Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-05

tensely interested and quite intelligent
1 in its comments.
In "No. 9009" Messrs. Bechtold and
Hopper have given the world what Is
probably the most realistic picture yet
/ published of life in a penitentiary. The
/ development of John Collins charac-
ter turns almost entirely on his des'
perate efforts to follow the sheriff 5
! advice-"Keep to yourself and hang or
to your good-time; hang on to you
! copper" This is the description of his
first night - the cell:
To Save His Copper
s.He remained silent. bent over, think
ing. a long time. And then, solemnly
almost with affection, My "copper" he
said softly. He would work for it, he
Would treasure It. his good time. his
conner. There were rules in this place;
he would keep them. There was work;
he would work He remembered the
words of the garotter and of the sher-
iff. he would keep to himself, he would
obey. he would do anything they told
him." oh. I'll be good he said aloud,
whimsically; TN be good, all right.
And a you follow the unfolding of the
plot you see how a single guard was
able To make that uN6u ItSOlutlOH iii
possible of fulfilment.
You may sa" this is fiction, but real
istic fiction, written by men of talent
who have made a special study of their
subject, often gives the most accurate
of pictures. And in the absence of
direct evidence to the contrary all COM
mon sense will teach us that the ut
terly helpless convict is not likely to
rebel but is most likely to use every
effort to obtain the good marks that
will shorten materially the term of his
Imprisonment.
1t is the tendency of all power to
encroach on the rights of the individ-
ual and, by multiplication of rules,
magnify its office. The more helpless
the individual and the more ignorant
the mistrained official the more pro-
nounced will be this tendency. OF this
prison life affords the most glaring
Illustration, for time hangs heavy and
the devising of new regulations gives
an outlet for pent-up energies. Barry,
who was sent by the Cosmopolitan
TO investigate the southern convict
camps, found guards who flogged as
relief to the monotony of their unevent
full life. Had he investigated certain
of our penitentiaries he might have
made similar comment.
Regulations Without End
In the last letter issued by the Prison
Reform league Charles Edward Rus
sell was cited as having reproduced
the affidavit of prisoner in the peni-
tentiary at Columbus, Ohio, who was
hogged until his shoes were full of
blood. What was this mans crlne?
He had passed a fellow convict a piece
of bread which was against the rules.
Col. Griffith will tell you that his first
summons before the Warden's court
was on the serious charge of having
traded tobacco, which he did not use,
for a chair, of which he stood in need.
And so one could go through the his
tory of prison after prison, finding
la abyrinths of petty regulations invent
ed to give excuse for punishment, de-
prive the men of the good time to
which they are entitled, and prolong
the term during which they must be
out of the pockets of the
public.
But there is another and most suffi-
cient reason for this multiplication of
so childishly ridiculous
that they should be whirled out of
court with a Gargantuan peal of laugh
ter. This reason is expressed in rough
but straight language by the author of
Thirteen Years in the oregon Peni-
tentiary" as follows: ''Now l will
give little sidelight on the prison
politician and prison politics. The pris-
on politicians are the guards, and they
are all the time scheming and plotting
and planning how they can hold their
jobs. The first thing they will tell a
visitor is what a hard lot of men they
have to deal with. They will tell visi
tors that the life of a guard is con-
stantly in danger. and that they prac
tically carry their life in their hands
Did the visitor ever stop and take
time to think that if he himself was
a convict the prison politicians would
be telling some other visitor the same
thing about him ?-The prison politi-
clans want the governor and superin-
tendent to believe that the convicts are
a bad lot, so the guards will have the
run of the penitentiary to suit them
selves, and so the governor will take
no notice of what a convict says when
he makes his complaint" We submit
the passage as it stands to the common
sense of our readers.
Put in a Nutshell
Meanwhile the position that the pub
lie is called on tv face is simplicity
itself. The convict is as helpless az d
Gagged animal and is at the mercy of
his keepers. These keepers are men
who owe their positions to political