The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1915-02-04

whether or not the punishment melted out is COM
mensurate with the offenses of which the one pun
ished has been guilty. are different matters, and
do not effect the fact that one is punished who
has not by some act of commission or commission
deserved punishment.
The idea of personal punishment was one of
the first ideas which the awakening mind of
primitive man grasped. 1t preceded the idea of
personal reward by many centuries. For ages it
was the sole agent that bound man to man, and it
is probably not saying too much to say that all of
the subsequent social bonds grew out of it. 1t is
still the final if no longer the main, basis of our
social relationships, resort to which is to be had
when other means of preserving them appear flu
tile, That is why we have penal codes and inter-
nal policing systems, as we'll as national delimita-
tons and wars for maintaining them.
1t will doubtless be long time before our
social relationships can be maintained without re-
sort to punishment, if that happy millennium
ever be reached by mankind. Step by step men
have progressed away from the idea of government
by fear, as they have come to realize the potency
other ideas for that purpose, such as the idea of
reward, self-interest; the idea of love, self
sacrifice; the idea of mercy, or self-attonement;
but in all social relationships, as we know them,
these ideas are backed up and supplemented by
the original idea of punishment Man may some
day reach that supreme height of unselfshness
where punishments will not be necessary because
there will be no offenses. If that time ever does
come, it must come through the action of each
individual in making himself or herself immune to
punishment by absolute rectitude of personal
conduct.
This is by no means impossible, nor is it
very difficult. Every sane person knows wrong
from right believe that no sane person can
commit wrong act unknowingy or in ignorance.
l believe this to be as true of the uneducated as of
the educated of the savage as of the civilized per-
son. for such differences are of opportunity rather
than capacity; are supplementary, and in no wise
fundamental principles.
Knowing right from wrong every man has
within himself the power to choose which he shall
do. If he chooses wrong or, as too many of us do,
does not exercise the power of choice which is his
but does the thing which seems easiest at the mo-
ment, he Furnishes himself; for every wrong act is
in itself punishment and opens the way to fur
Their punishment.
1t is not where we are that shapes our lives,
but what we do. and even more, what we think 1t
is not the fact of our incarceration in prison that
makes our punishment, but the knowledge of
where might be and of what we might be do
ing were we not in confinement. 1t is our remem-
brance of past opportunities not our lack of pres
ent which makes the days hard to bear. If
we but set resoutely about the business of living
TODAY to the best advantage, no circumstances,
no matter how unfavorable, can constitute a pun
ishment for us. We cannot change these stone
walls or iron bars by changing our attitude toward
them: but we can change their relative position in
our lives so that they will not be prison to u.s. but
merely the setting in which free to live to-
day for all there is in it. BEAU ESPRITA