CHAPTER I
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE TOMBS
No prison on the American continent has had such an unsavory reputation as a corrupt grafting institution as the New York Tombs. This has been especially true when City politics had decreed it to be in charge of the House of Grafters on Fourteenth Street.
In giving my personal experience of what I have beheld with my own eyes in America’s greatest criminal barracks, I do so with the sole object of letting the light in, and making it easier, if possible, for future unfortunates who may be domiciled here for any length of time.
For many years the Tombs Prison has been the happy hunting ground for graft and “rake-offs” of various kinds, given in return for all kinds of privileges. Money has always been used to awaken the darkest passions in man, those who are mad for the “dough” take all kinds of chances to secure it.
To the daily visitor who comes to the City Prison, everything looks beautiful and serene on the outside. But the careful observer sees things in a different light and as he reads between the lines he can detect the spurious from the genuine.
In endeavoring to carry on the work of a prison from a business standpoint we must rid ourselves of everything romantic and deal only with facts and common sense. It is not a pleasant task to expose infamy, no matter where it is found. And you can rest assured that the one who dares do it will be rewarded with invective, abuse and slander. On the other hand, to pass it by without making some effort to change the wretched conditions is cowardly.
The stories told of the abuses of the Tombs seem as strange as the Arabian Nights! But most of them were true and would have made fine reading for the average New Yorker, but graft kept them out of the newspapers and from publicity.
One of the earliest “bombs” that struck the City Prison, was hurled by an inmate named Ruth Howard during the sitting of the Mazet Committee, in 1897-8. The Committee threatened to make an investigation and expose the vile conditions which then existed. In her letter to the Committee, Mrs. Howard describes the place as grossly immoral and, of course, excoriated several of the officials by name. It was the general opinion at the time that if the case had been pushed against these Tammanyites they would soon be wearing striped suits either in Sing Sing or Blackwell’s Island. After this the Commissioner refused to allow certain ones to inspect the Women’s Prison.
For a number of years charges have been made at various times against the Tombs Prison in general and the Department of Corrections in particular, which many of our City newspapers and a score of criminal lawyers who have come in contact with the conditions have known to be true, but nothing has been done to clean out this sink of iniquity.
Whenever any person has had the courage to call attention to the grafting abuses, common assaults, whiskey and dope smuggling and other unseemly conduct of the Tombs officials, the usual response was “Traitor, humbug, liar,” and a volley of anathemas! Such an answer sufficed for the time being. Frequently these officials would resort to a “white wash” paper, signed by missionaries and other hangers-on in the building who would be compelled to affix their names to the document or else be “bounced.” It seems to me all such whitewash “buzzards” were no better than the real inmates of the cells!