Hutchinson gazette., 1898-04-14
THE INDUSTRIAL REFoRMAToRY.

of Sterling Bullitin, treasury.
THE INDUSTRIAL REFORMAToRY.
For years we have been accustomed
to look upon the military prison at
LeavenWOrth as a model institution
for the confinement of prisoners, and
have considered the penitentiary at
Lansing one that is nearly perfect in
every respect. The reform school at
Topeka IS also deemed beneticent in
stitutiOn doing much good for the
youth of this State. But above and be-
yond all of them is the Retormatoly at
Hutchinson which is doing practical
work but little realized.
The LeavenwOrth military prison is
merely place of confinement, where
prisoners are held in bonds, disciplined
while there, but in no sense prepared
to become citizens when their time has
expired
The Lansing penitentiary is place
of punishment, where men and women
meet just reward for their crimes. where
they associate with those whose lives
are given up to evil, and eventually
when freed, they come out graduates
in a criminal course, their diplomas
stamped on their faces or burned into
their hearts; their hatred of all that is
good being to them virtue. They re-
turn to life among citizens with de-
sire to be revenged upon society, inn
pelleG and influenced by fierce, last
ing desire to make those suffer who
we're instrumental in securing their de-
tentiOn within the four walls. Their
hands against every mans, they i'm
agine every mans hands against them.
The reform school, intended to di-
vert boys from crimes allurements,
where the criminal and incorrigible
youth are herded together, securing a
smattering of common school education
and learning to garden or farm and
that is all. Grown up, they are turned
out to battle, as labOTers, for living.
The Hutchinson Reformatory, pri-
marily intended for the confinement Of
those who have committed their first
crimes, is in fact an educational insti-
tuition, founded on practical lines that
graduate the inmates into a higher life
with lOftier aims, and prepared to make
for themselves an honorable living. In
its inception and earlier days it was in
the hands OF politicians who here found
an asylum at the expense of the State,
receiving their salaries and doing as
little as they could. The men and boys
we're kept in confinement, compulsory
adhesion to the rules required on the
part of the inmates, and that was all.
The men who had manipulated county
conventions were deemed qualified to
so direct this particular class as to make
q good citizen of each of them.
That success did not attend the ef-
forts of these first officials must he laid
to the petty jeslousies so noticeable
among the officers and guards, some
thing that was expected from those
whose only qualifications consisted Of
the political pull they had.
Last May, for the first time in the
history of this institution, two practi-
cal, successful, business men were in
stalled as superintendent and assistant
superintendent, men who possess a pc
culiar adaptability for the work of
managing the Reformatory. When
Samuel W. Case, Of Ottawa, and W.
7. Hopkins, Of Harrington, were Sc
lected for these important positions
there was rare discernment shown in
filling such responsible places.
Superintendent Case, a man whose
preteusiOns are not based on ward poll.
tics, but upon rare knowledge of men,
combines with business qualifications
the rare merit Of being a dlsciplinarian
with humane instincts. He has Sc
! cured the cooperation of every officer
In the institution, all of whom recog-
nize his merit and ability. Having the
confidence Of his subordinates and the
: respect of the inmates he has succeeded
in making this institution the model Of
: its kind in America. Without abatiDg