The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12) / Dresden Edition—Miscellany

by Robert Green Ingersoll

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.

What is the condition of this man? Can he get employment? Not if he honestly states who he is and where he has been. The first thing he does is to deny his personality, to assume a name. He endeavors by telling falsehoods to lay the foundation for future good conduct. The average man does not wish to employ an ex-convict, because the average man has no confidence in the reforming power of the penitentiary. He believes that the convict who comes out is worse than the convict who went in. He knows that in the penitentiary the heart of this man has been hardened—that he has been subjected to the torture of perpetual humiliation—that he has been treated like a ferocious beast; and so he believes that this ex-convict has in his heart hatred for society, that he feels he has been degraded and robbed. Under these circumstances, what avenue is opened to the ex-convict? If he changes his name, there will be some detective, some officer of the law, some meddlesome wretch, who will betray his secret. He is then discharged. He seeks employment again, and he must seek it by again telling what is not true. He is again detected and again discharged. And finally he becomes convinced that he cannot live as an honest man. He naturally drifts back into the society of those who have had a like experience; and the result is that in a little while he again stands in the dock, charged with the commission of another crime. Again he is sent to the penitentiary—and this is the end. He feels that his day is done, that the future has only degradation for him.

The men in the penitentiaries do not work for themselves. Their labor belongs to others. They have no interest in their toil—no reason for doing the best they can—and the result is that the product of their labor is poor. This product comes in competition with the work of mechanics, honest men, who have families to support, and the cry is that convict labor takes the bread from the mouths of virtuous people.

VI.

Why should the State take without compensation the labor of these men; and why should they, after having been imprisoned for years, be turned out without the means of support? Would it not be far better, far more economical, to pay these men for their labor, to lay aside their earnings from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year—to put this money at interest, so that when the convict is released after five years of imprisonment he will have several hundred dollars of his own—not merely money enough to pay his way back to the place from which he was sent, but enough to make it possible for him to commence business on his own account, enough to keep the wolf of crime from the door of his heart?

Suppose the convict comes out with five hundred dollars. This would be to most of that class a fortune. It would form a breastwork, a fortress, behind which the man could fight temptation. This would give him food and raiment, enable him to go to some other State or country where he could redeem himself. If this were done, thousands of convicts would feel under immense obligation to the Government. They would think of the penitentiary as the place in which they were saved—in which they were redeemed—and they would feel that the verdict of guilty rescued them from the abyss of crime. Under these circumstances, the law would appear beneficent, and the heart of the poor convict, instead of being filled with malice, would overflow with gratitude. He would see the propriety of the course pursued by the Government. He would recognize and feel and experience the benefits of this course, and the result would be good, not only to him, but to the nation as well.

If the convict worked for himself, he would do the best he could, and the wares produced in the penitentiaries would not cheapen the labor of other men.

VII.

There are, however, men who pursue crime as a vocation—as a profession—men who have been convicted again and again, and who will persist in using the liberty of intervals to prey upon the rights of others. What shall be done with these men and women?

Put one thousand hardened thieves on an island—compel them to produce what they eat and use—and I am almost certain that a large majority would be opposed to theft. Those who worked would not permit those who did not, to steal the result of their labor. In other words, self-preservation would be the dominant idea, and these men would instantly look upon the idlers as the enemies of their society.