The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1914-03-01

our own security. The fact, however,
that Imprisonment brutifcs and de-
stroys instead of reforming is begin
uinc TO glare at us IN a manner so dis
coDcerting and undeuiablc that we feel
something has TO DC done, and in ac-
cordauce with our ancient habit and
constitutional prcdispositlon that some
thing turns out to he compromise We
sentenced for murder, but put obstacles
in the way of carrying the sentence out.
On the same principle, we will now re-
tain prisons, but make them so agree
able that convicts will not mind being
committed to them.
An insufficient Compromise.
That is the compromise; and it is
already in operation here and there.
In the first place, numbers Of good men
and women, with motives either reli-
gious or humanitarian or both, obtained
Ieave to visit prisons. talk with the in
mates, give them religious exhortations,
supply them with some forms of enter
talnment, and in other ways try to
tighten the burden Of their penal sla~
very. These persons deserve great
credit. 1t was not so much the eNhor-
tatlons or entertainments that did good,
as the idea thereby aroused in conVicts
that somebody cared for them. Be"
tween them and the community there
was still war TO the knife; but certain
individuals, separate from the commu~
NIFTY, were not hostile but well disposed
toward them.
A man fallen into evil may sometimes
be redeemed by coming to feel this; he
| will try to be good for the sake of the
person who was kind to him in his mis-.
cry. ] once asked a comrade in At
lanta whether if the warden were to
give him twenty dollars and tell him
TO 20 to the town, make purchase for
him. and return, he would do so9 He
said, No. and when l asked him
why, replied he would know the warden
had something up his sleeve, and was
not on the square in his proposition. l
! then named certain benefactor Of the
prisoners outside the prison, and asked
if he would do it for that personf AT.
ter some consideration, he said that he
would, because be "would hate 30 dis
appoint that person, and would be-
lieve in the bona fde of that person IS
request This man was held TO be
| rather bad case; but he was still ca
pable of acting honorably, if the right
motives were supplied.
But this is not enough. The great
mass of convicts could not be reformed
by hating TO disappoint" any particu-
or trusted them, Their personal graft.
tude to the individual would not stem
the tide of their well grounded con
vlctlon that people in general were
neither trustful nor kind; and the num-
berless and constant temptations of
| their life after liberation would prove
too strong for them, There have been
instances to the contrary; touching and
beautiful instances, some of them; but
| they are from establishing the prin-
ciple that Christian Eudeavorers. OF
Salvation Armies, or prison angels. or
angelic 'wardens can effect the reform
of men in prison. Some stimulus much
more powerful is required
The next step IN compromise was to
improve the physical conditions in the
prison; to give more light and air and
exercise, better food; to mitigate or do
away with dark holes, assaults and tor
lures. There were many jealous critics
Of these leniencies; they said we were
criminals, so far from being dcterred
from crime by fear Of Imprisonment,
would commit crimes in order to be
sent to prison. And they could quote
in confirmation cases of men who had
accepted liberation at the end Of their
terms reluctantly, or had actually re-
fused 1T. or Of men who had voluntarily
returned TO prison after having been
discharged.
There have been such cases: but thew
prove, not the atractiveness Of prisons
but their power to kill the manhood in
a man. What does il not suggest of
outrage and degradation perpetrated
upon human soul, that be should come
to prefer a cell and master to free.
dom! There may be slaveries so soft
as to invite the base and pusillanimous
but they are more rather than less de.
PRAYING than cruelties to all that makes
honorable and useful manhood. The
deepest and essential evil of prisons
is not hardship and torture, but inn
prisonment. If choice could be made
between the two, every manly man
would choose the former No disgrace
is inherent in hardship and torture; but
imprisonment brands man az unfit to
associate with his kind No mortal
creature has or can have tho right Ia
infiict il, nor any aggregation of NOR
tails.
This. is hard saying, but I will
stand by it. There were criminals of
all kinds in Atlanta with whom / was
brought into contact One had grown
rich by organizing system Of sFwhite
slavery on large scale, He dealt in
woman's dishouor and turned it into
cash, and he saw nothing wrong in il.