The Washington herald., 1913-12-22
WHO'S WHO AMONG
PROGRESSIVE WOMEN
Miss Madeleine Doty and Her Unique
Experience as an Expert
mental Convict.
BY MARY b. MULLETT.
Copyright, lslal


Miss Madeleine Doty leaped into fame
not long ago when she and Miss Eliza
beth Watson came out OF Auburn Prison
after spending week there as expert
mental convicts.
AS one OF three women members of
the New York State Prison Commission,
Miss Doty thought it was up to her to
know how the conyicts OF her own sex
| lived and were treated. So she and Miss
Watson went into the penitentiary In that
role themselves.
When they came out and told their
story IT made them famous in day. But
Madeleine Doty had been, doing interest
ing things long before that. She was
born in New Jersey, went to Smith Col
lege, in Massachusetts,, and studied law
In New York.
She first tried to study 1t at Harvard,
where there was course she particularly
wanted to take, and where, In spite OF
the fact that women were not admitted,
she did manage to attend four Of the lee
lures. Dressed in a very simple tailored
suit with a soft felt hat pulled down
over her hair, she wouli slip quietly into
the back row, the students themselves
being perfectly willing to help her con-
ceal her identity.
When the professor finally discovered
her presence. however, he promptly for
bade her to come any more. Nothing
daunted. she took her cause higher up,
and at special meeting Of the faculty
II was solemnly decided that she might
attend the course provided the professor
would relent. That was fatal proviso,
for the professor remained adamant on
the ground that she would "demoralize
his class" So Miss Doty betook herself
to New York.
Admitted to Dar.
There she was admitted to the bar and
began to practice. But getting a start
was pretty slow work, and she made both
ends meet by writing for the papers at
odd times Gradually she picked up
fair practice, especially In bankruptcy
cases: but while she was doing that she
also acquired a profound conviction that
law" and Justice" were by no means
synonymous terms.
She says that she found the law based
on more or less ancient precedents in
stead OF on modern actual conditions. A
case was too often argued on mere tech
| nicalities, such as flaws in punctuation.
Plain justice was not seldom the sport Of
the tricks of interruptions lawyers. And
this was not at all to the liking of Made
leine Doty.
So, turning her back on general prac-
| tice, she concentrated her attention on
Juvenile courts, which she studied ex-
Ihaustively both in this country and
| abroad. Partly through her efforts. sew
eral important changes have been made
| in the Chlldren's Court of New York
City.
Gradually her interest In prison condi-
| tions was stirred. and she began to study
| penitentiaries and reformatories, espe-'
cially to find out why these latter institu-
tons for improving bad boys and girls
| seem to succeed in doing just the opposite
and to become nurseries OF criminals in
| stead.
Product of Conditions.
When Happy Jack MuIraney was in
the death cell at Sing Sing, Miss Doty
had many long talks with him, for
Happy Jsck' was a product of the con-
ditions she was trying to analyze The
night before he was executed he spent
hours writing out for her his ideas on
these problems. and Miss Doty is using
this material in book she is preparing
Last July she was appointed a member
of the New York State prison commission,
and in October she entered Auburn in the
role of an ordinary convict to find out
for herself the conditions surrounding
women prisoners. She did not do this TO
be sensational, although she was that in
spite of herself.
Miss Doty is young and attractive. The
look out of her clear blue eyes is fear
less. She is tremendously in earnest,
but with it all she has a keen sense of
humor. In fact, she seems to have a
keen sense of everything. That is the
dominant impression she makes on you
that she is intensely alive, absorbed In
the vital things of today.
For So young a woman she has had a
remarkable experience and she means to
II in, haffa inR social ript
conditions. especially as they affect
women and children. But she isn't like
ly to find many ways of doing this as
picturesque as her convict experience
was.
That has already borne an astonish-
ingIy prompt crop of fruit. AS re-
suit of her reports on conditions at
Auburn, the state superintendent of
prisons has written some pretty plain
letters to the warden OF that institution,
outlining the folIowingg reforms which he
wishes carried out at once:
Shorter hours of continuous confine-
Extension Of the letter-writing privi-
lege.
shops.
Censorship and mutilation of newspaper
for convicts to be discontinued.
Liberal supplies Of water.
Abolition OF rule requiring convicts to
he locked I'm their cells continuously
for fourteen days upon arriving at the
prison
one result of giving the convict women
permission to write certain letters has
been that Miss Doty herself has received
epistles from many Of the prisoners,
thanking her for the interest she has
taken in their condition. Another result
is that she is to be permitted to see the
women in their cells and talk with them
without a prison matron being present
to listen to every word. There is a
countrywide interest Just now in the
subject of prison methods. But, as usual,
most OF the talk and the investigation
has concerned the men. 1t remained for
Miss Doty and Miss Watson to try to
get first-hand facts about the women.
Attractive Railways.