The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1895-03-21
The Salvation Armys Commander Writes Of Our Poverty and
Crimes, TIamg and Millions
10000 ACRES FOR A DARKEST AMERICA COLONY
His NapoIeonc Schele for Peopng the Country from the
Cities, with Farms and Plenty of Work, Thus
Making Good Citizens of Bad Ones.
| know because had to buy some re-

L know because utu 10 Duy some re-
Gently.
Nations borrow immense sums of
money to wage war. You yourselves,
who are at peace with the world and
have not had a war for thirty years
and may not have one for thirty years
more, are spending millions upon a
navy. You do that to protect your
property. You argue that, even as
insurance upon the commerce and the
property of your seacoast towns, it is
money saved rather than money
spent.
Why should you not spend money
to save money to defend your gov
ernment, your society, against your
expensive paupers and criminals?
The costliness of thievery, who can
estimate it? How many women have
their purses stolen and never dare
tell their husbands? How many
things are stolen which are never re-
ported to the police or never recoy-
cred? Or, if they are recovered, who
shall estimate the loss in time and
expense?
COST OF CRIME AND MISERY.
Add to these the cost of the whole
criminal system, the wages of crimi-
money paid to attorneys, the wages
of police, of prison officials, the up
keep of jails, reformatories. Now,
when you cannot only save this loss,
but make it a paying investment, why
should it not be considered seriously?
You have hospitals here. If man
falls and breaks his legs, you take
him to one, even if the fall is the re
suit of his own bad conduct. He may
have been drunk at the time; still you
take him to the hospital. Why should
there not be a hospital for man
when he has fallen and broken his
nature, his will?
You have prisons hospitals that
don't heal. You break the mans will,
and leave it as limp as a rag. The
first man he meets coming out of Jail
leads him straight off in mischief.
Government should take him and
say: "Do you want to work? Very
good, you shall work. You shall earn
your living. Oh, you don't want to
work? But you shall work, anyhow
Then turn him over to the Salvation
Army, to the Darkest America refor-
nation plan, which very likely will
| those the Salvation Army has stirred
up LII OtAS1 p<l1 70 O4 IAC WOI10s
SAVING A GIRL FOR $1e.
Will it pay? We can save a girl
for $16. That is counting all wreck
age. We do this without legislative
help. Those we have saved are repay
| ing what they have cost. We keep
them for three years, and after they
have been with us so long and are
| tested, the past is buried and forgot
| ten, and they ga out into the world
nobody knowing their history, and be-
come wives and mothers, beautiful
women, for they are saved souls. The
scheme for men will pay it's own way.
| I said to his eXcellency the governor
of Canada: you want immigration.
You want a simple peasantry, who
will be attached to the soil. You want
people not to become pressmen, law
| yers and doctors, not too proud to
| work for living, but men who have
stake in the country. I will bring
you people who are tested. I will not
ask you any fees to induce them to
come. They will be men of two
| classes, those who have been SUBJ
merged and those who We're never
submerged, but have been chained to
the wheel earning So or 81 week."
| In one Of the prisons 1 went into
here there were $40 men locked up.
They cost the state $4,000 per an
mum to keep. Each man got about a
pound of beefSteak a day. 1 said to
| myself: 81 can get thousands of peo-
pie who will commit any reasonable
| crime for the sake of being fed like
| that" Give me those people and I
will not only save the money but save
| the men.
tWAY TO REFORM CRIMINALS.
! These are the hospitals which don't
heal. I have been in prisons in this
l country where the governors, or what
/ ever you call them here, were respect
full to the prisoners, bowed to them,
saluted them, treated them as equals.
This was to build up their self-respect
/ and manhood.
/ wouldn't do so. I would make
| them smart. I would say: "Oh, what
a scoundrel you are! You want to be
made over; you are sinner. But His
| blood can make the viIest clean; His
| blood avails for you; now you've got
a chance to make a man of yourself.
Will you take it?"
Crime forfeitS freedom The man
who offends against society must not
only for SOciety's sake, but for his
own sake, be shown a more excellent
way.
But to start a darkest America
scheme, to found another Massachu-
setts, requires land. Somebody will
ask: ''Where will you get it?'' There
is unclaimed land, and there is a lot
of land which has owners but is not
in use. Buy lot of it back.
/ Land will be cheaper next year. 1t
is cheap now. I have some land over
here which I was talking of selling.
A friend said to me: "Don't sell it
lnow. You can't get anything for it. y
said: "Well, put it up at auction;
surely somebody will bid something
for it." He answered: "My dear gen.
eral, I have been to all the sheriff IS
sales of land for the last eighteen
months, and there has not been a
ibid"
Ia DARKEST AMERICA COLONY.
| Now is the time to begin a darkest
America plan. The land is cheap.
1 have in view twenty thousand
tacres in it's present state. I do moi
care to mention II more definitely
now, because all the arrangements
have not been thought out. On it
should plant not only the men from
the great cities who have found it i'm
possible, or next to impossible, to gel
a living, but I would bring over from
Scandinavia, Holland, Germany ant
Belgium those good peasants who are