The Subterranean Brotherhood

by Julian Hawthorne

That is the compromise; and it is already in operation here and there. In the first place, numbers of good men and women, with motives either religious or humanitarian or both, obtained leave to visit prisons, talk with the inmates, give them religious exhortations, supply them with some forms of entertainment, and in other ways try to lighten the burden of their penal slavery. These persons deserve great credit. It was not so much the exhortations or entertainments that did good, as the idea thereby aroused in convicts that somebody cared for them. Between, them and the community there was still war to the knife; but certain individuals, separate from the community, were not hostile but well disposed toward them.

A man fallen into evil may sometimes be redeemed by coming to feel this; he will try to be good for the sake of the person who was kind to him in his misery. I once asked a comrade in Atlanta whether if the warden were to give him twenty dollars and tell him to go to the town, make a purchase for him, and return, he would do so? He said, "No," and when I asked him why, replied that he would know the warden had something up his sleeve, and was not on the square in his proposition. I then named a certain benefactor of the prisoners outside the prison, and asked if he would do it for that person? After some consideration, he said that he would, because he "would hate to disappoint" that person, and would believe in the bona fides of that person's request. This man was held to be rather a bad case; but he was still capable of acting honorably, if the right motives were supplied.

But this is not enough. The great mass of convicts could not be reformed by "hating to disappoint" any particular person who had been kind to them or trusted them. Their personal gratitude to the individual would not stem the tide of their well grounded conviction that people in general were neither trustful nor kind; and the numberless and constant temptations of their life after liberation would prove too strong for them. There have been instances to the contrary; touching and beautiful instances, some of them; but they are far from establishing the principle that Christian Endeavorers, or Salvation Armies, or prison angels, or angelic wardens can effect the reform of men in prison. Some stimulus much more powerful is required.

The next step in compromise was to improve the physical conditions in the prison; to give more light and air and exercise, better food; to mitigate or do away with dark holes, assaults and tortures. There were many zealous critics of these leniencies; they said we were making prisons so attractive that criminals, so far from being deterred from crime by fear of punishment, would commit crimes in order to be sent to prison. And they could quote in confirmation cases of men who had accepted liberation at the end of their terms reluctantly, or had actually refused it, or of men who had voluntarily returned to prison after having been discharged.

There have been such cases; but they prove, not the attractiveness of prisons, but their power to kill the manhood in a man. What does it not suggest of outrage and degradation perpetrated upon a human soul, that he should come to prefer a cell and a master to freedom! There may be slaveries so soft as to invite the base and pusillanimous, but they are more rather than less depraving than cruelties to all that makes honorable and useful manhood. The deepest and essential evil of prisons is not hardship and torture, but imprisonment. If choice could be made between the two, every manly man would choose the former. No disgrace is inherent in hardship and torture; but imprisonment brands a man as unfit to associate with his kind. No mortal creature has or can have the right to inflict it, nor any aggregation of mortals.

This is a hard saying, but I will stand by it. There were criminals of all kinds in Atlanta with whom I was brought into contact. One had grown rich by organizing a system of "white slavery" on a large scale. He dealt in woman's dishonor and turned it into cash, and he saw nothing wrong in it. This man was advanced in years, he was incapable of regarding women in any other light than as merchandise, he was insensible to their misery, and laughed at their degradation. He was physically repulsive; his face and swollen body suggested a huge toad. It would be foolish to associate the idea of reform with such a creature. I felt a nauseous disgust of him; he seemed on the lowest level of human nature.

But, contemplating him during some months, I saw little touches of kindliness and good humor in him; he did not hate his fellows, nor wish them to hate him. If the other prisoners ostracized him or cursed him, he was painfully sensible of it, and even perplexed, and would try to win their favor. I perceived that he had always lived in a world of filth and sin, and knew no other. In that world, he had doubtless not done the best he might, but which of us can say he himself has done that? Had I been born and bred as he was, what would I be? What right had I to call him unfit for my companionship? I had no right to do it, nor had any other man. At last I shook him by the hand and wished him well.

There were men there who had committed merciless robberies, cruel murders, heartless swindles, abominable depravities. I have felt greater temperamental aversion from many highly respectable persons than I did from them. Their crimes were one thing, they were another. Not that crime does not corrupt a man—stain him of its color. But there is always another side to him, a place in him which it has not dominated. Given his conditions, we cannot affirm that he is not as good as we are—that he is unfit to associate with us. And it behooves us always to bear it in mind that to affirm the contrary is an unpardonable sin against him of whom we affirm it; it works more evil in him than anything else we can do, and places us who repudiate him in a truly hideous posture. Shall we be more fastidious than God?

All crime is hateful; but I came to the conclusion that there is only one crime which prompts us to hate the criminal as well as his crime itself. For this crime is one which originates in our heart; it is not forced upon us by need or passion or heredity. Therefore, it permeates every fiber of our being, every thought of our mind, every impulse of our soul; and we cannot say of it, this is one thing and we are another. It is an unhuman crime; and yet there is no punishment for it among human laws; rather, it is regarded as a mark of superiority. The most respectable persons in the community are most apt to commit it. And it was upon the suggestion and initiative of this crime that penal imprisonment was invented, and is perpetrated to this day.

Christ condemned it; Christianity is based upon its repudiation; we call ourselves Christians; and yet it is the characteristic crime of our civilization. The Law and the Prophets are against it; it defies every injunction of the Decalogue, for it takes the name of God in vain, it steals, murders, commits adultery, covets and bears false witness; but we clasp it to our bosoms, and actually persuade ourselves that it is the master key to the gates of Heaven. What is it? It is the thought in a man's heart that he is better, more meritorious, than his fellow.