“Officer,” I say, as politely as possible, “that poor fellow in the next cell has tipped over his can of water. Can’t you let him have some more?”
The answer is far more courteous than I deserve for such an unheard-of and scandalous proposition. The keeper says shortly and gruffly, “’Fraid I can’t. ’Gainst the rules.” And he coolly proceeds to wake up the occupants of the other cells.
Setting my teeth firmly together, while the blood goes rushing to my temples, I feel for the moment as if I should smother. Perhaps it is as well that I am under lock and key, for I should like to commit murder. To think that any mancan grow so callous to human suffering as to forget the very first duty of humanity. Even soldiers on the battlefield will give a drink of water to a dying enemy. And here we have an organized System which in cold blood forbids the giving of a few drops to the parched lips of a sick lad, to save him from misery and madness! And if I am almost stifling with anger at the outrage, what must those men feel who are really suffering? What must those have felt who in the past have been kept here day after day, slowly dying of thirst or going mad on one gill of water in twenty-four hours?
Is it imagination that the very air here seems to be tainted with unseen but malign and potent influences, bred of the cruelty and suffering—the hatred and madness which these cells have harbored? If ever there were a spot haunted by spirits of evil, this must surely be the place. I have been shown through dungeons that seemed to reek with the misery and wretchedness with which some lawless medieval tyrant had filled them; but here is a dungeon where the tyrant is an unreasoning, unreachable System, based upon the law and tolerated by good, respectable, religious men and women. Even more then than the dungeons of Naples is this “the negation of God”; for its foundation is not the brutal whim of a degenerate despot, but the ignorance and indifference of a free and civilized people. Orrather, this is worse than a negation of God, it is a betrayal of God.
After duly waking my companions the keeper amuses himself by fussing with the steam pipes. The vault was already disagreeably close and hot; but he chooses to make it still hotter, and none of us dares to remonstrate. Then he turns out the light and goes his way, and he certainly carries with him my own hearty maledictions, if not those of my fellow prisoners.
It is hopeless to think of going to sleep again at once, although my head is thick and my eyes heavy with fatigue. So again I sit close to the grated door and open up communication with Joe. As usual, he is entirely willing to give his attention, and enters readily into conversation.
“Hey, Tom! Do you want to know my name? It’s Joseph Matto. Funny name for an Irishman, ain’t it? Well, you know, it ain’t my real name. My real name’s McNulty. But you see it was this way. When my case came up in court, down in New York, they called out, ‘Joseph Matto’; and the cop said, ‘Here, you, get up there!’ I said, ‘That ain’t my name’; and he said, ‘Never you mind, get up!’ So you see I got some other fellow’s name, but I thought I might as well keep it, and so I have ever since.
“But it’s all right, because I don’t want todisgrace my folks. They don’t know where I am, and I wouldn’t have my mother know for anything. You see, I’m the black sheep of the family, the rest are all right. I’m the only one that ain’t goin’ straight. But when I get out of here I mean to go straight. Say, Tom, do you think I can get a job, here in Auburn? My bit is up in December, and I should like to stay here and get straight before I go back home.”
“When you get out,” is my answer, “it will be up to me to stand treat for a dinner of beefsteak and fried potatoes, at any rate. And I’ll do the best I can to help you get a job, Joe, if you really do mean to go straight. But in that neither I nor any one else can help you; you know you’ll have to do that yourself.”
Poor Number Four! I have not the slightest doubt he means what he says, but here again—this cursed System. It is particularly deadening to a young fellow like Joe. He evidently has just that lively, good-natured, shiftless, irresponsible temperament which needs to be carefully trained in the bearing of responsibility.
While Joe and I are conversing, Number Eight makes his one remark. “Would there be a job for a bricklayer around here?”
I don’t know, and tell him so; but add, as in Joe’s case, that if he means to go straight I will gladly do what I can for him; and in any event I consider that I owe each of them a good dinner.Thus it is agreed that they will all dine with me in turn upon the happy occasions of their release.
“By the way, Tom, did you go up to that Bertillon room?” Joe is off on a new tack.
“Oh, yes. I did all the regular stunts.”
“Were you measured and photographed, and all that?”
“Yes, and my finger prints taken. I went through the whole thing.”
“Gee! Well, then, they’ll have your picture in the rogues’ gallery, won’t they, along with the rest of us?”
“I suppose they will,” is my answer, and then I tell how my scars and marks were all discovered and duly set down in the record; and wind up with a variation of the same mild joke which so bored the clerk of the Bertillon room. “And do you know, boys, after he had got me all sized up and written down, I felt as if it would never be safe for me to adopt burglary as a profession; and I’ve always rather looked forward to that.”
My companions are not bored but appreciative, they laugh with some heartiness. Then after a pause Joe says quite seriously, “Well say, Tom! I can just tell you one thing, you needn’t ever have any fear that your house will be entered!”
“Oh! Do you think the crooks will all recognize me as one of themselves?”
“Sure!” is Joe’s hearty rejoinder. He evidentlyconsiders it a compliment, and I accept it as such. At any rate I have apparently hit upon rather a novel form of burglary insurance.
It must be somewhere between half past one and two o’clock that sheer exhaustion sends me off to sleep again. This time my slumber is more successful than before. It is only occasionally that the discomfort of the hard floor forces me back into consciousness, and forces me also to such changes of position as seem necessary to prevent my bones coming through. Many of them seem to be getting painfully near the surface.
It was Number Five, I think, who informed me that it is the custom down here for the keeper to visit us every four hours—at half past twelve and half past four. The first visit I have described. After that, for nearly three hours, I get such sleep as the hard floor affords. About half past four I am having an interval of semi-consciousness—enough to realize dimly how utterly worn out I still feel both in body and mind, and how both crave more rest. So I am struggling very hard not to awake, when the light of the keeper’s electric bull’s-eye flashes through the iron grating straight into my eyes.
With curses too violent and sincere for utterance I report myself still in existence.
Now I am so constituted that at the best of times a sudden awakening always annoys megreatly. Just now it quite upsets my equilibrium. A torrent of rage and hate surges up through my whole being; it fairly frightens me by its violence. For a moment I feel as if I were being strangled. Then I make up my mind that I must and will get to sleep again, in spite of the keeper and his infernal light; and I make desperate attempts to do so, for I realize that I am expected to speak in chapel before many hours, and have a trying day before me. I am bound, therefore, to have myself in no worse condition than I can possibly help.
But of course it is impossible to get to sleep again, I can only follow my whirling thoughts. How in the world am I ever to speak to those men in chapel? What in Heaven’s name can I say? How can I trust myself to say anything? How can I urge good conduct, when my whole soul cries out in revolt? How can I preach resignation and patience against this dark background of horror?
An aching, overwhelming sense of the hideous cruelty of the whole barbaric, brutal business sweeps over me; the feeling of moral, physical and mental outrage; the monumental imbecility of it all; the horrible darkness; the cruel iron walls at our backs; the nerve-racking monotone of the whirring dynamo through the other wall; the filth; the vermin; the bad air; the insufficient food; the denial of water; and the overpowering,sickening sense of accumulated misery—of madness and suicide, haunting the place. How can I speak of these things? How can I not speak of them? How can I——
Hark!
Click! Click! Click! Click! I hear the levers being pressed down by the officer, and the stirring of life along the galleries.
Click! Click! Click! Click! I had no idea it was possible to hear the sounds from the south wing, ’way in here. And it is still so early in the morning—only half past four.
Click! Click! Click! It must be the prisoners who work in the kitchens, they are the only ones who would be moving at such an hour. But again, how is it possible to hear them so far away, shut in as we are by stone walls and iron doors?
Uneasily I shift my position and turn over on my left side, which feels temporarily less bruised and painful than the other. The clicking stops. But other vague sounds succeed; and then suddenly——
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! It is the march of the gray companies down the stone walk of the yard.
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! It is certainly not only the kitchen gang, for there must be many companies of them.
Tramp! Tramp——
But this is ridiculous, at half past four in the morning! It can’t be true, it must be my imagination. I am not really hearing these sounds, for my reason tells me they are impossible.
Nevertheless I do hear them. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!
I try in vain to reason myself out of the evidences of my senses. I am hearing sounds that I am sure do not exist.
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp——
Heavens! Am I going mad?
This is past bearing. I abandon the attempt to sleep and sit up. As I do so the cell is suddenly filled with flying sparks which dance from one end to the other. Aghast, I steady myself with my back against the side of the cell.
This is getting serious. I grit my teeth together, and, shutting my eyes in the hope of keeping out the sight of the flitting sparks, I say firmly to myself, “This must not be. Don’t lose your nerve. Cool down. Control yourself. Slow up. Keep steady.”
As I rise to my feet my head seems to clear, the sparks disappear, the sound of marching footsteps had already ceased. There is nothing to see or hear—only the dreadful blackness and the dead silence of the night. I take two turns about the cell, carefully refraining from kicking over the bucket in the corner, and then stand close to the grating, in the hope of a breath of cool, freshair. But there is no such thing in this fœtid place.
“Joe! Are you awake?”
“Hello! What’s the matter?”
“For God’s sake talk to me!”
“Sure! What shall we talk about?”
“Anything. I don’t care. Only something.”
So Joe begins to chat with me, and presently Number Two joins in, and Number Five has a few words to say. What we talk about I have not the faintest recollection; it is the only part of this night’s occurrences that makes no impression whatever on my memory. I only know that I am longing for speedy escape as I have seldom longed for anything; that I am saying constantly to myself, “It can’t be more than an hour more! They must surely come in about forty minutes! Half an hour! Half an hour! It can’t go beyond that! Oh, why don’t they come?”
I answer any remarks directed to me quite at random, for I am waiting, waiting, waiting, and listening.
An hour and a half does not seem such an endless period of time usually. Well, it all depends. When you are in a dark prison cell, waiting for deliverance, it seems a lifetime. I lived through every hour in the minute of that interminable period of five thousand four hundred seconds.
At last I hear a sound—one of the most welcome sounds I ever heard—the six o’clock train blowing off steam over at the New York Central station. I find myself wondering why I am not ready to shout with joy, and I discover it is because I feel as if all power of emotion had been crushed out of me. It is not merely utter and hopeless fatigue; it is as if something had broken inside of me; as if I could never be joyous again; as if I must be haunted forever by a sense of shame and guilt for my own share of responsibility for this iniquitous place. My sensation, when at last I hear the sound of the key in the lock of the outer door, is not one of exultation, only of approaching relief from deadly pain—pain which has become almost insupportable.
Once more we hear the outer door open and steps coming along the passage. I rise from my seat on the floor, and put on my shirt and shoes as I whisper, “Good bye, boys. I wish I could take you with me.” Then the inner door is opened, the light is lighted, and my cell door swings out.
Some one stands there—I do not know who—I do not care. Listlessly, like one in a dream, I pick up my cap and coat; and silently, wearily, move out and toward the bench where I changed my clothes last night. Last night!—a thousand years ago. The officer—the keeper—the man, whoever he is, who has come to release me, producesmy regular prison uniform; and listlessly, silently, wearily, I make the change, dropping my jail garments upon the floor. I feel as if I should like to grind my heels into the loathsome, hated things.
With a parting look along the row of cells which imprison my comrades, and choking down my feelings as I think of the sick lad we are leaving without water, I stumble along the passage to the jail office, pausing only while my attendant locks behind us the two iron doors. Another moment and I feel my lungs expand with a deep refreshing breath, and find myself out in the ghostly quiet of the prison yard.
The morning air is fresh and cool, and there is a soft gray light which seems to touch soothingly the old gray stones of the prison; but I have a feeling as if nothing were alive, as if I were a gray, uneasy ghost visiting a city of the dead. The only thing suggestive of life seems to be the sound of my heavy shoes upon the stone pavement.
I have a remote impression that my attendant is saying something. Perhaps I answer him. I think I do, but I am not sure. If so, it is only from the force of habit, not from any conscious mental process.
We traverse the upper part of the yard and enter the main building. Here my shoes makesuch a clatter on the stone floor that my guide looks at them inquiringly. I do not know whether he recommends their removal or whether I do it of my own accord; I am only aware that I have taken them off and am carrying them in my left hand as we mount the iron stairs and creep quietly along the familiar gallery of the second tier.
At Number 15 we stop, the key is turned in the lock, the lever clicks, the door opens, and I enter my cell. I think the man says something; I do not know. I stand motionless just within the door, as it swings to and is locked. The footsteps of my guide retreat along the gallery, down the stairs, and so out of hearing.
There is no sound in the cell house. All is silent, as the gray light of morning steals through the barred windows into the corridor and through the grated door into my cell.
What next?
I do not know.
Suddenly there wells up within me a feeling which is no longer rage, it is a great resistless wave of sympathy for those poor fellows in that Hell I have just left; for those who have ever been there; for those in danger of going there; for all the inmates of this great city within the walls—this great community ruled byhate—where wickedness is the expected thing—where love is forbidden and cast out.
Obeying an impulse I could not control if I would, I throw myself on my knees, with my arms on the chair and my face in my hands, and pray to Our Father who art in Heaven.
My prayer is for wisdom, for courage, for strength. Wisdom to determine my duty, courage to endeavor, and strength to persevere.
May I be an instrument in Thy hands, O God, to help others to see the light, as Thou hast led me to see the light. And may no impatience, prejudice, or pride of opinion on my part hinder the service Thou hast given me to do.
Afterthe emotional crisis I have just passed through, I find myself quite unstrung. For nearly half an hour I can do nothing but sit, limp and exhausted, in the chair and give way to my feelings. On the whole, this is a relief, although it leaves me very weak and wretched. At length, the realization that I must soon take my place in line for the duties of the early morning pulls me together; and after pouring cool water from the meager supply in my pail over my head and face, rearranging my clothes, and draining to the bottom my tin drinking cup, I am somewhat refreshed. Looking out from my cell across the corridor and through the barred windows of the outer wall, I find the promise of a bright, sunny day; but it gives me no pleasure. I feel utterly dull and depressed. Only a few hours more and I shall be gone forever from this narrow cell—back to my own comfortable home; but the thought arouses no enthusiasm. It does not seem to matter much inthe sum of things whether I go or stay. Nothing seems to matter much except the physical sufferings of those poor fellows down in the jail; and at the thought a bitter anger sweeps over me again.
After a few moments, however, I once more regain control of myself, and wait patiently at the door of the cell for the day’s routine to begin.
Before long I hear in the corridor below the clicking of levers and the tread of marching feet. A shiver goes through me as I think of the last time I heard such sounds. But those were imaginary, these are real. Soon, bucket in hand, I am once more traversing the long gallery and falling in line with the rest of my company at the yard door. The prisoners whose faces I can see are eyeing me curiously, and in a vague way I am wondering whether I bear any outward marks of the jail. I feel as if I must have somewhere upon me an unmistakable stamp of it, which may be a disfigurement for the rest of my life.
Sharply the Captain gives the signal and we set off on our march down the yard. I know it is sunny, for I can see the shadows of the trees upon the ground, but all things look unfamiliar and unreal. I go through the usual motions, but I am not thinking of what I am doing, or of anything else, for that matter. Everything seems cold, lifeless, dead. Yet I am conscious of making an effort to do my duty cheerfully. Ihave a curious feeling of being two people at once. One going through the regular routine, and the other watching him as he does it.
One of my selves seems to be at a distance looking at the other self as he marches down the yard, empties his bucket at the sewage disposal building, and then, without pausing at the stands, marches up the yard again. There was a gleam of satisfaction in my passive self at the thought that my active self was going to leave the bucket behind, and that I should never see it again. But that mild pleasure is denied me. Of course on Sunday the buckets are needed in the cells, as the men are locked up after chapel services for the rest of the day. I had not thought of that.
On our way back I seem to be saying to myself, “You poor fellow! If you were not so dead tired, you’d march better.” And then I feel rather indignant at myself for the criticism.
Arrived back in my cell, it seems to occur vaguely to one of my two selves—I do not know which—that there is something I have to do to-day. Breakfast of course. But after that—Oh, yes—the chapel. I am expected to speak. I shake my head and shut my eyes, feeling ill at the thought. To speak! I feel upon my lips the ghost of a smile at the bare notion. How absurd for any one to think I could do such a thing!
Nevertheless something must be done. I oughtto send word to the Chaplain that I can’t speak. How can I send it? I cannot think. Somehow the idea of blue floats across my mind. Oh, yes! Roger Landry and his blue shirt. I’ll ask Landry to get word to the Chaplain.
Click! Click! Click! Again the levers start. Still in a sort of a daze I open my door, fall in line behind Jack Bell, join Landry farther along the gallery, descend the iron stairs and march to the mess-hall. Here the regular weekday arrangements are changed. For some reason, instead of turning to the right as usual, we go to the left and occupy seats in quite a different part of the hall—on the left of the center aisle and much farther back. The change makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable.
I don’t know what there is for breakfast. I believe that I have eaten something or other, although I am sure I have not sampled the bootleg. I wish I could share my breakfast—such as it is—with those poor fellows in the jail. I wonder if Number Two has any water yet. But I mustn’t think of that.
Returned from breakfast, Landry comes to my cell to express his interest and sympathy; for he once had his own dose of the jail. I wonder if his spirit was broken. I forget to ask him to do my errand to the Chaplain. I fear it is too late now. Perhaps I can find some way to do it afterI reach the assembly room; perhaps I can, when called upon, explain briefly that I am unable to speak; or perhaps after all it would be better to bluff it out the best way I can, and let it go at that.
After this decision I feel somewhat better. Turning to the locker, I find a piece of paper with the few notes I scrawled yesterday noon. I had expected to revise and arrange them this morning. I may as well try to fix the thing up somehow. But I can do nothing but stare helplessly at the paper; my brain refuses to work. My stupidity finally annoys me so much that I shove the piece of paper into my pocket, and make up my mind not to bother any more about the matter.
One or two of the trusties, passing along the gallery, stop to chat. They all seem to look at me as one might at a person who has been restored to life from the dead. I’m sure I feel so. I have always wondered how Dante must have felt after he had visited the Inferno. I think I know now.
There are footsteps along the corridors and galleries; it is the noise made by good Catholics returning from Mass. It seems that I could have gone myself had I known of the service. I am sorry I did not; perhaps it would have helped me to forget.
Soon the summons to chapel comes, and in single file we march upstairs and into the large assembly room, which is on the second story, immediately above the mess-hall. Here our company has seats on the right of the main aisle about two-thirds of the way to the platform. Row after row of men take their seats, until the large room is entirely filled with silent, motionless, gray figures. I do not see those sitting behind, I only hear them, for like the rest I stare straight in front of me.
Then I hear the sound of hand-clapping; and when I can see without turning my head, I join in the applause that greets the Chaplain and an organist and quartet of singers from one of the Auburn churches. As some of them are my personal friends, I can not help wishing that they had not chosen this particular Sunday to sing here.
In vain I try to fasten my attention upon the service, I can only follow my own thoughts. It is but one short week since I occupied a seat upon that same platform, and that short week has altered the whole tenor of my life. It can never be the same again that it has been. Whether I wish it or not, a bond of union has been forged between these men and me which can never be broken. I have actually lived their life, even if for only a short period of time; I have been made one of the gray brotherhood—for they havereceived me as a brother; and I have realized their sufferings because in a very small degree I have shared them.
But at the present moment what am I to do? When I am called up to the platform, as I soon shall be, what shall I say to these men? I must not speak of the jail; but how can I help speaking of it? It is the one thing that just now dominates my mind.
The singing is beautiful and restful. I could enjoy it were it not for this terrible feeling of oppression at my head and heart. Finally the critical moment arrives. The Chaplain advances to the front of the stage.
“At this point in the service,” he says, “we are to have something of a departure from the usual order of exercises. Last Sunday you listened to an address which the Honorable Thomas Mott Osborne came here to give you. To-day we are going to invite someone from your midst to speak.”
The Chaplain pauses, then clears his throat and says, “We have with us here to-day a man who calls himself Thomas Brown.”
With a startling suddenness that seems to threaten the roof comes a terrific explosion of hand-clapping, sounding, as a visitor afterwards described it, like a million of fire crackers. I feel my backbone tingling from end to end. At the same time I have an almost irresistible desire toget away somewhere and hide myself from all those eyes.
The Chaplain continues:
“His number is 33,333x.”
For some reason or other this excites the sense of humor which lies so near the surface here, and loud laughter interrupts the speaker.
“I will ask Thomas Brown to come to the platform.”
With my hands on the back of the bench in front, I pull myself up onto my feet; and when the men see me rise their frantic hand-clapping begins again. As I leave my seat and gain the central aisle, the whole room seems to rock back and forth. I walk to the front and mount the platform. As I do so, the Chaplain, the singers and others sitting there rise and join in the applause. I am absurdly, but momentarily, conscious of my prison clothes—the rough cotton shirt, gray trousers and heavy shoes, as I bow to the people on the stage and then face the audience.
The applause subsides and every face turns towards me expectantly. Oh, for the gift of the tongues of men and of angels! What an opportunity lies here before me! And I feel helpless to take advantage of it.
As I stand for a moment looking over the large audience, feeling unable to make a start, my attention is arrested by the face of one of my graybrothers. He is an old man, I do not know him, I am not conscious of ever having seen him before, but the tears are rolling down his cheeks as he sits looking up at me.
Then as if a cloud were lifted from my spirit, I suddenly understand what it all means. These men are not seeing me, they are looking at Tom Brown—the embodied spirit of the world’s sympathy. They have felt the sternness of society—the rigor of its law, the iron hand of its discipline. But now at this moment many of these men are realizing for the first time that outside the walls are those who care.
I said to these men last Sunday that I should try to “break down the barriers between my soul and the souls of my brothers.” It was necessary so to endeavor in order to understand the conditions I came to study. But what has happened is that these men have broken down their own barriers; they have opened their hearts; they have dignified and ennobled my errand; they have transformed my personal quest for knowledge into a vital message from the great heart of humanity in the outside world—a heart that, in spite of all that is said and done to the contrary, beats in sympathy with all genuine sorrow, with all honest endeavor for righteousness.
Thrilling with this revelation of the true meaning of my own mission, lifted out of apathy and discouragement, I make my speech; but, alas, thewords come haltingly and reflect but little of the warmth and exhilaration in my heart.
When the Chaplain spoke to me about saying a few words to you this morning—words of farewell, because here for a time at least we must separate—I did not realize that it was going to be so hard. Probably I am the only man, in all the years since this prison was built, to leave these walls with regret.
When the Chaplain spoke to me about saying a few words to you this morning—words of farewell, because here for a time at least we must separate—I did not realize that it was going to be so hard. Probably I am the only man, in all the years since this prison was built, to leave these walls with regret.
It is not necessary to give every word of my utterly inadequate address. I was in no physical or mental condition to speak; my audience was almost too moved to hear. From a mere reading of the words that fell from my lips no one would understand the situation. But the prisoners understood; they listened with emotions which few can appreciate to my words of greeting and farewell and my prophecy of the new day soon to dawn for them.
First I spoke of the value of my experience to the Commission on Prison Reform as well as to me personally, for I knew that they had seen the doubts expressed in many of the newspapers as to the usefulness of my “experiment.” I thanked the officers for their coöperation, and the prisoners for the way they had received me.
I must confess that I was unprepared for the way in which you men have carried out your part of the bargain. I consider that the restraint, courtesy, and loyaltyto me and to my experiment have been very wonderful, and never shall I forget it. There has not been a word or look from beginning to end that I would have had otherwise. You have received me exactly as I asked you to—as one of yourselves.
I must confess that I was unprepared for the way in which you men have carried out your part of the bargain. I consider that the restraint, courtesy, and loyaltyto me and to my experiment have been very wonderful, and never shall I forget it. There has not been a word or look from beginning to end that I would have had otherwise. You have received me exactly as I asked you to—as one of yourselves.
I believed that a wide popular interest had been aroused, which could not help working for good.
In fact, with the aid of our friends the newspapers, we have had considerable advertising this last week, you and I. The personal part of this advertising I do not like—it would be pleasant if I could know that I should never again see my name in the newspapers—but doubtless it all works out for good in the long run. Certainly in this case I believe that more people have been thinking about the Prison System in New York State within the last week than any week since Auburn Prison was built; and while much of that interest will of course evaporate, for we need not expect the millennium yet awhile, nevertheless the ground has been tilled for the work that is to come.
In fact, with the aid of our friends the newspapers, we have had considerable advertising this last week, you and I. The personal part of this advertising I do not like—it would be pleasant if I could know that I should never again see my name in the newspapers—but doubtless it all works out for good in the long run. Certainly in this case I believe that more people have been thinking about the Prison System in New York State within the last week than any week since Auburn Prison was built; and while much of that interest will of course evaporate, for we need not expect the millennium yet awhile, nevertheless the ground has been tilled for the work that is to come.
Then I dwelt upon the tasks which lay before us to do—before them and before me. It was my task to go out in the world and help in the fight against human servitude in the prisons, but they had a much harder task.
Your part is the most important of all. It is just to do your plain duty here, day by day, in the same routine;but accepting each new thing as it comes along and striving to make of that new thing a success. Men, it is you alone who must do it. Nobody else can.So then give to the Warden and to all the officers your hearty support; aid in the endeavor to make this institution all that it should be, all that it can be.An old poet, Sir Richard Lovelace, once wrote:“Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage.”Last night perhaps I should not have altogether agreed with Sir Richard; but of course what he meant was that, in spite of all the bolts and bars which men can forge, the spirit is always free; that you cannot imprison. In spite of your own confinement here you possess after all the only true liberty that there is to be found anywhere—the freedom of the spirit; the liberty to make yourselves new men, advancing day by day toward the strength and the courage and the faith which when you go out from these walls will enable you to lead such a life that you will never come back.
Your part is the most important of all. It is just to do your plain duty here, day by day, in the same routine;but accepting each new thing as it comes along and striving to make of that new thing a success. Men, it is you alone who must do it. Nobody else can.
So then give to the Warden and to all the officers your hearty support; aid in the endeavor to make this institution all that it should be, all that it can be.
An old poet, Sir Richard Lovelace, once wrote:
“Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage.”
Last night perhaps I should not have altogether agreed with Sir Richard; but of course what he meant was that, in spite of all the bolts and bars which men can forge, the spirit is always free; that you cannot imprison. In spite of your own confinement here you possess after all the only true liberty that there is to be found anywhere—the freedom of the spirit; the liberty to make yourselves new men, advancing day by day toward the strength and the courage and the faith which when you go out from these walls will enable you to lead such a life that you will never come back.
In explaining why I could not go into particulars regarding any conclusions I may have reached as to the Prison System, I realized that I was on delicate ground. I was sorely tempted to relate some of my last night’s experiences in the jail, but I felt that were I to do so there was no telling what the result might be. The men were strangely moved by the whole situation, and I had the feeling that the room contained a great deal ofexplosive material that a chance spark might ignite. So I bit my lips, and forced myself away from the dangerous topic.
The time has not yet come for a statement of any particular conclusions or ideas. My experience is so new—particularly some of it—that I can hardly be expected just now to see things in their right relations. If I were to let myself go and state exactly what I do think at the present moment, I might say some things I should regret later. So it is better to wait and allow the experience to settle in my mind; and as I get farther away from it, things will assume their right proportions.
The time has not yet come for a statement of any particular conclusions or ideas. My experience is so new—particularly some of it—that I can hardly be expected just now to see things in their right relations. If I were to let myself go and state exactly what I do think at the present moment, I might say some things I should regret later. So it is better to wait and allow the experience to settle in my mind; and as I get farther away from it, things will assume their right proportions.
Reiterating my belief in the value of the experiment, I drew to a conclusion.
The time has now come for me to say good-bye, and really I cannot trust my feelings to say it as I should like to say it.Believe me, I shall never forget you. In my sleep at night as well as in my waking hours, I shall hear in imagination the tramp of your feet in the yard, and see the lines of gray marching up and down.And do not forget me. Think of me always as your true friend. I shall ask the privilege of being enrolled as an honorary member of your brotherhood.I do not know that I could better close my remarks than by repeating to you those noble lines which the poet Longfellow found inscribed on a tablet in an old churchyard in the Austrian Tyrol:“Look not mournfully into the Past; it comes not back again.“Wisely improve the Present; it is thine.“Go forth to meet the shadowy Future without fear and with a manly heart.”
The time has now come for me to say good-bye, and really I cannot trust my feelings to say it as I should like to say it.
Believe me, I shall never forget you. In my sleep at night as well as in my waking hours, I shall hear in imagination the tramp of your feet in the yard, and see the lines of gray marching up and down.
And do not forget me. Think of me always as your true friend. I shall ask the privilege of being enrolled as an honorary member of your brotherhood.
I do not know that I could better close my remarks than by repeating to you those noble lines which the poet Longfellow found inscribed on a tablet in an old churchyard in the Austrian Tyrol:
“Look not mournfully into the Past; it comes not back again.
“Wisely improve the Present; it is thine.
“Go forth to meet the shadowy Future without fear and with a manly heart.”
Halting and inadequate as are the words of my speech, I feel certain that my audience understands me. Had I stood up here and repeated the alphabet or the dictionary, I think it would have been the same. The men are going far behind the words; they are looking into my soul and I into theirs.
I have come among them, worn their uniform, marched in their lines, sat with them at meals and gone to the cells with them at night; for a week I have been literally one of them—even to fourteen hours in the dark punishment cells; what need therefore of words? It makes little or no difference what I say, or how far I fail to express my meaning. They understand.
A feeling of renewed life, a sense of hope and exhilaration kindles within me as I look in their faces and realize for the first time the full measure of their gratitude and affection. I step down from the platform and again take my seat with the basket-shop company; receiving warm grips of the hand from Stuhlmiller, Bell, and the others as I crowd past them to my seat in the center.
There ensues a long and dreary wait. In the mess-hall the first ones in are the first ones out; but up here in chapel the first ones in are the last ones out. It is a very tiresome arrangement for the earlier ones; and as we are well beyond the center, the delay seems interminable. Over thirteen hundred men have to march down stairs in single file, and that apparently takes a long time.
However, it gives a chance for my excitement to calm down, and my tired senses to get a bit rested. So that by the time I have marched down stairs, through the stone corridor, up the iron stairs and along the gallery to Cell 15, second tier, north, north wing, I am in a more normal condition than I have been since yesterday afternoon.
While I am packing my few belongings into the small handbag, Grant appears at the door; and as soon as I am ready I accompany him for a last journey along the gallery, down the iron stairs and through the stone corridor. Then we turn up the stairway leading to the main office—the stairway down which I descended into prison six days ago. At the head of the flight two light taps on the iron door bring the face of the hall keeper to the pane of glass set in the door, the key grates in the lock and the heavy barrier swings open. I have passed the inner wall and breathe more freely.
Arrived in the Warden’s rooms—he himself is unfortunately still away—I lose no time in getting into a tub. After a most refreshing bath, I dress in my ordinary citizen’s clothes and am served with eggs and bacon and a cup of coffee. It is real coffee, not bootleg.
I do full justice to the food and drink, and feel very sorry for any one who has not had the experience of a first meal out of prison. I envy the Warden his cook and his devoted attendants.
After being thus invigorated, I gird up my loins for the next duty, and go to measure arguments with the Principal Keeper in his private office. I begin by shaking hands with him warmly, for I wish to atone for any rudeness of last night and make him understand that I have no hard feelings toward him personally. Then I plunge at once into the subject.
“P. K., I don’t wish to be unpleasant, nor do or say anything I am not fully justified in doing or saying, but I must tell you plainly that I can not go from this place, leaving that poor sick boy down in that second cell in jail. There are others who, in my opinion, ought not to be there, but his is the worst case. He should be in the hospital, not in such a damnable hole as that. He’s sick, and you are driving him crazy with your absurd rules about water. And I shall not—I can not—leave the prison unless something is to be done about it.”
This and much more I pour into the patient ears of the P. K. It is written in the veracious “Bab Ballads,” concerning Sir Macklin, a clergyman “severe in conduct and in conversation,” that:
“He argued high, he argued low,He also argued round about him.”
It is much the same in this case. My arguments are many, and some are based on high moral ground and others on mere motives of self-interest. My words flow easily enough now.
The P. K. takes refuge behind the official policies. He disclaims any personal motives—almost any personal responsibility. He seems to think that there is little or no occasion for the exercise of any judgment on his part. A complaint comes from an officer about a prisoner. There is apparently nothing for the P. K. to do but accept the complaint, take the word of the officer as a matter of course, and punish the prisoner. I also get the impression that sending every offender to the jail is the most desirable form of punishment, as it involves no troublesome discrimination or attempt at careful adjustment; it makes the thing so simple and easy.
Anything more crude, any greater outrage upon justice and common sense than the system of prison discipline as revealed in this illuminating discussion, it would be impossible to conceive. Ifa deliberate attempt were to be made to draft a code of punishment which should produce a minimum of efficacy and a maximum of failure and exasperation among the prisoners, it could not be more skilfully planned. One can no longer be surprised at the anomalous condition of things, as revealed by the kind of men I found in the jail.
In the midst of the discussion I welcome a warm ally in the Doctor, who at my request is brought into consultation. He had by no means intended that Number Two should be sent to the jail when discharged from the hospital; although he states it as a fact that the boy was a somewhat troublesome and unruly patient—a fact which I do not doubt in the least. Under existing conditions I should think any man, unless he were a dolt or an idiot, would be troublesome.
This statement of the Doctor’s gives me the chance to utter a tirade against a System which has no gradation in its punishments. If stress is to be laid on punishment rather than reward, there should be at least some approximation to justice, and the punishment should bear some proportion to the offence. “You admit,” I say to the P. K., “that these punishment cells are the severest form of discipline that you have. Then why, in Heaven’s name, do you exhaust your severest punishment on trivial offences? If you use the jail with its dark cells and bread and waterfor whispering in the shop, what have you left when a man tries to murder his keeper?”
In reply the P. K. makes the best showing he can, but in truth there is no reply. One of the things that is most irritating about prison is the number of questions that admit of no sensible explanation. It irresistibly reminds one of the topsy-turvy world that Alice found in Wonderland; and of the Hatter’s famous conundrum, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” to which there was no answer.
The P. K., finding himself driven from point to point in the argument, takes refuge in the statement that complaint comes from the prison department in Albany that he doesn’t punish often or severely enough. This seems very extraordinary. How in the world can the clerks in Albany judge of the need of punishments in this prison, concerning the inner workings of which they know absolutely nothing?
I argue, I implore, I threaten. The Doctor more gently and diplomatically seconds my efforts. Finally the P. K. with an air of triumph brings out his last and conclusive argument.
“There is a great deal in what you say, gentlemen, and I should like to oblige you, Mr. Osborne, but you see this is Sunday; and you know we never let ’em out of jail on Sunday.”
The P. K. leans back in his chair, evidently feeling that he has used a clincher. Then I risein wrath. “Sunday!” I exclaim. “In Heaven’s name, P. K., what is Sunday? Isn’t it the Lord’s Day? Very well, then. Do you mean to tell us that you actually think if you take a poor sick boy, with an open wound in his ear, out of a close, dirty, vermin-filled, dark cell, where he isn’t allowed to wash, and has but three gills of water a day—do you mean to say that to take that sick boy out of such a detestable hole and put him back into the hospital, where the Doctor says he belongs—do you really think that such an act of mercy would be displeasing to God? Do you think God approves of your infernal jail? Do you think——”
I break off, simply because I haven’t the strength to continue; anger and disgust, on top of all the excitements of the last twenty-four hours, bring me to my last ounce of endurance. Fortunately the tide turns. The P. K. is silent for a few moments after my last outburst, but as I watch him I see something beginning to stir, a light is dawning upon the official mind, a smile of triumph announces a solution of the difficulty.
“Why,” he gasps, “that’s true. I think you’re right. We put ’em in on Sunday; why shouldn’t we take ’em out?”
The great question is solved. The P. K.’s brilliant logic has made it possible for mercy to temper justice, and pleased at his great discoveryhe determines to do the thing handsomely while he is about it, and let not only one but all the prisoners out of the jail. To this I have no objection to offer. He also generously accedes to my desire to pay a visit to these as yet unseen friends of mine; and I assure him that I will not pose as their deliverer, but simply give them good advice, and leave it for him to take them the news of their liberation.
On this errand I pass once more behind the barriers. I descend the gloomy staircase from the rear office, and traverse part of my memorable walk of last night—through the stone corridor and down the yard to the jail office. Here the Captain in charge takes the heavy keys from the locker and opens the outer door. As our steps resound in the passage, I think how each of the five prisoners within is listening and wondering who and what is coming.
The inner door is unlocked and opened, and amid complete silence from the occupants of the other cells, Number Two’s door is thrown open.
As I have said, it is a curious experience making acquaintance and establishing intimate relations with people whom you cannot see; but it is equally curious to see for the first time men with whose voices and personalities you already feel well acquainted. Last night I had the first of these experiences, now I have the other. One by one thecell doors are opened and the occupants, unwashed and in their dirty jail clothes, are allowed to step forward, shake me by the hand and have a few words of friendly conversation. I tell them I have come to see them face to face before leaving the prison, to thank them for their friendly treatment of me, to renew my invitation to dine when they leave, and to talk briefly over the case of each.
Number Two I advise to apologize to the Doctor. He admits being troublesome in the hospital; and it is quite evident the poor fellow needs to go back there. He is a dark-haired lad, with a sweet voice and a confiding, boyish manner that is very winning.
Number Three I advise to apologize to the Captain of his company and to try to keep his temper better in the future. The person who called him ugly names, having been sent to the hospital, seems to have been sufficiently punished. To my relief Number Three seems to be decidedly better of his cold.
Number Four (it is needless to say that my heart warms toward the handsome young fellow whom I greet as Joe) I advise to apologize to his Captain for the fight with Number Five, and to be more careful for the future. Joe is rather abashed and self-conscious by daylight, but very prolific of promises. Methinks he doth protest rather too much, and in spite of his good looks,his eyes do not give the direct glance that one likes to see.
To Number Five I give advice similar to Joe’s, and he engages to profit by it.
To Number Eight I also urge an apology to the powers that be and submission to the inevitable. He is a little harder to convince than the others, but we reach an agreement.
“What is the use,” I say to all of them, “of letting your tempers get the better of you when it hurts nobody but yourselves?” My preaching is directed rather toward a cultivation of self-interest than of lofty idealism, but I believe it hits the mark. They none of them admit the justice of their jail sentences, and on that point I can not argue with them. I acknowledge the injustice, but ask them to face the facts. So one and all admit they have been wrong and express themselves ready to make all amends for the present and try their best for the future.
And so, in a much pleasanter frame of mind than when I last left this place, I retrace my steps to the Warden’s rooms.
Returning through the back office I shake hands all around—with both officers and prisoners—all but one man. A slight, pale figure in glasses is bending over his desk in a corner of the office. He is one of the Warden’s stenographers. Last July I had an extended conversation with him, atthe Warden’s suggestion, and a more hopeless and discouraging proposition I never struck. He is an old-timer, knows all the ropes, has been through the game, and has settled down to hopeless cynicism. He seems to have no belief in himself or others, and I have no doubt is utterly uninterested in my whole experience, and will be one of the greatest stumbling blocks to any attempted reforms. He will condemn them at the outset, discouraging others who are willing to try. This, at least, is the impression I had of him last July when the Warden persuaded me to talk with him. Now, as he bends over his desk with his eyes on his work I pass him by; for he evidently has no interest in me and I can not see where I can be of any service to him.
There remains now but one more thing to do—bid farewell to my partner, my dear and loyal friend, Jack Murphy. He has been sent for; and, as I reënter the Warden’s office, he stands looking out of the window.
“Jack, old fellow, I couldn’t leave here without saying good-bye to you.”
He turns, and the tears are running down his cheeks. As for myself I have long since got beyond that stage. “Oh, Mr. Osborne——” he begins, but I stop him.
“Cut it out, partner, cut it out! You mustn’t meddle with my last name. It has been Tom andJack now since Wednesday, and Tom and Jack it must continue to be. I am still your partner, and clothes are not going to make any difference with you and me.”
“Oh, Tom!” says the poor fellow. “What am I going to do now?”
For the first time I fully realize how deep this experience has cut into the hearts of these men. I thought I already understood it, but Jack reveals a new depth.
“What are you going to do?” I ask in answer. “You are going right ahead making baskets down in the old shop. But you are also going to help out our Commission. While I am working outside, you will be working inside. And together, Jack, we are going to assist in giving things a good shaking up. You’ve got the hardest part of the work to do, but I shall keep in close touch with you, and we will often consult together. And sometime, Jack, some day in the future when the right time has come, you can count upon me to go to the Governor for you.”
At this suggestion of a pardon, I expect to get from Jack a quick word of gratitude, some sort of indication that he is conscious of having attained his first step toward freedom, the interest of a friend who may be able to secure fair consideration, at least, of an application for pardon.
To my surprise he turns to me almost roughly. “Put that right out of your mind, Tom,” he says.“Don’t you bother your head about that, one single minute. I am ready to stay behind these walls all my life if I can help you and the Commission bring about some of these reforms you have in mind. That’s all I want!”
I try to answer, but there is nothing to say. What can one do except to humble oneself before such a spirit of self-sacrifice? Moreover, while my whole being is thrilled with the wonder of all this new revelation of the essential nobility of mankind, my physical condition is approaching very near to complete collapse. Silently therefore I clasp Jack’s hand in mine, and silently we stand looking out of the window while each of us masters his emotion. Then with a brief “Good-bye, Jack!” “Good-bye, Tom!” in the back office, I watch the heavy iron door close with a clang behind him, as he descends the iron staircase back into the prison; and so to his stone cage, four feet by seven and a half, in the damp basement of the north wing.
Then, with one last look through the grated window of the back office, I turn and make my way down the front steps of the prison. The guard at the gate unlocks and opens the outer barrier. I am free.
No, not free. Bound evermore by ties that can never be broken, to my brothers here withinthe walls. My sentence, originally indeterminate, is now straight life, without commutation or parole.
It may be of interest, as a matter of record, to append a transcript of the official punishment report of the five prisoners with whom I spent the night in the jail.
February 1, 1914.
Sincethe eventful week I have attempted to describe in the foregoing chapters, I have received a large number of letters which throw light on the Prison Problem. Letters from the Auburn prisoners, letters from men in other prisons, letters from ex-convicts, giving ideas based upon their own experiences, letters from prison officials in other states, expressing keen interest in the results of my experiment, letters from sympathetic men and women of the outside world, proving the existence of a large amount of sentiment in favor of a rational reform of our Prison System.
Many of these letters are valuable in connection with the broad question of Prison Reform but have no direct bearing upon my personal experiences in Auburn Prison; they would therefore be out of place here. Others of them do deal directly with that incident, reflecting theprisoners’ side of the matter. A selection from these letters has a distinct place in the story of my stay within the walls. If the tone of some of them seems unduly laudatory, let it be understood that they have been included not for that reason, but simply to enable us to gauge the actual results of the visit of Tom Brown—that fortunate representative of the sympathy of the outer world. These expressions of friendship and gratitude should not be considered as personal tributes, their importance lies not in the character of the recipient but in the state of mind of the writers.
In other words, the vital point of this matter, as in all others connected with the Prison Problem, is this: After all has been said and done, what manner of men are these prisoners? Are they specimens of “the criminal” we have had pictured to us in so many works on “Penology”? Or are they simply men from the same stock as the rest of us—some of them degenerate, some mentally ill balanced, some slaves to evil habits, diseased, sinful, or simply unfortunate—whatever you like—but still men? I think these letters may help others to an answer as they have helped me.
A few days after the memorable Sunday on which I left prison, Warden Rattigan found a paper placed upon his desk. It came from the slight, pale man with whom I had talked in July,the man who struck me as being such a cynic—so discouraged and discouraging, the one with whom I had not shaken hands upon leaving, because—Heaven forgive me—I thought he had no interest or confidence in me or my experiment.
It seems, according to the Warden, that this man (his name is Richards) had at first been very sceptical concerning my visit; but he had, as will appear, watched me very carefully; and, after having changed his own point of view, was much irritated by certain sarcastic editorials in the newspapers. So he applied to the Warden for permission to write a letter on the subject to one of the great New York dailies.
When the Warden showed the letter to me I advised against its publication—as I cared for no personal vindication. But I treasured the letter, and Richards and I have since become the warmest of friends. Here is what he wrote to the Warden: