Part 8

Let us be thankful that the instances of cruelty and preposterous punishments have been so few. Grant that some of the reported instances are a species of brutal hazing, that some few bone-headed young officials “drest in some brief authority,” with an overweening sense of their importance, have taken a narrow view of military discipline, still there have been sufficient complaints to elicit the following editorial in the sober Public Ledger of Philadelphia.

TORTURE FOR MILITARY PRISONERS?

“If any branch of the Government’s military activities calls for an instant and searching investigation, it is certainly the treatment accorded the “conscientious objectors” in the military prisons to which they have been sent by court-martial. Even if half the allegations contained in the complaints concerning the prisoners of this type, at Governor’s Island, New York, and at Fort Leavenworth, are true, the conditions demand instant correction and those responsible therefor summary punishment.

“In times of war severity of treatment, within the limits of humanity, is to be expected by those who refuse to fulfill their obligations to the nation; but the term ‘severity of treatment’ is an euphemism when used to describe the experiences of conscientious objectors, shackled, unclothed, for hours to cell doors, kept for days in dark cells, and forced for weeks to subsist under physical conditions which the law would not permit in the case of animals. If these charges are substantiated, and the outraged sense of justice of the nation demands that they be either substantiated or disproved, then the drastic revision of military law and practice is an imperative duty of Congress which it dare not ignore or neglect.

“There is abundant reason to believe, in the severity of the sentences permitted to be imposed by army courts-martial, that there is lacking in the military mind that sense of fitness and of humanity which is in accordance with the age in which we live. The United States cannot with clean hands ask the nations with which it is allied in the war to humanize the laws of war while it tolerates inhumanity in the enforcement of its own military regulations at home. Recalcitrant soldiers offer a difficult problem, of course; but the fact is a greater reason for dealing with such offenders with tact and, above all, with humanity. Torture has no place in the penology of the day, and least of all in the service which prides itself on its patriotism.”

The Acting Committee of The Pennsylvania Society, having been informed of some instances of punishment which seemed to resemble soulless European autocratic methods, sent the following remonstrance to Secretary Baker:--

“The Pennsylvania Prison Society learns with astonishment and a profound sense of sorrow of the brutal methods of punishment employed in some of our Federal Prisons upon military offenders--especially upon so-called “Conscientious Objectors” whose only offense is a consistent adherence to their sense of duty. The studied attempt to break the spirit of prisoners at Fort Leavenworth and elsewhere by unspeakable cruelty suggests the practices of a barbaric past rather than those of a civilized and enlightened people. Granting that a Nation must at times deal firmly with political offenders, can any crime ever justify the employment of cruel and inhumane treatment? If such barbarous punishment has the sanction of law, then an outraged sense of justice demands the immediate revision of our Military Code.”

The following note was received, which indicates that the War Department at Washington has taken measures to relieve the harsh conditions.

“FEBRUARY 6, 1919.

“... The War Department immediately upon having conditions at the Disciplinary Barracks called to its attention, instituted an investigation. The report of that investigation disclosed the fact that the trouble at Leavenworth was due, not at all to the administration of the prison, but to the regulations which were ill-adapted to the unusual type of prisoner that the Selective Service Act brought to military prisons. The Secretary at once made some appropriate modifications of those regulations and has called a conference to consider further changes in disciplinary regulations, not only to meet this unusual condition but to bring the Army’s disciplinary methods up to the most modern penological standards, in case they shall be found to be deficient. The conference will also consider ways of meeting the immediate emergency of the overcrowding of disciplinary barracks due to the increased size of the Army during the war. The conference will come to its conclusions in the near future and you may be assured that action leading out of its conclusions will be promptly taken.”

“Very truly, “F. P. KEPPEL, “_Third Assistant Secretary_.”

Confidential orders, recently made known, of the War Department, issued in October, 1918, prescribed that those conscripts, refusing on account of conscientious scruples to perform military service, should not be treated as traitors or as guilty of rank insubordination. The Government thus in some form recognized the validity of their scruples. As a rule such persons were entirely segregated from the other men. For a time solitary confinement was discontinued, but we regret to report that at the military prison at Leavenworth some 25 of these objectors have recently been remanded to cellular isolation. One of these men has for some time been engaged in Christian work under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. Very recently he received a visit from a gentleman in whose office he had often been a visitor, but his mind seemed a blank, as he did not appear to recognize his visitor who called to offer services. This mode of punishment was having its logical effect.

We fully endorse the attitude of the U. S. Government as indicated in its Official Bulletin, No. 113, page 5:--“Accustomed as these leaders have been for many years to universal military service, to a large standing army, ... to marked class distinctions, they have absorbed, and are now wedded to, certain notions which to us, who have grown up under very different conditions, seem like worship of constituted authority and the unwarranted surrender of individual responsibility. The gradual development of these very notions has brought about an inordinate influence of the military group in public affairs.”

We rejoice that our Government so clearly sets forth the evils of a military authority, the spirit of which is so manifestly opposed to the genius of our free institutions.

On behalf of the Editorial Committee,

J. F. OHL, FLORENCE BAYARD KANE, ALBERT H. VOTAW.

PRISON EXPERIENCES.

Within the last few years the general public has been informed of the real life of the convict by intelligent observers who have suffered a few days of incarceration in order to gain an insight into the actual effects of imprisonment. The accounts were interesting and instructive, but we now have another opportunity to acquire knowledge of prison conditions from some intelligent and conscientious persons who have been imprisoned without resorting to a fake process in order to have such experience. We refer to a class of offenders who from religious scruples and in some cases for other reasons have disobeyed the military requirements. We hold no brief for these offenders, but the observations of some of these persons are a decided contribution to the science of penology. Making due allowance for hasty conclusions arrived at from a brief period of incarceration, and also after insufficient opportunity to grasp the subject in its entirety, nevertheless, the facts related, and the arguments and deductions derived from their experiences should appeal to all who have interest in the reformation of criminals.

Rev. Evan Thomas, a young man of deep religious conviction, and of a keen sense of injustice, has recently published in _The Survey_ some details of prison life in the Federal Prison at Leavenworth, Kansas.

We quote some portions of his article.

“The burden of prison life as I experienced it, however, was not the physical hardships but the unspeakable moral filth and vice to which one is constantly exposed. I could not have believed many of the things I heard and witnessed at Fort Leavenworth had they been reported to me before going there. No sexual vice or moral depravity is too low for some of the men confined there. The Disciplinary Barracks have been called the ‘cess pool for the dregs of the army.’ But many a fine young soldier whose only offense was to overstay his leave or be the helpless victim of the antiquated military law in this country, has found his way among the ‘dregs’ of the army; and as for the others, the great majority are the products of our reform schools, orphan asylums and jails. These men are indiscriminately grouped together in the prison. It is true that there are two so-called honor wings for prisoners in the Disciplinary Barracks, but I was never able to discover just what was necessary to be assigned to these wings. The information generally given me by other prisoners was that it was necessary to do ‘some hand-shaking’ first. As a matter of fact, as nearly as I was able to learn, the power lay very largely in the hands of a group of prisoners, who through clever politics and the holding of certain important jobs in the executive office and elsewhere, were able to control things to a large extent. I was told that even in these honor wings moral conditions were bad, but in the other wings where men were indiscriminately alloted, it often happened that diseased men were assigned to the same cells with others who had to share the same toilet facilities. The sixth wing, composed of eight tiers of open cells, each of which contains three double-decked cots and six occupants, is known as the ‘mad-house’ by the prisoners. Any thoughtful reading, writing or study in this wing is next to impossible. Before going into solitary confinement as a protect against the severe treatment accorded to such conscientious objectors as refused to work, I spent one day in this wing and the thought of ‘solitary’ lost much of its dread for me.

“It is certainly possible for the man of wide interests or strong character to live in such surroundings without any great degree of moral harm to himself, but for the young, the weak, the very immature, such conditions are nothing short of ruinous. The conversation is confined largely to sex, ‘booze’ and the personal daring of the prisoners. No crime is too terrible and no feat too desperate for most of these men in their talk. The menace of this sort of thing to those whose interests are almost entirely within the prison walls is the most insidious and destructive thing imaginable. Yet no real effort is made by the authorities to group the prisoners so that at least some of the men could be spared a great deal of temptation. Much more serious is the fact that the prison life itself is not calculated to give a man any interests but those of the basest sort. Self-government is practically unknown at Fort Leavenworth except in the honor wings, where I believe the occupants are allowed to elect their own orderlies.

“At the Disciplinary Barracks there is a department of psychiatry which takes a very careful record of every prisoner’s history and this record is faithfully verified by the authorities through letters and other means of information. But once this record is completed and on the files, apparently everything has been done that is required. So far as I was able to observe, at least, no really constructive efforts were made to relieve the conditions in the wings which I have spoken of, where a man of refined sensibilities is often quartered in the same double-decked bunk with a degenerate or a moral pervert.

“THE FAILURE OF PUNISHMENT.

“The condition of affairs which I have been attempting to describe is greatly aggravated by the fact that the idea of punishment and discipline reigns supreme in the prison. Much is said in the rules and regulations about the aim of the institution being to improve every prisoner and turn each man out a better and more useful individual than when he came in. That is one of the standing jokes of the prisoners and not without reason, for one has only to read the book of rules itself to see that the military tradition of punishment and discipline is the medicine which is expected to work this great transformation. But unfortunately most of the occupants of a military prison are there because of their failure or refusal to accept this military tradition. They are there because they are weak, mentally and morally, or too independent for the army or because they object to it on principle.

“So far as I have had experience in life I have yet to observe anything more absolutely negative in its purpose and effects than this method of discipline. The prisoner who has the distinction of having been longest at Fort Leavenworth, had only two more days of his sentence to complete when a guard called him a vile name, and utterly regardless of the inevitable consequences this prisoner knocked the guard down with a brick. He has since received several extensions of sentence because of other defiant acts. The ball and chain, solitary confinement and all the other repressive measures of the prison system have some way not succeeded as yet in turning this man out of prison a ‘better man than when he came in.’ There unquestionably is a criminal element in prison that is a menace to society, but depraved or vicious as some of these men may be, there is yet some good in every one of them and possibilities of truly chivalrous conduct in all of them when properly treated. But the ball and chain, the iron rule, the cursing and foul threats by guards do not seem to bring out the good side of these men.

“Not long before I was released two men were caught fighting in the corridor of the wing near my cell. These two men were not equally guilty. To go into the details of the case would require more space than I have, but the point I wish to bring out is that they both were at once taken to the executive officer of the prison and in ten minutes were back, sentenced alike, to ten days in the ‘hole’ on bread and water. The great object of such prison punishment is to break a man, make him humble, meek and obedient. When this is done the process of making a man of the prisoner seems to be considered completed. A guard once told me while I was in solitary that when he chained a man up backwards as punishment for talking in solitary, as used to be done, he was generally kind-hearted enough to let the man down if he repented and asked for it in the ‘right spirit,’ but if the man was too ‘damned proud to show how much it hurt him he would let him take his medicine.’ I mention this because to my mind it is typical of the punishment and discipline idea of the prison. Actually what happens in this process of breaking is that the prisoner in the great majority of cases is shoved still further down the scale of degradation and lack of self-respect. He becomes either flabby or vicious. This is especially true of such criminal types as need the helpful, sympathetic and human advice and correction of trained men above everything else.

“It is my belief that at the bottom of all that I have been trying to tell, lies not the dishonesty or cruelty of individual officials but a state of mind shared largely by us all, even prisoners themselves oftentimes, viz., the idea that the convict is something apart, something taboo, a person who has forfeited all the rights of normal human beings, and with this idea goes that of punishment, the ingrained belief that the only way to deal with viciousness or wrong-doing is to keep the big stick constantly at hand. This certainly is the theory of our prisons if one is to judge from the products of our reform schools and jails whom I met at Fort Leavenworth. These men very largely had grown up with no other idea of life than that of the big stick. Put one of these prisoners in authority over others and in the majority of cases he can be more dictatorial and cruel than any guard. The supposition is that to make this outcast--the prisoner--bow to authority will make a man of him.

“Prison reform is no easy matter. It must be the work of devoted and expertly trained men and women. Sentimentalism can play no part in it and certainly discipline, properly understood, will always have its place, but it will be discipline in which mutual responsibility, human sympathy and understanding will replace autocracy and indifference to the individual and personal element at stake. It is, perhaps, only fair to say that with the arrival of Major Adler at Fort Leavenworth at the beginning of this year certain very important reforms have been started. But it is going to be a long, uphill fight which will require the enlightened support of the public if prisons are ever to cease being a degrading influence in the prisoner’s life to say nothing of becoming the constructive help that they should be and can be.”

PROHIBITION AND ARRESTS.

HARRY M. CHALFANT.

... We have a detailed report of the number of arrests in Detroit during the last eight months of license as compared with the first eight months under prohibition. Detroit became dry May 1, 1918, and this report covers the two periods of eight months each, preceding and following that date. It is issued by George H. Walters, deputy police commissioner. Detroit is the largest city in the world to experiment with prohibition, it having close to 1,000,000 people.

We have grouped kindred offenses to secure brevity. The first column shows the number of arrests during the wet period and the second column shows arrests for the same offenses during the dry regime. In the third column we have worked out the percentage of reduction. Under the dry period there were 1511 arrests for violation of the prohibition law and 550 convictions resulted. These are omitted from the list because, obviously, no comparison on this offense could be made. The following figures tell their own story:

NUMBER OF ARRESTS.

Under Under Percentage license. prohibition. reduction. 28,156 10,543 64

It is worthy of note that these results are not materially different from what happened in the cities of Denver and Seattle, which became dry January 1, 1916. They afford a hint of what may be possible, at least to a degree, in Philadelphia after the 1st of next July.

PHILADELPHIA, February 20, 1919.

HONORARY MEMBERS.

Maud Ballington Booth (1909) New York City. Judge Ben B. Lindsey (1909) Denver, Colo. [4]Frederick Howard Wines (1909) Judge McKenzie Cleland (1909) Chicago, Ill. [4]Gen. R. Brinkerhoff Z. R. Brockway (1909) Elmira, N. Y. [4]Prof. Charles Richmond Henderson (1910) Dr. Hastings H. Hart (1914) New York City. [4]James A. Leonard (1914) Timothy Nicholson (1915) Richmond, Ind. Amos W. Butler (1915) Indianapolis, Ind.

LIFE MEMBERS.

[4]Ashmead, Henry B., [4]Lewis, Howard W., [4]Bailey, Joel J., Lewis, Mrs. Sarah A., [4]Baily, Joshua L., Longstreth, W. W., [4]Bartol, B. H., [4]Love, Alfred H., [4]Benson, E. N., [4]Lytle, John J., [4]Bergdoll, Louis, [4]Maginnis, Edw. I., [4]Betts, Richard K., [4]Manderson, James, Bonham, Eleanor M., [4]Milne, Caleb J., [4]Bonsall, E. H., [4]McAllister, Jas. W., [4]Brooke, F. M., [4]Nicholson, Robert P., [4]Brown, Alexander, [4]Osborne, Hon. F. W., [4]Brown, T. Wistar, Patterson, Robert, Brush, C. H., [4]Pennock, George, Buckley, Daniel, [4]Perot, Joseph, Carter, John E., Perot, T. Morris, Jr., [4]Cattell, Henry S., Pooley, Fred. J., [4]Childs, George W., [4]Potter, Thomas, Cochran, Miss Mary N., Jr., [4]Powers, Thomas H., Coles, Miss Mary, [4]Price, Thomas W., [4]Collins, Alfred M., Randolph, Miss Anna, Coxe, Eckley B., Jr., Rhoads, Joseph R., [4]Downing, Richard H., [4]Roach, Joseph H., [4]Dreer, Edw. G., [4]Saul, Rev. James, Dreer, Ferd. J., Jr., [4]Santee, Charles, [4]Douredore, B. L., [4]Seybert, Henry, [4]Duhring, D. D., Rev. H. L., [4]Sharpless, Townsend, Duncan, John A., [4]Steedman, Rosa, [4]Elkinton, Joseph S., Stephens, Emily J. I., M. D., Elwyn, Alfred, [4]Stokes, Wm. C., [4]Elwyn, Mrs. Helen M., [4]Sulzberger, David, [4]Fotterall, Stephen G., [4]Thomas, Geo. C., Frazer, Dr. John, Thompson, Emma L., Frazier, W. W., [4]Tracey, Charles A., [4]Goodwin, M. H., [4]Townsend, Henry T., Grigg, Mary S., Tyler, W. Graham, [4]Hall, George W., Votaw, Albert H., Harrison, Alfred C., [4]Waln, L. Morris, Harrison, Chas. C., [4]Walk, Jas. W., M. D., [4]Hockley, Thomas, Warren, E. Burgess, Ingram, Wm. S., [4]Watson, Jas. V., [4]Jeans, Joshua T., Way, John, Jenks, John Story, [4]Weightman, William, [4]Jones, Mary T., [4]Weston, Harry, [4]Jordan, John, Jr., Wetherell, William Henry, [4]Justice, W. W., Whelen, Emily, [4]Kinke, J., [4]Whelen, Mary S., [4]Knight, Reeve L., [4]Williams, Henry J., [4]Laing, Anna T., [4]Williamson, I. V., [4]Laing, Henry M., [4]Willits, Jeremiah, Lea, M. Carey, [4]Willits, Jeremiah, Jr., [4]Leaming, J. Fisher, Wistar, Edward M., Leeds, Deborah C., Wood, Walter. [4]Lewis, F. Mortimer,

ANNUAL MEMBERS.