After Prison--What?

by Maud Ballington Booth

[VII
WELCOMED HOME]

"Home, home, sweet sweet home,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

How often and how fervently are those simple words sung out by earnest loyal hearts from end to end of the English-speaking world. The refrain has burst forth at Christmas gatherings, at home-comings from school, on every festive occasion, around all true home hearths, and its echo has been heard on plain and prairie, amid mountain peaks and forest fastness, as wanderers have in thought turned homeward. There is perhaps no place where the old tune and well loved words sound with more pathos, than when the refrain is raised in a prison audience and rolled through the chapel or around the gallery by a thousand manly voices. Heads are bowed, eyes grow dim with tears and sometimes lips tremble too much to frame the words. I have heard it thus and have tried to read the faces of the men as the song called up to them the past. Some have sung with a longing and yearning in which still lingered the note of glad possession, while for them arose a picture of a dear home-spot where they were still held in loving remembrance and to which in the future they would again be welcomed. Others under still deeper emotion have seen a vision of the home that was, the memory of childhood's happy hours gone forever with the passing of the mother-heart into the far-away grave. Fathers sometimes drop their heads upon the seats before them and strong men though they are, give way to bitter tears as they picture the little white-robed tots who kneel up in their beds to pray that papa may some day come home, and ask the mother over again in childish perplexity why he stays away so long, and then drop to sleep wondering at her tears. But some of those in the great audience know no home as a future bright spot, for they have never known the sacred influence which should be every man's birthright. Even in their hearts there is a longing to possess that which they have missed, and the song awakens a strange, untranslatable thrill that makes them feel lonely and forsaken without knowing why.

Quite early in the history of our work the need of practical help for men on their discharge from prison became very evident. They had given us their confidence and accepted our proffered friendship, had made resolves to live honest lives in the future and would go forth to be met by the difficulties and sometimes almost insurmountable obstacles awaiting them in an unfriendly world. Was it not natural to foresee that they would turn in their difficulty to those who had been their friends in prison? What then were we to do? Give them advice, bid them trust in God? All very well in the right place, but, to the penniless, homeless man, cold charity. We realized that to make our work thoroughly practical, we must be as ready and able to help the man on his discharge, as to counsel him during his incarceration. To do this successfully, we soon understood that for the homeless and friendless man we must provide a home. Some who have concerned themselves with a scientific discussion of plans to help discharged prisoners have argued against the wisdom of such a step. They speak of the danger of congregating men and would, I suppose, advocate the finding work for the man on the day of his discharge from prison. It is always easy to theorize, discuss and argue when you are not in the midst of an urgent need and obliged at once to face the subject and to decide by the circumstances instead of by your own worked-out conclusions. Practical experience is that which proves and alone can prove the wisdom or folly of any step. We have found in our work that it is not possible or practicable to find work for these men on the day of their discharge. Many a one coming from State Prison is absolutely unfit to take his place in the busy working world so soon after his prison experience. On the other hand, is it wise to ask business men to take men whom we have not tested and of whom we know nothing? Some men, indeed many are in downright earnest, but a few may not be, and if one recommends a man without knowing his capacity, suitability or sincerity, one is asking of the employer that which few would care to undertake. If men thus placed at work directly after their discharge fail through inability or lack of nerve and strength, they become utterly discouraged and it is a sore temptation to turn aside to an easier way of gaining a livelihood. If on the other hand, they go wrong, the employer is prejudiced, and the door is shut against others who might have made good use of the chance. I believe this is one of the causes that has brought prison work into disrepute and has made business men adverse to lending a helping hand to men from prison.

That the gathering of men together for a time in a well conducted happy home is not in any way detrimental, but exceedingly helpful, we have had ample time to prove. If there is no home for these who are homeless, where are they to go? Respectable boarding houses and hotels would not willingly receive them and would be beyond their means. They would have to go down to the common lodging houses where they would immediately be liable to meet old companions and be faced again with the temptation of spending their evenings on the street or in the saloon. The rapid improvement physically, mentally and spiritually of those who have come to Hope Hall has spoken more loudly than any arguments or theories could have done. That many men come out of prison in a terribly nervous, unmanned condition is incontestable. Far be it from me, knowing of the improvements made during the last few years in prison management, to cast any reflection on the care of our prisoners, still, the fact is here and must be faced. If we were dealing with horses and cattle, proper care in feeding, exercising, and in the planning of hygienic surroundings would suffice to keep the subjects well and would insure their good condition, for there one has only the body to deal with. In the case of human beings, we must reckon with the heart, brain and sensitive nervous system. Well fed, well clothed, well housed and yet with the mind and heart crushed and sore and anxious, at times almost insane with despair, a man may become a wreck however well treated, and as years pass, he will lose the nerve and force he so much needs for the efforts of the future. Even the most phlegmatic of dispositions, coming out into a world after years of the strictly ordered routine prison life, feels strangely cut adrift and utterly bewildered in the rush of the world that has forged ahead in its racing progress while he has been so long side-tracked. Fresh air, a good sleeping place, friendly faces and cheering Christian influence with elevating surroundings mean everything to a man in these early, anxious days.

Thank God some have homes to go to, where a loving mother or a tender wife stands between them and the gazing, critical world. There they can regain self-control and can have a breathing space, before they face the struggle which is almost sure to await them. But what of those who have no home, no friends, no place to turn? Especially does this need confront us in the case of the long time prisoner. Think of coming back into life after fifteen or twenty years' imprisonment! After six weeks in a hospital room, the streets seem to us a roaring torrent of danger. One feels as if every car were bent on running one down and the very pedestrians are possessed to one's imagination with a desire to collide with one at every step. The weakened nerves are alarmed at the unusual stir and noise; one's eyes are dazzled at the glare of light and one's feet seem to move, not with one's own volition, but with some notion of their own as to where they should stagger and it is a relief to creep away into some quiet corner. Now picture the return of one who has been banished behind high gates and kept in the close limits of cell and prison workshop for twenty or thirty years. The "L" road, cable cars, electric trolleys, sky scrapers and countless other wonders of the age are absolutely new to him, and in the crowded streets, the throngs of human beings pressing hither and thither are all strangers to this man from the inside world. Added to this is the knowledge of his own condition, and he is an easy prey to an abnormally developed fancy. He imagines that every man who meets him can tell whence he has come. His very nervousness and lack of confidence make him act suspiciously.

Then there are the sick. The fact that a man has been more or less ailing for months is not a cause for detention in prison. When his term expires, the authorities have no power to keep him and naturally such a man would bitterly resent the lengthening of his term; and yet he may be far too ill to undertake work and in just the condition when kindness and care would mean everything to both present and future.

Surely it is needless to picture more causes for the step that we felt led to take as the second phase of our work. The "boys" needed a home and the need called for speedy action. The home was planned and opened six months after the work in prison had started, and hundreds to-day look back to it as a blessed haven of rest; a bright spot which has been to many the first and only one in life. When we first started, the plans were all talked over in prison. I took the men, not the public, into my confidence. The idea was warmly welcomed and every item of news about the project looked for with keenest interest. Our idea was to have a place that would be a real home and not an institution. We did not want a mission in the city with sleeping rooms attached; certainly not a place placarded "Prisoners' Home," "Shelter for Ex-convicts," etc. Our friends were no longer prisoners, our guests were never to be called ex-convicts. It was to be a home hidden away from the public, and as much as possible patterned after that to which the mother would welcome her boy were she living and able to do so. In Sing Sing Prison we named our Home, and the name chosen was "Hope Hall." We felt that that name would have no brand in it and we earnestly prayed that it might prove the threshold of hope to those who passed through its doors to the new life of the future. In the matter of furnishing, the same idea of homelikeness and comfort without extravagance was carried out. Pretty coloring and light cheeriness have always been aimed at as affording the best contrast to the gloom and dreariness of the narrow prison cell.

The house we first opened was a large frame building on Washington Heights, that had once been a Club. After two years we moved into the country on Long Island, that we might have a home of our own and more ground to cultivate. We purchased a ten acre farm and by degrees have enlarged and improved the house, reclaimed and cultivated the ground and made a home which proves a veritable surprise to the many who have looked forward to it for years, and yet even in their dreams have not painted it as brightly as it deserved. If you give, give freely, that the receiver may feel that you have done your best and then you will appeal to his true heart gratitude. If your giving is with many limitations the receiver will say, "Oh, I see they think anything is good enough for me," and your intended blessing may lose all its value. We have realized this fact and borne it in mind in all our work. As our superintendent showed a newcomer around the Home on one occasion, the man turned to him and with eyes filled with tears exclaimed, "Oh! I ought to be good after this." The same thought has been seen in many lives and we have wanted our Home to so truly fulfill its purpose that it might form a veritable barrier between the men and their past.

Of course the undertaking was not an easy one. We had no capital behind us, the Volunteer movement was then but a young organization and our work in the prisons was at a stage where people looked at it as a doubtful experiment. Money was gathered slowly and very uncertainly. Some months, through our meetings we received very cheering returns; during others, especially in the heat of summer we had to face grave anxiety and often did not know where the next dollar was coming from. On one such dark day, when bills were due and the funds exhausted, at a meeting of my League in prison, I told the "boys" of the burden I was bearing. Already we had so truly become sharers together of this work that it seemed natural to lighten my heart by talking freely to the "boys" and asking them to pray with me for the financial help we so needed. Some weeks after this as I opened the pile of mail that lay on my desk, I came to an envelope marked as coming from the warden's office. Laying other letters aside I hastened to open it, thinking it might be the news of some home-coming or other urgent business connected with one of our many friends. There were only a few words on the sheet of paper, but the enclosure proved to be a check for four hundred and forty-seven dollars. This was the result of a collection taken up by the men among themselves, in token of their appreciation of and confidence in our work. This money represented a sacrifice the outside world can hardly compute, for it was spared from the small sums they had on deposit, which could furnish them with little comforts or necessities during the long years of prison life. To say how much comfort and strength my heart received from this thought and love so practically expressed, would be impossible through the poor medium of type and paper, but together with many subsequent signs, it made it possible for me to realize how truly the "boys" were with us. To have them in full accord with the work means more to me than would the plaudits of the public or the patronage of the wealthy.