The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-12-15
WARDEN OSBORNE THINKS That
PRISONERS SHOULD BE E'i PAN
New warden OF Sing Sing Would Establish svste,o -
token money and Install Savings Banks IN Wh;o ~
Convicts Could Deposit ""nNS III "hlcf
tFrom the New York SUM-

borne, the man who has worn the con
tiCts stripes himself and who he
lieves that the very institution he gov
rms should be wiped out of existence
\ gloomy fog and mist had descend
ID with the night shadows ON the
grim, gray walls with rife guarded
~turrets, barring 1900 criminals from
freedom. Through the window I
slimpsed the road over which ex-
Warden Mccormick and his bank
president prisoner, Sullivan, had iov
ridden many times as it stretched in
a wet. hilly, arc lamped curve New
TOrkWard.
No prison has a merry atmosphere
but Sing Sing on a rainy night is sure
~ The nearest of all world prisons to
the MINE picture of the valley of the
shadow. Yet Thomas Mott Osborne.
who doesn't need the job and who
doesn't have to get within a thousand
miles of this pile of penal dreariness,
likes it, lives in it and in fact travels
in it as the scene of his conscience
approved life-work. He says his
friends have called him crazy for
mingling with a mess of degraded
~rascality SO foreign to the average
nan Of wealth, education and social
Standing. But he is past being bother
cred by such criticisms.
Eyes keen and fixed of purpose gaZ-
"a into mine as the new warden list
"ned, answered and listened again. An
earnest. strong face is his, with feat
ures mobilely expressive that gladden.
and sadden alternately in quick shifts,
rs the hope barometer for penalized
humanity rises and falls in the turns
If conversation. And Warden Osborne
doesn't look unlike n convict-ne;ther
10 YOU nor I. This is his own opin-
ion, for he says there is no criminal
type; that IombroSo's deductions and
measurements have been knocked sky
high: and that he knows II murderer
IN Il State institution now who is as
Intellectual a looking old gentleman
as ou'd meet ont of prison, kind, con-
Siderate, thoughtful and very broad
minded and charitable in his views of
he failings of others while coDdem
uatory of his own shortcomings.
This view of life's fundamentals is
AIT to make You gasp, but as you talk
"n with this most original of all war
lens you will likely run short of gasps
and find your amaZement too fire.
quent or too monotonouS for EXPIRES
sion. You will discover that Warden
osborne would by no means execute
Seeker, the convicted murderer, who
paced his cell in the death house a
short distance from where l sat. He
will execute him, and have it done IN
ii thorough manner according to law,
if the law compels him to do SO. But
f ne had his way Becker would event
ually he paroled, if he proved deserv-
ing Of liberty. So would every muir
derer in Sing Sing, for Warden Os-
borne does not believe in capital pun
iShnent.
But the abolition of the death pen.
atty is not at all a penologic innova-
ton of the warden's. He subscribed
10 il, of course, long after the pioneer.
'f reform in punishment had insisted
on such a change. The novel thins
that Mr.. Osborne brings to your at
tention is a State prison savings bank
Think of ia bank within a prison II
which a prisoner may deposit hi:
earnings so that they may not b.
stolen from him!
can they steal in prisons! SUR
Thing. Warden Osborne admits II ant
Is not chagrined by the admission; n
insists that the convict can be hetpes
and nplifted so tina he will be asnaIn
I'D to stealth prison or out! Lister
to the details of the Osborne Stat
prison savings bank:
If I find that j have the poWe
and the right to establish a prlsol
bank in Sing Sing ] shall 40 so. j.
think j may have the u
BRING about this n a NUMBER o
other minor [ cohteni
plate. I am thinking it over seriously
shall certainly do everything l PA
y | possess the power TO do SO. .,
The savings bank in Sing sing VII
he part Of the scheme l have III MN
for the payment of convicts for thel
tabor while they are prisoners, MI
Osborne went on earnestly. "frlSol
labor at present is nothing more q
less than slave labor. Centuries o
that sort of labor proved It's curse
Few people learn TO love WORK by ne
ing forced to If You are gratin
against all the grooves of human ma
lure when you compel this sort q
toll.
Il would establish a system of toke
money, such as was tried out Sats
tactorily in the Junior Republlc. -
not at all chimerical to propose an
5 too practical to be pooh-poohed.
would establish "a system OF grace
food and graded sleeping accom1noud
tippc f,ir rotrrn for a d3NS ldDO