The Nenana daily news., 1920-01-20
PRISON REFORM ID COUNTERACT
 RED ACTIVITIES

borne's nationwide campaign to
 'humanize" the prisons of the Unit
 ed States, according to friend of
 Mir. Osborne who served ten years
 in Sing Sing, has for it's real object
 the counteracting of anarchy, for,
 he said, "of the 5OO,OOO convicts,
 men and women, who annually emerge from American prisons, fully
 90 percent are potential Bolshe- vists."
 | This man, a product of the New
 York slums, who not only redeemed
 his own life, but saved two younger
 brothers from criminal careers, all as the result of Osborne's work at
 Sing Sing, declared that American penal institutions are being surrep- | titiously flooded with radical litera- ture, with leaflets of "hope to the
 oppressed" and that the secret movement to Bolshevize the nation $ prisons is being combated from the inside
 Supported by the efforts of 18,OOO members of the Gray Brotherhood, an organization of ex-convicts who made good" under the Osborne system known as the Mutual Well fare league, the former warden of Sing Sing, it was said, hopes to make prison reform a plank in the platform of one of the big political parties in the coming presidential campaign. A leading member of the first named body, wealthy ex- convict known only to the public as the Gray Brother, was said to be financing Ohborne, He is reputed Ito be a man of great influence in Washington and to be the intimate of several senators. He started the Joliet, H., prison inquiry, intended to be the first of national prison reform program.
 If the Gray Brother should come in here now and tell me to jump out of that window Ca four-story leap), I'd do it at once," confided the former ten-year inmate of Sing Sing "We all would trust him with our lives, and. believe me, this Os- borne prison investigation backed by him is going to be thorough job. The people outside haven't any idea of how Bolshevism is spreading in the prisons. A few days ago four Reds, it was discovered by our men, actually had themselves convicted so they could work behind the bars.
 "The Reds have their literature in the public libraries, some teach CTS in the public schools are sym pathetic,' and for some time they have been distributing their doc trines in prisons. jals and work houses to win over to their side the army of discontented malefactors who have an alleged grievance against society. The Gray Brother hood is alive to their propaganda, however, and is helping MT. Os- borne to abolish it. One of the best ways to stop it is to treat con victs like human beings instead of beasts and give them a chance to redeem themselves. The state is 1 breeding anarchists by turning at large men and women who have
 been brutally treated and who leave prison with hearts filled with the desire for retaliation and revenge.
 Under the old system kind
 hearted warden is engaged in mak-
 ing healthy burglars and porch climbers of first offenders. The
 prison experience did man no good and he had no conception of right and wrong, no sense of re- sponsibility to society, when he came out With the Osborne method it is different. As an illustration, there are 1,6OO ex-convicts and members of the Welfare league in New York