New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1915-02-03
AN Ex-CONVICT'S STORY.

An eX-cOnVlcC calleQ dC Cne BOSTON
Globe office looking for job. Appear
ances were ali in his favor. He intro
duced himself as an ex-Sing Sing con-
vict. There was no job for him and he
said he would like to write his ex-
periences since coming out" Told to
go ahead, he did so. The extract is
from his story as he wrote it:
''No one will contest the fact that Sing
Sing is a far better place to come from
than to 60 to. Entering it's impressive
gates, it's very impressive gates, does
not mean so much a death of hope as
of individuality, and the number they
print on your clothes is very apt
symbol of the fact that your name is
: worthless during incarceration and ever
after. ,E .-..s ..-..
You need not have committed MUIR
der to have the Cain brand smudged
on your brow and you will never realize
the shallowness of the universal obedience
to the desire of the Nazarene for peace
on earth and good will to all men unless
you have come from Sing Sing and ask
your brother man for chance to be
on the level and an opportunity to ego
straight"
The Warden pats you paternally
on the back and, with a true desire
that you should do so, advises you to
go out and make good. To enhance
your prospect of making good he gives
you $40, your wage for 2 years of hard
labor, and he smiles his good will as he
waves you down the road to the depot.
The yokels stare at you and mutter
'ex-convict'' as you pass and the ticket
agent takes your money and gives you
your ticket scornfully. You look back
at the gray prison and then at the de-
risive yokels and you sing sorrowful
requiem for that part of you which
has been murdered by the glorious and
humane American system of reforma-
tion-that self-confdence, hope and
individuality which society took from
you for your sin against it.
1 came from Sing Sing. A rather
startling, but interesting statement.
I can always get the ear of the person
to whom I make it, and he listens to
me raptly while tell him all about it.
But when say, Brother will you give
me work at which can be honest and
decent? Will you give my white side
a chance to show?" he invariably ex-
presses the depth of his feeling for me
and calls to my attention the fact that
he has we'll established business and
a reputation in the community to sus-
tain.
I believe that every man who has
ever left Sing Sing had desire to be
straight. For long time before the
expiration of his term, he plans to get
work and to ward off the condition
that opened the gates of the prison to
receive him. For no man would will
ingly go back to hell of which the pro-
phets never dreamed.
If he has influential friends or rela-
tives, he succeeds in his purpose. In a
few years he wears off the stain of penal
servitude and finds place in the social
machine. He even marries sometimes
and society often forgives him, but it
never forgets his fall and he never for
gets it. It rises up at all times to mock
and to remind him that the Christian
spirit has it's limitations.
+ But the other fellow, my sort of
fellow, who has no influential friends
or relatives, struggles to find his feet
and he seldom finds them. He is a vic
tim to that very undelightful moment
when the prospective employer asks,
What have you done for the past five
years?" And after few months of it
when his body is racked with hunger
and the strength has been Slapped from
his soul, he throws rock through a
window or sandbags his brother in Christ
and becomes one of the scum who fills
our prisons