The Saint Paul globe., 1897-10-23

Are the inmates Of the state prison
at saltwater maltreated? Does there
exist there a system, or are there at
least in authority there one or more
men of such character that brutality
Is practiced upon the helpless prison
ers? Is one of the great public IN
stitutions of which the state OF Mime
sofa has been so long and justly proud
a place in which torture is inflicted,
where men are bruised and beaten and
subjected to cruel and unusual punish
ments? These are questions upon
whose answer depend the honor and
reputation Of the board of managers
for the state prison, the official record
of the state board Of charities and
corrections and the fair fame and hon
or of the state of Minnesota itself.
The Globe heard some time ago.
from sources worthy of credence and
with such circumstantiality as to leave
no room for doubt that hideous facts
Iurked behind the rumor that the ad-
ministration Of prison discipline at
Saltwater would not bear the light of
day It therefore set on foot, through
agencies of it's own, an investigation
into the facts, whose results 1t lays
before its readers this morning. 1t need
not say that it has gone into this
matter without an individual prepos-
session or prejudice, without the desire
to injure any man in reputation or en-
ployment, with the sincere hope from
the outset that it would find the ac-
cusations made to be the offspring Of
jealousy or anger. 1t has, instead, by
a patient, searching examination of
the records, by the discovery of eye
witnesses, whose solemn statements
are printed herewith, by the sworn af-
fidavits of men present and by a per-
sonal investigation of all the incidents,
places and persons who can now be
reached, established, to it's own firm
belief, the existence of a condition of
things in the state prison that clamors
Scarcely a state escapes, from time to
time, the stigma fastened upon 1t by the
exercise toward the helpless inmates
of its institutions for the criminal
or the defective of some form of bar
barrie cruelty. Daily use, the habit
formed by consorting with those under
sentence of punishment for crime the
fact that many of these are men who
can be held in check and bound down
to ordinary observance Of decenry
only by the strong hand of the law,
cultivate too often in the agents who
have charge of them a disposition to-
ward brutality. 1t is a rough, hard
post, this of one of the executive agents
of a state prison system; and, there
fore, all care is necessary, on the
part of those who stand at the head of
it and those who supervise it, to see
that it does not callous men and make
them forget duty and humanity alike
In wreaking their passions on men who
ere already under the ban of the law
Such care, if the statements that are
made elsewhere are true, has not been
exercised.
The charge is made, upon the evil
dence which we submit, that an inmate
of the prison some years ago was as
saulted and so horribly beaten that he
died in the prison hospital a few days
after, and was buried under a death
certificate assigning the cause of his de-
mise as typhoid fever. The statement
is made, again supported by witnesses,
that, for a breach of discipline, another
inmate was so desperately abused that
his mind, already somewhat impaired,
was completely destroyed, and that he
has since been a hopelessly insane
inmate of the asylum at Rochester.
The charge is made that physical abuse
in the exercise of discipline at Still
water is a common thing, and that the
horrors of ''the solitary" have never
been half told.
The Glob this morning presents,
without passion, except the indignation