Our plans worked smoothly, and a few weeks later, when all Chicago was given over to the World's Fair, the desire of Anton's heart came true and he was restored to home and freedom. Or, as the newspapers would have put it: "Our anarchist governor let loose another murderer to prey upon society." Poor little murderer! In all that great city there was no child more helpless or harmless than he.
The image of little Anton Zabrinski, as of the prison itself, grew faint in my heart for the time, under the spell of the long enchanting summer days and magical evenings at the White City.
The interest and the beauty of that fusion of all times and all countries was so absorbing and irresistible that I had stayed on and on until one day in July when I braced myself for the wrench of departure next morning. But the evening mail brought me letters from home and among them one forwarded from Anton, entreating me to come and see him. I had not counted on being remembered by Anton except as a milestone on his path toward freedom—I might have counted on it, however, after my manyexperiences of the gratitude of prisoners—but his longing to see me was unmistakable; and as I had broken my word so many times about going home that my reputation for unreliability in that direction could not be lowered, I sent a final telegram of delay.—Oh, luxury of having no character to lose!
The next morning I took an early start for the home of the Zabrinskis. In a little back yard—a mere patch of bare ground without the possibility of a blade of grass, with no chance of even looking at the sky unless one lay on one's back, with uniform surroundings of back doors and back stairs—what a contrast to that dream of beauty at Jackson Park!—here it was that I found Anton, listlessly sitting on a bench with a little dog as companion. All hope and animation seemed to have died out within him; even the lights in his deep-blue eyes had given way to shadows; strength and courage had ebbed away, and he had yielded at last to weariness and depression. He had left the prison, indeed, but only to face death; he had come back to his home, only to be carried away from it forever. Even his mother's loving care could not stop that racking cough nor free him from pain. And how limited thelonged-for freedom proved! It had reached out from his home only to the hospital dispensary. Weakness and poverty formed impassable barriers beyond which he could not go.
As I realized all this I resolved to give him the most lovely vision in the world to think of and to dream of. "Anton," I said, "how would you like to take a steamer and go on the lake with me to see the World's Fair from the water?"—for him to attempt going on the grounds was not to be thought of.
For a moment he shrank from the effort of getting to the steamer, but after considering it for a while in silence he announced: "When I make up my mind that I will do a thing, I do it; I will go with you." Then we unfolded our plan for adventure to the mother. Rather wild she thought it, but our persuasive eloquence won the day and she consented, insisting only that we should partake of refreshments before starting on our expedition. With the connivance of a neighbor on the next floor Mrs. Zabrinski obtained a delicious green-apple pie from a bakery near by and served it for our delectation.
I find that already the noble lines, with their beautiful lights and shadows, in the Court ofHonor of the White City are blending into an indistinct memory; but the picture of Anton Zabrinski as he leaned back in his chair on the steamer, breathing the delicious pure, fresh air, sweeping his glance across the boundless plain of undulating blue, will be with me forever. Here at last was freedom! And how eagerly the boy's perishing being drank it in!
There was everything going on around us to divert and amuse: crowds of people, of course, and a noisy band of musicians; but it all made no impression upon Anton. We two were practically alone with the infinite sky and the far-stretching water. It was easy then for Anton to tell me of his deeper thoughts, and to speak of the change that he knew was coming soon. Life had been so hard, only fruitless effort and a losing battle, and now he longed only for rest. He had felt the desire to give expression to beautiful form, he had felt the stirring of undeveloped creative power. We spoke of the future not as death but as the coming of new life and as the opportunity for the fair unfolding of all the higher possibilities of his nature—as freedom from all fetters. His faith, simple but serious, rested upon his consciousness of having, in his inmost soul, lovedand sought the good. His outward life was hopelessly wrecked; but he was going away from that, and it was his soul, his true inner life, that would appear before God. It was all a mystery and he was helpless, but he was not afraid.He had forgiven life.
As we talked together the steamer neared the pier at Jackson Park. "And now, Anton, you must go to the other side of the boat and see the beautiful White City," I said. It was like alabaster in its clear loveliness that radiant morning, and all alive with the lilting colors of innumerable flags. It was Swedish day, and a most gorgeous procession in national costume thronged the dock as our steamer approached, for we had on board some important delegation. A dozen bands were playing and the grand crash of sound and the brilliant massing of color thrilled me to my fingertips. But Anton only looked at it for a moment with unseeing eyes: it was too limited; it was the stir and sound and crowd of the city. He turned again eagerly to the great sweep of sky and water; "You don't know what this lake and this fresh air are to me," he said quietly, and he looked no more toward the land until we had returned to Van Buren Street.
After we left the steamer Anton threw off the spell of the water. He insisted on my taking a glass of soda with him from one of the fountains on the dock; it was his turn to be entertainer now. I drank the soda and live to tell the tale. By that time we had caught the bohemian spirit of the World's Fair, Anton was revived and excited by the hour on the water, and as we crossed over to Michigan Avenue the brilliant life of the street attracted and charmed him, and I proposed walking slowly down to the Auditorium Hotel. Every step of the way was a delight to Anton, and when we reached the great hotel I waited in the ladies' reception-room while Anton strolled through the entrances and office, looking at the richly blended tones of the marbles and the decoration in white and gold. I knew that it would be one more fresh and lovely memory for him to carry back to the little rooms where the brief remnant of his life was to be spent.
At an adjoining flower-stand we found sweet peas for his mother. I saw him safely on board the car that would take him to his home; then, with a parting wave of his hand and a bright, happy smile of farewell, little Anton Zabrinski passed out of my sight.
Through the kindness of a friend I had the very great happiness of sending Anton a pass, "For bearer and one," that gave him, with an escort, the freedom of the World's Fair steamers for the summer—the greatest possible boon to the boy, for even when too weak to go to the steamer he could still cherish the expectation of that delight.
Anton's strength failed rapidly. He wrote me one letter saying: "I can die happy now that I am with my mother. I thank you a thousand times over and over for your kind feeling towards me and the kind words in your letters, and the charming rose you sent. I cannot write a long letter on account of my pains through my whole chest. I can't turn during the night from one side to another. Dear Friend, I don't like to tell my misery and sorrows to persons, but I can't help telling you."
Another letter soon followed, but not from Anton. It was the sister who wrote:
"Dear Friend:"With deep sorrow I inform you of my dear brother's death. He died at four o'clock in the morning. He had a great desire to see youbefore he died. We should be glad to see you at the funeral if convenient Wednesday morning."Pardon this poor letter"from your loving friend"Miss Nina Zabrinski."
"Dear Friend:
"With deep sorrow I inform you of my dear brother's death. He died at four o'clock in the morning. He had a great desire to see youbefore he died. We should be glad to see you at the funeral if convenient Wednesday morning.
"Pardon this poor letter"from your loving friend"Miss Nina Zabrinski."
FOOTNOTES:[8]These "solitary" cells in which a prisoner passed his first night were in a detached building in which the punishment cells were located. The solitude was absolute and terrible.[9]The striped convict suit was practically abolished at Joliet the following year.[10]This young man, Edmund M. Allen, is now warden of this same prison, and has so developed the humanizing methods of his father as to bring Joliet penitentiary into the front rank of progressive prison reform.
[8]These "solitary" cells in which a prisoner passed his first night were in a detached building in which the punishment cells were located. The solitude was absolute and terrible.
[8]These "solitary" cells in which a prisoner passed his first night were in a detached building in which the punishment cells were located. The solitude was absolute and terrible.
[9]The striped convict suit was practically abolished at Joliet the following year.
[9]The striped convict suit was practically abolished at Joliet the following year.
[10]This young man, Edmund M. Allen, is now warden of this same prison, and has so developed the humanizing methods of his father as to bring Joliet penitentiary into the front rank of progressive prison reform.
[10]This young man, Edmund M. Allen, is now warden of this same prison, and has so developed the humanizing methods of his father as to bring Joliet penitentiary into the front rank of progressive prison reform.
On a lovely evening some thirty years ago there was a jolly wedding at the home of a young Irish girl in a Western city. Tom Evans, the groom, a big-hearted, jovial fellow, was deeply in love with the girl of his choice. He was earning good wages and he intended to take good care of his wife.
It was midnight, and the streets were flooded with brilliant moonlight when Evans started to take his bride from her home to his, accompanied on the way by Jim Maguire, Larry Flannigan, and Ned Foster, three of the wedding guests. They were not carriage folks and were walking to the street-car when Jim Maguire, who had not been averse to the exhilarating liquids in hospitable circulation at the wedding feast, became unduly hilarious and disported himself with song and dance along the sidewalk—a diversion in which the others took no part. This hilarity was summarily interrupted by a policeman, who attempted to arrest the young man for disorderlyconduct, a proceeding vigorously resisted by Maguire.
This was the beginning of an affray in which the policeman was killed, and the whole party were arrested and taken into custody. As the policeman was well known, one of the most popular men on the force, naturally public indignation ran high and the feeling against his slayers was bitter and violent.
Tom Evans and Jim Maguire were held for murder, while Larry Flannigan, a boy of seventeen, and Ned Foster, as participants in the affair, were charged with manslaughter. The men were given fair trials—separate trials, I believe—in different courts, but it was impossible to get at the facts of the case, as there were no actual witnesses outside of those directly affected by the outcome; while each lawyer for the defence did his best to clear his own client from direct responsibility for the death of the policeman, regardless of the deserts of the others under accusation.
And so it came to pass that Jim Maguire and Tom Evans were "sent up" for life, while the bride of an hour returned to her father's house and in the course of time became the bride of another. Larry Flannigan was sentenced tofourteen years' imprisonment. Ned Foster, having served a shorter sentence, was released previous to my acquaintance with the others.
Some five years later one of the prison officers interested in Jim Maguire asked me to interview the man. Maguire was a tall, muscular fellow, restive under confinement as a hound in leash; nervous, too, and with abounding vitality ready at a moment's notice again to break out in song and dance if only the chance were given. This very overcharge of high animal spirits, excited by the wedding festivities, was the starting-point of all the tragedy. No doubt, too, in his make-up there were corresponding elements of recklessness and defiance.
Our first interview was the beginning of an acquaintance resulting in an interchange of letters; but it was not until a year afterward that in a long conversation Maguire gave me an account of his part in the midnight street encounter. Admitting disorderly conduct and resistance against the officer, he claimed that it was resistance only and not a counter attack; stating that the struggle between the two continued until the officer had the upper hand and then continued beating him into subjection so vigorously that Maguirecalled for help and was rescued from the hands of the officer by "one of the other boys." He did not say which one nor further implicate any one.
"Ask the other boys," he said. "Larry didn't have anything to do with the killing, but he saw the whole thing. Get Larry to tell the story," he urged.
And so I was introduced to Larry. He was altogether of another type from Maguire. I hardly knew whether he wore the convict stripes or broadcloth when I was looking into that face, so sunny, so kindly, so frank. After all these years I can never think of Larry without a glow in my heart. He alone, of all my prisoners, appeared to have no consciousness of degradation, of being a convict; but met me simply and naturally as if we had been introduced at a picnic.
I told him of my interview with Jim Maguire and his immediate comment was: "Jim ought not to be here; he resisted arrest but he did not kill the officer; he's here for life and it's wrong, it's terrible. I hope you will do something for Jim."
"But what of yourself?" I asked; "you seem to have been outside of the affair altogether. I think I'd better do something for you."
"Oh, no!" he protested, "you can get oneman out easier than two. I want to see Jim out, and I don't want to stand in his way. You know I am innocent, and all my friends believe me innocent, and I'm young and well and can stand my sentence; it will be less than ten years with good time off. My record is perfect and I shall get along all right. But Jim is here for life."
I felt as if I were dreaming. I knew it would be a simple matter to obtain release for Larry, who had already been there six years, but no, the boy would not consider that, would not even discuss it. His thought was all for Jim, and he was unconscious of self-sacrifice. He simply set aside what seemed to him the lesser good in order to secure the greater.
"Did you ever make a full statement in court?" I asked.
"No. We were only allowed to answer direct questions in the examinations. None of us were given a chance to tell the straight story."
"So the straight story never came out at any of the trials?"
"No."
Thinking it high time that the facts of a case in which two men were suffering imprisonment for life should be ascertained and put on recordsomewhere, it then remained for me to interview Evans, and to see how nearly the statements of the three men agreed, each given to me in private six years after the occurrence of the event.
Tom Evans—I see him now clearly as if it were but yesterday—a thick-set, burly figure with an intelligent face of good lines and strong character; a man of force who from his beginning as brakesman might have worked his way up to superintending a railroad, had the plan of his destiny been different.
I told him frankly that I had asked to see him in the interest of the other two, and that what I wanted first of all was to get the facts of the case, for the tragedy was still a "case" to me.
"And you want me to tell the story?" I felt the vibration of restrained emotion in the man from the first as he pictured the drama enacted in that midnight moonlight.
"I had just been married and we were going to my home. The streets were light as day. Jim was singing and dancing, when the policeman seized him. I saw there was going to be a fight and I made up my mind to keep out of it; for when I let my temper go it gets away with me. So I stood back with my girl. Jim called forhelp but I stood back till I really believed Jim might be killed. I couldn't stand by and see a friend beaten to death, or take any chance of that. And so I broke into the fight. I got hold of the policeman's club and began to beat the policeman. I am a strong man and I can strike a powerful blow."
Here Evans paused, and there was silence between us until he said with a change of tone and expression:
"It was Larry who came to the help of the policeman and got the club away from me. It's Larry that ought to be out. Jim made the trouble and I killed the policeman, but Larry is wholly innocent. He is the one I want to see out."
At last we were down to bed-rock; there was no doubt now of the facts which the clumsy machinery of the courts had failed to reach.
I assured Evans that I would gladly do what I could for Larry, and then and there Evans and I joined hands to help "the other boys." I realized something of the sacrifice involved when I asked Evans if he was willing to make a sworn statement in the presence of the warden of the facts he had given me. What a touchstone of the man's nature! But he was following the leadof truth and justice and there was no turning back.
We all felt that it was a serious transaction in the warden's office next day when Evans came in and, after a little quiet conversation with the warden, made and signed a statement to the effect that he, and he only, struck the blows that killed the policeman, and with hand on the Bible made oath to the truth of the statement, which was then signed, as witnesses, by the warden and a notary.
As Evans left the office the warden said to me: "Something ought to be done for that man also when the other boys are out."
I knew that in securing this confession I had committed myself to all the necessary steps involved before the prison doors could be opened to Maguire and Larry. And in my heart I was already pledged to befriend the man who, with unflinching courage, had imperilled his own chances of liberation in favor of the others; for I was now beginning to regard Evans as the central figure in the tragedy.
It is no brief nor simple matter to obtain the release of a man convicted of murder by the court and sentenced to life imprisonment unless onehas political influence strong enough to override all obstacles. Almost endless are the delays likely to occur and the details to be worked out before one has in hand all the threads necessary to be woven into the fabric of a petition for executive clemency.
In order to come directly in touch with the families of Larry and Maguire, and with the competent lawyer already enlisted in their service and now in possession of the statement of Evans, I went to the city where the crime was committed. The very saddest face that I had seen in connection with this affair was the face of Maguire's widowed mother. She was such a little woman, with spirit too crushed and broken by poverty and the fate of her son to revive even at the hope of his release. It was only the ghost of a smile with which she greeted me; but when we parted her gratitude called down the blessings of all the saints in the calendar to follow me all my days.
Larry's people I found much the same sort as he, cheerful, generous, bravely meeting their share of the hard luck that had befallen him, apparently cherishing the treasure of his innocence more than resenting the injustice, but most gratefulfor any assistance toward his liberation. The lawyer who had interviewed Larry and Maguire at the penitentiary expressed amazement at what he called "the unbelievable unselfishness" of Larry. "I did not suppose it possible to find that spirit anywhere, last of all in a prison," he said. Larry had consented to be included on the petition drawn up for Maguire only when convinced that it would not impair Maguire's chances.
When I left the place the lines appeared to be well laid for the smooth running of our plans. I do not now remember what prevented the presentation of the petition for commutation of both sentences to twelve[11]years; but more than a year passed before the opportune time seemed to be at hand.
During this interval Evans was by no means living always in disinterested plans for the benefit of the others. The burden of his own fate hung heavily over him and no one in the prison was more athirst for freedom than he. In books from the prison library he found some diversion, and when tired of fiction he turned to philosophy, seeking to apply its reasoning to his own hardlot; again, he sought in the poets some expression and interpretation of his own feelings. It was in the ever welcome letters that he found most actual pleasure, but he encountered difficulties in writing replies satisfactory to himself. In a letter now before me he says:
"I only wish that I could write as I feel, then indeed would you receive a gem; but I can't, more's the pity. But I can peruse and cherish your letters, and if I dare I would ask you to write oftener. Just think, the idea strikes me that I am writing to anauthorous, me that never could spell a little bit. But the authorous is my friend, is she not, and will overlook this my defect. I have done the best I could to write a nice letter and I hope it will please you, but, in the words of Byron,
"'What is writ is writ:Would it were worthier. But I am not nowThat which I have been, and my visions flitLess palpably before me, and the glowWhich in my spirit dwelt is fluttering faint and low.'
"'What is writ is writ:Would it were worthier. But I am not nowThat which I have been, and my visions flitLess palpably before me, and the glowWhich in my spirit dwelt is fluttering faint and low.'
"'What is writ is writ:Would it were worthier. But I am not nowThat which I have been, and my visions flitLess palpably before me, and the glowWhich in my spirit dwelt is fluttering faint and low.'
"'What is writ is writ:
Would it were worthier. But I am not now
That which I have been, and my visions flit
Less palpably before me, and the glow
Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering faint and low.'
"With the last line of your letter I close, 'write soon, will you not?'"
Evans's letters to me were infrequent, as he kept in correspondence with his lawyers, whoencouraged him to hope that he would not spend all his life behind the bars. Others, too, claimed his letters. He writes me:
"I have a poor old mother who expects and always gets my Christmas letters, but I resolved that you should have my first New Years letter, so here it is, wishing you a happy new year and many of them. No doubt you had many Christmas letters from here telling you of the time we had, and ajolly good timeit was. It is awfully dark here in the cells to day and I can hardly see the lines to write on. I hope you won't have as much trouble in reading it." The handwriting in Evans's letters is vigorous, clear, and open; a straightforward, manly hand, without frills or flourishes.
Just as I was leaving home for one of my semi-annual visits to the penitentiary, I had information from their lawyer that the petition for Maguire and Larry would be presented to the governor the following month. Very much elated with the good news I was bringing I asked first for an interview with Evans. He came in, evidently in very good spirits, but as I proceeded to relate with enthusiasm what we had accomplished I felt an increasing lack of response onthe part of Evans and saw the light fading from his face.
"O Miss Taylor," he said at last, with such a note of pain in his voice, "you know my lawyers have been working for me all this time. Of course I told them of the statement I made in the warden's office, and then left the case in their hands. One of them was here yesterday and has a petition now ready asking that my sentence be reduced to fifteen years. Now if the other petition goes in first——"
There was no need to finish the sentence for the conflict of interests was clear; and Evans was visibly unnerved. We talked together for a long time. While unwilling to influence his decision I realized that, if his petition should have first consideration and be granted, the value of that confession, so important to the others, would be impaired, and the chances of Maguire's release lessened; for the governors are wary in accepting as evidence the confession of a man who has nothing to lose. On the other hand, I had not the heart to quench the hopes that Evans's lawyers had kindled. And in answer to his question, "What shall I do?" I could only say: "That is for you to decide."
At last Evans pulled himself together enough to say: "Well, I'm not going back on the boys now. I didn't realize just how my lawyers' efforts were going to affect them. I'm going to leave the matter in your hands, for I know you will do what is right." And this he insisted on.
"Whatever course may seem best to take now, Tom, after this I shall never rest till I see you, too, out of prison," was my earnest assurance.
There had been such a spirit of fair play among these men that I next laid the case before Maguire and Larry, and we three held a consultation as to the best line of action. They, too, appreciated the generosity of Evans and realized, far more than I could, what it might cost him. Doubtless each one of the three felt the strong pull of self-interest; but there was no faltering in their unanimous choice of a square deal all around. One thing was clear, the necessity of bringing about an understanding and concerted action between the lawyers whose present intentions so seriously conflicted. The advice and moral support of the warden had been invaluable to me, and he and I both felt, if the lawyers could be induced to meet at the prison and consult not only with each other but with their three clients,if they could only come in direct touch with these convicts and realize that they were men who wanted to do the right thing and the fair thing, that a petition could be drawn placing Evans and Maguire on the same footing, and asking the same reduction of sentence for both; while Larry in justice was entitled to a full pardon. I still believe that if this course had been taken both petitions would have been granted. But lawyers in general seem to have a constitutional aversion to short cuts and simple measures, and Evans's lawyers made no response to any overtures toward co-operation.
At about this time occurred a change in the State administration, with the consequent inevitable delay in the consideration of petitions for executive clemency; as it was considered impolitic for the newly elected governor to begin his career by hasty interference with the decision of the courts, or too lenient an attitude toward convicts.
Then ensued that period of suspense which seems fairly to corrode the heart and nerves of the long-time convict. The spirit alternates between the fever of hope and the chill of despair. Men pray then who never prayed before. Thedays drag as they never dragged before; and when evening comes the mind cannot occupy itself with books while across the printed page the same questions are ever writing themselves: "Shall I hear to-morrow?" "Will the governor grant or refuse my petition?" One closes the book only to enter the restless and wearisome night, breathing the dead air of the prison cell, listening to the tread of the guard in the corridor. Small wonder would it be if in those midnight hours Evans cursed the day in which he declared that he alone killed the policeman; but neither in his letters to me nor in his conversation was there ever an indication of regret for that action. The Catholic chaplain of the prison was truly a good shepherd and comforter to his flock, and it was real spiritual help and support that he gave to the men. His advice at the confessional may have been the seed from which sprung Evans's resolve to clear his own conscience and exonerate the others when the opportunity came.
Maguire never fluctuated in his confidence that freedom was on the way, but he was consumed with impatience; Larry alone, who never sought release, bided his time in serene cheerfulness.
And the powers that be accepted Larry'ssacrifice; for so long was the delay in the governor's office that Maguire was released on the day on which Larry's sentence expired. The world looked very bright to Jim Maguire and Larry Flannigan as they passed out of the prison doors into liberty together. Maguire took up life again in his old environment, not very successfully, I have reason to think. But Larry made a fresh start in a distant city, unhampered by the fact that he was an ex-convict.
It was then that the deadly blight of prison life began to throw its pall over Evans, and the long nervous strain to undermine his health. He wrote me:
"I am still working at the old job, and I can say with truth that my antipathy to it increases each day. I am sick and tired of writing to lawyers for the last two years, and it amounted to nothing. I will gladly turn the case over to you if you can do anything with it."
The event proved that these lawyers were interested in their case, but politically they were in opposition to the governor and had no influence; nor did I succeed better in making the matter crystallize.
I had always found Evans animated andinterested in whatever we were talking about until one interview when he had been in prison about thirteen years, all that time on prison contract work. The change in his appearance was evident when he came into the room. He seated himself listlessly, and my heart sank, for too well I knew that dull apathy to which the long-time men succumb. Now, knowing with what glad anticipation he had formerly looked forward to our interviews, I was determined that the hour should not pass without leaving some pleasant memory; but it was twenty minutes or more before the cloud in his eyes lifted and the smile with which he had always greeted me appeared. His whole manner changed as he said: "Why, Miss Taylor, I am just waking up, beginning to realize that you are here. My mind is getting so dull that nothing seems to make any impression any more." He was all animation for the rest of the time, eagerly drinking in the joy of sympathetic companionship.—What greater joy does life give?
But I had taken the alarm, for clearly the man was breaking down, and I urged the warden to give him a change of work. The warden said he had tried to arrange that; but Evans was on contract work, one of the best men in the shop, andthe contractors were unwilling to give up so profitable a workman—the evils of the contract system have much to answer for. So Evans continued to work on the contract, and the prison blight progressed and the man's vitality was steadily drained. When the next winter came andla grippeinvaded the prison, the resisting power of Evans was sapped; and when attacked by the disease he was relegated to the prison hospital to recuperate. He did not recuperate; on the contrary, various symptoms of general physical deterioration appeared and it was evident that his working days on the prison contract were over.
A renewed attempt was now made to procure the release of Evans, as his broken health furnished a reason for urgency toward immediate action on the part of the governor, and this last attempt was successful. The good news was sent to Evans that in a month he would be a free man, and I was at the prison soon after the petition was granted. I knew that Evans was in the hospital, but had not been informed of his critical condition until the hospital physician told me that serious heart trouble had developed, intensified by excitement over the certainty of release.
No shadow of death was visible or was felt in this my last visit with Evans, who was dressed and sitting up when I went in to see him. Never, never have I seen any one so happy as was Evans that morning. With heart overflowing with joy and with gratitude, his face was radiant with delight. All the old animation was kindled again, and the voice, no longer lifeless, was colored and warm with feeling.
"I want to thank everybody," he said, "the governor, my lawyers, the warden, and you. Everybody has been so good to me these last weeks. And I shall be home for next Sunday. My sister is coming to take me to her home, and she and my mother will take care of me until I'm able to work. Sister writes me that mother can't sit still, but walks up and down the room in her impatience to see me."
We two friends, who had clasped hands in the darkness of his fate, were together now when the dawn of his freedom was breaking, neither of us realizing that it was to be the greater freedom of the Life Invisible.
To us both, however, this hour was the beautiful culmination of our years of friendship. I read the man's heart as if it were an open book and it held only good will toward all the world.
Something moved me to speak to him as I had never spoken to one of my prisoners, to try and make him feel my appreciation of his courage, his unselfishness, his faithfulness. I told him that I realized how he hadlived outthe qualities of the most heroic soldier. To give one's life for one's country when the very air is charged with the spirit of patriotism is a fine thing and worthy of the thrill of admiration which it always excites. But liberty is dearer than life, and the prison atmosphere gives little inspiration to knightly deeds. This man had risen above himself into that higher region of moral victory. And so I said what was in my heart, while something deeper than happiness came into Evans's face.
And then we said good-by, smiling into each other's eyes. This happened, I think, on the last day but one of Evans's life.
Afterward it was told in the prison that Evans died of joy at the prospect of release. For him to be carried into the new life on this high tide of happiness seemed to me a gift from heaven. For in the thought of the prisoner freedom includes everything to be desired in life. The joy of that anticipation had blinded Evans to the fact that his health was ruined beyond repair. He was spared the realization that the life offreedom, so fair to his imagination, could never truly be his; for the prison-house of disease has bolts and bars which no human hand can withdraw.
But that mother! If she could have read only once again the light of his love for her in the eyes of her son! But the sorrows of life fall alike upon the just and the unjust.
FOOTNOTE:[11]The good time allowed on a twelve years' sentence reduces it to seven years and three months.
[11]The good time allowed on a twelve years' sentence reduces it to seven years and three months.
[11]The good time allowed on a twelve years' sentence reduces it to seven years and three months.
The psychological side of convict life is intensely interesting, but in studying brain processes, supposed to be mechanical, one's theories and one's logical conclusions are likely to be baffled by a factor that will not be harnessed to any set of theories; namely, thatsomething which we call conscience. We forget that the criminal is only a human being who has committed a crime, and that back of the crime is the same human nature common to us all.
During the first years when I was in touch with prison life I had only occasional glimpses of remorse for crimes committed. The minds of most of the convicts seemed to dwell on the "extenuating circumstances" more than on the criminal act, and the hardships of prison life were almost ever present in their thoughts. I had nearly come to consider the remorse pictured in literature and the drama as an unreal thing, when I made the acquaintance of Ellis Shannon and found it: a monster that gripped the human heart and heldit as in a vise. Nemesis never completed a work of retribution more fully than it was completed in the life of Ellis Shannon.
Shannon was born in an Eastern city, was a boy of more than average ability, and there seemed no reason why he should have gone wrong; but he early lost his father, his mother failed to control him, and when about sixteen years of age he fell into bad company and was soon launched in his criminal career. He broke off all connection with his family, went West, and for ten years was successful in his line of business—regular burglary. He was widely known among men of his calling as "The Greek," and his "professional standing" was of the highest. The first I ever heard of him was from one of my other prison friends, who wrote me: "If you want to know about life in —— prison, write to Ellis Shannon, who is there now. You can depend absolutely on what he says—and when one professional says that of another you know it means something." I did not, however, avail myself of this introduction.
Shannon's reputation for cool nerve was undisputed, and it was said that he did not know what fear was. In order to keep a clear headand steady hand he refrained from dissipation; he prided himself upon never endangering the lives of those whose houses he entered, and despised the bunglers who did not know their business well enough to avoid personal encounter in their midnight raids. Unlike most men of his calling he always used a candle on entering a building, and his associates often told him that sometime that candle would get him into trouble.
One night the house of a prominent and popular citizen was entered. While the burglar was pursuing his nefarious work the citizen suddenly seized him by the shoulders, pulling him backward. The burglar managed to fire backward over his own head, the citizen's hold was relaxed, and the burglar fled. The shot proved fatal; the only trace left by the assailant was a candle dropped on the floor.
A reward was offered for the capture and conviction of the murderer. Circumstantial evidence connected with the candle led to the arrest of George Brett, a young man of the same town, not of the criminal class. The verdict in the case turned upon the identification of the piece of candle found in the house with one procured by the accused the previous day; and in the opinionof the court this identification was proven. Brett admitted having obtained a piece of candle from that grocer on that afternoon, but claimed that he had used it in a jack-o'-lantern made for a child in the family.[12]Proof was insufficient to convict the man of the actual crime, but this bit of evidence, with some other less direct, was deemed sufficiently incriminating to warrant sending Brett to prison for a term of years—seventeen, I think; and though the convicted man always asserted his innocence his guilt was taken for granted while six years slipped by.
Ellis Shannon, in the meantime, had been arrested for burglary in another State and had served a sentence in another penitentiary. He seemed to have lost his nerve, and luck had turned against him. On his release still another burglary resulted in a ten years' sentence, this time to the same prison where Brett was paying the penalty of the crime in which the candle had played so important a part.
The two convicts happened to have cells in the same part of the prison, and for the first time Ellis Shannon came face to face with George Brett. A few days later Shannon requested aninterview with the warden. In the warden's office he announced that he was the man guilty of the crime for which Brett was suffering, and that Brett had no part in it. He drew a sketch of the house burglarized—not altogether correct—gave a succinct account of the whole affair, and declared his readiness to go into court, plead guilty to murder, and accept the sentence, even to the death penalty. Action on this confession was promptly taken. Shannon was sent into court and on his confession alone was sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Brett was overjoyed by this vindication and the expectation of immediate release. But, no; the prosecuting parties were unconvinced by Shannon's confession, which, in their opinion, did not dispose of the evidence against Brett.
It was a curious state of affairs, and one perhaps never paralleled, that, while a man's unsupported statement was considered sufficient to justify the imposing of a sentence to life imprisonment, this statement counted for nothing as affecting the fate of the other man involved. And there was never a trace of collusion between the two men, either at the time of the crime or afterward.
Shannon's story of the crime I shall give in his own terse language, quoted from his confession published in the newspapers:
"Up to the time of killing Mr. —— I had never even wounded anybody. I had very little regard for the rights of property, but to shoot a man dead at night in his own house was a climax of villainy I had not counted on. A professional thief is not so blood-thirsty a wretch as he is thought to be.... I am setting up no defense for the crime of murder or burglary—it is all horrible enough. It was a miserable combination of circumstances that caused the shooting that night. I was not feeling well and so went into the house with my overcoat on—something I had never done before. It was buttoned to the throat. I had looked at Mr. —— a moment before and he was asleep. I had then turned and taken down his clothes. I had a candle in one hand and the clothes in the other. I would have left in a second of time when suddenly, before I could turn, Mr. —— spoke. As quick as the word he had his arms thrown around me; the candle went out and we were in the dark.
"Now I could hardly remember afterwards how it all occurred. There was no time to think. Iwas helpless as a baby in the position in which I was held. There is no time for reflection in a struggle like this. He was holding me and I was struggling to get away. I told him several times to let go or I'd shoot. I was nearly crazy with excitement and it was simply the animal instinct of self-preservation that caused me to fire the shots.
"I was so weak when I got outside that in running I fell down two or three times. That night in Chicago I was in hopes the man was only wounded, and in that case I had determined to quit the business. When I read the account in the papers next morning all I can say is that, although I was in the city and perfectly safe, with as little chance of being discovered as if I were in another planet, I would have taken my chances—whether it would have been five or twenty years for the burglary—if it were only in my power to do the thing over again. I did not much care what I did after this. I thought I could be no worse than I was.
"In a few months I was arrested and got five years for a burglary in ——. I read what I could of the trial from what papers I could get; and for the first time I saw what a deadly webcircumstances and the conceit of human shrewdness can weave around an innocent man.
"The trial went on. I did not open my mouth. I knew that if I said a word and went into court fresh from the penitentiary I would certainly be hanged, and I had not reached a point when I was ready to sacrifice my life for a stranger.
"In the feverish life I led in the short time out of prison I forgot all about this, until I found myself here for ten years and then I thought: there is a man in this prison doing hard work, eating coarse food, deprived of everything that makes life worth having, and suffering for a crime of which he knows as little as the dust that is yet to be created to fill these miserable cells. I thought what a hell the place must be to him.
"No one has worked this confession out of me. I wish to implicate no one, but myself. If you will not believe what I say now, and —— stays in prison, it is likely the truth will never be known. But if in the future the man who was with me that night will come to the front, whether I am alive or dead, you will find that what I have told you is as true as the law of gravitation. I was never in the town of —— before that time or since. I did not know whom I had killed until Iread of it. I do not know —— (Brett) or any of his friends. But I do know that he is perfectly innocent of the crime he is in prison for. I know it better than any one in the world because I committed the crime myself."
The position of Brett was not affected in the least by this confession, though his family were doing all in their power to secure his release. The case was considered most difficult of solution. The theory of delusion on Shannon's part was advanced and was accepted by those who believed Brett guilty, but received no credence among the convicts who knew Shannon and the burglar associated with him at the time the crime was committed.
I had never sought the acquaintance of a "noted criminal" before, but this case interested me and I asked to see Shannon. For the first time I felt myself at a disadvantage in an interview with a convict. A sort of aloofness seemed to form the very atmosphere of his personality, and though he sat near me it was with face averted and downcast eyes; the face seemed cut in marble, it was so pale and cold, with clear-cut, regular features, suggesting a singular appropriateness in his being known as "The Greek."
I opened conversation with some reference to the newspaper reports; Shannon listened courteously but with face averted and eyes downcast, and then in low, level tones, but with a certain incisiveness, he entered upon the motive which led to his confession, revealing to me also his own point of view of the situation. Six years had passed since the crime was committed, and all that time, he said, he had believed that, if he could bring himself to confess, Brett would be cleared—that during these six years the murder had become a thing of the past, partially extenuated in his mind, on the ground of self-defence; but when he found himself in the same prison with Brett, here was a result of his crime, living, suffering; and in the depths of Shannon's own conscience pleading for vindication and liberty. As a burden on his own soul the murder might have been borne in silence between himself and his Creator, but as a living curse on another it demanded confession. And the desire to right that wrong swept through his being with overmastering force.
"I had always believed," he said, "that 'truth crushed to earth would rise again,' and I was willing to give my life for truth; but I learned that the word of a convict is nothing—truth in a convict counts for nothing."
The man had scarcely moved when he told me all this, and he sat like a statue of despair when he relapsed into silence—still with downcast eyes; I was absolutely convinced of the truth of what he had told me, of the central truth of the whole affair, his guilt and his consciousness of the innocence of the other man. That his impressions of some of the details of the case might not square with known facts was of secondary importance; to me theinternal evidencewas convincing. Isn't there something in the Bible to the effect that "spirit beareth witness unto spirit"? At all events,sometimes a woman knows.
I told Shannon that I believed in his truth, and I offered to send him magazines and letters if he wished. Then he gave me one swift glance of scrutiny, with eyes accustomed to reading people, thanked me, and added as we parted: "If there were more people like you in this world there wouldn't be so many like me."
My belief in the truth of Shannon's statement was purely intuitive, but in order to make it clear to my understanding as well I studied every objection to its acceptance by those who believed Shannon to be the victim of a delusion. His sincerity no one doubted. It was claimed that Shannon had manifested no interestin the case previous to his arrival in the prison where Brett was. On the way to this prison Shannon, in attempting to escape from the sheriff, had received a blow on the back of his head, which it was assumed might have affected his mind. Among my convict acquaintances was a man who had worked in the shop beside Shannon in another prison, at the time of Brett's trial for the crime, and this man could have had no possible motive for incriminating Shannon. He told me that during all the time of the trial, five years previous to the blow on his head, Shannon was greatly disturbed, impatient to get hold of newspapers which he had to borrow, and apparently absorbed in studying the evidence against Brett, but saying always, "They can't convict him." This convict went on to tell me that after the case was decided against Brett Shannon seemed to lose his nerve and all interest in life. This account tallies exactly with Shannon's printed confession, in which he says: "I read what I could of the trial in what papers I could get. I had not yet reached the point where I was willing to sacrifice my life for a stranger."
In his confession Shannon had spoken of his accomplice in that terrible night's work as onewho could come forward and substantiate his statements. Four different convicts of my acquaintance knew who this man was, but not one of them was able to put me in communication with him. The man had utterly disappeared. But this bit of evidence as to his knowledge of the crime I did collect—his whereabouts was known to at least one other of my convict acquaintances till the day after Shannon's confession was made public. That day my acquaintance received from Shannon's accomplicea paper with the confession markedand from that day had lost all trace of him. The convict made this comment in defence of the silence of the accomplice:
"He wouldn't be such a fool as to come forward and incriminate himself after Shannon's experience."
Convicts in several States were aware of Shannon's fruitless effort to right a wrong, and knew of the punishment brought upon himself by his attempt. The outcome of the occurrence must have been regarded as a warning to other convicts who might be prompted to honest confession in behalf of another.
At that time I had never seen George Brett, and not until later was I in communication withhis lawyers. But I was convinced that only from convicts could evidence verifying Shannon's confession be gleaned.
As far as I know, nothing more connected with that crime has ever come to light. And even to-day there is doubtless a division of opinion among those best informed. Finding there was nothing I could do in the matter, my interest became centred in the study of the man Shannon. He was an interesting study from the purely psychological side, still more so in the gradual revelation of his real inner life.
It is difficult to reconcile Shannon's life of action with his life of thought, for he was a man of intellect, a student and a thinker. His use of English was always correct. The range of his reading was wide, including the best fiction, philosophy, science, and, more unusual, the English essayists—Addison, Steele, and other contributors toThe Spectator. The true philosopher is shown in the following extract from one of his letters to me:
"I beg you not to think that I consider myself a martyr to the cause of truth. That my statement was rejected takes nothing from the naked fact, but simply proves the failure of conditionsby which it was to be established as such. It did not come within the rules of acceptance in these things, consequently it was not accepted. This is a world of method. Things should be in their place. People do not go to a fish-monger for diamonds, nor to a prison for truth. I recognize the incongruity of my position and submit to the inevitable."
In explanation of his reception of my first call he writes:
"I don't think that at first I quite understood the nature of your call—it was so unexpected. If my meaning in what I said was obscure it was because in thinking and brooding too much one becomes unable to talk and gradually falls into a state where words seem unnatural.And these prison thoughts are terrible.In their uselessness they are like spiders building cobwebs in the brain, clouding it and clogging it beyond repair. I try to use imagination as a drug to fill my mind with a fanciful contentment that I can know in no other way. When I was a child I used to dream and speculate in anticipation of the world that was coming. Now I do the same, but for a different reason—to make me forget the detestable period of fact that has intervened.
"So when I am not reading or sleeping, and when my work may be performed mechanically and with least mental exertion, I live away from myself and surroundings as much as possible. I was in a condition something like this at the time of your call. A dreamer dislikes at best to be awakened and in a situation like mine it is especially trying. While talking in this way I must beg pardon, for I did really appreciate your visit and felt more human after it. I would not have you infer from this that the slightest imagination entered into my story of that unfortunate affair. I would it were so; but if it is a fact that I exist, all that I related is just as true."
His choice of Schopenhauer as a friend illustrates the homœopathic principle of like curing like.
"Schopenhauer is an old friend and favorite of mine. Very often when I am getting wretchedly blue and when everything as seen through my eyes is wearing a most rascally tinge, I derive an immense amount of comfort and consolation by thinking how much worse they have appeared to Schopenhauer." In other words, the great pessimist served to produce a healthy reaction.
But this reaction was but for the hour. Allthrough Shannon's letters there runs a vein of the bitterest pessimism. He distrusted all forms of religion and arraigns the prison chaplains in these words:
"I have never met a class of men who appear to know less of the spiritual nature or the wants of their flocks. It is strange to me that men, who might so easily gather material for the finest practical lessons, surrounded as they are by real life experiences and illustrations by which they might well teach thatcrime does not payeither in coin or happiness, that they will ignore all this and rack their brains to produce elaborate theological discourses founded upon some sentence of a fisherman who existed two thousand years ago, to paralyze and mystify a lot of poor plain horse thieves and burglars. What prisoners are in need of is a man able to preach natural, every-day common sense, with occasionally a little humor or an agreeable story or incident to illustrate a moral. It seems to me if I were to turn preacher I would try and study the simple character of the great master as it is handed down to us."
It strikes me that prison chaplains would do well to heed this convict point of view of their preaching.
I do not recall that Shannon ever made a criticism upon the administration of the prison of which he was then an inmate, but he gives free expression to his opinion of our general system of imprisonment. He had been studying the reports of a prison congress recently in session where various "reformatory measures" had been discussed, or, to use his expression, "expatiated upon," and writes:
"I wish to make a few remarks from personal observation upon this subject of prison reform. I will admit, to begin with, that upon the ground of protection to society, the next best thing to hanging a criminal is to put him in prison, providing you keep him there; but if you seek his reformation it is the worst thing you can do with him. Convicts generally are not philosophers, neither are they men of pure thought or deep religious feelings. They are not all sufficient to themselves, and for this reason confinement never did, never can and never will have a good effect upon them.
"I have known hundreds of men, young and old, who have served time in prison. I have known many of them to grow crafty in prison and upon release to employ their peculiar talents in someother line of business, safer but not less degrading to themselves; but I never knew one to have been made a better man byprison discipline;—those who reformed did so through other influences.
"It may be a good prison or a bad one, with discipline lax or rigorous, but the effect, though different, is never good: it never can be. Crime is older than prisons. According to best accounts it began in the Garden of Eden, but God—who knew human nature—instead of shutting up Adam and Eve separately, drove them out into the world where they could exercise their minds hustling for themselves. Since then there has been but one system that reformed a man without killing him, namely, transportation.
"This system, instead of leaving a bad man in prison,to saturate himself with his own poison, sent him to a distant country, where under new conditions, and with something to work and hope for, he could harmlessly dissipate that poison among the wilds of nature. It may be no other system is possible; that the world is getting too densely populated to admit of transportation; or that society owes nothing to one who has broken her laws. I write this, not as 'anEcho from a Living Tomb,' but as plain common sense."[13]
Personal pride, one of the very elements of the man's nature, kept him from ever uttering a complaint of individual hardships; but the mere fact of confinement, the lack of air, space, freedom of movement and action, oppressed him as if the iron bars were actually pressing against his spirit. His one aim was to find some Lethe in which he could drown memory and consciousness of self. In all the years of his manhood there seemed to have been no sunny spot in which memory could find a resting-place.
From first to last his misdirection of life had been such a frightful blunder; even in its own line such a dismal failure. His boasted "fine art" of burglary had landed him in the ranks of murderers. He had despised cowardice and yet at the critical hour in the destiny of another he had proven himself a coward. And when by complete self-sacrifice he had sought to right the wrong the sacrifice had been in vain.
Understanding something of the world in which he lived, I suggested the study of a new language as a mental occupation requiring concentration on a line entirely disconnected from his past. He gladly adopted my suggestion and began the study of German; but it was all in vain—he could not escape from himself.
He had managed to keep so brave a front in his letters that I was unaware that the man was completely breaking down until the spring morning when we had our last interview.
There was in his face the unmistakable look of the man who is doomed—so many of my prisoners died. His remorse was like a living thing that had eaten into his life—a very wolf within his breast. He was no longer impassive, but fairly writhing in mental agony. He did not seem to know that he was dying; he certainly did not care. His one thought was for Brett and the far-reaching, irreparable wrong that Brett had suffered through him. When I said that I thought the fate of the innocent man in prison was not so dreadful as that of the guilty man Shannon exclaimed: "You are mistaken. I don't see how it is possible for a man unjustly imprisoned to believe in any justice, human or divine, or in any God above,"and he continued with an impassioned appeal on behalf of innocent prisoners which left a deep impression with me. In his own being he seemed to be actually experiencing at once the fate of the innocent victim of injustice and of the guilty man suffering just punishment. He spoke of his intense spiritual loneliness, which human sympathy was powerless to reach, and of how thankful he should be if he could find light or hope in any religion; but he could not believe in any God of truth or justice while Brett was left in prison. A soul more completely desolate it is impossible to imagine.
My next letter from Shannon was written from the hospital, and expresses the expectation of being "all right again in a few days"; farther on in the letter come these words:
"I do believe in a future life. Without this hope and its consoling influence life would scarcely be worth living. I believe that all the men who have ever died, Atheists or whatever they professed to be, did so with the hope more or less sustaining them, of awakening to a future life. This hope is implanted by nature universally in the human breast and it is not unlikely to suppose that it has some meaning."
A few weeks later I received a line from the warden telling me of the death of Ellis Shannon, and from the prison hospital was sent me a little volume of translations from Socrates which had been Shannon's companion in his last days. A slip of paper between the leaves marked Socrates's reflections on death and immortality. The report of one of the hospital nurses to me was:
"Shannon had consumption, but he died of grief." It is not often that one dies of a broken heart outside the pages of fiction and romance, but medical authority assures us that it sometimes happens.
Up to this time I had never seen George Brett, but after the death of Shannon we had one long interview. What first struck me was the remarkable similarity between the voices of Brett and Shannon, as supposed identification of the voice of Brett with that of the burglar had been accepted as evidence at the trial. My general impression of the man was wholly favorable. He was depressed and discouraged, but responsive, frank, and unstudied in all that he said. When he mentioned the man shot in the burglary I watched him closely; his whole manner brightened as he said:
"Why, he was one of the best men in the world, a man that little children loved. He was good to every one."
"And you could never speak of that man as you are speaking now if you had taken his life," was my inward comment.
Brett's attitude toward Shannon was free from any shade of resentment, but what most impressed me was that Shannon's belief that the unjust conviction of Brett and his own fruitless effort to right the wrong must make it impossible for Brett ever to believe in a just God—in other words, that the most cruel injury to Brett was the spiritual injury. This belief proved to be without foundation. George Brett had not been a religious man, but in Shannon he saw that truth and honor were more than life, stronger than the instinct of self-preservation; and he could hardly escape from the belief that divine justice itself was the impelling power back of the impulse prompting Shannon to confession. In the strange action and interaction of one life upon another, in the final summing up of the relation of these two men, it seemed to have been given to Shannon to touch the deeper springs of spiritual life in Brett, to reveal to him something of the eternal verities of existence.
And truth crushed to earth did rise again; for not long after the death of Shannon, in the eighth year of his imprisonment, George Brett was pardoned, with the public statement that he had been convicted on doubtful evidence and that the confession of Shannon had been accepted in proof of his innocence.
No adequate compensation can ever be made to one who has suffered unjust imprisonment, but there are already indications of the dawn of a to-morrow when the state, in common honesty, will feel bound to make at least financial restitution to those who have been the victims of such injustice.