The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1913-12-16
DR.. MOORE TALKS
| OF REFORM WORK
Tells of Good Accomplished by
Railway RetOTmatOry.

That New Jersey is coming to the
time when it shall pay wages to the |
men it confines in prisons and re-
formatories was the declaration OF
DR.. Frank Moore, superintendent OF
the Railway relormatory, at a meet |
ing he addressed in the Morris coun
| ty court house Monday night. DIR. |
Moore asserted that the men should
SO be raid when they earn more in
| the industrial pursuits of the prison
and reformatcry life than their
keep costs the state BY doing this |
the state will teach the men behind
the bars that society is just, give
him the means to rehabilitate him
self when he energies from prison,
or to relieve the suffering of his fam
! lily deprived of his protection and
earning ability while imprisoned DR.. !
Moore told of the abolishment of the
contract labor system in the prisons
of the state and asserted that if it
was wrong for Individual citizens to
! make money out of the conyicts it !
was Just as wrong for the state to do
lSo.
DIR, Moore addressed a meeting of
about four hundred people on the OBJ
Jects of the reformatory of which
he is the head He WAS introduced
| by Common Pleas Judge Joshua r.
Salmon and his address was illus
trated by stereopticon views taken at
the institution by the institution force
and the slides prepared by the young
men there. The lantern was operated
Hby Parole Officer Crosby.
Sketehing the punishments inflicted
h. -iT1a 4ft,4. l.,
cient days down to the present time
DR.. Moore held his audience almost
spellbound by his oratory and was
greeted with many bursts OF applause
He described the life and instruction
given at the institution and made the
startling assertion that of the young
men committed there that one third
are of less than twelve YEARS OF, age
in mentality There are the feeble
minded for whom nothing can be
done in the way of teaching a trade
but who are put to the manual labor
OF farming and grading, the moral
degenerate who have normal abilities
but whose minds have become fixed
upon sordid thoughts and who ARE
swept by criminal passions and a
i third class who are determined to be
criminals and who have had criminal
ancestry. The county judge has not
time to find out whether or not the
young man brought before him is
member of one OF the three classes
and under the law has no recourse.
If it is first offense, than to send
him to the reformatory. What was
needed in New Jersey, declared DR..
Moore, was a farm colony to send
certain classes of criminals to.
DR.. Moore described the parole sys-
tenn in vogue at the institution and
told his auditors that from fifty to
sixty-five per cent of those who are
paroled from the reformatory make
good
That S2,500,000 Was spent by the
state yearly on its charitable and cor
rectional Institutions and not one
cent came from the pockets of the
people by direct tax was the result, |
DR.. Moore said, of the states cor
poration laws The people of New
Jersey pay no more, he said, for the
maintenance OF these institutions
than do the people of California. And
that this was right DR.. Moore asserted
to be the case, pointing out that this |
state is on the border of the coun-
try; the criminal foreign element |
Z
ishment abroad have little more than
enough money to get beyond their
landing place and in consequence
the number of murders in this state |
is greater than it is in some coun- |
tries and crime is more prevalent. |
THE thrifty foreigners who come to
this country for home-building, DR.. |
Moore declared, generally had enough
money to carry them to the Western !
states there to settle down and be-
come good citizens The people of
the state should be proud, he said, of /
its treasury advancing the vast sum
for its institutions and not attempt |
to curb it.
He asked for the sympathy and CO
operation of his auditors in his work |
at the reformatory, declaring it to
be needed because society, the home, |
the church, the city, state and nation
had all failed. Incorrect methods of !
correction in the home breed an
archists he said.
IS The school system, for years con-
Quoted on "a wrong principle, had
taken up new ideas. He pointed out
that there were two types of boys, |
the intellectual and the industrial
I'boy. The school system has con-
fined its attentions to the intellect |
ual type and left the industrial type
to shift for himself.
Another point emphasized by the
speaker was that the state was pass
Ing too many laws making trivial in
fractions state prison offenses. The
right of citizenship should be restored
to the men when they are discharged |
after going through the reformatory
with a clean record and not compel |
them to go through all the red tape
that is now necessary. 1t ought to |
be when they are made men again
that they can go forth and stand up !