The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-08-21
BY MILDRED REED.

Up a winding, picturesque road over
looking the Missouri river, we rode to
the top of a hill. where we stopped
before a rambling, white farm house
set well back on a sloping, bluegrass
lawn, among gay old-fashiOned flow
ers and nesting vines. Other smaller
white houses surrounded the large
one.
1 admired the place, but made no
move to alight from the motor car
which had brought me from the rail-
road STATEN. I had been sent to see
where Kansas sends all her women for
breaking laws. This place was too at
tractive to be a penal institution Mrs.
Julia B. Perry, superintendent of the
Institution to which I was going, who
had met me at the railroad station,
stepped out OF the car.
Here we are she said.
I thought there must be a mistake.
Possibly we would stop here and then
continue our Journey.
This is the farm, she said
The Kansas State Industrial farm -
l asked, obviously.
No Fence Around 1t,
Mrs. Perry assured me we had ar
rived at the place I wanted to see. 1
gazed around, not yet willing to believe
the superintendent. The cause of my
wonderment was this: THERE WAS
NO WALL OR EVEN BARBED
WIRE FENCE AROUND THE FARM!
Who had ever heard of penitentiary
(for the farm is the Kansas way of
putting women in the pen - with
out a wall and guards?
But l should think there would
have to be some kind of a fence
around here" I said. gazing dumb
foundedly about before following Mrs
Perry to the flower bordered walk.
years. Mrs. Perry explained.
No guards, either ?"
"One guard in that little house you
see across the road Mrs. Perry said.
as We reached the door of the large
house, which she said was known as
the administration building. He's
place, than to keep the girls and
women from escaping.
But don't they try to get away?"
persisted.
Just one woman has tried to get
away from here" Mrs Perry replied
When she was found and brought
back, the other girls and women
Cheered and clapped their hands and
they scarcely treat her civilly now"
was astonished to note that the
windows of the home had no bars of
any kind. and only the usual locks
were on the doors. The doorkeeper
who swings the iron gates in the aver
age prison is unknown at this insti-
tuition.
Five Life Termcrs." too.
How these women. most of them of
hardened character. serving sentences
from the few weeks term of the social
disease prisoner. to life terms-there
are five life termers' kept on
n forty-acre farm without surrounding
walls, dungeons or cells and barred
windows is only one of the wonders of
the Kansas State Industrial Farm for
Women, the only place of its kind in
the United States-yes. in the world
How is it done? How are the pris-
Oners kept without a wall around
them?" are questions that kept re-
peating themselves to me, which I
could answer only partly after I had
spent several days at the farm.
was amazed to learn later that
q life termern who is in charge of
the poultry on the edge of the farm
who would be able easily to make
her escape, and who is entirely with
out guard. has never attempted to
escape in the more than three years
which she has spent there.
No Secrecy at the Farm.
Few Kansans know anything about
this new manner OF reform which
their state has adopted for women.
Ten or twelve other states have be-
come so interested in the Kansas way
of handling its women criminals and
delinQuents that they have sent rep
resentatives to the farm at Lansing to
study the farm and its plan. When
Miss Maud Miner, government sOci-
illogical worker and inspector, visited
the farm, she said:
IT'S great; I've seen nothing like
IT,"
was given free reign to go where !
pleased and talk to whom I pleased at
the farm. There was no hiding OF
facts records or conditions.
The farm is an open book" Mrs
Perry told me Il am glad to have you
come to see anything and to write any
thing YOU care about it.