Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1916-11-15
FORMER PRISONER
Tells OF HIS LIFE
AT PEN|TENT|ARY
A. L. Sparkling Gives lie C.
ture on Conditions at the
States Penal Institution
instruction Great Need.

That inmates Of the Idaho peniten-
tiary have been placed in the thug
house" for most trivial offenses and
left there from 10 to 80 days, accord
Ing to the dictates of the warden, and
have been carried out upon blankets,
being too weak to walk, was the
strongest indictment made against the
state penal institution by A. l.. Spar
ling, q former inmate, recently par
doned, who spoke to an audience of
about ESQ people at the Pinney thea
ter last night Mr.. Sparkling spoke
from a humanitarian standpoint and
made no personal criticisms, but an
earnest plea for changed conditions at
tho institution that men might be en-
heightened and taught the better things
in life, rather than being punished
by confinement and turned out more
hardened than before they entered.
Mr.. Sparkling was In the penitentiary
for nearly year. being sent up for
obtaining money under false pretenses
in connection with a real estate trarE
action in the Twin Falls section and
since his parole. had appealed the case
to the supreme court to clear his name
He spoke with considerable feeling OF
conditions at the penitentiary. After
speaking of the causes which sent men
to the penitentiary, Mr.. Sparkling said:
IF you accept my premises that It
as lack of self control which lands a
man or woman in the penitentiary, you
must likewise concede the corollary that
until the man or woman has acquired
that self control-until he has been
taught to discipline himself-he Is not
Tit to be turned loose. Now discipline
Is the treatment suited to a learner
Discipline is education, instruction,
culture and correction
Discipline is the treatment suited
TO a learner!
'Ts there anything more difficult to
appraise than the exact degree of len
fency or sternness with which a learner
should be treated in order to obtain
the best results?
Each learner has his or her pecu-
liar idiosyncrasies, and what may prove
TO be beneficial in one case may prove
TO be fatal error In another. For this
reason our school authorities are de-
manding that our children have indi-
vidual attention; and II that is nee
essary in the case of all children, how
much more so in the case of the back
ward ones-the adults?
1T is therefore necessary that in the
selection of warden of penitentiary
care should be taken that he is a man
of refinement and unusual educational
attainments-a man whom the inmates
can trust-a man to whom they will all
10 xsyit %Han
of the old school, the sort that was
chosen from the ranks of retired army
officers and old time sheriffs, one who
merely knows how to exact obedience
through fear.
II do not wish you to receive the
impression that one who has wilfully
broken the law should not be pun
ished. He should, or that part Of his
education which he may call corrective
which is the essence OF dis
cipline would be neglected. But the in
generation, with the loss of all per-
sonal liberties, with all that means, is
the punishment, and when the dulprit
enters the penitentiary for that degree.
of corrective education that the judg-
ment has decided upon as the proper
one, his instruction should begin Now
the instruction should be of a con-
structive nature.
"Of what use is it to man to know
that he can stand certain number of
lashes before he will groan, or that he
can stand up under a given pressure
of cold water?
None whatever These things but
brutalizc the man, and awaken in him
all his animal instincts, which are so
near the surface in the best of us, and
for that reason they have been abol-
tshed as relics of barbarism. was
present in this hall when a political
campaigner suggested that prisoners
In the Idaho state penitentiary We're
being hit over the head with an iron
bar, by the guards.
PRISONERS NOT HIT.
Ladies and gentlemen. during the
10 months that ] was an inma tie of the
Idaho state penitentiary, | never saw
guard hit prisoner, or heard of
such thing.
guard cannot hit q defehseless
man and retain bis self-respect, and l
am glad to be able to state that most
of the guards are very decent men.
The only instances of abuse of power
on the part of a guard that has ever
been told me have been acts of newly
appointed men, Which is easy to I'M
THIS COUPON EXPIRES