EYTINGE

By Charles Wheatley.

[In the State Prison of Arizona is a life prisoner who has made a remarkable record. TheDelinquenthas followed with great interest Mr. Eytinge’s business career while inside the prison, and now, through an article from the Ohio State Journal, presents Mr. Eytinge’s story in part.]

Down in Florence, Arizona, in the State Prison they have penned up a Daytonian for life on a charge of murder. This man went into prison an outcast ready to die—or rather about to be killed by tuberculosis. He had been a “con man,” forger and all-around crook, and today, seven years after his conviction, he occupies a prominent place in the business world.

The man in question is Louis Victor Eytinge, born in Dayton in 1878. At the age of three his parents separated. His mother was a talented musician, while his father had been actor, broker and gambler. Sometime after the separation young Eytinge went to live with an uncle. He was educated in the First District school, Central high school, spent two years at St. Mary’s Institute and one year at the University of Notre Dame.

At the age of 16 Eytinge started on his life of crime by forging a check. He went from bad to worse, and was soon known from east to west and north to south by the list of bad paper he had left behind. Many times his relatives kept him out of jail by straightening out difficulties into which the young man drifted, but finally they became tired of this and refused to have anything further to do with him.

Cut off from home’s ties, Eytinge became even more desperate and finally ended up in the Ohio State Penitentiary following his arrest and a daring attempt at a big jail delivery. While in the penitentiary Eytinge was known as a “bad one” and when released it was found that he was suffering from the advanced stages of tuberculosis. This was at the age of twenty-seven. When relatives learned of his physical condition they weakened in their determination to do no more for him. They sent him to Arizona with an allowance of one hundred dollars per month. He was to remain away from Dayton and live within the law.

Eytinge had not been in Arizona very long, however, until he was under suspicion of murder. A man with whom he had become quite friendly and whom he had taken care of in a financial way was found dead in the desert one day afterEytinge had been seen to leave the city with him for a buggy ride. When the body was found Eytinge had disappeared. He was found later in California and in his pockets were some of the belongings of the dead man.

Eytinge was brought back to Arizona and placed on trial for his life. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence after William A. Pinkerton, one of the greatest detectives of the time, had declared that it was improbable that Eytinge had killed the man “as his criminal bend did not gallop in that direction.” Judge A. C. Wright, of Phoenix, who defended Eytinge, was so sure of the prisoner’s innocence that he went into his own pocket to pay for the appeal of the case.

Eytinge was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. How long can he live in prison? That was the question asked by all who had seen him on the witness stand. Eytinge was near death’s door at the time. His allowance had been cut off and he did not have the funds with which to purchase fresh milk and eggs, two delicacies almost absolutely necessary for the tubercular patient. The State prison was then at Yuma, Arizona. It was a hell hole with its mosquitoes which swarmed into the cells that looked out on the Colorado river. The quarters were damp, dark and dirty, and afforded excellent means of killing a man who at the time was ready to die.

But right there is the story. Eytinge was not ready to die. He was not 30 years old. He clung to the hope that something would bring about his release. He wanted to live, wanted to breathe again the fresh air of freedom and hobnob again with the pals, association with whom had placed him behind steel bars. Eytinge was still a crook.

Enough of the crook! Let us get to Eytinge the business builder and man. It is a great, broad jump we admit, but the telling of how Eytinge accomplished it is a thousand times easier to do than the battle which Eytinge himself had to go through in bringing about that end. Seven years ago Eytinge was a crook ofthe first water, seven years, mind you, and—today Eytinge is a man. He is looked up to by professional advertising writers the country over. His business letters are the best that are being written today. Eytinge is the star of them all.

The strange part of this great accomplishment is the manner in which it was brought about. Eytinge made the road light for himself. He started out with weak hands to carry the torch that showed him the way. Today Eytinge is his own light; he has thrown away the torch and walks alone. Honesty is his greatest asset, and it was through the writing of business letters that Eytinge found his way.

When Eytinge entered the State prison he realized that he must find some means of making money. One could not forge checks in prison. Eytinge was placed in the chronic ward. Around him were Indians, Mexicans and others who in their spare moments made hat bands, watch fobs and other articles out of horse hair. They decorated these with rosettes hammered out of Mexican dollars. These articles were sold whenever possible to chance visitors at the prison, but it was a slow way of making money.

And then one day the big idea came to Eytinge! Opportunity knocked on the steel bars and Eytinge was there to talk to Her! The crude handiwork of the prisoners was the vehicle by which Eytinge began to make his way. He began by writing letters to retail dealers on the outside asking them to take the agency for the hat bands, belts, watch fobs and other articles. It was not long until the money began to pour in. There was a big demand for the articles, but it was the letters that Eytinge had written that opened up the field. In these letters Eytinge had given the dealers a straightforward account of what the articles really were. He told the truth absolutely and unvarnished, and one day he discovered that he had been doing this.

Does honesty pay? This was the question that Eytinge asked himself. He did not have to ask others—he had the proofbefore him. He had discovered that honesty did pay and that it paid well. But just at that time this new business received a severe setback. Prison officials became suspicious that many of the letters going out from the prison were not what they purported to be. Some of the salesmen were suspected of filling their letters with fake statements which were little short of appeals for help.

Word went out from the warden’s office that each prisoner could write but two letters a week. Eytinge had been dealing with forty retail merchants. Many a man would have thrown up the sponge and quit. To have thirty-eight customers taken away in that manner would have proved a shock that few concerns would have been able to withstand. But Eytinge did not admit defeat. He soon recovered from the shock and saw that something must be done. Two letters must be made to do what forty had been doing before.

The wholesale field was the only thing left. Eytinge began again through that channel. And the letters he wrote! They were full of business from the “Dear Sirs” to the “Yours Very Truly.” These letters did not whine. Eytinge did not have the time nor space for that. He had to talk business, and he talked it so well that it was not long until the two letters were doing all that the forty had ever done.

In the meantime a new administration had taken hold of affairs in Arizona. The State prison was removed from the banks of the Colorado up the Gila Valley to Florence, and with this change came a change for the better in Eytinge’s health. When he entered the penitentiary at Yuma he weighed 119 pounds and now he weighs 190 pounds, is the picture of health and physicians declare that he is cured of tuberculosis.

Finding himself had given Eytinge two things. It gave him a new self, one of which he was as ignorant of as you or I, and it also gave him health. The necessity for money with which to fight off death had done this and it had been his desire for money that had placed him ina position where he had to get it by some other means than by placing some one else’s name on a check.

By this time Eytinge’s letters had begun to attract the attention of people other than those with whom he was dealing. He had become a student of criminology also, and when Governor George P. Hunt, the first Statehood governor of Arizona, began his fight for better penal laws after his inauguration in February, 1912, Eytinge had published a booklet of which he was the author, dealing with this question. A noted sociologist has pronounced this to be the cleverest thing ever published on the question.

Magazines soon began to find Eytinge a man worth telling their readers about. Advertising booklets such as “Letters,” published in Chicago; “Printers Ink,” and others sent men to Arizona to “write Eytinge up.” In this way he became well known to men who held high positions in the advertising field. His advice was sought by business houses whose sales forces needed bolstering up, and he has also been offered numerous positions as business manager and business counsel.

Eytinge has made thousands of dollars out of his business since in prison, but in an article a fellow prisoner has written about him it is said that Eytinge is in debt. Why? Well, principally because he is a man, and goes out of his way to help others. These laws of ours give a discharged prisoner a five-dollar bill and a cast-off suit of clothing when he starts out to face the world. Eytinge says this is not enough, and thousands agree with him, so when he sees a man leaving prison who is deserving and in need, he is the first to come forward with financial aid. He has helped hundreds of men fight through the courts for their freedom, and the families of hundreds of prisoners can thank Eytinge for money that has tided them over the prison term of the head of their house.

Don’t forget that Eytinge now before you is the man who seven years ago entered the penitentiary many thought to die. Yes, the old Eytinge is dead—Eytinge,the crook, has passed away, but it has left an Eytinge whom the world will be glad to greet. Peter Clark Macfarlane, a Collier’s writer, says this of Eytinge: “They had penned him up to die. They sent him to jail, a crook, and lo, his voice was a power for honesty.”

That is the way Eytinge is spoken of by hundreds who have become acquainted with him through correspondence and the few who have taken the trouble to visit him in his work shop. Among Eytinge’s first really influential friends after he got on the right track were McCrary, the old parole clerk at the prison, and J. J. Sanders, the new parole clerk, who was appointed when Governor Hunt made Robert B. Sims warden of the institution. Sims had never had any dealings with prisoners or penitentiaries before, but he had some ideas as to how they should be run. One thing that he remembered, which the wardens of many States seem to have forgotten, is that prisoners are human beings.

These three men helped Eytinge to pull himself up out of the rut. He was made a “trusty” and given a clerkship in the parole clerk’s office. These were about the first honest men Eytinge had ever associated with. Honest men to him up until that time were “rubes” and “dubs” whose money he looked upon as his own. But in his efforts to help the parole clerks guide the footsteps of the prisoners who had been given a chance through the parole law, Eytinge found that happiness can come to a man by doing something for someone besides himself.

Lecturing did not bring these things about. It was the man’s ability to see for himself, and his horizon was the prison walls. Here he saw before him hundreds of men who had violated the laws of society, and he saw also that the happyones were those who had violated no laws but were trying to help those who had. Step by step Eytinge was bringing himself up out of the mud. He declares today that the happiest moments of his life were those in which he found that he was regaining the confidence of those who had lost all faith in him.

One of the best indications of the regard in which advertising men of the country hold this prisoner is the fact that a paper written by him was read during the convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America, which was held at Toronto, Canada, June 21-25. This paper received greater applause than any other read before the convention, and the delegates were so enthusiastic over it that they voted to send Eytinge a vote of thanks.

The paper was read on Thursday at the close of the sessions when many of the visitors were anxious to get away for their homes, but 300 men remained in the hall in rapt attention while the paper was being read. A storm of applause swept through the hall as the reader concluded the message from the man who “puts his brains in an envelope.”

It has been a long, hard struggle for Eytinge. Will it win him his freedom? That is the question many are asking. No one can tell. Perhaps the law will unbend and open the gates to him sometime. Those who know him are hoping that such will be the case, and many are already doing what they can to bring about this result. That Eytinge has hopes that such a thing will come about goes without saying. He has served the average length of time that a “lifter” serves in Ohio, and he is a better man than many of those who are now released from prisons through pardons or influence.

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