Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-07-15
Press Divided ON Prohibiting
Convicts to Save Boys Lives

| picayune conception Of the dignity of
penal servitude prevented them from
being saved" The Memphis CONNER
cial Appeal recalls the reform methods
! of Warden Osborne and declares: TT
| is a strange commentary on the in
| consistency of human conduct that
denial of opportunity for possible
| moral regeneration Is made at the
very place which was consecrated to
that particular purpose some years
ago."
The possibility of impulses toward
better life which might have come to
the prisoners If permitted to save the
boys impresses the Newark Evening
News, while to the WATERFOWL Times
it seems tragic that the prisoners
were halted as they sought to do per
haps the only decent thing in their
whole checkered careers" The Ann
Arbor Times-News offers the comment:
"As for escaping from the prison, 1t
might be regarded as worthy OF q
pardon for a convict to save a life.
Criminals have been pardoned for less
than that" And the Buffalo Evening
News says Of the guards: "Who can
doubt that they would have won the
highest commentator IL they had re.
sponded to the natural instinct, which
rules?"
\ ~!
Agreeing that there were prisoners
who would gladly haye thrown them.
selves into the Hudson for the sake
Of doing one fine act that they might
hold before their own souls" the Mil
waukec Journal adds: ''They knew
then the added bitterness of realizing
that when a man has broken the rules
of his fellow men. he has lost his lib
erty, even the liberty to give his life
for Others" A similar idea is present
ed by the Louisville Courier-Journal:
Some of them. perhaps. had never
felt the restrictions upon their liberty
SO much before or been punished half
so severely by the sentence of impris-
onment as by the sight of those three
drowning lads. whom they could rot
help because they had, by their own
misconduct, sacrificed their freedom
of action"
"One can imagine such a proceeding
aside from the actual drownings," sug-
gests the Schenectady Gazette, ito
have been planned in order to enable
hundreds of prisoners to attain free
dom. Things of that kind have been
known to happen. The tragedy, like
all others. was deplorable. But after
sane consideration. unaffected by SEN
timental thoughts. we must admit the
guards were justified in their posi-
tion." The Terre Haute Star admits
that as cunning brains are always
busily engaged in attempting to out
wit the officials and guards. an unwa.
vering opposition to the slightest re.
taxation to sentiment becomes neces-
sary." but it concludes that "life is
too sacred to be tossed away simply
to uphold discipline which conditions
demand" and that cit is a problem
which demands careful study"
Directing attention to the fact that
this was not fiction, but reality, the
Providence Bulletin observes that IF
there Is anything in the world that ID
not fiction. It is Sing Sing prison or
any other penitentiary in which Grim.
inals are segregated for the protec.
ton Of society" and the Manchester
Union concludes: cit is unfortunate
that the boys lest their lives, but It IL
equally unfortunate to allow senti-
ment to blind us to the proper per. 4,
spective of, the relations OF the guards {
to the prisoners and duty" -.