The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1909-03-27

lHcle Hdo UeeL tucked up III the Mas
sachusetts state prison in Charles
town life prisoner whose name is
familiar to all New England, perhaps
to large portion of the reading pub
lie. Since he has been there the
United States has added 100000 in
habitants to it's population.
He is the only prisoner in Masssa-
chusetts undergoing continuous soil
tary confinement.
The warm and cheering sun never
shines upon him. For thirty-three-year
his face has never been seen to bright
en- with smile.
Regarding this extraordinary char
acter New England knows more false
stories than on almost any other sub
ject. Persistent publicity regarding
him has contained fewer actual facts
than ever before kept life in so pro-
longed discussion. Against no pris-
oner-at least in MISUNDERSTANDING
public indignation been so continuous
ly bitter.
Here will be presented for the first
time many facts hitherto unpublished
regarding Jesse Pomeroy.
1t is against fiendish newsboy and
his crimes that the public memory
still nurtures intense Indignation. But
in Pomeroy's cell it is neither boy nor
fiend. Behind his grated door sits
reading hour after hour today man
arrived at his maturity, penitent, So
bered and tempered with the passing
of fifty long years of an unusual life.
Surrounding him, almost within a
hundred yards of his cell, is the tur-
MOL of city's busiest industries
factories, warehouses, railroads, ship
ping Of all kinds-that he has not
seen for thirty-three years. All about
him are wonders of electrical inyen-
tion-elevated railroads, telephones,
arc lights-but he knows of them only
through pictures and hearsay, as does
remote barbarian. With the very
essence of the twentieth century all
about him, this man lives in the soil
tude of medieval monk. He is no
part of the age in which he lives.
Right in the town of his birth he is
>exiled by society. He has no future
to anticipate, and so, with his face
turned toward the past, he duplicates
the life of an anchorite of the dark
ages. with the three vows enforced
upon him by the commonwealth Of
Massachusetts.
Strange youth that he was, and pe-
culiar man that the unusual circum-
stances of his life have developed
Pomeroy is a rarity for psychological
study. Not alone to psychologists,
however, but to penologists and to
lawyers interested in the evolution of
legal interpretations his case will
stand out in histories like a signboard
on devious road. Valuable subject
that he is of many fields of intel
lectual endeavor however, accurate
data regarding him are meager and
difficult to obtain.
Much Untruth Told.
Were this a paternal government
where strict censorship could be
placed upon publicity or where the
topic could be absolutely placed I'M
der the ban it is probable that Jesse
Pomeray's name would long ago have
been eliminated from type All Off
cialdom would rejoice if the public
could forget his name. Curiosity re-
garding him, nevertheless, continues
year after year, and the public hun
grily swallows the scanty news of him
that is made known in spite of official
,,rnh1Iifinpc h., 4
about him since his Imprisonment has
been one part fact and nine parts i'm
.agination. The accumulation in the
public mind has created popular
conception of the prisoner which would
be difficult to correct If it Is at all
possible to get an outraged public
consider dispassionately the subject of
its prejudice, however, it would not be
difficult to explain to this public that
Pomeroy has received much injustice.
His crimes were bad enough, but the
subject of the causes of his crime has
always been limited at publicly as unfit
for public discussion. So it has hap
pened that the whole subject has been
unknown to the condemning public
and Pomeroy has received the full
force OF complete opprobriun, where
as he has been in part deserving of
sympathy. 1t may be centuries before
some historian of American prisons
will dare to present fully view that
the society which heaped such ex-
IRENE punishment upon an individual
was itself responsible for allowing an
irresponsible defective his liberty, and
then, terrified at what came to pass
because of such neglect, not only lock-
ing the barn after the horse was
stolen, but avenging itself upon the
luckless individual.
In years to come Massachusetts will
be no more proud Of the way the state
handled the case of this dangerous de-
fective than Massachusetts is now
proud that it once burned witches in
Salem
The case will some day-after the
story of the crimes Is forgotten-serve
to illustrate the relations between Wig
orous public opinion and the execution
of justice. Thinking so strongly of
Pomeroy's crimes, the public little
cared that he was a mere boy, four
teen years old, and was satisfied when
a jury brought upon him the verdict
to be hanged by the neck until dead.
But this public did not know the whole
story. With the pictures Of reeking
outrages in their eyes, the individuals
xr,ho made I'm that nuhlic oorod nj e.,