The Washington times., 1927-06-22

though then they were mine to
| would give all but my soul fl
My Lorraine writes to me land
want to pause just one moment and
deny a cruel, mean little story pub
lished in one of the papers that my
baby hasn't written to me here|, that
her grandmother takes her out every
afternoon for . long walk or bus
ride.
Poor, sweet yOungster! She can
not play for a while at least with her
little companions. suppose their
mothers wouldn't let them be con-
taminated by the company OF Ruth
Snyder's daughter. Anyway. she
would be uncomfortable. So the two
brave women whose lives I desolated
comfort one another.
1t seems all wrong to me that they
must be made to suffer on my &C.
count. God knows have q heavy
enough cross to bear. myself. without
night that have crucified those in.
nOcents too.
Exposed to Endless Hatred
1t would seem to me that they, at
least, would get sympathy, because
they did no one any harm and they
have to live on and hear the burden
of my sins. But the world is wicked
| to the unfortunate as well as to the
| unwise.
Me it has locked up here. and
while 1t keeps me where l cannot go
out into the walks of men, 1t also
affords me the favor that / am
where they cannot get at me, too.
But those / loved and those who
love me have been less generously
left out there, exposed to the unceas-
ing hatred, hostility. and sneers of
their fellOw-beings who owe them
| the hand Of kindness and love.
Ny sorrows on earth and my
punishments on earth will soon be
over. Theirs they must carry on,
| through the years. to the grave,
| through their allotted space OF
mortal time. I am glad my mother
is old. am sorry my daughter is
young. -. s.a.- .a-.
They never complain. But I read
| 1t in the careworn lines of my
beloved mothers face when she
comes here on visitors days and
stands beyond the grated screen
over the steel-barred door of her
daughters cell in this death den.
Tries Laughing and Testing
She tries to be cheerful. not to
weep. She brings me little dainties.
She asks after my health and tries
to give me reassuring words. I
am afraid it is a hard pun to find
them. She is my mother. You
see, she knows ma and I know
her. The commonplace little
meaningless phrases that pass as
courtesies between strangers can
not help between those of the same
flesh and the same blood.
She is afraid to be too kind for
fear she will make me cry. And
she wants TO be as kind as the
brutal possibilities allow. So she
| scarcely knows what to say. And
sometimes. out of the very brief
minutes we have together, she Just
stands silently, at times not even
looking up at me, while l. on the
other side of laws metal barrier,
am speeches., too.
try laughing, testing, talking
| about impersOnal topics. IL helps
to make the time 20. but we both
know and we both understand. 1t
is useless.
And still her visits are the great
est thing in my life here. / await
them with the eager suspense of
a lover.
Sing Sing teaches one some very
beautiful lessons. This grim and
CHASTITY prison inspires many a
poem and breaches many q sermon
In it are many criminals, many
murderers.
Some are condemned to die,
others are condemned to live.
But all Of them have, outside this
| grisly castle of mans inhumanity
some loving, Loyal heart beating
for them.
They come long distances and
they stand in long lines for hours,
with baskets and with babies and
| the weight Of many woes.
When their turn comes to see
their Gagged loved ones, beasts in
the colorless prison garb, brutes
whom their brothers sealed in
| rtveted cells so that the world might
be safer and happier because they
were not in it, their eyes light up.
The wonderful beams of true love
shine.
Love Taught In Penitentiary
Oh. 1t is easy to love out there,
where everything is free and fine.
But 1t is divine to love a man who
is to die or whose hand you can
never touch again: man without a
name, without honor; a man who
cannot embrace you. who cannot
work for you: a man who has dis.
Graced you and ruined you and
VINO. as long as he lives, will be a
burden and charge ON you.
That Is love. That is The kind of
love one learns I'm penitentiary.
That Is the kind Of love, perhaps,
tHat the Savior sent to redeem these
Dreadful sinners, SO that it's great
beauty might teach a moral of His
own limitless love for the fool, the
evlldoer, and the luckless. -
The matronS here will tell you
stories of devotion like that which
lived and never wavered through al
most countless years; Of lifers whose
wives or mothers or 'sweethearts de.
voted their entire remaining exist.
ence to what small comfort they
could give to those they loved: shar.
ing their life sentences as far as
they could.
Wait to Claim Their Dead
They will tell yOu, nj x,,n,,.n,, vrKNn