The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-05-28
COMPARES TITANIC
DISASTER TO CRIME.
Editor Of Washington Critic
Holds Society Responsible for
Neglecting Its Own Best In
terests in Reformation.

hundred people were crowned. Wnat
howl went up! The papers talked
of nothing else for weeks; there
were commissions of inquiry, and
everybody had an opinion as to what
should be done with those
whose negligence was responsible.
1t does not seem to have occurred
to any to say that those who were
drowned were served right, that
they had no business being on the
ship.
And yet the lives lost on that
occasion were but few compared
with those which are being destroy
ed each year by our barbarous PEN
al system. We say destroyed, be-
cause every life is sacrificed if it is
not given the chance to make the
best of itself. Does it make par
ticle of difference whether all are
destroyed at once. or whether they
are subjected to slow death?
Listen to this. Five hundred
thousand people pass annually
through our prisons, and there is
constant prison population Of $780,
900. Statistics show that apart from
those whom we are compelling to
make the prison a home for life, 40
per cent of those who are dischar-
ged are returned sooner or later.
40 per cent! What would you
think of a school which failed to
educate 40 per cent of it's pupils, or
of a hospital which should bury 40
per cent of its patients? Yet our
prisons are failure in 40 per cent
OF the cases they handle. They rel
Their scare them into righteousness,
nor do they give them the chance
to live rightly of their free will.
Reform Prisoners
You say they are criminals and
degenerates and that one cannot ex-
pect anything better. 1t is false.
and here is the proof. In Japan
prisons are so conducted that only
4 per cent revert to crime after their
discharge. The difference of 81
per cent is the penalty we pay for
our Indifference; it is the penalty
we pay for insisting on punish
ment and revenge rather than on
the reform of the convict. In Jap
an every prison official must have
training of two years in scientific
penology; in America it is largely
matter of politicians backed up by
DULLES, or at best by men who know
nothing of human nature. Figure
out if you can the actual number of
those whose lives go to waste when
they might have been made useful;
figure out the number of wives and
children deprived of support, often
condemned to slow death or to be
a burden on the community, and
you will see that there is much
more to howl over here than over
the loss of a ship or railway
wreck. There are monuments to
the victims of the Titanic disaster.
but who has suggested a memorial
to the hundreds OF thousands who
have followed the downward road
to the finish because we have refus-
ed to listen to their signal of dis
tress and launch our lifeboats?
1t is estimated that crime and
criminals cost the United States six
billion dollars annually; that is to
say, they cost every man, woman
and child an average of $50 year,
or $500 for family of five, most of
which is taken from them in the
form of taxes for the support of
prisons, police and courts. You
talk of the high cost of living. Why
not reduce the needless expenses.
You claim that you cannot afford
Injuries, yet all the while you are
indulging in the most expensive OF
luxuries, the luxury of Indifference.
You say you cannot afford few
cents contribution to the cause of
prison reform, yet you pay it many
times over because you will not
wake up and use your vote and your
influence towards forcing the au-
thorities to introduce rational
system of retaining the vicious.
Serene fold my hands and watt"
says the poet. That is just what is
the matter with most of us. We
wait for the other person to act,
and meanwhile we pay the bill, for
with taxes, unlike some other bills.
there is no waiting.
But the reform rests with you.
AS long as you think beefsteak, the
papers will talk beefsteak; as long
as you prefer to read about crime
rather than about preventing it,
they will cater to your wishes. You
have your tongue. you have your