The Subterranean Brotherhood

by Julian Hawthorne

This man was tortured for five or six weeks by unexplained delay in fulfilling the promise of his parole, during which time it fell to my daily lot to comfort and encourage him; and I suffered no little emotional stress myself from this constant drain on my sympathies. Every evening, sitting beside my cot, he would repeat over and over again the same lamentations and speculations, interjecting at the end of each apostrophe, "It's terrible—terrible!" until at last I felt that I would gladly give up my own "good time" for the sake of seeing him freed without further procrastination. I was convinced, and so told him, that the delay could be due to nothing but neglect, inadvertent or criminal, on the part of LaDow, the President of the Parole Board, or of the Attorney-General himself; the papers had been thrust into a pigeonhole, and been forgotten or ignored.

What were the tortures of a man imprisoned for seventeen years, and now standing on the brink of salvation or despair, to a supercilious official up in Washington?

Finally, without explanation or apology, the order for release came; and for me and his other friends, as well as for him, it was a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving. But, remembering that he was on parole, and therefore liable, on the least infringement of discipline, to be thrust back in his cell, none of us expected that he would venture to denounce the wrongs and expose the miseries of the imprisoned; we were glad to learn that he had secured a position paying him twenty or thirty dollars a month, with a chance of better things later, and that he had announced his purpose of running down the real perpetrator of the crime for which he had suffered, and forcing him to confess. For a few days, one or two local papers gave him half a column, and then there was silence.

I had been denied parole, and the restrictions thereof did not apply to me when my own day of freedom arrived; and I gave a short interview to a reporter, in which I said that the warden was unfit for his position, that the food was abominable, and that punishment in dark cells and otherwise was still practised, though under cover.

The next day the newspapers printed an interview with my late friend, in which he was quoted as declaring that every statement I had made was a malicious lie, that the warden was in all respects the best, kindest and most lovable man he had ever met, and that the men in confinement had all the food they asked for, of the best quality, and that all tales of hardships and cruel punishments were false and wicked.

Is it conceivable that these statements were really given out by him? It seemed more likely that the words had been put into his mouth, under a threat, should he disavow them, of being sent back to prison. From such a threat the bravest man might shrink. But that statement of his still stands unmodified. And whether made spontaneously, or under the compulsion of a threat, its motive seems to have been fear of punishment for telling the truth. Such is the power of the System over its victims!

It is a state of things nothing less than nauseating. It is bad enough that men should be held in prison and maltreated; but that the truth should be imprisoned with them, gagged and terrified into silence, is a grave matter indeed. New York is complaining just now of the strength in corruption of its police system; but it seems almost trivial compared with this, for while the police ring profits by cooperating with the criminals they are paid to suppress, the prison ring profits by maiming or destroying human lives entrusted to their care to be restrained for a season from their own evil impulses, and thus if possible reformed; and, when they are released, it guards itself against exposure by the menace of revenge more formidable still. The parole and the indeterminate sentence, framed to open the way to reform of prisoners, is used by prison officials to intimidate and debase them; and if any ex-convict ventures to defy this fortified despotism, the immediate rejoinder is, "Who can believe a jail-bird? A man wicked enough to steal or murder is wicked enough to lie, and is not the malicious motive of the lie apparent?"

That rejoinder has been brought, and will continue to be brought against me. Among those who protested against the statements in my interview above mentioned was a lady whom I never spoke to—it is strictly against rules for a prisoner to speak with a visitor—and never knowingly saw, though I understand she was wont to sit on the stage during the Sunday exercises. She is thus quoted: "Julian Hawthorne is nothing more than an old grouch. A short time ago this old man told me himself that he was getting plenty to eat and had no complaint to make of his own or anybody else's treatment in the prison…. When he says such things as he is reported to have said, he should be made to prove them, or keep his mouth shut." Warden Moyer himself, less imaginative than this lady, contented himself with denying all charges and courting investigation, and added that he bore me no grudge, believed me to have been the dupe of malignant guards (since dismissed) and considers my motive to have been mainly the desire to make a little money. "The Department attaches little importance to these outbreaks," he remarked, "and I consider it unnecessary to place my word against that of convicts."

This may seem feeble; it is the mere instinctive stuttering of persons in a disturbed frame of mind. But the System will not depend for its defense upon persons of this kind. It has many strong forces at its command, of which the Secret Service, and the favorable prejudgments of the Government and of a large part of the public are but part. Any one opposing it may expect to be kept under strict surveillance in all his movements, his mail will be violated, his words, written or overheard, will be scrutinized for material that can be used against him. Nor is the line drawn there. While I was in prison, I received the confidences of many prisoners as to their own experiences, among others that of a Maine boy who had been convicted of robbing a postoffice. He had been arrested in the first instance as a vagrant, and while in the local jail had been approached by a postoffice inspector who charged him with the post-office crime. The boy had never been in the state in which the crime was committed; but he was told that, if he would plead guilty to it, he would be sent to Atlanta for a short term, whereas, should he refuse, he could be kept in jail awaiting trial for a year, and would then receive at least six months on the vagrancy charge. "Do as I tell you, and I will see that you get off easy," the inspector, who posed as a friend, told him. When he finally acquiesced, however, the judge imposed on him a sentence of five years, the inspector having testified that he was an old offender, implicated in many other crimes. The fact was, of course, that the real perpetrators of this postoffice robbery had not been caught, but it was expedient for the reputation and welfare of the detectives that a perpetrator should be produced—if not the real one, then one manufactured for the purpose. I learned of many cases similar to this—it is a common routine practise with the System. Moreover, when this innocent youth has completed his term, he will be thenceforth a marked man—"an habitual criminal," with a record against him; and he can be rearrested on general principles at any time. He will be given no opportunity to earn an honest livelihood, and it would be surprising indeed if his wrongs, not to speak of his empty stomach and hopeless circumstances did not make him a bona fide criminal ere long. Obviously, meanwhile, such a man is effectively gagged; if he be asked whether prison be a paradise, he will reply ardently in the affirmative, though his whole body and soul know it as a hell. For if, having blasphemed the Holy System, he is returned to the cell whence he came, every word of his rash revelation will be avenged upon him in torture and misery.

Am I attempting to retaliate upon the System for personal indignities and mishandling; or am I the dupe and tool of designing miscreants—convicts, guards or foremen—who plied me with false statements to wreak revenges of their own? I have already said that I was never harshly treated by any of the prison officials, and after the two first months indulgences were allowed me beyond the customary prison usage. During my two first months, to be sure, it seemed unlikely that I could live out my term, because I was kept at work in an underground place without ventilation or other than artificial light, and permeated with the hot-water pipes which supplied the buildings with heat and power. I was also unable to eat the prison fare, and was slowly perishing for lack of food. I never complained of this treatment, for it was in the ordinary prison course; but when the consequences of it became visible in my physical appearance, I was put on a diet of oatmeal and milk, morning and evening, and allowed to exercise in the open air. I voluntarily, during this period, went without dinner, being unwilling to poison myself with the rancid grease and garbage served under that name; but I made the most of the simple but nourishing milk diet, though it was insufficient in quantity; and I improved to the utmost the outdoor privileges, besides adhering resolutely to a régimen of daily calisthenic exercises; so that, when I was set at liberty at the end of six or seven months, I was in physical condition quite as good as when I went in. I was never denied leave to write "special letters," and my intercourse with the warden and his deputies, though always as seldom and brief as I could make it, was uniformly suave and smiling. The reasons for all which I shall have occasion to discuss later.