I do not plead for myself. I plead for the wives and the innocent babes of some of our unfortunates. For their sakes, if for no other reason, this work should continue. I know that the prisoners here will show by their conduct, not only now but in the future, that they have been influenced to do good and to do right, by the efforts which you have made and are making in their behalf.
I am one of those dyed deep with crime, in the opinion of society. I have been in several prisons, but I still feel that I have a chance, that there is still hope; and this feeling has been strengthened within the past month by your act of self-sacrifice; and I see around me 1,300 other men whose lives are worth something to society—worth the effort which your Commission is making for their uplift.
Very truly yours,
L. Richards, No. 31—.
It may be urged that Richards is a man of very considerable literary ability, which is obvious, and that his case is an exceptional one.
Let us, therefore, take a man of entirely different caliber, of but little education, one whose experience has been a rough one. Following is a letter from a man who is as unlike Richards mentally and physically as one man can very well be from another.
135 State St., Auburn, N. Y.
Oct. 5, 1913.
Mr. Thomas M. Osborne.
Honorable Sir: It affords me great pleasure to write you these few lines. I really do not know how to begin to express myself as I have not got a very good education. But I hope you will understand that my motive in writing you this letter is to congratulate you for your good work. I fully realize the fact that it was no easy task for you to come down here and live here in this place for one week as you did. After hearing and seeing you in the chapel Sunday I came to my cell and got to thinking. The outcome was that I could not remember ever being touched so as I was when I left the chapel and while sitting there hearing you talk. I fully realize what a big thing you have undertaken. At one time I was under the impression that there was no such a thing as a square man, but I have changed my opinion and I am safe in saying that quite a number of other men have also changed their mind about that same thing.
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Men who love their fellow man are very few. When I think of you I am reminded of a postal that I received from my brother not long ago, after him not knowing that I was in prison. When he found it out he sent me a postal and on it were these few words: “A friend is one who knows all about you and likes you just the same.” Well, Mr. Osborne, I leave here on the 20th of this month and believe me—never again for me. I have played the crooked game in every way it can be played, most every kind of crooked game there is. Now I am done. It is a fast and excitable game, but I come to realize that it is not living and is bound to come to a bad end. But I want to say that prison life did not reform me, nor will it reform any man, for no man learns good in prison. My opinion is that the only way that a man can be reformed is get to his conscience, wake up the man in him. You are aware of the fact that the police make many criminals. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a hardened criminal. If the police were not so anxious to send men to prison there would be no so-called hardened criminals. I know what I am talking about. There are too many men sent to prison innocently and there will always be so-called hardened criminals until that is stopped. I done my first bit innocently. Believe me, it is a terrible thing to sit in one of those cells and know in your heart that you are there in the wrong. Well I wish I had the paper to write you more for I deem it a pleasure to write you.