The San Francisco call., 1898-06-12


 shouted to me down the wind:
 Ride up. I will join you at the of fice.''
 And the beetle crawled where man, cleverly disposing of what God pro- posed, has hewed and hacked himself a road from out the nearly solid rock. Nasturtiums, sea pinks wandering ivy, all brave things that root in rock and bring color to the face of 1t, are planted here to cheer the eye, good soil is boxed and ledged from sliding to the sea, and garden things set out to grow in 1t, the sturdy marshmallow filings its supple branches out and swings and mods as pinkly, greenly gay on Alcatraz as any where; but the beaten roses droop and scatter in the deathless wind, tender clinging vines are swept from the walls, flowers bloom palely, grass grows sparsely, trees grow not at all; Alcatraz, fog-swept. wind blown, rock built fortress of the sea, looks what it is to saint and sinner in the service, the prison post of the Western Division of the Army.
 In the little office which looks,. like a lighthouse, on all sides to the sea, I make my wishes known and have them granted.
 They are, tout simple, to go into the prison. to talk to military convicts, to know from the eyes, the lips, the voices, the manners of these men once enlisted, and now debarred from the service of their country, how this fact feels to them In time of war.
 It is against military rule for the civilian, even in petticoats, to hold com munication with military convicts ex- cept in the presence of an officer. Cap tain Hobbs and Lieutenant England go with me to the prison.
 It Is that long, brown, melancholy wi tn md of every passing craft, with it's port holes, lighting cells, looking to the sea, the windows and the doors of it's free passages giving inward to the road up- on the hill.
 The men were at mess.
 In long, low room, whitewashed, sanded and scrupuiously clean, twenty midday meal. They sat on benches at either side the single table running down the middle and nearly the length of the room. They were all young men. They were nearly all good-looking men. That Is to say, they looked out from their eyes frankly, held up their heads bravely had an average of good feat ures among them and none of the hang-dog look the civil convict wears like a brand upon his brow, like the stripes upon his back.
 It occurred to me then in the face of the contrast as 1t has occurred to me many times before in the lack of it, that the stripes have much to do with this. The military prisoner wears his old uniform, or the old uniform of somebody else, stripped of it's honorable buttons and dyed from its martial blue to any dark and serviceable shade the cloth will take. He wears a soft black hat with a red band about the crown when he is entered in the second class Of yNr-icn oil orn tered at the military prison-and he may earn the w ite band of the first class by good behavior, or fall to the yellow of the third class by evil ways, and in any case his standing is shown in contrast to that of his fellow prison CTS and he may not be confused with something better or worse than he is. He walks no lock-step; he knows no chain gang; he is given a certain liberty of action under surveillance; he is treated like a man in disgrace, but like a man for all that; he is suffered to take away from prison as much self respect as he brings into it. And this is a lesson the law might learn from the armyl
 It is the principle of civil prisons to break down what honest pride may sur vive the shining of deadly sin and the loss of personal liberty. It is part of the punishment which Is supposed to fit every crime. For this the lock-Step, the chain gang, the ball and chain, the convict stripes survive their usefulness, live on in the face of surer more scien- tific methods of defense against escape and means of recapture. For this the man who steals for gain and the man who steals for bread, the man who kills In hot blood and the man who kills in cold, wear the same uniform of shame and no man, seeing, knows them apart. And yet 1t would seem to me that pride Is as good thing to cherish in the hearts of bad men as In the hearts of good, as necessary to men in prisons as to men out of them. For 1t is not until pride Is gone that the candle Is out and darkness eternal set ties on the soul.
 "Attention!"
 The men at the table dropped their knives and forks. Their eyes looked straight away over their noses. their hands fell to their sides. their meat and cabbage cooled on their plates. They were tense. motionlesS as stone men, every nerve under the discipline which makes the strength of the army Through the open panels of a sort of screen wall at the end of the mess room I could see the kitchen. The cook had come to halt before his range. The helper at the sink, the steward half way from the table to the door. Their perfect obedience to discipline lent them dignity, as obedience to discipline, in form or effect. dignifies all men, even soldiers disgraced, stripped of their buttons,s dressed in dyed uniforms, do- ing time in a military prison while their country is at war.
 The Captain stepped across the sanded floor.
 Let the men go on with mess," said he.
 ''At easel
 The men at the tables picked up their knives and forks, the cook In the kitchen fell to his pots and pans. the scullion stirred his dishes, the steward moved across the floor.
 The table was trimly spread, the fare was plentiful and inviting of its kind. the men ate with relish, pushed away their plates as they finished, rose and left the room when they liked Their hats hung on row of pegs near the door, I noticed the bands of red and