The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-05-28
PRISON THOUGHTS
OF A PRISONER
A Federal Inmate at Atlanta Would Have
Ex-Prisoners Organize to Bring About
Better Conditions World Does Not
Know.
THE YELLED MINISTER

THE YELLED Minister
AS rule, confinement of man
in prison is caused by his COM
mitting an overt act against the
peace, dignity and interests of the
community in which be lived, and
the man confined is supposed to be
paying the penalty for his crime or
satisfying the debt he owes to So
ciety. But under present conditions
the convicted man, who has served
a term in prison, never pays the
penalty or the debt he is supposed
to owe. to the full and complete
satisfaction of the more fortunate
other men who have managed to
keep out of prisons. incidents are
of daily record, where the ex-pris-
oner has lived for years, honored
and respected. in a community where
his past was unknown, but the mo-
ment his prison record is published,
he must give up his place and seek
new fields. Why should this con-
dition exist? Would it not be better,
in the run of things, for the ex- pris-
oner to wear his badge of imprison-
ment as mark of superiority, rather
than as is now the case, try to hide
the fact that he has served a term in
prison? Let the ex- prisoners organ
ize alumni societies for the improve
ment of prison conditions. They
would certainly know the needs of
their alma mater, and be in position
to suggest practical reforms. This
may sound radical, but prisons should
reform. and the sincere man who
has served a term in one should be
a better man, having learned wis.,
dom from experience, than the one
who has not been so fortunate as
to have paid, in the fullest and to
the utmost, his debt to society and
| the penalty of his sins. Where is
the man, who, at sometime in life,
has not committed an act contrary
to. and in violation of, the establish
ed statute rules of society, and
which, if the white light of publicity
had shown upon it, and him, and
would have had to face court
trial. pay fine or serve term in
prison?
The Yelled Minister
A certain minister once, 80 the
story reads, startled his congregation
by appearing in his pulpit with
veil of crepe covering his face from
his forehead to his mouth. He wore
this veil constantly to the day of his
death, never explaining to anyone
his reason for SO doing. But on his
death bed he said to those around
it: All of you. and all men, wear
a black veil" No truer parable
was ever written. Every human
being wells part of himself from his
fellows; and though he may not fully
realize it, and may appear as free as
air to others, he is, nevertheless, in
a prison of one kind or another.
Left alone with their thoughts, in the
sanctity Of oul-communion, most
intelligent men confess to this truth.
Some are bound by the fear and
terror of guilty conscience, some
are imprisoned in whiskey bottle or
an opium pipe, others are emeshed
in silken cords of lust and desire.
and silken though they may be, are
more damning than the iron letters
which bind the convicted criminal.
The business man manacled by his
affairs. which condemn him to a
lifelong servitude. The demands
of social and fashionable life make
prisoners of many. who deserve a
better fate. And behind these and
other kinds of prisons are the vast
penitentiaries of circumstances and
environment from which scarcely
anyone may escape.
Still the world gives but little or
no consideration to the man who
wears out part of his life behind
PRISON walls in an endeavor to pay
the penalty the law demands of one
who is caught and convicted of a
criminal act, and yet the bars and
cells of prison are feeble and in
significant evils-they only confine
the body and leave the mind and soul
of the man free-in comparison with
the cells and dungeons of self-im-
prisonment, for. invisible and un-
breakable, they hold the body, mind
and soul in remorseless and un-
ending sentence.
Life in True Form
The enforced physical seclusion
of prison turns a mans thoughts
from surface things to real ones.
Illusions are dissipated and pre-