Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-21

supper. It was good farm meal and
everyone ate ravenously. After that
some of the men played catch in the
yard and some of them smoked or
read books in the front room where
the new prisoner saw the two children
nlaving. Then everyone went to bed
early in the upper room of the farm
house. Every man had cot Of his
own, and there was plenty of fresh air.
In the. morning the prisoner awoke
to. see green leaves and branches WaV-
ing beside his window. He spent an
other day working in the open air. with
a growing appetite both for food and
for asking questions.
The end Of the week found him with
changed viewpoint. On Saturday aft
ernoon the superintendent called him
and told the Discouraged Man that ne
was about to ask a favor OF him.
Would the prisoner go on an errand to
Leeds? Hitch up the single wagon.
And here was $40.
The man looked at the superintendent
half stunned Then he reached out his
arm and silently shook hands.
He hitched the horse and drove down
a rocky hill slope. At the foot of this
he forded a little creek, halting to
listen to the gurgle of the water around
the stepping stones. The stones made
him think of the days when he was a
uncle's farm.
That ride to Leeds was an epoch in
the Discouraged Mans life. He came
back from it with straighter shoulders
and a new fire in his eyes. Men still
trusted him. Life was worth while
after all!
When he had served out his sentence
on the farm he felt half homesick ana
choked a little when he gave the su-
perintendent good by. The day after
his discharge he found work in the city
at good wages as a teamster. He had
taken hold on life again with new de-
terninp ton.
This is a typical case that shows the
sort of crop that is being cultivated on
the workhouse experimental farm. 1t
is not a place of punishment, but or
cure. Brand Whitlock, mayor of To-
ledo, has pointed out that none but the
poor are ever confined in city work.
house. The rich can escape by paying
their fines or by bribing their guards
to look at the skies few minutes. The
poverty stricken and discouraged are
punished not only with Imprisonment
but also with humiliation, leg irons
and enforced idleness They leave jail
in a worse temper with the world than
when they were first arrested. But the
municipal farm encourages its men to
work at useful trades and reaches the
manhood in them. AS a money maker
the farm may fall short Of success, for
its superintendent would rather culti-
vate men than raise a bumper crop or
parsley. The indications at this writ
ing are that the farm will hardly meet
expenses, but will furnish large sup
ply of vegetables for the use of the gen
eral hospital and the city Workhouse
and feed it's own force. When the addl-
ton to the farmhouse is completed this
force will be about fifty men.
The visitor to the farm connot help
but be impressed, MIST of all, with the
dramatic way in which useless, dis
heartened men are transformed here TO
useful, happy laborers. The superin-
tendent's own versatility, which in
cludes everything from shoeing morse
to drawing specifications and making
blue prints is shared by the men whom
he calls 'his help" His bungalow fur
nishes a good example of what the men
can do. Carpenters worked a few
weeks to erect the building. Plasterers
and paperhangers finished the interior
The bungalow is now ready for the
painters. Every piece Of the work was
done by prisoners.
The expense of opening and main
tanning the farm for three months is
estimated as about $4,000. That much
money can be-and has been-collected
in one morning by the judge OF the
municipal court from gamblers, law
violating saloon keepers and bootleg
ging druggists who can we'll afford to
contribute such a compulsory charity
to the men they have helped to ruin.
The experimental farm is ceasing to be
considered experimental" The board
of pardons and paroles is losing some
of it's conservatism and is relating
stories of Discouraged Men who have
found heart there or who, by hard work
in the open air, have cured themselves
there of drink and drug habits. And
one member of the board, who used ID
be a farmer boy (and says he is going
to become a farmer AGAIN., sees a
deeper significance in the experimental
farm as part of the great movement
landward from the cities, which has for
its slogan: "Back to the soil!"