I am in favor, when you put a man in the penitentiary, of making him work, and I am in favor of paying him what his work is worth, so that in five years, when he leaves the prison cell, he will have from two hundred dollars to three hundred dollars as a breastwork between him and temptation, and something for a foundation upon which to build a nobler life.
Now he is turned out and before long he is driven back. Nobody will employ him, nobody will take him, and, the night following the day of his release he is without a roof over his head and goes back to his old ways. I would allow him to change his name, to go to another State with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and begin the world again.
We must recollect that it is the misfortune of a man to become a criminal.
I have hobbies and plenty of them.
I want to see five hundred millions of people living here in peace. If we want them to live in peace, we must develop the brain, civilize the heart, and above all things, must not forget education. Nothing should be taught in the school that somebody does not know.
When I look about me to-day, when I think of the advance of my country, then I think of the work that has been done.
Think of the millions who crossed the mysterious sea, of the thousands and thousands of ships with their brave prows towards the West.
Think of the little settlements on the shores of the ocean, on the banks of rivers, on the edges of forests.
Think of the countless conflicts with savages—of the midnight attacks—of the cabin floors wet with the blood of dead fathers, mothers and babes.
Think of the winters of want, of the days of toil, of the nights of fear, of the hunger and hope.