Sunday Washington globe., 1901-12-29
PART H.
rHIRrY-FlFTH PAPER.

il would be a reflection on my manhood
did I cease for one moment, during my
eight years incarceration, from devising
means and originating plans for my release
from an uniu sentence. Liberty was my
constant thought by day and in my dreams
/ was always free, for strange to state 1
never located persons or places within, but
always without the walls in these dreams.
Thus always longed for night and sleep
that might be free and in the society of
those / loved. In my waking hours
found men inhuman, base and cowardly
and women heartless and disloyal in
dreams these men were brave, honest and
loyal, the women fond and loving. Hence
loved the night and the repose earned by
the sufferings and tOrtures of mind and
body endured during the waking hours
and working hours of the prison. To the
fact that since my earliest youth ! have
been a heavy sleeper is due the preserva-
tiou Of my health and mentality. ] have
never awakened in the night, as long as ]
can remember, and the hour of rising has
always found me refreshed and alert for
the days duties In prison or out Of it I
have never played sluggard or found either
difficulty or hardship in arising at the usual
hour in the morning Thus / was enabled
10 defeat the aim of those who knowing
only my personality in the daily affairs of
life, plumed themselves with the convic-
ton that must either go insane or commit
suicide to escape the iutolerable agony of
spirit and the degrading physical routine of
the life ! was compelled to lead as a
prisoner. / was in the prime of manhood
when entered the penitentiary being in
my forty-fourth year and weighing over
two hundred pounds. did not know the
taste of liquor until all my children had
been born and even then was but a
moderate table dTinkeT, never having drank
a glass of any kind of beverage in a saloon
or at a public bar And while on this sub
iect may as well state that am and shall
remain a total abstainer to the end of my
life.
LIQUOR and LAzINEss are the two most
potent factors in the manufacture Of the
criminal, and money alone saves those who
are both from the penitentiary. All who
love liquor to excess and prefer idleness to
labor, IL without means, invariably land in
the penitentiarY the exceptions who escape
find their way to the insane asylum and the
Door house. The records of the jails and
penitentiaries, not alone of America, but
Europe, will bear out the broad assertion.
II is not the purpose in these papers to lee
ture on the evils Of the drink habit and its
equally demoralizing and degrading fellow
--laziness OF idleness. But I am compelled
10 state ALL of the professional class of
prisoners and ninety per cent of the acci-
dental class can trace to one or both of these
causes their downfall and their imprison-
ment II is true that in my case and in
those Of many others with whom have as
soeiated in .prison, neither liquor nor idle
III Fagv.~ .r Al.
crimes they were expiating, but / again
reiterate we we're the exceptions which
could be counted on the fingers Of the hand
Hence / would earnestly urge upon the
pardoning powers the necessity of making
the release of every convict conditional
on his total abstainment from liquor II is
simply placing premium on the commits
sion of crime to restore to liberty a man ad
dicted to liquor / have never known a
drinking man released from the Ohio pen
itentiary who did not return to that institu-
ton provided he had not left the state and
was incarcerated in some other state prison.
Numbers Of the latter heard from while a
prisoner, and they we're invaribly doing
time" in Joliet, Moundsville, or some sim
liar institution.
Idleness begets all other appetites and
passions. The idle man, rich or poor, but
especially the latter, is the unresisting
slave Of every degrading passion the hu-
man being is subject to or capable Of ac-
curing. Hence to be idle means to the
youth, consciously or unconsciously the
sure road to the acquisition Of the other
vices which will ultimately land him in
prison. I would feel safer for my chill
dren's welfare 70 see them unlettered and
even ignorant with disposition to toll and
industry rather than see them disposed to
idleness aud trifing with the diplomas of
Yale or Harvard in their pockets In the
former category they will become useful
citizens, in the latter they will find their
level either in the penitentiary, the insane
asylum OF the gutter and the poorhouse.
These deductions are arrived at from an
eight years study and heart TO heart talks
with tens of thousands of the inmates of
a penitentiary The millions who drink
and the millions who loaf and who neither
see the inside of prison, an asylum OF a
poor house are the men Of means whose
social ties, duties and environments save
those who drink from becoming drunkards
and those who loaf from becoming tramps,
Let the barriers which protect them be
thrown down however, by either reverse of
fortune or other cause and they, too, nu-
mercally great as they are would crowd
the prisons. asylums and poor houses, as
many examples among them who have,
alas fallen bears witness.
Therefore I, who have neither ak to grind
NOR plate collection to make, would admon-
ish both the guardians Of the criminals and
the criminals themselves, that for the
preservation Of society and the diminunition
Of crime, no drunkard and no shiftless, idle
human being should be given liberty, If
prisoner, and should be restrained, If at
liberty, until the evidences Of reformation
in both the one and the other Of these two
crime breeding vices we're apparent and
assured
All this, Of course, is preliminary to the
chapter I would write on the consumption
Of liquor in prison and the means and the
methods Of its procurement For liquor Is
procured in prison despite Of any and all