The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1913-09-04
SPEND ONE
GRAND DAY

seven a. m. Monday morning in the shape
of Labor Day; and along with the holiday
came the Field Day Program. The men
of the institution have been looking for
ward to this event with great anticipation,
and they were not disappointed. The
weather man lived up to his agreement;
even postponing the rain in the afternoon,
to the delight of the officers and guards.
The rising gong in the cell hall rang at
6 a. m. sharp, and everything and every
BODY was on the move from then until
1850. Usually OH holidays the gong does
not break up our beauty sleep until
o'clock.
Deputy Warden Coles issued bulletin
to the guards to be here and ready to go
on duty at a. M, SO as the men would
have all the time possible for the pro-
gram.
While the men were at breakfast the
large auto truck, from the old prison,
rolled up in front of the administration
building and unloaded the justly celebrat-
ed Minnesota State Prison Band. AS
usual the band was under the direction of
Prof. Burchard.
On leaving the dining hall the inmates
were greeted with the strains of a March;
and they did some marching, as the
bands appearance was great surprise to
them. All during the program, or to be
exact, nine O. clock, the band played al
most continually. This part of the pro-
gram was great treat, as the men of
this institution have not heard the boys
and their musical instruments for some
time At o'clock, after three rousing
cheers, led by the Deputy, the band boys
left for the parent institution, happy in
the fact that they had helped us enliven
the day.
There were fifteen events on the pro-
gram and the entrees for each event were
many. Some of the events had to have
the entree list cut down, or we would be
on the grounds yet; especially is this so
of the pie-eating and tug-of-war contests,
over $50 men being entered for each of
these events. Evesy number on the pro-
gram was pulled off and every shop has
winner within its ranks.
Of course there were some who were skep-
tical as to the outcome of the experiment,
for such you may call it, as never before
in the history of the institution have they
tried anything as elaborate as this. The
program was handled entirely by an inmate
committee; guards and officers taking
back seat and letting us run the thing to
suit ourselves. But those who were skep-
teal are now loud in their praise.
Much credit is due Buck Fitzgerald,
of the front Office clerical force. "Buck''
worked and superintendent the pre-
pairing of the grounds Saturday afternoon.
This work was entirely voluntary on his
part, as he was at liberty to do as he
pleased with his Saturday afternoon.
Then he was on the job Monday morning
bright and early and acted as master of
ceremonies, starter, referee, etc. The
men want to remember that he donated
his services entirely for the purpose of
seeing them have good time. He was
assisted by Mr.. Withrow, a school boy
chum, who acted as time-keeper and
official record-keeper. We certainly owe
these two vote of thanks.
We have now run our preliminary, so
to speak, and are willing to tell you all
about the things, comical and otherwise.
The first event was the 100 yard dash.
preliminary. The winners of each heat
were then entered in the final. The boys
in both the preliminary and final did
some fast running, that is, you can count
it fast considering the fact that they had
no cinder track to run on, nor had they
been in training for thirty days or more.
One or two of the men got their feet
tangled up and bit the dirt, but they were
goOd-natured about it.
Talk about biting the dirt, you should
have seen the boys in the sack race.
One was forced to the conclusion that
they had lost something's ten-dollar
bill maybe-and were trying to discover
it in China. Every man in this race done
his level best and it was not because he did
not try that he didn't bring home the
bacon.
In the standing broad jump you did not
have to stretch your imagination very far
to make yourself believe that the men
who were in the event were related to the
frog family. The winner of this jumped
9 feet 9 inches the first shot out of the box
Some jumpers these, and if any repre-
sentative of the religious organization of
Jumpers was present, he should have
picked up few likely recruits.
The boys who were in the potato race
sure gave the farmers a lesson in fast
work. If the state is figuring on buying
potato digging and picking machine, it
would do well to investigate this bunch of
spud grabbers before investing.
Did you notice how A. c. tried to lam
the shot through the windows in the Irvine
shop? He didn't though. This was one
event that took little more judgment to
get away with, and several of the men
were disqualified for throwing the shot in
stead of putting it. Better luck
Thanksgiving day boys.
Noticed six men running around in a
circle and thought they might be en-
deavoring to start merry -go-round. Up
on investigation it was learned that they
were contestants in the three-legged race.
The winners of this event were not salts
fled to show ns they could run the re-