The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-08-06

stituted by Deputy Warden Mackey
| who believes that the half holiday each
| week is well spent in the benefit, physi-
cally, mentally and morally which this
bit of relaxation and friendly competi-
ton will give these men by letting
| them for three hours once in seven days
| forget that they are not as other men,
A regular baseball diamond was
laid out, bleacher, grand stand and
even band stand erected where the
prison band in white uniforms play en-
courag ing and roIlicking music There
are several baseball teams but the
first game which was started by Ma
Jor McClaughry pitching the first ball
men who named themselves the
Brown Sox and a colored team, the
Booker T. Washingtons. No profession
ais ever had such an enthusiastic Or
impartially appreciative audience.
The final score was Is to in favor
o. the white team, and it is claimed
that had the black team won the en-
Joyment would have been Just as keen
and the applause just as uproarious
With the exception of a few men who
mad TO look after the dynamos and the
engines every convict was out to see
the game, which was umpired by a
former bank president while the pitcher
was once a big ball league man.
They were all allowed to start even
by seeing the first game and through
out the summer their attendance has
been dependent upon their good be-
havior
When the story of this ball game and
its particulars reached the capital
tnere was positive CONSERVATION among
the department of justice officials over
the possibilities but as nothing han
pened, Warden McClaughry was given
credit for another skillfuI rneneuver IN
PRISON management and then the Off
Gals proceeded to sit back and look on.
Guards Take No Chances.
While there was not the slightest
sign of disturbance or trouble among
the thousand men massed in the ball
held yet the guards and officials
were constantly on the alert and pre-
parations had been made to NOW
them down like grass should the
slightest demonstration or attempt to
escape have been made. The ball
field was enclosed on three sides by a
solid brick wall 81 feet high and in
the towers of this wall sat guards
with rifles in their hands. The other,
the open side of the enclosure was
hemmed in by double line of twelve
foot barbed wire fencing. The grand
stand has a barbed wire stockade
High up in the bleachers sat a little
group of guards. In the band stand
on little sand embankment lust out
side the first fence sat a group of
guards with repeating rifles on their
knees and beyond the second fence
was another detachment upon a little
elevation.
From these precautions it is easy
to see that wardens were taking no
chances at any of these games
though they believe that the men ap-
preciate the recreation too much to
take advantage of it. There is also a
team of Indians who have named
themselves the red men. With the as
surance that there is no danger of
any sort of outbreak among the pris-
oners, the games are attended by
quite a number of visitors among
whom are delegations of prisoners
from the Military prison three miles
away. This prison is strictly a re-
formatory for soldiers who are re-
turned to their regiments after their
term of punishment is completed.
At the Federal prison, practically
all of the construction work on the
buildings, walls, shops, roadways, ap-
proaches and entrances as well as
part of the railroad has been done by
the convicts.
With discipline of nature suffi-
cient to control eleven hundred and
thirty-two men at all times with but
So guards and upon occasions with
but IL, the claim to being the model
prison is pretty we'll established.