The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1913-07-31
SANDERS and HIS CRIMINALS
Richard Washburn Child in Golfers Weekly

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Until laws and courts and states
concern themselves as much with the
man who comes out of prison as the
man who goes in, the Wardens of the
prisons bear upon their shoulders the
responsibilities shirked by society
Some bear them as carelessly as So
ciety itself, but others are Fastening
the time of better understanding
Such men as Sanders of Iowa remain
unique only little while land they
never work in vain.
While this article is being written
long, lean, lank, sandy-haired
sinewy-armed man, serving life
sentence for crime of violence, is in
a room above the dining hall of the
Iowa state penitentiary at FIT. Madi-
son. He is squirting keen, critical
eye at the result of his labors. The
product he seeks is a set of photo
graphs which shall illustrate the
place where he lives, the men with
whom he is associated, and the one
personality toward which he has
learned to look for all that remains
to him of life.
The old penitentiary wall is high
and thick, and from the outside one
can see broad stretches of the Mis-
sissippi river and the wheat fields far
away on the Illinois shore. The an
cient stone cell house, built half a
century ago, raises its steep roof
above the red brick smokestacked
contract labor prison factory, and
pigeons perch on the ridge pole
against the sky line or take flight
across the penitentiary yard and out
into the woods on the hillside be-
yOnd.
This prison receives the worst
that the iron hand of the Iowa law
selects from among evildoers; here
come the yegg, the burglar, the un-
generate repeater, the incOrrigible,
and the killer of man. Over five
hundred are here today.
Five or six years ago this Iowa
pen was like most of our prisons. 1t
was a place where men already pref
ty far gone were sent to be dropped
over the abyss into the class of the
irretrieVably lost. 1t was fair
sample of one of the important insti-
tutions of our civilization, and it rep
resented a good deal of the brutality,
the savagery, the ignorance and the
senselessness of the thing which re-
mains today as our berbaric penal
which will not change permanently
until public opinion, legislatures,
and courts take as much interest in
the man who comes out of prison as
in the man who goes in. Five years
ago in Iowa they maintained piece
of leftover middle ages-a little
more vulgar and cruel than felony,
a little more damaging to society
than crime. Is.
About that time they changed war;
dens in Iowa. Up in the western part
of the state was a school teacher
high school principal. There are dis
stinctions among high school prin-
cipals, and this high school principal
had his distinctions.
He had been a bandmaster with
circus; he had played professional
baseball and been an umpire in one
of the western leagues, and in many
other ways he had come close. to hui
man life. His face was full of good
nature and the eternal spirit of boy
AOOuS LID OOuy was StOSNyp - y w
looked for it you could find strong
suggestion of will power somewhere
behind his bantering eyes and in the
lines about his mouth and in his
thick thumbed. powerful hands. That
was ]. c. Sanders.
He had introduced new methods
into school teaching. He was not
content to teach and discipline for SO
many hours a day. He made boys and
girls open their lives to him; and he
opened his life to them. The high
school was educating" day and
night. Teachers in it had to match
their time against the time of the
youngsters.
Hard Tickets" even in those days,
were to Sanders like difficult game to
the keen sportsman. The tough boy
and the girl going in the wrong direc-
ton were to Sanders as the biggest,
most willy, and gamest fish in the
waters. The worse they came, the
better did this man like them. When
he had landed the stubborn youth in
the net of his confidence, and repair
ed the damage done by unfit parents,
or by unfair home life, or even by
the crooked deal Of heredity, San
ders' spirit would throw back its
head somewhere inside OF him and
crow like q. rooster. Sanders was
having the time Of his life. Salvage
vas Sanders Profession and he loved
II.