I have touched upon the two latter counts of the indictment in the text of the book; of the assertion that fiction writers cannot stick to facts or convey truth, I will say that it is unreasonable upon its face. Fiction writers, in order to attain any measure of success in their calling, must above all things base their structures upon facts, and to seek and promulgate undeniable truth in their descriptions and analyses. The "fiction" part of their stories is the merest outside part; all within must be true, or it is nothing. A novelist or story writer, therefore, is more likely to give a true version of any event or condition he may be required to present, than a person trained in any other form of writing, with the exception, perhaps, of journalism. And I have been a journalist, as well as a story writer, for more than thirty years past, and what success I attained was due to the accuracy and veracity of the reports I sent to my papers. In short, I am a trained observer of facts if ever there were one; and no facts in my experience have been so thoroughly hammered into my mind, heart and soul, digested and appreciated, as were the facts of my prison life. Whatever else that I have written might be cavilled at on the plea of inaccuracy, certainly this book cannot be. Whether the statements which it contains be feebly or strongly put may properly be questioned, but none of them can be successfully denied.
But this aspect of the matter gives me small uneasiness. The important consideration is, will the book, assuming that it is accepted as the truth, do the work, or any large part of the work, which it was designed to do? Will readers be influenced by it to practical action; will it be an effective element in the forces that are now rising up to make wickedness and corruption less than they are? The proposal toward which the book points and in which it ultimates is so radical and astounding—nothing less than that Penal Imprisonment for Crime be Abolished—that the author can hardly escape the apprehension that the mass of the public will dismiss it as preposterous and impossible. And yet nothing is more certain in my opinion than that penal imprisonment for crime must cease, and if it be not abolished by statute, it will be by force. It must be abolished because, alarming or socially destructive though alternatives to it may appear, it is worse than any alternative, being not only dangerous, but wicked, and it breeds and multiplies the evils it pretends to heal or diminish. It is far more wicked and dangerous than it was a thousand or a hundred years ago, because society is more enlightened than it was then, and the multitude now exercise power which was then confined to the few. Whatever person or society knowingly and wilfully permits the existence of a wickedness which it might extirpate, makes itself a party thereto, and also inflames the wickedness itself. And the ignorance or the impotence which we could plead heretofore in history, we cannot plead to-day. We know, we have power, and we must act; if we shrink from acting, action will be taken against us by powers which cannot be estimated or controlled. This book is meant to confirm our knowledge and to stimulate and direct, in a measure, our action; and to avert, if possible, the consequences of not acting. Its individual power may be slight; but it should be the resolve of every honest and courageous man and woman to add to it the weight of their own power. Wonderful things have been accomplished before now by means which seemed, in their beginning, as inadequate and weak as this.
In the sixth chapter of the Book of Joshua you may read the great type and example of such achievements, the symbol of every victory of good over evil, the thing that could not be done by man's best power, skill and foresight, accomplished, with God to aid, by a breath. The defensive strength of Jericho was greater, compared with the means of attack then known, than that of Sebastopol in the fifties of the last century, or of Plevna in the seventies, or of Port Arthur a few years since. Those walls were too high to be scaled, too massive to be beaten down, and they were defended by a great king and his mighty men of valor. From any moral point of view, the enterprise of destroying the city was hopeless. Nor did the Lord add anything to such weapons of offense as Joshua already possessed. Seven trumpets of rams' horns were the sole agents of the destruction provided; and not the trumpets themselves, but the breath of the mouths of the seven priests who should blow through them, should overthrow those topless ramparts, and give the king and his army and his people into the hand of the men of Israel. Were such a proposition presented to our consideration to-day, we can imagine what would be the comments of the Army and Navy departments, of Congress, of the editors of newspapers, of witty paragraphers, and of the man on the street. Possibly the churches themselves might hesitate before giving their support to such a plan of war: "We must take the biblical stories in a figurative sense!" But stout Joshua had seen the angel of the Lord, with his sword drawn, the night before; and he knew nothing of figures of speech. He got the seven trumpets of rams' horns, and put them in the hands of the seven priests, and led the hosts of the Israelites round and round the walls of Jericho day after day for six days, the trumpets blowing amain, and the hosts silent. And on the seventh day, the hosts compassed the walls of the city seven times; "And at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city…. So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets; and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpets, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the walls fell down flat, so that every man went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was within the city."
Yes, the biblical stories are to be taken in a figurative sense; they stand as symbols for spiritual actions in the nature of man; though that is not to say that the events narrated did not actually take place as recorded. But Joshua had faith; and faith in the hearts of the champions of right begets fear in the hearts of supporters of wrong, and the defenses they have so laboriously built up tumble distractedly about their ears when the trumpets of the Lord blow and the people who believe in Him utter a mighty shout. Our jails are our Jericho; the evils which they encompass and protect are greater than the sins of that strong city; but a breath may shatter them into irretrievable ruin. Not compromises; not gradual and circumspect approaches; not prudent considerations of political economy, nor sound sociological principles; but simple faith in God and a blast on the ram's horn.
My business in this book was to show that penal imprisonment is an evil, and its perpetuation a crime; that it does not reform the criminal but destroys him body and soul; that it does not protect the community but exposes it to incalculable perils; and that the assumption that a criminal class exists among us separate and distinct from any and the best of the rest of us is Pharisaical, false and wicked. The "Subterranean Brotherhood" are our brothers—they are ourselves, unjustly and vainly condemned to serve as scapegoats for the rest. What the criminal instinct or propensity in a man needs is not seclusion, misery, pain and despotic control, but free air and sunlight, free and cheerful human companionship, free opportunity to play his part in human service, and the stimulus, on all sides of him, of the example of such service. Men enfeebled by crime are not cured by punishment, or by homilies and precepts, but by taking off our coats and showing them personally how honest and useful things are done. And let every lapse and failure on their part to follow the example, be counted not against them, but against ourselves who failed to convince them of the truth, and hold them up to the doing of good. Had we been sincere and hearty enough, we would have prevailed.
I do not underrate the difficulties; they are immeasurable; the hope seems as forlorn as that of the Israelites against the walls of Jericho. But they are forlorn and immeasurable only because, and so long as, we let our selfish personal interests govern and mold our public and social action. Altruism will not heal the inward sore, but at best only put on its surface a plausible plaster which leaves the inward still corrupt; for altruism is a policy and not an impulse, proceeding not from the heart but from the intelligence—the policy of enlightened selfishness. It has already been tried thoroughly, and proved thoroughly inefficient; it is the motive power behind charitable organization; it breeds a cold, impersonal, economic spirit in charity workers, and coldness, ingratitude and resentment in those who are worked upon. It will not do to speak of Tom, Dick and Harry as cases Nos. 1, 2 and 3. You must call them by name and think of them as flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood, to whom you owe more than they owe you, or than you can repay. Put a heart into them by giving them your own heart; do not look down on them and advise them, but at and into them and take counsel with them; or even up to them, and learn from them. They know and feel much that you have never felt or known.
The book is full of shortcomings, imperfections, omissions, and repetitions. But there is meaning and purpose in it, and I hope it may do its work.