Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1904-08-30


criminals, and with these he communi-
Gates secretly. He is made to feel that
society hates him and does not mean
to give him a chance. 1t is not diff
cult for the most vicious criminals in
the prison with him TO make him be-
lieve that his only hope lies in becom-
ing an ADLER. criminal. a more thor
oughgoing villain.
II you walk through one of the big
prisons you will see hundreds of faces,
many of them very young, anu you
know that with kindness, and especial
ly with education-even little kind
ness and educat;on-the prisoners
could be saved. q
Bat they are dressed in the clothes
of shame. they sit sulIen-faced, with
eyes cast down as stranger-who
should not be allowed TO witness their
marches past them. Every
day the stamp of the criminal is burn
ed deeper and deeper into their char
acters. How horrible it is that those
men most in need of gentle treatment,
those men who above all others should
be made to understand that law is
justice, that kindness rules. are made
hopelessly bad by persistent brutality.
We are inclined to advise eloquent
preachers to go once Il week, at least,
to the great moral hospitals, the pris-
ons where we lock up the souls that
are desperately in deed of relief and
Of comfort. To go there and preach
friendship, not dogmas
In time the ablest men in the world
will take pride in working in the pris-
ons, the hospitals for the morally sick
In time the criminal will be cured be-
cause it will have been made clear to
him that kindness and honesty bring
happiness, because, no matter how
low he may have sunk an opportunity
rto live honestly will be given to him,
because that very society against
which he has sinned will treat him
with such kindness as to make shame
and repentance enter into even the
most darkened soul. Today our pris-
Ons are institutions of punishment, of
profit. and for the perfection of Grim
mails in their criminal art.
The average burglar is the man who
went to prison for some petty offense
and there had burglary taught to him
and had nothing else taught to him.
The average murderer is the GRIM
inal who has been in prison. who
while committing burglary or fleeing
from the police, commits a murder be-
cause of his horror Of return to pris-
on life, and it's brutality is so great
that he prefers the risk of capital pun
ishment to a certainty of another pris-
on year.
Some talk about the hideous old law
of IAN eye for an eye and a tooth
for tooth" That law works very
well, perhaps. where savage men strug
gle savagely for their very lives. But
it does not apply where a great and
powerful civilization holds the Grim
inal at it's mercy-where it might just
/, as well educate. soften and reform
him as to harden him and make him
worse.
The EYE for an eye and tooth for a
tooth doctrine is not a part of relig-
ion now, and it has not been, FORUM
ately. for nearly 10 centuries. Christs
Teaching of forgiveness, and his last
supreme lesson as He turned toward
the criminal at His side on the cross
put an end to that.
Too bad that we cannot remember
that last lesson and apply it in our
management of prisons. Too bad that
we cannot treat criminal maladies as
scientifically, patiently and dispassion-
ately as we treat diseases of the body
in our hospitals, and mental derange-
ments in our insane asylums