The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-04-24
WHAT Mr.. TRAVIS
REALLY DID SAY
In a Report to the MOntclair
Civic Club on Conditions at
Caldwell Penitentiary.

A criticism Of the Caldwell Peniten-
tiary attributed to the Rev. Thomas
Travis, of Montclair. in a report of the
humane committee of the Montclair
Civic Association, at the annual meeting
of that body last Friday night, was
much distorted in print. Mr.. Travis
did not make statements that are care
lessly attributed to him in a press re-
port of the meeting. He was repre-
scented to say among other things in
reporting of visits to Caldwell Peniten-
tlary that: 1--WE found the inmates of
the prison suffering from smallpox,
tuberculosis, scarlet fever. insanity,
mumps and broken limbs" and that he
was prepared to prove all l am say
ing"
What the Rev. Mr.. Travis did say
was this:
"In the brief time allowed me to make
this report it is impossible to go into
dtIdlls OldlCliiClttO Jaw "AAAAta BARPN
will have to be taken as true. But If
there is any question, I can make the
proof. In a word, the conditions at
Caldwell are, so bad that they require
immediate and strenuous attention.
Mrs. Ryan and myself have made
many visits and done much careful
study IL his institution, and we find
things most deplorable. Do not mis-
understand. The prisoners are not ill
fed or ill-used. The officials are not
cruel. They are obeying the law as
you have made it. But here is the
trouble. What would you say If l
should tell you that our physicians
were sending patients suffering with
smallpox, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, in
sanity, humps and broken limbs to our
hospital. and that these were all mixed
together and at the expiration of their
term they were all sent out again re-
gardless of whether they were cured or
not?
well. In the truest of senses his is
really what you are doing at Caldwell.
You have there drunks, professional
criminals. instructive criminals, crim7
mails by uncontrolled passion, neurotic
criminals. mad criminals and criminals
by contracted habits. You have har-
lots and others who nave come
through the very sewers of life. These
are all sent to the same institution,
whereby as the warden maybe
cannot keep the influence of the worst
from poisoning the least affected. No
man was ever saved by prison. If ne
was saved it was in spite of it and not
hnaanca Of r. ThnGn mon 90 in there
in MANY cases comparatively little af-
fected by criminality; they come out
degraded and deepened in their crime.
I am not speaking rhetorical words, but
mean what l say soberly, n am pre-
pared to prove my words when l say
you put prisoners there to rot.
what other results can you expect
II you take the offscourings of q city
mix with them some less degraded, loci
them in a steel cell and put a mar
with a gun to watch them? The very
thing that sent them there vas lacl
of good home influence, lack of steady
and upbui1ding work, ignorance. Yet
you put them there. with practically
little exception, and give them un
~speakably disgusting infuences-the
concentration of all the bad of the slusn
III 6iNO ltI dbGOidICi1 HOl a OlliSHt
educative study or influence. You put
them there to rot, and they do rot. ]
am using crude words. but that is be-
cause you have not given me time to
do otherwise. The conditions call for
immediate attention. To run things as
we do is an insult to human intelli-
gence."
In closing his report Mr.. Travis made
his recommendation:
THE thing to do is this: There
should be at Caldwell penitentiary a
system of upbuilding work at which
every convict not disabled should be
compelled to labor hard; there should
be a system of study so that, instead
of the prisoner reading merely interest
ing matter as he happens to get 1t or
as he cares TO read, he should be COM
PEELED to study hard; and, instead of an
isolated religious service, good as it
may be in itself. there should be siren
uous ethical teaching and religious
teaching by a man who cannot be de-
ceived by any insincere professions of
piety."
The statements attributed to Mr..
Travis were so extraordinary that mem
bers of the Board of Freeholders and
penitentiary officials We're indignant,
and THE STAR editorially suggested a
retraction. Mr.. Travis has furnished a
true transcript of mis- remarks. which
are as given in the foregoing. He pays
a tribute to Warden Dechs, of the pen
Tertiary, who, he says. has always been
faithful, has been courteous to the hui
name committee and done all he could
to further the committees investiga-
ton in the prison to better the moral
and spiritual conditions.