I look at him, inquiringly.
“Why, look here, Tom!” In his eagerness Jack comes around to my side of our working table. “I know this place through and through. I know these men; I’ve studied ’em for years. And I tell you that the big majority of these fellows in here will be square with you if you give ’em a chance. The trouble is, they don’t treat us on the level. I could tell you all sorts of frame-ups they give us. Now if you trust a man, he’ll try and do what’s right; sure he will. That is, most men will. Of course, there are a few that won’t. There are some dirty curs—degenerates—that will make trouble, but there ain’t so very many of those.
“Look at that road work,” he continues. “Haven’t the men done fine? How many prisoners have you had out on the roads? About one hundred and thirty. And you ain’t had a single runaway yet. And if there should be any runaways you can just bet we’d show ’em what we think about it.”[11]
“Do you really think, Jack, that the Superintendent and the Warden could trust you fellows out in the yard on Sunday afternoons in summer?”
“Sure they could,” responds Jack, his face beginning to flush with pleasure at the thought. “And there could be a band concert, and we’d have a fine time. And it would be a good sight better for us than being locked in our cells all day. You’d have fewer fights on Monday, I know that.”
“Yes, it would certainly be an improvement on spending the afternoon in your cells,” I remark. “Then in rainy weather you could march to the chapel and have some sort of lecture or debate; or Mr. Kurtz and I would come down occasionally and give you a violin and piano recital.”
“Sure,” says Jack; adding with a smile, “the boys would like that best of all, you know.” (It takes an Irishman to slide in a delicate compliment in passing.)
“Well, that would all be first rate,” is my interested comment; “but how about the discipline? Would you let everybody out into the yard? What about those bad actors who don’t know how to behave? Won’t they quarrel and fight and try to escape?”
“But don’t you see, Tom, that they couldn’t do that without putting the whole thing on the bum, and depriving the rest of us of our privileges? You needn’t be afraid we couldn’t handle those fellows all right. Or why not let out only those men who have a good conduct bar? That’s it,” he continues, enthusiastically warming up to his subject, “that’s it, Tom, a Good Conduct League. And give the privilege of Sunday afternoons to the members of the league. I’ll tell you, Tom! you know last year we got up an Anti-swearing League here in this shop, and we had a penalty for every oath or dirty word. The forfeits were paid with matches. You know matches are pretty scarce here, don’t you? Well, we had a grand success with that league. But this Good Conduct League would be a much bigger thing. It would be just great. And go! sure it’ll go.”
“Well, Jack, perhaps you’ve hit the right nail on the head. We’ll think it over, and talk more about it to-morrow.”