The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1911-03-17

ished fame is left he is there TO
fan it and to feed it and WOO il
back into a fame.
"And this afternoon | pray the
prayer of the Apostle Paul, Let this
mind be in you which was also in
Christ Jesus. AS | speak in behalf
Of the one hundred thousand men
and women locked up in our iails
and penitentiaries. and OF the mil
lions more who have been and who
will be made to suffer through the
awfully destructive process of our
criminal laws-the great army of
bruised reeds and smoking fax which
we have thrown away and trampled
under foot but which TO Him are of
priceless value.
"The world and even the church
has been slow to adopt the justice
of Jesus i'm dealing with the unfortu-
nate. Neither by precept nor by
example did he ever advocate send
ing man to Jail. He had a thief
among his disciples, whom he could
easily have delivered over to the
civil authorities, and when they
brought TO him a woman taken in
crime he put her on probation and
said Neither do | condemn thee,
go and sin no more
mo doubt there were plenty of
lawyers and others standing by who
insisted that this was unconstitu-
tional just as they did when Abra-
ham Lincoln issued the emancipation
proclamation, but the great physician
knew how TO heal.
Down in the human heart crushed
by the temple
Feelings lie buried which grace can
restore
Touched by a loving hand. Weakened
by kindness
Chords that were broken will vibrate
once more
"And although Jesus pointed OUT
the only true method of reforming
men, governments have expended
fabulous sums in lives and treasure.
in unsuccessful attempts 10 prove
that he was wrong
human race has been in its treat
ment of crime For thousands Of
years society has been beating men
to make them good, and has only
made them worse, and the alarming
increase Of crime and its enormous
cost and ruin is at last shocking us
into n realization that the barbarians
of Europe and Asia who invented
the system which we still employ
were az far wrong in that rs in
other things. We can no more make
men better by law, than we can get
strawberries off hickory trees by
writ OF habeaS corpus.
when we can grow roses i'll Il
cellar we can grow character in a
cell. 1t is just as logical to send
man TO Jail to make him bet
ter man as it would be to shut him
in a garbage can to improve his ap-
petite or stimulate his digestion.
You might as well try TO brighten
a flower into turning its face to the
sun as TO force a man to turn his
heart towards the right
Reformation is an act of the
heart and you cannot stimulate a
mans heart by putting cracked ice
on his head. Arresting people has
become a fad with us, and every
year we are .subjecting more than
half million Of our fellow citizens
to this destructive process. 1t seems
probable that soon every well regu-
lated apartment house will have it's
Jail attachment and unless this ar
resting craze is itself arrested our
morning salutation TO our friends
will be Have you been arrested TO-
day?
Herein is a strange paradox. The
most valuable thing today is repu-
tation and the cheapest thing is
warrant TO destroy it. There never
was time when reputation had as
high a market value and there never
was time when criminal process
for its destruction was as easily OBJ
tanned
mo one has ever yet lived who
was wise enough to point out how