The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1912-12-01
South Bend. Ind. U. s. A.

have cost 81. In other words, the
money which ordinarily would have
built one mile, has, under the Colo
RADIO system, built seven miles.
1t was my privilege last month
to listen to Thomas B. lyman, war
den of the Coloyado penitentiary,
who occasionally finds time 10 leave
home and tell the intensely interest
ing story of how he has solved the
question, not only of what to do
with cnovicts but how to reform them
at the same time. He tells part
of the story in moving pictures,
showing his men in citizens clothes
busily at work drilling, blasting,
plowing, hauling and su1'facing; in
many cases, out in the mountains.
in sparsely settled districts, with
every facility imaginable for es-
cape. But one looks in vain for
the customary guards with long
range rifle at command. No guards,
no shackles, no distinctive garb, abb
solutely nothing to distinguish the
convicts from their foreman, except
that the foreman rides a horse.
These men work in large bodies,
often several hundred; only one bar
rier stands between them and es
cape; and it is impossible for the
moving picture to show that barrier,
for it is Mans Honor. In fact
the honor system was partly a result
of the discovery that, to efficiently
guard the prisoners, the expense was
equal to the saving effected by their
work, and hence of no financial ad-
vantage. And so the honor system
was proposed amid plenty of predic-
tions of failure and very few of sue
cess.
Now, as Warden lyman remarks,
the Colorado convict is no saint, and
about 25 per cent Of them are dan
gerous and should be confined. or
the rs per cent some really should
not be where they are, and all can
be trained to better citizenship for
return to freedom, by treating them
as men. In accordance with this
theory, which has been confirmed
in practice, the men who are allowed
to go out on the work are treated,
housed and directed in their work
like any well-arranged railroad camp
outfit. They construct their own
temporary living quarters. but there
are no bolts On the doors nor bars
on the windows. True, they all
retire to bed and arise at one time,
but so do soldiers. The men are
worked in rural districts; they do
not go to town, and unless a man
breaks q rule, he need never return
to the prison. He can serve his
full term in the open air, and when
his time expires he has become pro
ficient in somethirg-surveying,
blacksmithing, farming or other oc-
cupations for which there is de-
mand. Not only that. but by earnest
faithful work of eight hours daily
and observance of the rules he can
reduce a five-year tearm one-half.
During the past two years only the
man in 200 has run away; he is in
variably recaptured and must then
serve 10 years within the prison
walls. Colorado is about to put all
its county jails under the peniten-
tiary board, when the jail prisoners
will be worked in the same way. The
spirit of the Colorado eystem is "un-
conscious reform growing out of the
feeling that some ore has conf
dence in him. The good roads they
ouild and the Farms they wo"S for
their cwn support are a part of tn,
means to the greater object.
Every year, in the United States,
10000 men are added to the prison
roll. OF these about 112,500 are ca
pable of reform under the Colorado
plan. But from the mere standpoint
Of wasted production this vast army
should be employed.
The results are tremendous for
100000 men represent 3O,OOO,OOO
days work year. If Warden Ty-
nan could only tell his simple story
and show his pictures in every city
and town in the land, in 100 years
we should have 100000 miles OF
good roads-H. H. Windsor. in the
December PoDular Mechanics Maga-