The San Francisco call., 1909-02-14

M conviets at San Quentin strain
w at the stubborn rock. digging
bit by bit the trenches for the
foundations of new cell building to
contain 500 additional cells. The struc-
ture will be 500 feet long and concrete
/ and iron are the only materials to be
: used in building it. AS the walls
mount higher and grow solid under the
; hands of this striped garbed army of
men a structure to stand for genera
tions will evolve.
But even then the builders build
better than they know: for. with the
completion of that mass of masonry
there will be inaugu-ated at San Quen-
tin one of the moss sweeping prison
] reforms that has been attempted in
the United States. The aim is to make
the prison the most advanced reforma-
/ tory to be found from the Pacific to
I the Atlantic.
| At best penitentiary is poor place
] to put a man on the right track. The
; ideal reformatory would be no prison
at all. That will come with the mill
7 lennium. But until humankind has
/ reached such a stage of beatitude We
will have to struggle on with places
where those cursed with peculiarly
iangled minds which make them Grim
: inals can be confined and rendered
/; harmless.
/; Our prison population is divided
: roughly into two classes: the criminal
/; and the law breaker. There is a dis
{ tinction between th- two. They are
! widely different. The criminal is in
nately vicious; a degenerate. The law
: breaker is of normal mind, but one
/: who from seeming necessity or on i'm
z fpulse overstepped the bounds.
I The law is an artificial barrier erected
] by the mass to protect itself from
/: the vicious minority, che criminals. In
+: elastic, it states definitely what is and
I what is not a crime. The law does not
/: take into account circumstances. That
lis left to the judge in giving sentence.
I: A man is either guilty or innocent.
I Because of the very exactness of the
statutes it is safe TO say that few men
I have lived a really <aw abiding life.
Businessmen, lawyers, and other pro-
fessional men have. under the lash of
I; keen competitions broken laws for
/; which they were liable To a term in the
] spenitentiary Yet these men can not
J be called criminals, except under the
laws definition.
! So it is with the majority of our
ffelons. They have committed q breach
iof law OF magnitude sufficient to send
sthem to state prison. That, however,
does not augur that they are criIni-
natS. Jnelr incarceration II euSuditS
ftraceabIe to three causes-evil environ
iment. liquor. or unemployment. Nom
employment and whisky predominant
las the impeiling causes for crime This
:is true particularly Of the first tern
smen. The bounding of the police an6
iconsequent exposure of their records
shas thrown many an .ex-con" from the
sworkers ranks back into the destroy
:ing NAV of our penitentiaries.
? IT is these, the law breakers. that
iCalifornia is going to save. To thai
lend the prison directors and Warder
tJohn Hoyle of San Quentin are formu.
:lating plans for new, far reaching
;scheme This reform in conjunction
with the splendid parole system, which
5saves men every day from returning
to crime. is expected materially to re
!duce the number of felons.
There is nothing sentimental abou
:the movement. The reform is being
INSTITUTED by hard headed businessmen
BIASED on the broad psychology of ever,
?day experiences. the entire scheme vii
;be built on practical lines. Under the