Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1912-06-18
WAS WEST RESPONSIBLE?

|
of his prison policy reached the limit
last week when the recent serious
outbreak in the California state peni-
tertiary at San Quentin was laid at
his door Warden Hoyle in his at
tempt at explanation, declared that
the prisoners had become dissatisfied
with life in the penitentiary after
hearing so much about the manner
in which the penal institution at Sa-
lem was conducted, and, therefore,
they organized a revolt.
The unsoundness of this position,
however is shown when it is recalled
that the warden of the Oregon peni-
tertiary has had no trouble of this
nature. There must have been some
reason for the uprising of the San
Quentin prisoners. And the reason
is found in the declaration by Chap
lain Bauer, of the Oregon peniten-
tiary who has visited the California
prison, of the wretched conditions
which prevail in that institution. He
says that the prison is positively
filthy and unsanitary to degree.
The food, he declares, is unfit to feed
dog, oftentimes. In the light of
these disclosures it appears that the
California institution could stand a
whole lot of the same medicine that
is used at Salem.
Outbreaks at San Quentin are by
no means infrequent. On the con-
trary, there have been many within
the past few years. There must be
something radically wrong with an
institution of this kind that can pro-
duce revolt among it's inmates fire.
quently. To claim that Governor
West is responsible for the outbreaks
is the heights of foolishness. What
appears to be needed in the CalifOr-
MIA prison is reform. Reform in the
conditions that prevail, and in the
victs are human beings, and are en-
titled to some consideration so long
as the state permits them to live,
even if their lives are spent behind
stone walls and iron bars.
There are many penal institutions
in the country where such outbreaks
are never heard of. But it is certain
that their management is conducted
along radically different lines from
those which prevail at San Quentin.
the question and argue that Governor
West is responsible for that? Those
whose business it is to control the
criminals of the penal institutions of
the country, men who have studied
the question from all standpoints, do
not take the position that their pred
ecessors once held. They know that
much better results can be accom-
plished when men are treated as hu-
man beings rather than subjected to
often. they have been unfortunate
enough to commit an error and find
themselves. for the first time, behind
the walls of cold and forbidding
prison. Many men have been sent
to prison who were not criminals at
heart. and whose one false step was
the result of an ungovernable temper
or the rash impulse of a moment.
But treatment during their time
serving has been such that il has
made criminals of them. Rather
! than teaching them to respect the
law. inhumanity and brutality has
! taught them TO hate IT, They have
been punished by every known de-
vice devised by the mind of brutal
guards and wardens, until their
minds have been warped and an all
consuming passion against the Law
and its officers is uppermost in their
| thoughts. They are thrust forth up
on the world when their terms have
expired. hardened criminals. and they
naturally drift TO the only class
which will receive them-those OF
their kind.
Modern thought. however. has
sought 20 overcome the evils Of pris-
on life. and IL has been shown that
penal institutions should be 50 man
aged that. II man be right at heart
his STAY. instead OF overshadowing
his good impulses. viii show him the
error OF his ways. and he will come
forth into the free world, endowed
with better manhood and citizenship
You cannot beat goodness into a man
Harsh treatment but serves either to
arouse an the bitterness in the human
heart. or 20 XII the prisoners spirit
the first result is a dangerous IN
dividual whose career Of crime Is
bound % be long unless his life shall
be spent IN prison. and the latter Is
a wreck drifting helpiessly upon lies
turbulent sea
As The Observer has often remark