The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-07-21
Sanders and His Criminals
Richard Washburn Child in Golfers Weekly

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 hear upon their shoulders the
responsibilities shirked by society.
Some bear them as carelessly as So
lciety itself. but others are fastening
the time Of a better understanding.
Such men as Sanders of Iowa remain
unique only little while-and they
never work In vain.
While this article is being written
a long, lean, lank, dy-haired,
sinewy-armed man, serving a life SEN
| tence for crime of violence, is in a
room above the dining hall of the
Iowa state penttentiary at Fort 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 per-
iEoi2oiiIy boN oil iliCil lC lAdS lCcil uCd
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-
hissippi river and the wheat fields far
away on the Illinois shore. The an
cient stone cell house, built half
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 fight
over the new and large cell house
across the penitentiary yard and out
into the woods on the hillside beyond.
This prison receives the worst that
the iron hand of the Iowa law selects
from among eyildoers: here come the
Iyegg, the burglar, the unregcnerate
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. It
was place where men already pretty
far gone were hent to be dropped over
the abyss into the class of the ire
trievably lost It was a fair sample
of one of the important institutions
OF our civilization, and it represented
a good deal of the brutality, the saw
agery, the ignorance and the sense
lessness of the thing which remains
today as our barbaric penal system
1T represented the conditions 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, little
more damaging to society than
crime
About that time they changed war
ldens in Iowa. Up in the western part
lof the state was a school, teacher-a
high school principal There are dis
tinctions among high school prin-
cipals, and this high school principal
had his distinctions
He had been a bandmaster with 2
circus; he had played professional
baseball and been an umpire in one
lof the wester7 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
hood; his body was stocky; if you
/ looked for it you could find a strong
suggestion of viii power somewhere
behind his bantering eyes and in the
lines about his mouth and in his
thick-thumbed, powerful hands. That
was j. c. Sanders.
! He had introduced new methods
Into school teaching. He was not
content to teach and discipline for so
many hours day. He made boys and
girls open their lives to him; he
opened his life to them. The high
school was educating" day and night.
4 Teachers in it had to match their
time against he time of the young
sters.
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-
ltion 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 repaired
the damage done by unfit parents, or
by unfair home life, or even by the
Il crooked deal Of heredity, Sanders
spirit would throw its head back
somewhere inside Of him and crow
like a rooster. Sanders was having
the time of his life Salvage was
Sanders profession and he loved ii.
Bang! Ont of clear sky came the
. stroke which notified him that the
board of control of the state peniten.
Itiary had picked him for the warden's
job, had chosen him to be the Gus
todian of the restraint Of half a thous.