Part 3

The organization was simple. Any prisoner could join the League. The motto was: “Do good, make good.” Unquestionably the incentive in the minds of most inmates to join the League was that there might be something in it for them. When similar motives are eliminated from the minds of men who undertake enterprises on the outside of the prison, it will be time to criticise unfavorably such motives inside the walls.

From the League members--and at present nearly every prisoner in Auburn is a member, wearing his little green and white button with “M. W. L.” thereon--a board of delegates, forty-nine in number, was elected by the prisoners themselves. This is Point Number Four. The prisoners did their own choosing of their delegate officers. The officers were not superimposed upon them by the prison officials. And in consequence, if these delegate officers did not act on the level; if they became stool-pigeons, bearing all sorts of tales to the prison officials and currying favor thereby, then the prison administration would not be to blame for the choice of inmate officers. It would be squarely up to the inmates themselves. What was the result? A very simple one. Both the companies of inmates and their officers instinctively aimed to adjust themselves to secure the minimum of trouble, at chapel, in the shops, at recreation. Splendid group psychology, and withal so simple. And incidentally it can be said that the inmates have been able to handle most dexterously not a few “tough guys” who had been giving great trouble to the prison administration.

At this stage the movement became bigger than any one man, even Mr. Osborne. The latter had imprisoned himself, he had suggested the formation of the League; he had organized the League; but now it was up to the inmates to make of the League a success.

The fifth stage in the development of the League came suddenly and through necessity. Early in June an epidemic of scarlatina struck the prison. Ultimately, about a thousand prisoners were infected. Few were in the hospital, but shop work slackened up to a considerable degree. Were the prisoners in consequence to be locked day after day in their cells? Was it longer necessary? The answer came one afternoon when Warden Rattigan took a long chance. He turned all the prisoners belonging to the League out to exercise or play according to their hearts’ content in the big yard, principally under the supervision of the delegates, who until now had been used to move the prisoners to chapel and to entertainments. It was a crucial test. It worked perfectly. Order was maintained, and no efforts to escape were made.

“The boys would tear a fellow to pieces that tried it,” one of the prisoners explained to me. “We’ve pledged ourselves to behave. Besides, do you think we want to lose the privileges we’ve gained?”

By the Fourth of July the daily recreation period, from four o’clock on, had been going for about a month. What have been the results?

“Everything,” answered one of the delegates. “Take my own case. Now I can sleep nights in that small hole in the wall called a cell. I have been here for years, and hardly ever had I had a decent night’s sleep. Now I get tired in the recreation hour. And then, too, we have something to look forward to. It’s a fearful mistake to make prison life so hopeless. You can’t get the best out of a man, in work or anything else, if you don’t give him something to work for. Now, if we behave ourselves and are decent members of the League, we have a decent amount of freedom and privileges. We have competitive games in baseball, bowling, and the like. We feel we amount to something. The boys march now with their heads up. We eat better. The food tastes better. A lot of the sullen resentment and hatred of the prison administration is gone. The work in the shops is better. There’s better discipline.”

“What about dope?” we asked. “They say it’s a curse at Sing Sing.”

“Very little here now,” said several delegates at once. “It isn’t needed now, and it’s frowned upon.” Then up spoke one of the huskiest and best proportioned of the Executive Committee of the League. “I’ll be frank,” he said, emphatically. “I’ve taken pretty nearly every kind of dope that’s known. I took it deliberately. Now I don’t need it, and I’ve cut it out.”

“Let me say something else, too,” said another delegate. “There’s mighty little prison vice here now. You know what I mean. Formerly, when we were all locked up for sixteen hours a day, and hadn’t had any decent exercise, or anything to take our minds off of ourselves and our grievances, all sorts of bad things happened. That’s the curse of the old prison regime. It turned out, among other things, a lot of degenerates. Now--well, we get pretty well tired, and our mind’s taken off of ourselves, and we sleep. There’s a good deal, too, in having that sort of thing put under the ban by the fellows themselves.”

One of us then asked, “How about the growing criticism that prisoners are getting to have too easy a time of it? When we tell the public in general about this Fourth of July celebration, many will say that the prisoners are having more fun and an easier time than the honest taxpayer.”

The delegate, in answering, flared up. “Tell those people to try any prison for a while! What’s a prison for? To torture a man, and send him out hating society, and determined to get even for the years he’s spent as the old-line prison made him spend it? Nobody except the fellow that’s been through it knows what being in prison is. Does the public want us to go insane, get tuberculosis, contract wretched vices, rebel in mutinies, live sixteen hours out of twenty-four in a living tomb, and have day-in and day-out a miserable monotony of existence that dulls our minds and makes us hate the State that munificently pays us a cent and a half a day, and then often takes away the earnings of months in one single fine for some offense that the very manner of existence here almost forces us to commit? Why, what is this hour of recreation, anyway? It’s a health measure, a safety measure, a reformatory measure.

“Do you think fellows would commit crime in order to get into prison to have this little pittance of pleasure? Let me tell you that the very people that talk so about putting the clamps on this giving of soft snaps to prisoners don’t know what that other system did to us. Why, there are a lot of fellows here that had made up their minds to pull off another trick just as soon as they got out. Why shouldn’t they? But now we have something else to work for.”

Much of the above conversation occurred at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the League, to which we were invited. It was essentially a novel experience. Here sat, in the warden’s office, and without the warden or any prison official present, a round dozen of convicts, gray-suited and thoroughly in earnest. They discussed prison conditions and prison problems with all the freedom of a board of managers, and with far greater knowledge of actual conditions. Prisoners know more about a prison than does the warden, the warden than does the superintendent of prisons, the superintendent of prisons than do the inspectors, and the inspectors than does the public. Therefore, if the best efforts and the best loyalty of the prisoners can be harnessed up to a reformatory programme of the square deal for both sides, the possibilities of the future loom far larger than have reformatory possibilities in the past.

So Auburn Prison is pointing the way, by an almost revolutionary experiment, to large possibilities in inmate self-government in State prisons and reformatories. As I write these lines the newspapers bring a word of a similar Saturday afternoon passed in sports for the first time in the history of Sing Sing. Within the last week the State Reformatory of New Jersey, at Rahway, has adopted tentatively a modified form of inmate self-government. Great Meadow Prison, in New York State, which has been for several years the conspicuous honor prison of the eastern part of the country, marched its six hundred men down to the baseball game on July Fourth, a half-mile from the prison, under inmate overseers.

Self-government, to the limit of its possibilities, is almost a fetish with Mr. Osborne. For many years he was President of the Board of Trustees of the George Junior Republic; there he became convinced that self-government is workable not only for youngsters but for older delinquents.

In the old-line prison the ever-present dread of the traditional warden was an escape. His career was judged largely by his ability to suppress escapes and frequently by his ability to suppress public knowledge of the methods he used to keep order. Today the warden is judged able or poor partly by his ability to develop men out of his prisoners, men who on going out will make good. The entire theory of the old-line prison construction was based on the principle that any prisoner would escape if he could, and use desperate means of so doing. The bars and steel-work that you see everywhere in prisons throughout the country show how ingrained the theory has been. But up at Great Meadow, where the bulk of the prisoners roam unattended by guards at their work during the day, it is almost ridiculous to see them securely caged behind several strata of tool-proof steel at night.

In the last few years demonstrations in scores of prisons and other correctional institutions have shown that, if given the chance, when on honor, the prisoners won’t run away. The old adage of “honor among thieves” has taken on an entirely new meaning. It is now “honor among thieves toward the State that trusts them.”

The power of discipline in the League is very limited. The only punishment is suspension or elimination from the League. Such action is delegated to the Executive Committee of the League. Actually, this exclusion from the body politic--since almost every prisoner is a member of the League--carries with it two important disadvantages. It stamps the excluded inmates as _anti-social, not only to the prison administration, but to the body of prisoners_. Secondly, it bars the prisoner from enjoying the freedom privileges that the League enjoys. Therefore the power of suspension, be it for but a few days, has real force. The powers of discipline given to the League by the warden have not been accurately fixed as yet. The warden has told the League that all minor cases of discipline could be punished by them; wisely, I think, the officers of the League have not been desirous of punishing.

So that at present men are turned back to the prison authorities by the League for violation of the League discipline. The theory is that these men will be put back under the old discipline of silence and confinement, because they are no longer members of the League. The main body of the prisoners have then no official interest in them, so that the suspension involves practically a return to the old prison routine.

Recently a new Board of Delegates has been elected, and one of their first acts was to adopt a probation system instead of the definite sentence, in the cases of offenders against the League. A committee of parole has been established, which shall visit the suspended men at least once a week, and as soon as the committee thinks that the state of mind of the suspended men warrants the action the Parole Committee recommends to the Executive Committee the restoration of the men to the full privileges of the League.

“A big test is coming,” said one delegate, “when the members of the League go out. It will be up to them to justify by their conduct after prison the principles they accepted here and the privileges they received.” And the story was told us of one young man who was the first of the delegates to receive his release from prison. He is said to have made a hard fight to stay straight, mainly because he didn’t want to “put the League in bad” by having one of its officers go crooked.

And here opens up still another far-reaching possibility. Why should not the members of the League, once released from prison, form committees in the various cities and communities of the State for the purpose of helping the still later ones who come out of Auburn to make good? Heretofore the best that we of the Prison Association of New York have achieved has been to employ big-hearted and sympathetic parole officers--real friends of the released inmates. And we have scored good success. But it has been always a case of supervision and encouragement by the officer.

And so this was the proposition which we members of the Board of Managers of the Prison Association made to the Executive Committee of the League: “Will you co-operate with us in helping released prisoners from Auburn make their parole satisfactorily? Will you have small groups of ex-League members ready in various parts of the State to work with our county committees to the one end of tiding and helping the discharged and released prisoner over the hard months that immediately follow his release?”

With enthusiasm the suggestion has been accepted. One delegate spoke up: “I’m going out next month. I don’t know where I’ll get work, but I’m willing to go anywhere the League sends me. I’m willing and eager to give my life to this work, if I’m wanted!”

Such, briefly, is a picture of the Mutual Welfare League. That it is significant in its possibilities no one can doubt. What its outcome will be a year from now it would be hazardous to forecast. It may be but a burst ahead of the general humanitarian movement that characterizes prison reform throughout the country. It may be that when the altruistic enthusiasm that now holds the more thoughtful members of the League wanes, as wane it will to some extent, there will come a slump, and an arrogance of demand for more privileges that will give to the reactionary among prison administrators a chance to say, “I told you so!”

But I much doubt it. The greater danger will come from possible stupidity of prison administration, a change perhaps of authority at the prison, and a consequent lack of sympathy with the purpose of the League.

One thing seems sure. Prisons and reformatories will not go back to the old-line repressive and often brutal treatment. The transition to what will ultimately become the new treatment of delinquents is being attended by various experiments, often startling and sometimes amazing. We are not a Nation that thinks for a long time before acting in prison reform. Our successes have come so far largely from experimenting, retaining the successes and scrapping the failures. How much of the honor system, the back-to-the-land movement, the road-work movement, and the increasing classification of prisoners will be scrapped, it is much too early as yet to say.

The final test will probably be along two lines. We shall determine how the “new freedom” works within prison walls, applying the acid tests of health, increased efficiency in labor, reformative value, education, and general training for a decent life in society. We shall also have to show, if we are friends of the “new freedom,” that such treatment within the prison produces a larger number of permanent reformations after prison, a higher percentage of those who make good.

In short, the ultimate test is going to be not the increased possibility afforded the prisoner of enduring his prison term, nor yet the increased ease of administration of correctional institutions, but fairly and squarely as to whether society, from which all these prisoners come, and which has been the sufferer by them, is to be permanently better protected from their further depredations by giving them what today seems to be a square deal within the prisons, and a decent chance to make good after they come out.

EVENTS IN BRIEF

[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]

_Road Work and Farm Work by Convicts_--(In the clipping service of _The Delinquent_, road work and farm work by prisoners has become the most frequent single item of news. All over the country prisoners are working, or are “being worked.” We cite this month a number of items, taken at random, and showing the wide scope of the movement to use prisoners for out-door occupations that will benefit the community and the men also).

The first gang of convicts from Sing Sing prison are working on Catskill roads, and are camping. Most of them are short-term men.... In Pennsylvania, at Bellefonte, it is expected that the State will raise 10,000 bushels of wheat and 5,000 tons of hay on the State prison farm.... A bill providing that Federal prisoners kept in State penitentiaries or jails may be used for improving the public roads of any State has been introduced into the House of Representatives.... 20 prisoners have been at work in Franklin county, N. Y., and are netting $20. a day to the taxpayers, putting in stone roads.... The State prison of Wisconsin is running two prison camps. The preliminary work in constructing the new industrial home for women is being done by the prisoners, making the roadbed, building a railroad spur, laying the sewer system, digging the tunnels and otherwise excavating. The workers wear khaki trousers, work shirts, overalls and straw hats. The road the other camp is working on is the regulation road with a fifteen-foot macadam driveway.... At Ames, Iowa, the convicts have had a “raise” in wages, as a result of their first week’s showing. They were receiving twenty cents an hour; now they get twenty-five. They have been working for the Iowa State College, first doing “odd jobs” around the institution, then oiling and cutting roads. “Adams, the guard with the men, is virtually losing his job as guard and becoming merely time-keeper for the bunch.” ... There are now three road camps in New Jersey, with 40, 60, and 60 men respectively. The State Road Department has a large appropriation for hiring prisoners to improve the roads of the State.... At the farm of the New York City Reformatory for Misdemeanants, now under construction in Orange county, the results are as follows: “Two hundred tons of hay and two thousand bushels of potatoes already. A promise of ten thousand tons of fresh vegetables each season.” This farm was started only last spring, and less than fifty young fellows have been at work on it. The produce is shipped to the Department of Correction in New York City.... Sussex county, N. J., requires its prisoners to work on the roads.... Warden Sanders, of Iowa State Prison, has 175 prisoners at work on farms near Fort Madison. With a big auto truck he can take gangs of laborers thirty or forty miles from the Penitentiary where help is needed.... At Auburn Prison, N. Y., a road camp of long-term men has been established, and the prisoners to be sent out in this camp have been chosen by the Mutual Welfare League, who stand sponsor for their good work while outside. Several men of the gang had never seen an automobile.... In Mesa county, Colo., prisoners in the county jail will next summer be allowed to choose whether they will make hay, build or repair roads. This summer it was hay or the rockpile.... Dr. O. F. Lewis, general secretary of the Prison Association of New York, has issued a public statement supporting the plan of Commissioner Davis to establish a municipal farm of 500 acres on land reclaimed from the sea in Long Island Sound, to be worked by prisoners of the Department.... Only one desertion from the Ames, Ia., prison camp had been reported up to July 22.... Residents of Tybee, Ga., have petitioned the county commissioners to use convicts in building roads.... Governor Major of Missouri will ask the next legislature to purchase a farm of at least 1,000 acres across the river from the State penitentiary, for the production of vegetables and meats. He estimates that 400 convicts could be employed. Contracts under the contract system expire at the end of this year.... Provisions of a bill before the Georgia legislature are that the county chain gang shall work four months of each year within the city limits of Macon, under the direction of the mayor and council.... A survey of the proposed prison farm of Ohio has been made by students of the engineering department of Ohio State University. The farm consists of 1,455 acres.... Jefferson county, N. Y., is contemplating purchasing a county jail farm.... The sheriff of Washington county, N. Y., is using a garden for prisoners’ labor, partly because “weeding an onion bed is about the most tiresome work you can put a tramp to, and you won’t see the fellow again after his term expires.”... The North Carolina Good Roads Association resolved in July that all State convicts who are suitable for road work should be used in the construction of public roads.... Prisoners from Great Meadow Prison, N. Y., are building a State road in the Adirondacks.... The Lancaster, Pa., Automobile Club asks convict labor for public roads.... Fifty more prisoners have been sent to the State Prison Farm of New Jersey. Ultimately about 300 prisoners will be busy there. There will be about 2,000 acres of land to cultivate.... Governor Stuart of Virginia has pointed out that there are 1,056 men in the jails of Virginia of whom no work is required, and he has urged the several State departments interested in the matter to consider ways and means to get these prisoners out on the roads.... It has been estimated that the State of Ohio has realized 88.8 per cent. profit in raising cattle on the penitentiary farm. 278 head of cattle were bought for 8 cents a pound in Chicago. It is estimated that the total gain of the cattle, which will be sold to State institutions, will be about $4,500. A large dairy will be established on the farm.... From the District of Columbia Workhouse Farm, which received a maintenance appropriation this last year of $130,000, $60,000 will be returned in revenue, coming from the sale of brick manufactured on the farm.... The city of Washington has purchased 1,800 more acres on which to build a reformatory farm.... Superintendent Peyton, of the Indiana State Reformatory, wants to teach his inmates scientific farming, after the foundry contracts expire in November, 1915.... Thomas Mott Osborne has been spending several weeks, working with the prisoners, at several of the Auburn Prison camps.... City prisoners in Burlington, Ia., will again work on the streets. Sometime ago the prisoners were removed, but it was found that the city was the loser thereby, and that the prisoners wanted to work on the streets.... West Virginia is working State prisoners on roads.... The Sheriff of Suffolk county, N. Y., says that a prison farm is a necessity, and he has started to get one.... A life convict has run away from the honor camp at Auburn prison.... It is claimed that at least a dozen prisoners have escaped in the last few months from the New Jersey State prison farm.... Motion pictures showing convict road builders from the State penitentiary of Colorado at work will be taken in a few days on the Boulder Canon road....

(And the list might be continued almost indefinitely. The above notes are from clippings received during the first two weeks of August).