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past. But he has done well; will you take him and give him a chance?" "Indeed, I will," I tell them, and I have found it well worth while.

We can not talk sweepingly of any class in prison, and the whole success of the prison system of today is gaining as it is because our prison people realize that they are not dealing with a class but individuals, and as they take each man on his merits they will often find what it was in the past life that hindered him. They will give him a chance. He will have friends back of him and confidence will be placed in him, and on this he will have the strength and courage to go forward and make good.

Though I agree with you that it is dangerous to let these men who are mentally unbalanced and feeble-minded go out into the world (they should be put upon some farm where they can be happy and be watched over), I do believe the man who has intelligence has also a heart and soul, and if you know how to get to it and bring him that blessed Divine touch that changes the "brier" and puts ambition and hope and spirit within, you will have the "rose", even if you do not have "the figs and grapes".

W. H. Whittaker, Superintendent District of Columbia Reformatory and Workhouse: I wish to touch on two points made in the chairman's paper and in that of the judge; I also approve of much of what the last speaker has said.

As to road building, I am not in favor of road building as a business for any penal institution for several reasons:

First, the judge brought out in his most excellent paper that education was an imperative factor in the reformation of criminals. This being true, I cannot understand how any administration can expect to do much educational work when their business is that of building roads.

Second, I do not believe it is right to take an individual whose education and trade has fitted him for clerical work or a trade other than manual labor and because he has been committed to an institution that he should be injured either mentally or physically by doing such manual labor as is required in the construction of roads, making him unfit to return to his former business which he had been educated and equipped for.

Our friend Warden Wood tells us they have had 300 miles of road constructed in Virginia by inmates of their institution, and I dare say there has been little consideration given to the fellows in the way of benefiting them mentally, morally or educationally, or to help them to something better when they are discharged from the institution; and neither is much thought being given to the fellows who built the seventy-five miles of road in Utah. I certainly feel that in the handling of these individuals it should not be a one-sided proposition, but such methods and treatment should be inaugurated as will return to society a better individual whenever it is possible to do so.

Another point. The certainty of punishment. I want to amend that statement and make it the certainty of liberty being taken away. Then I want to take that man while his liberty is taken away and develop the goodness that is in his heart every moment he is with me if possible. You cannot do this by road-building. You must do it in your schools by the personal touch of some employe who has been educated to lift that man out of the hole he is in. Certainty of punishment? No. Certainty that liberty will be taken and certainty that while that liberty is taken away we will lift him to a higher plane. Educate, train and appeal to the individual prisoner, whether he be a one-termer or a tentermer, is my motto in handling these individuals. We must get away from vindictive punishment; away from the idea that these men are all criminal.

Calvin Derrick, Superintendent Preston School of Industry, Waterman, California: I feel I must take some exception to what I regard as a rather severe arraignment of the honor system. I stand for the honor system, first, last and all the time. The great difficulty, and that which gives rise to the adverse criticisms of the system, is the fact that inexperienced and impractical people attempt to apply it without first getting the system. They undertake to apply simply the honor. They do not work out a system. It would be just as sane to expect a banker or any other business man to succeed in his line of work without system at the base-sound and clearly worked out-as to expect, in prisons and reformatories, this system of trust and so-called honor to succeed when applied indiscriminately to the inmates.

But suppose it is wise, as our chairman stated, and as nearly all wardens agree, to divide the population into three classes. Into the first grade you have the very excellent; in the third you have the almost impossible element. Suppose there is no room in the middle grade to operate a well defined and perfectly progressive system of honor-and by honor I mean a plan by which a person may begin to assume a little responsibility about his own movements and welfare and by the exercise of such responsibility and effort on his part, to progress until he develops a considerable amount of trustworthiness and confidence and responsibility. To assume that this may not be done is to assume that the second class, as well as the third class, is impossible. If you do that, you will have only two grades, those impossible and a few who may be possible.

In think the honor system when reduced to a system, successfully applied by practical men, is the only kind of system to work upon.

Richard F. Mattia, Chairman Essex County Prison Committee, Newark, N. J.: Of course it is natural that each one who reads a paper or gets up to discuss a subject should be right in some things. We are here with the aim to do what we think is the best for the prisoner, or at least for society. We may criticise the paper of the judge merely as a theory, but I believe that as long as I have followed up this reform movement I have never heard a more accurate statement, with more justness to the prisoner and those interested in him. We come here with good hearts, but some of us, I believe, are overworked with the idea of the sunny side and believe that you can take a prisoner and make an angel out of him. We may help them a great deal. I am chairman of our Prison Committee and have been for seven years a member of the board of county commissioners. I caused the doing away with the stripes in the penitentiary in Essex County. When I first suggested it every one laughed. When I suggested the question of paying the prisoners they thought I was encouraging people to commit crime or encouraging their wives to send their husbands to prison so they might receive something. Today the law is passed, but we are undecided as to just how to pay. I was

anxious to hear some one take up that question as to what is being done in other States.

I believe in the suggestion of three grades for prisoners and to have separate buildings. We can do it with the buildings we have by separating the wings. It encourages one to do better.

Judge Frick: Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Booth may have convinced you that you can produce figs of thistles, but she has not convinced me. Remember, we always produced roses from briers and we shall always continue to do that. We never have produced figs from thistles. Besides, the lady has assailed only one sentence of my paper. I commend her to read the whole paper and if she can overthrow my arguments as a whole, then has she succeeded.

I am not, as Mrs. Booth intimates, treating all criminals as a class. Far from it. In my paper I said the first thing that ought to be inculcated in every convict is that he is not without hope; it matters not for what he is convicted; it matters not what his past career. We deal with each one as an individual. No one is without hope under the system applied in the Utah State Prison, but we recognize the fact also that upon us (the Board of Pardons) rests the responsibility of turning loose into society men who always prey upon it. It is easy enough for a reformer to single out two or three criminals in a hundred thousand or more and point to the fact that they have reformed. No doubt we have those who do reform, but we have imposed upon us the duty of being careful not to make experiments, not to turn out the midnight burglar who may at any time enter your homes and commit murder. Before we liberate him we must be satisfied he has reformed and when we are so satisfied we permit him to take his place in society.

In the last ten years whatever mistakes I have made as a member of the Board of Pardons have been upon the side of mercy. The warden, who is present, will confirm that statement. I do not recall a single instance where a wrong was done to a prisoner who ought to have gone out, but in some instances we have turned out prisoners we should have retained.

I thank you.

Adjourned, 12 noon.

WEDNESDAY MORNING SESSION.

Auditorium Hotel Oakland, 10:00 o'Clock.

President Byers called the Wednesday morning session to order at ten o'clock, after which there was a short business session.

The following resolution was presented by Amos W. Butler, of Indianapolis, Indiana, which was referred to the Committee on Resolutions:

WHEREAS, The problem of the mentally defective is a most serious one and complicates all social problems, including that of the treatment of offenders; therefore be it

Resolved, That the accumulation of accurate information and the diffusion of knowledge concerning such defectives is of great importance, and that we express our approval of the efforts of properly constituted and competent organizations formed for such purposes.

President Byers: The meeting will be in charge of the Boys' School Section, of which George Webster, Jr., of Marion, Indiana, is president. Mr. Webster is treasurer of the board of trustees of the Indiana Boys' School.

BOYS' SCHOOL SECTION.

GEORGE WEBSTER, JR., MARION, INDIANA, PRESIDENT.

Mr. Webster: The legislature of our State has seen fit to separate criminals into three classes: those under 17 years of age in the juvenile class; those over 17 and up to 30 years in the reformatory class; those above 30 years of age in the prison class. This association in the past has devoted its labors largely to the two classes of the reformatory and prison, paying very little direct attention to the juvenile class. It might be well to inquire how large a proportion of those in the penal and correctional institutions are juvenile offenders. In Indiana, about 27 per cent. of all those confined in the penal and correctional institutions are in the boys' and girls' schools. That is a pretty large

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