Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-16

How easily those who are perfectly
innocent may find their way into these
camps may be illustrated by the FOL
lowing affidaVit, made by Deputy Siler-
iff Charles Mennike of Florala, Ala
bama: "The state or county pays me
nothing. I make between $4,000 ana
$1,000 a year. This is in reward for ne
groes who are needed to work. can
take UP anybody on suspicion. But II
is evident that negroes are by no means ans
the only victims, for Barry found SVOo
white men working as poems on rallfoad
construction in North Carolina and
Tennessee, and one New York employ
ment agency that was sending 800 men
month to the turpentine camps OF
Florida. 49,.
Some idea of the profits derived from
this nefarious traffic may be gathered
from the fact that at Jack ssod .ll,
Fla. in 1906, the state leased l2OO con-
victs to the firm of Barnes & Co, Wlllcn
was the sole bidder, at 81 cents Gay
per capita. Barnes & Co. sublet the
contract to S. A. Rawles of Ocala, VINO
in his turn sublet to various operators
and claimed that he made proht OF
100000 on the transaction. The oper-
ators pay on an average from 80 to 20
cents a day and the difference between
these figures and the 81 cents received
by the state is official graft. The
general course is thus described py
one authority: "The operator goes TO
the deputy sheriff, whose close con-
federate is the justice of the peace.
Neither has an income OUTSIDE OF ms
fees. Together they can railroad into
the convict camps almost anyone they
choose"
Among the cuts with which Mr.. Bar
RVS article is illustrated is one OIL
group of guards in a Florida camp. all
of them obviously little more tnan
lads. He himself tells us that these
guards are often boys of 10, who Iog
from mere caprice, wearying or tne
monotony of camp life. He mentions in
particular one camp captain who twice
a day made the tour to ask the IN
dividual guards what men were to Dc
whipped.
In considering the methods Of torture
applied to helpless prisoners we nave
started with a review Of the situation
i'm the south, because, owing to the
very boldness of the operations, 1t has
been far easier to arrive at the facts in
all their brutality. In the retorma-
tories of the east, and still more in the
prisons and reformatories of the north
ern central states-we think at the mo
ment specially Of the state prisons at
Jackson, Mich, and Fort Madison, Ia,
there has been a steady tendency
toward humaner methods, and the per
sonnet of prison officials is believed to
be constantly improving, but there are
MANY others in which the regime is
one of unspeakable cruelty.
Wrapped in Secrecy
This is all the more serious from the
fact that the life of the ordinary prls-
on is wrapped in a veil OF secrecy
that it is most difficult to tear aside.
only occasionally do such works as
'aThe Turn of the Balance" by Brand
WhitIock. mayor of Toledo, or NO.
9O09," by Hopper and Bechdolt, remind
us of the horrors of the water cure, the
straitjacket, the solitary cell ana tne
whipping post; only oceaslonany =, 80 go
a man like Colonel Griffith, who Is SO
situated financially as to be unafrald,
emerge from a San Quentin, and only
occa sionally does an outraged tarP1ly
nersistently pursue such Investigations
as those which recently threw a lurld
light on prison conditions IN Kansas
But, although we may have no access
to the details, we know that our PEN Il,,,
tentiaries are run almost lnVarlaply
on the spy system, and that the IN
mates are absolutely at the mercy OF
their keepers We know further that
the discharged convict dare not talk
lest he be returned to prison anu
visited with dire revenge.
We know, for example tnat nc nc
common form of punishment in san
Ouentin-although its use is SAID TO
have been discontinued of late IN con-
sequence of the revelations made-and
that it has crippled many man lot
life: we know that solitary connneinehl
in the dark cell is also constantly re-
sorted to and that 1t is an almost UNI
endurable mental torture. .'They tell
me I was there for only six hours, but
until the day I die that experience will
remain one of the aching parts of my
memory" says a former librarian OF
what the editor of the Independent
vouches for as conceded to be one or
the model penitentiaries of the United
States" We could quote in marrying
detail and more than duplicate the de-
scription did our limited space per-
NIT.
Flogging, described by great Eng
fish writer as 1.-THE foul indignity offered
to orr common nature, lodged in the
person of him on whom 1t Is inflicted"
is no longer in general official use. Tx
Warden Meserve of Delaware, whose
duty it was for twenty-five years TO
WELD the lash in the Wilmington
prison, has put himself on record by
Saving: 1.-THE whipping post is a fail
ure. It stirs up all the beast instincts
in a. man and makes him doubly dan
gerous to society,"" Yet they have in
troduced the whipping post in New Jer-
sey, and recently there was pitiful ac-
count of the fiogging of a mere lad.
The history of logging is hideous one
(see "Facts About Flogging," by Col
linson), and some of the worst chap
ters could be written from the past rec
ord of San Quentin.
Medieval Torture
In a somewhat modified form the
mediaeval form of torture known and
dreaded as the "strappado," in which
the victims hands were tied behind his
back and he was raised from the
ground by his wrists and suddenly al
lowed to fall with jerk that dislocated
and broke the bones, is that to which
Folsom resorts, preferring 1t to the
straitjacket Former inmates speak OF
it with horror
The chain gang, among the common
est sights in our modern cities, with its
members in shackles and wearing the
Oregon boot is itself but milder form
81 physical torture, and represents,
with the publicity that accompanies it,
a mental anguish that is most degrad-
ing. In our northern and western, as
in the southern states, those who conf
pose it are often guilty of no other
crime than that of being out of work
In short, given these factors, Q) a
prisoner absolutely helpless; (2) a
guard, brutal, uneducated and ire
sponsible, with no special training for
his position and owing that position
usually to political services of the low
est order, go the prevalent opinion
that prisoner is an outcast, beyond
the pale of human rights-given these
three factors and you have a condition
that makes always and everywhere for
cruelty and that is bound to lead to