The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

For hundreds of years the world has endeavored to destroy the good by force. The expression of honest thought was regarded as the greatest of crimes. Dungeons were filled by the noblest and the best, and the blood of the bravest was shed by the sword or consumed by flame. It was impossible to destroy the longing in the heart of man for liberty and truth. Is it not possible that brute force and cruelty and revenge, imprisonment, torture and death are as impotent to do away with vice as to destroy virtue?

In our country there has been for many years a growing feeling that convicts should neither be degraded nor tortured. It was provided in the Constitution of the United States that "cruel and unusual punishments should not be inflicted." Benjamin Franklin took great interest in the treatment of prisoners, being a thorough believer in the reforming influence of justice, having no confidence whatever in punishment for punishment's sake.

To me it has always been a mystery how the average man, knowing something of the weakness of human nature, something of the temptations to which he himself has been exposed—remembering the evil of his life, the things he would have done had there been opportunity, had he absolutely known that discovery would be impossible—should have feelings of hatred toward the imprisoned.

Is it possible that the average man assaults the criminal in a spirit of self-defence? Does he wish to convince his neighbors that the evil thought and impulse were never in his mind? Are his words a shield that he uses to protect himself from suspicion? For my part, I sympathize sincerely with all failures, with the victims of society, with those who have fallen, with the imprisoned, with the hopeless, with those who have been stained by verdicts of guilty, and with those who, in the moment of passion have destroyed, as with a blow, the future of their lives.

How perilous, after all, is the state of man. It is the work of a life to build a great and splendid character. It is the work of a moment to destroy it utterly, from turret to foundation stone. How cruel hypocrisy is!

Is there any remedy? Can anything be done for the reformation of the criminal?

He should be treated with kindness. Every right should be given him, consistent with the safety of society. He should neither be degraded nor robbed. The State should set the highest and noblest example. The powerful should never be cruel, and in the breast of the supreme there should be no desire for revenge.

A man in a moment of want steals the property of another, and he is sent to the penitentiary—first, as it is claimed, for the purpose of deterring others; and secondly, of reforming him. The circumstances of each individual case are rarely inquired into. Investigation stops when the simple fact of the larceny has been ascertained. No distinctions are made except as between first and subsequent offences. Nothing is allowed for surroundings.

All will admit that the industrious must be protected. In this world it is necessary to work. Labor is the foundation of all prosperity. Larceny is the enemy of industry. Society has the right to protect itself. The question is, Has it the right to punish?—has it the right to degrade?—or should it endeavor to reform the convict?

A man is taken to the penitentiary. He is clad in the garments of a convict. He is degraded—he loses his name—he is designated by a number. He is no longer treated as a human being—he becomes the slave of the State. Nothing is done for his improvement—nothing for his reformation. He is driven like a beast of burden; robbed of his labor; leased, it may be, by the State to a contractor, who gets out of his hands, out of his muscles, out of his poor brain, all the toil that he can. He is not allowed to speak with a fellow-prisoner. At night he is alone in his cell. The relations that should exist between men are destroyed. He is a convict. He is no longer worthy to associate even with his keepers. The jailer is immensely his superior, and the man who turns the key upon him at night regards himself, in comparison, as a model of honesty, of virtue and manhood. The convict is pavement on which those who watch him walk. He remains for the time of his sentence, and when that expires he goes forth a branded man. He is given money enough to pay his fare back to the place from whence he came.