In this strenuous age the people have shown that they desire to do the right thing if the way be pointed out, and the age is ripe for reforms in prison laws and customs as it is in all other lines.
All those who have to deal with offenders of the law should be brought in touch with one another. Judges and district or prosecuting attorneys should be required, as part of their duties, to visit the institutions which house the men sent there through their efforts, and should know the conditions and be in a position to offer and receive suggestions.
Whenever a likely man, once discharged, reënters a prison, let the thoughtful warden not ask, “What did this man to be returned?” but rather let him inquire: “What did I fail to do? Where is my institution defective? What precaution did society fail to take that this man fell again?”
Precepts count for something in prison and elsewhere. Example counts for almost everything. We proceed not from the abstract to the concrete in our daily lives. To-day the eyes of America are turned upon our strenuous president, not for precept, but for example; strenuous in his sports, therefore everybody becomes athletic; strenuous in literature, and all America reads; strenuous in the enforcement of the law and a “square deal” for every man, and the whole nation emulates his example and takes on a new lease of civic righteousness.
As Napoleon rode at the head of his legions through Egypt, past the pyramids, he halted, and in an impassioned address he said, “Soldiers, from the summits of these pyramids forty centuries look down upon you.”
But the modern warden, within his castled home, environed by frowning walls, at the head of his scores of officers and superintendents of departments, may say, “Officers, from these depths of crime, misery, degradation, and despair hundreds of imprisoned souls look up to you for example, for inspiration, for guidance, and for help.”
And as officers thus receive the message and the tacit command may each resolve that his heart shall be so moved, his mind be so cultivated, strengthened and disciplined, and his actions be so guarded and guided, that the pathetic call thus made by those below him shall not be made in vain.
Afternoon and Evening
At the afternoon session Judge Simeon E. Baldwin, of Connecticut, presented the report of the Committee on Criminal Law Reform, and in the evening brief addresses were made by Miss Katharine B. Davis, Women’s Reformatory, Bedford, N. Y.; Chaplain D. H. Tribou, of the United States Naval Home, Philadelphia; Superintendent Frank L. Randall, of Minnesota, and others.
The following is a list of the officers for the current year: President, E. J. Murphy, Joliet, Ill.; First Vice-president, J. L. Milligan, Allegheny, Pa.; General Secretary, Amos W. Butler, Indianapolis, Ind.; Financial Secretary, Joseph P. Byers, New York; Assistant Secretaries, H. H. Shirer, Columbus, Ohio.; L. C. Storrs, Lansing, Mich.; W. C. Graves, Springfield, Ill.; Treasurer, Frederick H. Mills, New York; Official Stenographer, Isabel C. Barrows, New York.