The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1909-01-24

Doors Of Hope Hall.
As already announced Mrs. Maut
Ballington Booth will deliver a lecture
III the auditorium OF the City Hall mex
Wednesday. January p, on Prison Re-
ment is outlined the great work she l1a:
undertaken
In the January Circle Magazine there
is published an interesting as well as al
instructive article by Anne Forsyth
from which is clipped the following.
Before you, III hollow by the river
IS gray stone building OF the medieva
type 1t has hattlemented walls. ant
watch towers at four corners, and ever
as you look you hear the tramp of mer
behind the wall You can almost see the
arclers stationed at the tiny Sits which
mark the wall at regular intervals you
strain your eyes for the CLINT of arnlor
and the standards OF fighting men. 1t is
SO easy to fashion tales of proves, tc
dream Of brave deeds and brave men
But even i'll your dream you realize thai
there is no armOr nowadays and nc
bowmen to make decorative scenes
The picture of twelve hundred men il
dil1gy worsted, with life-scarred faces
and close-cropped heads, is not a pretty
thing to see. They are not the heroes OF
the nation, those twelve hundred 1nel
being the walls; they are the offscour-
ing, the scum Of it. And yet they are
making a great fight. with feats OF
proves worth recountine and big bat
ties won.
Even as you watch and wait you see
lady drive away from the gray gates
And lhen suddenly you hear a shout be-
hind the wall, such roar as though the
wall itself had voice ard was cheering
her. She comes into the picture like d
Joan of Arc, SO slender and gentle be-
fore the giant that is screaming its graf
itude to her. Surely any woman must
be another Joan Of Arc who can make
wall cry out with voice of such Joy
it has the sound of sorrow. Any woman
who can make victory out of defeat
saving the nations honor and making
heroes of its men. has place among
the wonder tales: her story will be told
nv hot
tell the brave deeds Of the people who
are dead.
This Joan of Arc brings no war honor
to the nation-she is teaching it new
honor; she is saving it, not from al
enemy, but from its own moral death
It is she who is bearing that great re-
sponsibility of the State toward its inn
pSisoned men. She is making a fight tc
save the men in the penitentiaries, saw
ing them from the present penal system
saving them from their brother men and
above all saving them from themselves
Let no one think that Mrs. Maut
Ballington Booth is preaching merely
emotional religion: let no one think she
is making an easy way to heaven or All
easy way out of Jail. She has fought
twelve years for the convict in order
that he may be strong enough to fight
for himself Above all. she has no fur
1ished a cradle for the weak and brutal
to lie down in and rest.
There are a great many many mis-
taken ideas about the Volunteers OF
America and the Prison League. In the
first place, the two have little i'll COM
mon, except that Mrs Booth belongs tc
both. The League is branch of the
Volunteer service, but Mrs. Booth is its
body polite, giving her entire time tc
its establishment and giving the hnan-
cial support of herself and her friends
to its. remarkable work. She lectures tc
men and women all over America tC
raise money-she lectures to men anc
women in the peritentiaries of almost
all the States to raise determinations
and she spends the money. she ha:
raised to give them fair field in which
to fight their convict selves. That las
means so much. that the fight is for the
first time made possible a man
even though he is gray-headed, is no
too old to put down the burden Of hi:
record and pick up his manhood for ;
second chance at life.
It sounds easy to talk about manhood
but there is nothing easy in the work O
prison reform, but Mrs Maud Balm :
ton Booths Hope Hall are opened t.
him. 1t is there that he gets his SECOND
chance for life, he is protected from thu
world there, from the curiosity of thu
lille and the attack of the vindictive
The halls-there are three Of them
are big farm houses, one near Chicago
one near New York, and one near Col
ulnbus, Ohio. They are home to tn
men, to many Of them the first hom'
they ever had. Isn't it pitiful? Mrs