger. The
patience, the industry, the self-d denial,
the trained habit of control are known
to him by name, perhaps by aspiration.
But the best of us find these paths not
easy to keep; what shall we expect of
the man whom thousand strings are
pulling back to the familiar ways, and
whose forward step on the new line
must be full of faltering and weakness Z?
Worse than that. Society, which must
keep the instinct that saves it from an
initiation, looks at him askance and
extends no helping hand. Society has
learned to be wary of the ex-convict.
Sometimes he is man longing to do
better, sometimes one longing for an
opportunity to take his revenge for
Imprisonment by doing worse. So soci-
ETY. steps on the safe side and thrusts
him back. He is suspected, refused
employment, discharged for no offense
but his past record. What chance has
such an atom in the whirling vortex of
hostile forces without and within?
1.-The splendid work to which those
interested in the correctional institu-
lions of the state are devoting their
lives will never be complete will never
show at its best, until it is supple
mented by the exertions of a prisoners
aid association. What the discharged
prisoner needs is not cOsseting or state
provision. He ought to have friendly
voice in his ear, a helpful hand at his
side. This is not because he comes out
an angel. No wings are even sprouted
He is man, and an incomplete sort of
man at that. But the writer of this pa
per tells the story in saying that this