Valdez daily prospector., 1913-03-10
MONDAY. MARCH 10. 1913.
THE CASE OF CoNLiM.

gave an account of the life of William M. Cnnln. He had Just been released from Inc state prl- son of Missouri at the age of 6l. Forty-unc years of his life were spent in various prisons.
 His story is a living arIaIgn- ment of the utter stupidity and folly of society's method of treat ing wrongdoers. It is not to his present pitiable condition, old and broken, that we call atten- ton. No matter how terrible the effect upon the victim, his punishment would be justified if only it either prevented crime or cured the criminal. Conlin's rec ord shows that imprisonment does neither.
 It is not an exceptional ease; it is an average, typical case. Note what he says of several Of his prison experiences.
 He was sentenced to five years solitary confinement in Cherry Hill penitentiary in Philadelphia. T was put to making brushes" he says, "in a cell four by eight feet in size, and the very brutal treatment there only hardened me all the more.'
 In the Columbus, Ohio, peni- tentiary he was repeatedly duck ed" and kept for months in the black hole" as a refractory pris- 0ner. 'I was treated so cruelty l made up my mind there was no humanity in man, and l came out more hardened than eNer."
 His next prison was in Indiana. Here he was fed on rotten meat and hominy. and frequently beat on with the cat-o'-nne-tails. "I have scars on my back hat will carry to my grave from tn" whip pings 1 got there.
 In the Nebraska penitentiary he and i3 other convictS rebelled at 1he poor food. For that he was tied by his thumbs to cell door and compelled to stand there with lis arms above his head for f days.
 In the Michigan penitentiary he refused tc do the torturing work in the mines and was chained for three months in dark cell, on ly to be carried from thence to the prison hospital for fear he would die.
 ''I have seen men whipped un- til they fainted,' he writes. "I have seen the guards spit in the faces of cOnvicts because they could. not do the tasks allotted to them by the contractors. <"
 Every time he was out of pris- on he was bounded by the police: The only friends he could find were fellow criminals, who led him into new crimes.
 Thus we see a beautiful illus tration of how the state, after a
 
 forces him into the criminal class, and by every helIish device con- trives that every spark of good in him shall be put out. Not one effort to help and cure.
 The whole prison system of modern society is thoroughly pu- trjd. If has not one defenSihle idea bchin' it. It is based up- on ignorance of psychology, ig- norance of political economy, ig- norance of the science of gov crnmcnt. ignorance of history, ignorance of human nature, and just plain everyday ignorance.
 "Whcn we send man to pris- On,' says Prarson's Magazine. i've punish his family more than we punish him. He has a place to sleep. warmth and food. His innocent family have neither. The profits of his work go to the few men who make contracts for prison labor"
 William Dean Towels justly alludrs to this ac "Oricntal jur- isprudrnce. by which the inr,- cent are made to suffer as much as possible with the guilty. When a criminal is sent to prison his family is left to starve, while the ,Iof hi h Inf IF