I believe in capital punishment. When a man falls so low as maliciously, willfully and premeditatedly, to take the life of a human being, he should be hung by the neck until he is dead. Before it is just to impose such a sentence as this upon a human being he should have a fair and impartial trial, which many persons charged with crime do not get. If poor and unable to employ the best legal talent, the court should see that it is furnished. Too often is it the case when a poor man, charged with crime, makes affidavit that he is unable to procure counsel, that some young and inexperienced attorney is selected, in order to give him a start in practice. The consequence of this inexperience is that the man charged with crime has to suffer for his lawyer's inability to secure for him his rights. After the jury has brought in a verdict of guilty he should have the privilege of taking his case to the Supreme Court, and have it reviewed by that tribunal at the expense of the State. No human being should be hung on circumstantial evidence, unsupported by positive testimony. If the judgment below is confirmed, then let the murderer be kept in close confinement in the penitentiary for one year, and, if during that time no new evidence or mitigating circumstances arise let him be hung by the neck until he is dead.
Let the execution take place in the prison, let it be private and witnessed by but few persons, designated by the executive of the State. It is better for the criminal to be hung than to be sent to the penitentiary for life. While serving out a lifetime sentence he suffers ten thousand deaths. Those States where the death penalty is inflicted have the least number of brutal murders, in proportion to their population. The dread of death is a better protection to society than a life of imprisonment. The fiend with murder in his heart thinks "while there is life, hope remains," and if he is sent to the penitentiary for life he may get a pardon after a time. But if he is aware of the fact that if he strikes the fatal blow he must atone for his crime on the gallows, he is more liable to think twice before striking his innocent victim once. There should be no such a thing as a life sentence. No criminal should be sent to the penitentiary for a term longer than fifteen years. The suffering he endures during this long sentence is enough to atone for any crime he may commit aside from a brutal murder, and for this he should be hung. Fifteen years of imprisonment is sufficient to break down almost any constitution. Having spent this length of time behind prison walls a man is a physical wreck, and, having atoned for his crime, let him have the last days of life in the world of freedom. The greatest desire of a life man in our penitentiaries is to die outside of prison walls. No criminal should be sent to the penitentiary for less than five years. After giving him one fourth off for good behavior, he has but little more than three years of actual service. This will give him plenty of time to learn a trade, so that when he goes out of prison he can make a living for himself and for those depending upon him. For crimes that require lighter sentences of imprisonment let jails or reformatories be brought into requisition. In the eyes of the world a jail sentence is not so disgraceful as one in the penitentiary.
The plumage of a jail-bird is not so black as that of a penitentiary bird. The disgrace of being sent to the penitentiary for one year is as great as being sent for five or ten years. Whether he goes for one or five years, for all the future he is set down as an ex-convict. People do not stop to inquire as to the length of his sentence. The main question is: Was he in the penitentiary? If so, he wears the mark of Cain—the stamp of disgrace. Not so, if he simply has been in jail. There are a great many young men, while surrounded by bad company, yield to temptation and commit crime. A dose of jail service will do them as much good as a year in the penitentiary. After they get out they do not feel the disgrace so keenly, and there is some hope for their reformation. Send them to the penitentiary and it will be a miracle if they ever amount to anything in the future. If a jail sentence of a year does not reform a young criminal, or a man of older years, who has committed his first offense, then give a term in the penitentiary for five years for the second offense. It is too true that a sentence to the penitentiary for a first term is the irretrievable ruin of the young offender. This becomes an obstacle which, during all the future, he cannot surmount. This plan being adopted let everything be done to reform the youthful offender while in jail. It is much easier to carry forward the work of reformation in a jail or reformatory than in a penitentiary.
CHAPTER XVII. THE MISSOURI PRISONERS—(Continued)
During the years 1887 and 1888, 1,523 prisoners were received into the Missouri penitentiary. Of this number 1,082 were white males, 398 colored males, 17 white females, and 26 colored females. These figures show that the women of Missouri are a great deal better than the men, or they do not get their share of justice.
TABLE SHOWING THE AGES OF CONVICTS
RECEIVED DURING THE YEARS 1887 AND 1888.
From 16 to 20.................320
" 20 to 25.................441
" 25 to 30.................344
" 30 to 35.................143
" 35 to 40.................113
" 40 to 45................. 70
" 45 to 50................. 34
" 50 to 55................. 31
" 55 to 60................. 15
" 60 to 65................. 5
" 65 to 70................. 4
" 70 and upward............ 5
——
Total .......... 1,523
There is nothing that should interest the good people of Missouri more than the foregoing table. These appalling figures I copied from the prison records. Of the 1,523 criminals received during the past two years, more than one-fifth of them were mere children. Would it not be better to give these boys a term in the county jails, or in some reformatory, instead of sending them to a penitentiary? Coming in contact with hardened and vicious criminals, what hope is there for getting these boys into the paths of honesty and uprightness? Then there follows the large number of 441, representing the youthful age from twenty to twenty-five years. These are the years most prolific of criminals. Who can say these boys are vicious and hardened criminals? Then follow the young men of from twenty-five to thirty. Three hundred and fourty-four of this age find a home in felon cells. Are these boys and young men not worth saving? What can be done to snatch them from a career of crime, and to save them from becoming miserable wrecks? Father, if one of these boys was a son of yours, you would think seriously over this important question.
Something should be done to save this large army of youth who are annually finding their way into felon cells.
Is the penitentiary the proper place to send those youthful offenders? If so, then they should not come in contact with the older and hardened criminals. One of the most essential things to be done in a prison is the classification of the inmates. This is not done in the Missouri penitentiary. Here the mere youth often cells with a hardened old criminal of the worst description. I would rather a child of mine would be boxed up with a rattlesnake. In this institution there are nearly 2,000 criminals huddled up together—an indiscriminate mass. The officials are not to blame for this. They realize the terrible condition of things at the prison. They have not sufficient room for the classification and proper arrangement of the inmates. They know, perhaps better than anyone else, that the prison is not what it should be. Warden Marmaduke says, in his last report to the prison directors, "This prison is now too much crowded and it becomes a serious question at once, as to what disposition will be made of them in the future. If this prison is to accommodate them, another cell building should be built at once. If another prison is to be the solution, it should be commenced. If a reconstruction of our criminal laws, looking to the reduction of crime, it should be done now. And in any event, and whatever may be done, certainly our management of prisons should be so modified or changed that the practical, not the sentimental system of reform, should be adopted. I believe that our present system is making criminals instead of reforming them, and I believe that it is practicable to so classify, treat, feed, work and uniform these people, as to make better men instead of worse men out of them. I have profound respect for the good purposes of the benevolently disposed men and women, and they are numerous, who are devoting themselves to the effort of reforming criminals. Yet their efforts must be supplemented by a practical building up and the development of the better instincts of the man, which cannot be done under our present system. The surroundings are against it. We are constantly developing and stimulating the very worst instincts. I believe it practicable to institute methods for this reform, at once creditable to the State." Who can doubt our statements on this subject when we quote such high authority as the above. The last warden of this great institution comes out and officially announces that awful fact that our present system of prison treatment is constantly developing and stimulating the very worst instincts. Constantly making men worse, and when a young man enters the prison he is morally tainted, when he goes out he is completely saturated, with moral pollution. After such statements from so high an authority will the great State of Missouri, so well-known the world over for her numerous acts of benevolence, continue to have an institution within her borders for the complete demoralization and ruin of multitudes of her young men. Should a youth of Missouri, surrounded by influences and temptations which he could not resist, once fall from a position of honor and integrity, although it is his first violation of the law, he will be taken into custody of the State, hurled into a pit, where for a time he will inhale the fetid breath of wickedness, then, later on, to be released and sent out into the free world a moral leper.