“Our boards now are primarily concerned with the welfare of the prisoners, and properly so. The welfare of the inmate of a penal institution must come first. But there is a service to the State which he is rendering, and it is the part of business efficiency to make that service as large and of as good quality as possible.
“The industries of the penal institutions of the State are not managed in a business way. Here are hundreds of workers making thousands of dollars’ worth of goods, and no one who is expert in business affairs is held responsible for the administration of this industrial system. The wardens and the superintendents look after these details as one of their duties. But neither they nor any other official can devote the time and attention to these industries which they ought to have in order that the State may get from them the largest return and the workers themselves derive from them the greatest benefit for themselves.
“The one officer who now gives all his time to the concerns of the penal system is the chairman of the board, and he has a multitude of matters to occupy every moment. There ought to be some person of commercial ability, a trained business man, who should give his whole time to the dollars and cents of the penal establishment of the State. Let the commissioner give his attention predominantly to the humanitarian side of the work. But let us have a trained expert who shall develop new industries, improve the system of marketing the product, and look in general after the business side of the prisons just as the superintendent looks after these matters in any private enterprise. It will pay the State to consider this matter.”
As he proceeded in his discussion of these problems it became more and more evident that to the commissioner prison service ought to be a life work, a professional occupation, to which men should give their lives, just as they go into law or medicine, and that this should be the case with the guards as well as with the wardens and the heads of the penal system of States. This appeared in his discussion of the warden’s influence on the granting of pardons.
“I myself got caught by my ignorance of one of the kinks in the laws of the country some years ago,” he said. “It was this way. Out in Minnesota there was an Indian boy in prison who was dying of tuberculosis. I investigated his case, saw the proper parties, and went to the executive with a plea for pardon that the lad might go where there was a chance for the recovery of his health. I had the influence of senators and prominent men. And at the last minute I found that I could not get anything done because my name appeared upon the petition.
“You see, it is assumed that it is not wise for the guard or the warden to be in any way friendly with his prisoners and at the same time to have influence for the securing of pardons. He might try to use his influence for the advantage of his favorites, and give them their liberty, not because they were ready for it, but out of personal reasons. That was the old thinking on the subject.
“But the new thinking is better. If you have the right kind of warden there will be no danger of the abuse of any such power. He will be so sincere a friend of each and every prisoner that he will not use his influence to free a man until he is sure the convict is ready to return to society with safety to himself and to his fellowmen. When you have that kind of warden his opinion will be the very best that it is possible to have.
“The same point applies in the case of the guard. The old theory is that the guard must not talk with a prisoner except on matters of discipline. He might become interested in a prisoner and that would be bad for discipline. The new and better idea is that we should have guards who mean to make penology a serious professional occupation, a life career, and then their attitude toward a prisoner changes entirely, and the danger of favoritism disappears.
“In most cases when a man applies for a place as guard we look him over and tell him to put on a uniform if he bears scrutiny. He may pass some simple tests in a civil service examination. But what about his temperamental fitness for the responsibility of the care of prisoners? That is, perhaps, the most important qualification. As it is, we have no means of determining it.
“I wish we might have some sort of central agency for the trying out of prospective guards. When they have made good and manifested a disposition seriously to study and practice the science of penology then they become very valuable to the State. Men who go into the occupation as a makeshift are expensive to the State in the long run. If we could test him in practice the credentials a man would bring from that central clearing house would be the best possible guarantee of fitness.