Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1920-08-10
A SOUTHERN PRISON AS viewed BY A
WAUSAU MAN

Sundays and holidays, the prisoners
are permitted to wear shirts, collars,
| neckties, coats and hats, such as they
would wear if they were free. The
| only part of their garb that savors OF
the prison is the trousers. These are
striped black and white, but repeated
washings and bleachings have made
! the dark stripes almost indistinguish-
able from distance.
At this institution there are approx
imately 500 prisoners, two-thlrds or
more of them black, and committed
for every conceivable offense, many OF
them in for murder as lifers, and l
should Judge as hard bunch to
handle as can be found in any Illi-
nois penitentiary, and yet on this big
farm, away out in the woods, with its
five hundred and odd prisoners, black
and white, there is not an armed
guard, there is no attempt to escape
and there is discipline as strict, if
less brutal, as in any other similar
institution in the country.
And all of this was brought about
by one man. That man is the war
pointee Of the somewhat erratic Gov
Cats. AS | sat and watched this
man, Bitch, and took note of the won
derful things he had brought about at
this institution, as | listened to him
earnestly discoursing upon his work,
| marvelled that man of such abil-
ity had been available for appoint
ment. Modest, unassuming, with the
air of rather reticent country law
yer, which he is not for he is farm
er, wonderfully in earnest in the great
experiment he began only two years
ago, and in which he has achieved
such signal success, | mentally DOTTED
my hat to this man as one of the real
ly great men of America.
Gradually | drew from him the
story of his wonderful experiment. /
learned that when he assumed charge |
of the penitentiary there were eigh- |
teen guards, armed with rifles, en- |
ployed there, that fiOggings were of
frequent occurrence, that the prison |
ers were sullen, revengeful, feeling |
that they were not getting a square
deal. that they were being needlessly |
and unfairly oppressed, and as mats
ter of fact that they had basis for |
this feeling. Within short time the |
last of the guards had been discharg- |
ed and at this time there were only |
eight names on the pay roll of the |
prison. These included the superin- |
tendent, Mr.. Bitch, the matron his |
wife, a physician, an electrician and |
four others whose positions | did not
learn.
Four thousand acres have been
cleared and put under cultivation, |
about four hundred set out to pecan
trees, and the farm is nearly self-sus-
tanning. and the work of development
is continually going on.
Possibly the largest and most sci |
entifically managed chicken ranch in
the country is maintained upon this
farm. Immense incubators are daily
turning out new fiocks of chickens. |
Every chicken is tabulated and kept
track of from day to day from the |
time of its Matching until it enters one
of the groups for laying hens or ends |
its career in the market. A daily rec
ord is not only kept of every pen of
ten hens, but record of each hen in |
the hundreds of such pens. All the |
eggs have a record of each by large
Florida hotels at top prices and this
part of the farm is run at a good net
prott. L might add that this depart |
ment is under the management of al
"lifer"
l never could understand how Mr..
Bitch secured the confidence of this
bunch of criminals to such an extent
that he felt safe in disposing of all
the armed guards and locking up the
rifles, but | gained an inkling of how
it was possible when l heard him talk
ing to those unfortunates at the gos-
pei meeting that same afternoon.
However. he did it, Gangs of men
are sent out to the fields to work ev-
cry day, some of them going as far as
three miles from the headquarters, 60
ing without any guard and returning
promptly on time in the afternoon. In
their dormitOries the men also main
tain discipline. Very few complaints
Continued on page four