I am not disposed to present here, in the way of credentials, any account of the circumstances that landed me in prison; still less to plead anything in the way of extenuation. The District Attorney, in his address, described me as a member of one of the most dangerous band of crooks and swindlers that ever infested New York. The government of this country authorized his statement; the news was bruited afar, wherever men read and write and invest money on the planet, and it appealed to every city editor and scandal-monger. Julian Hawthorne, son of the author of "The Scarlet Letter," a pickpocket. Well, what next!
If ever I cherished the notion that the charge was too preposterous to be believed, I was abundantly undeceived. To jail I went, and there served out my time to the uttermost limit allowed by the law. But in this connection I must touch on a matter which caused me some annoyance at the time.
In June of 1913 an editorial appeared in a New York newspaper endorsing some petitions which had been circulated asking the President of the United States to pardon me, mainly on the ground that in my ignorance of business I had been more of an innocent dupe than a deliberate malefactor. I had known nothing of these petitions; had I known of them, I would have omitted no effort to prevent them.
But I did get hold of the editorial; and found myself placed in the position of admitting myself guilty of the crime charged against me, but cowering under the pitiful excuse of having been bamboozled by others. What was even less tolerable, it presented me as entreating pardon of a government from which I would in fact have accepted nothing short of an unconditional apology. The Government had done me an injury under forms of law; I am only one man, and the Government stands for a hundred millions; but justice has no concern with numbers. My mining company and I were ruined; the iron and silver which we tried to put on the market will enrich others after we are gone; but I knew that what I and my partners had said of them was true. What had I to do with "pardons"? Pardon for what?
I lost no time in writing a letter to the editor of the paper, defining my attitude in the matter; but it never reached him. It is in the private safe of Warden Moyer, of Atlanta—or so I was informed by the Deputy Warden, when I was released in October—and for aught I know or care it may remain there forevermore.
Whether my respect for Law is higher or lower than is that of those persons who are responsible for my being sent to prison and kept there, may appear hereafter. But if crime be the result of anti-social impulses, then I hold that our present statutes fail to include under their categories, numerous and inquisitive though they be, a class of criminals who do, or intend, quite as much harm as was ever perpetrated by any man now under lock and key. Many of these persons occupy high places; most of them are respectable. We meet them and greet them in society. I know them, and also the murderers, highwaymen and yeggs of the penitentiary; and when I want sincere, charitable, generous human companionship, my choice is for the latter.
II
THE DEVIL'S ANTECHAMBER
The judge pronounced our several prison sentences; that they were not also sentences of death was due to circumstances which developed later. The jury had previously dispersed, clothed in the sanctity of duties discreetly performed, knowing why they did them, and enjoying whatever consolation or advantage appertained thereto. Marshal Henkel cast upon us the look of the turkey buzzard as he swoops upon his prey, and we found ourselves being hustled down the familiar corridors, and into a room which we had not visited before; a few assistant marshals were there, and ere long a knot of newspaper men entered, observant and sympathetic, ready to receive and record the last words of the condemned.
It was about six o'clock of a dark and rainy March evening. "Any statement you would like to make?" One stands upon the brink of the living world, facing the darkness and silence, and hears that question.