Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1920-08-10
HUMANE TREATMENT TO
500 MEN HELD THERE
NO ARMED GUARD

E. A., Dunn, who spent last winter
and part of the spring in Florida, has
written an article on the Florida
Prison Farm for The Pilot. By hui
name consideration of prisoners, the
warden, Mr.. ]. S. Bitch, has develop
ed remarkable loyalty to the institu-
ton, with the result that they prevent
mistakes by their own efforts and
maintain excellent discipline. We are
glad to publish Mr.. Dunn's account,
which follows.
A short while ago read in a Chica-
go paper, that because of inability to
secure sixty-fve armed guards at a
state prison the warden had decided
that it would be necessary to cOnfine
some six or seven hundred prisoners
to their cells, and keep them there in
idleness, and the thought came to me
that possibly the thing which was
needed most greatly was not the sixty
five guards demanded by the warden,
as much as it was that there was
need for new warden.
/ do not pose as an authority upon
these matters and base my deductions
largely upon a rather limited Obser-
vatiOn, and the conviction that what
one man has done can be done by an
other, providing he has the calibre
and has those qualifications of mental
and moral fibre which should be re-
quired of all who are in charge of any
of the great criminal institutions of
the country.
These comments are drawn forth
because of a matter that came under
my personal observation last winter,
while in Florida. | have seen all, or
nearly all, of the wonders of that
state, have seen the fruitiOn of the
wild dreams of Plant and Flagler. the
great hotels and cities that have
seemingly sprung up by magic, in
fact all the things the ordinary tour
list does see, but the greatest and
most impressive thing that came un-
der my observation. and that largely
by accident, and about which not one
tourist in ten thousand can tell you
anything, and about which even the
native Fioridians themselves appear
to be ignorant, was the prison Pen"
near RaifOrd in Bradford county.
1t was only about thirty miles from
where | was spending the most of my
time. and | had heard it alluded to in
a vague way as the "pen" or the
''stockaGe." | had heard that the state
had established a prison there on
20.000-acre tract of land, that this
land was being cleared and worked
scientifically and successfully, and it
was because of this latter that | pre-
vailed upon some friends of mine to
take the usual Sunday drive over to
4. T.. I L.
dreaded the trip, for human misery
never appeals to me. and previously |
had seen "chain gangs" at work on
roads in Southern states, herded by
armed guards and Gagged at night like
wild beasts. and in some manner |
had gathered the impression that at
the Raiford ''stockade" I could not
avoid these things.
We were pleasantly relieved to find
that the ''stockade" was in fact no
such thing. The state tract is sur
rounded by wire fence, but one that
almost anyone could scale. there were
no towers, no armed guards, no bar
red gates, in fact the gates were not
even closed. and from the highway we
drove down a long avenue to where
the prison proper is situated. We could
see the warden's home, the dormitor-
les, the cattle barns. office buildings,
sawmill. workshops. Men were walk
ing around on the roads with women
and children. and we later learned
that these men were prisoners and
that the women with them were their
wives, and that they were free to
come there on Sundays and holidays
and spend the day with the unfortun-
ates of their family who were for the
time being deprived of liberty.
The despondence and sullenness
which we had looked for on the faces
of the prisoners were lacking. They
did not look like prisoners in a penal
institution, more like inmates of some
community home. for one of the rules