The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-08-13
THE HUMAN TREAT
MENT OF PRISONERS
Treat the Inmates as You
Would Be Treated
SENTIMENTAL IDEAS
More Money Spent for Pre-
vention of Crime Than
For Charity and
Education

Mr.. Taxpayer: In your letter pub
lished in our last issue. you object
ed to our sentimental ideas for
easy discipline" and the humane
treatment of prisoners.
Humane" is defined as having
the feelings and iDclinations credit
able to man-having the disposition
to treat other human beings and an
imals with kindness
If you are father you have learn
ed that the scriptural doctrine
spare the rod and spoil the child"
can be taken too literally. and that
patience, love and forgiveness are
essential adjuncts of the discipline
that will train your children to good
citizenship. If you are at the
head of any large corporation or
business enterprise. you know that
your employees cannot be driven like
domestic animals, but they can be
stimulated to cheerful obedience
and efficient service by kindly pre-
cept and example. You may be a
school teacher, an army officer, a
farmer, or occupy any one of the
numberless position where you have
the responsibility of training the
minds or controlling the conduct of
others and you know that you will
utterly fall of the best results, un-
less you administer it with a hu-
name spirit. Yet you have the feel
ing that in dealing with one certain
class of people the principles of hu-
manity, which dictate your conduct
in every other relation of life,
should be abandoned. and there
should be substituted a policy of
inhumanity and revenge. You share
the popular belief that the man. in
discarding his ordinary attire and
assuming the garb of a prisoner. has
likewise discarded all of his natural
feelings. principles, pride and self
respect; that he does not reason as
he once did: that somehow his
mental processes do not work nor
mally and that the kind treatment
which was good for him as a school
boy, an employee, or man moving
in your social circles, will no longer
influence his conduct, nor find an
echo Of response or appreciation
in his heart.
What is the difference in charao-
ter between the man who committed
a crime for which be has been SEN
fenced to Imprisonment. and the
thousands who have committed the
same crime and escaped punish
ment, or the millions who probably
would have committed the same
crime in the same circumstances?
The free men are just as much Grim
inals al heart as the man who is pay
ing the penalty of discovery. You
may find men here who used trust
funds in private speculations. The
market went against them and they
are paying the penalty for their err
rors of judgment by long terms of
Imprisonment. But thousands of
other men have done the same thing,
only, the market went in their favor,
they returned the borrowed" mon
ey, pocketed the profits and are hon.
ored members of society, they being
all the time just as criminal as the
man who failed In his venture.
Suppose that in this Christian n
nation the sins of every individual
were exposed to public view, and
the sinners were all condemned to
pay the laws penalty of imprison-
ment. Would there be enough men
left to run the government and
transact the business of the country,
or enough judges to try the GRIM
inalsI You can walk down Broad
way, New York. any busy after
noon, and you pass more than eight
hundred men, each of whom has
committed a crime of the same sort
for which one or another of the
eight hundred men are here lncar-
cerated; but these free criminals are
attending to their business. sncial
duties and church work, not dlstin-
gulshed from their unoffending fell
low citizens. If the eight hundred
men here could exchange places with
the eight hundred men on Broad
way would it change the character
of any of them? There are many
men here gathered in under recent
statutes for offenses which were not
crimes few years ago. Some are
serving long terms for trivial Of