Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1909-04-28
PENS A POEM
AND WINS FREEDOM
A KANSAS coNVIcT's EFFORT
OPENS The GATE OF HIS
PRISON.
AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS SERVICE
PRISONER SECURES COVER
NoR's SYMPATHY.

-Four hundred years ago Francois
Villon, poet and vagabond. lay in a
cell in France, sentenced to torture
and death. 4 week-perhaps day
and dawn might bring the guard and
the gibbet. To the poet, whose Bo-
hemian life, not untouched of shame
and crime, had not quenched the fire
OF literary genius, the weary sameness
of immurement and the terror of death
suggested a plea for liberty in verse.
Poetry, often not badly styled the
froth of a soul has many times been
produced under stress. The vision of
the hungry bard writing his master
piece with death gnawing at his
weakened frame is one of the re-
spectacle fancies. But it is true, new
ertheless, that many masterpieces
have grown from conditions of mental
or physical depression or pain Bun
yam in prison, Milton in the darkness
of his unwaking night. Byron outcast
repute, Schiller when love and fortune
alike were awry-sang songs which
hold an irremovable place in classic
literature.
But Villon, of all who have written
in prison-poor scapegoat ViIlon--
was the only one whose pen wrote
away the prison bars and brought the
liberty of which he dreamed, says the
New Orleans Picayune.
In cell in the Kansas state peni-
Tertiary at Lansing there is a twenti-
eth-century Vi1lon. Over him, too. the
sentence to die was hung. and when
through the interference of executive
clemency he escaped the gallows. the
courts punishment resolved itself in
to that living death-immureme for
life Like Villon, 400 years ago. Carl
ArEold-that is the Kansas prisoners
name-has written his way to liberty.
Arnold and another, when mere
youths. went tramping and tried to
hold up" the mayor Of a Kansas viii
lage. One of them shot him They
narrowly escaped lynching but man.
damus proceedings to compel the gov
ernor of the state to sign a death
warrant failed.
After fifteen years toiling over the
looms in the prison Irvine plant-
dreaming of the world outside he had
not seen since boyhood. Carl Arnold,
murderer. Young tough end advcntur-
er. wrote eight stanhas of sctse 10
Governor Hoch, They formed a plea
for reinstatement in the society to
which Arnold was making requital.
The verses constituted a supplication
for a chance to supplement his prison
term by giving the world a practical
restitution in the efforts of the rest OF
his life.
Governor Hoch, himself man W.T.
some literary accomplishments, read
the stanzss and said the man who had
written tG@m was a genius He made
a special trip to the prison, talked to
Arnold hours at time, read the bet.
ter nature of the prisoner in the
depths of his devotion to a higher
thing, and decided that he should be
/ free. That is how and why, when
the prison doors grind open early in
May. Carl Arnold will walk down the
long walk past the playing marble
fountain and the 1ower beds fresh in
their new verdure into the open and
into the sunlight Of liberty that hasn't
shone for him Cor fifteen years.
l cannot fawningly implore,
! As feeble, false hearts can.
But. in humility before
The power that bars my prison door,
| | plead as man to man.
/ That is the way the verses which
made a murde-e free begin. Man to
Man is the ti.Ic.
The verse won Arnold his liberty,
but a book, 'rhe Kansas Inferno,
which Arnold Struggled out of prison
and had published, paved the way.
The prison authorities stormed about
/ it, for it was a wonderfully graphic
recital of life in prison, penitentiary
punishment that smacked of the in
QUESTION. philosophy from behind
bars, epigram and disceruible literary
merit
/ Once week, when tie prisoners
are given the privilege to write let.
ters 10 their friends on the outside.
Arnold filched some Of the time TO
compose a few sen ences or para
graphs of his book. At long inter
walls, having hidden his written pages
about his cell or yard. he smuggled it
out through the aid of a friendly
guard a chapter at time. In the
same secret way he carried on all the
correspondence with his publishers, a
Wichita (Kasl firm. who knew how
10 al .ress the prisoner so that his
letters would be smnggled in TO him.
Finally the book was published. he
gave il the name. The Kansas Inferno.
4 volume reached Governor Hoch
He read il with consuming interest
and saved Arnold from any of the
punishment that otherwise would have
resulted from his bitter attack on
prison methods The book contained