It was not only a question of relieving the congestion, though that certainly was a large factor; nor was it chiefly to remove the Reformatory from the vicious proximity of the Branch Workhouse. The plans that had been developed for the New Reformatory were based on penological principles quite at variance with those necessarily carried out at the present location. The new institution would have to permit the utmost possible classification and individualization; but above all it would have to establish the possibility of practical inspiration of its inmates by the encouragement of self-respect, by the exercise of individual responsibility, by healthful contact between officer and inmate. And in many other ways it was to strike out into new treatment of reformable young men. To this ambition for a reformatory on such lines was added the possession of a large fertile farm, the approach of spring—and the enthusiastic propositions to Commissioner Katherine B. Davis from the present superintendent of the Farm, Robert Rosenbluth.
“Let us build up the spirit with the institution” was his plan in brief. What was this spirit to be? “Just what are the essentials of your experiment?” I asked Mr. Rosenbluth. “It is,” I said, “a commonplace, of course, to talk of the advantages of agricultural occupation, of fresh air, hard work, and ‘honor system’; and the economic advantage of utilizing, instead of wasting, a good farm for a whole season surely could not have created in you the amount of enthusiasm which you are carrying into this thing; after all, even though you do produce quite as much as $10,000 worth of farm product, it will hardly cover your expenditures for the year.”
“You are right,” he said, “those things are all very well but they are not fundamental. None of those things counts a heap towards reformation; the honor system is simply a more sensible, more effective method—it’s a fairer method of preserving discipline, an easier method of running your institutions. It does not touch your real man. It is all a matter of habit. Now take those Dannemora prison fellows with whom I worked in the forests around the prison; they were repeaters, many of them hardened evil doers. And take these fellows here—young fellows—and just hear them talk among themselves, as I had a chance to hear them talk, night after night—nothing but crime. It’s an obsession. Naught else has any interest for them. If it is not their own exploits, then it is the latest from the newspapers (for you don’t suppose all the regulations and punishments on earth can keep the newspapers out of a prison). The only thing they are interested in is crime. Everybody talks crime. How can you reform a fellow whose mental habit is crime? My idea is this: You have got to change their topic of conversation. You’ve got to coax their minds to a higher level. And you can’t just tug at them from above. You have to be taken into their community, into their confidence, you’ve got to be one of them. You must push their thoughts upward from within instead of pulling from above.
“My officers are all first class men. They are graduates of schools of agriculture or forestry. And they have all lived in close contact with men. They sleep in the same room, on the same rough bunk in our three-decker, go to bed with the boys, rise with them. Their food is exactly the same—neither different nor more. They do their day’s work just like the boys. Their hardship is no less than that of the boys. And the boys know that and feel it. Now, see, my point is this, I have a right to expect the same thing from the boys that I expect from my men, who are required to undergo the same hardships as the boys. In this way I establish an equality which enables us to get into the community of the boys, and naturally control their conversation and their thoughts. Thus they are really reformed without their knowing it.”
The spirit among the boys and the officers was certainly remarkable. They joked, called each other by their first names, and were “kidding” each other at a great rate. I was wondering what would happen when the question of authority arose. I was not disappointed. Alongside the joyous camaraderie, there was a willing recognition of unquestioned authority.
“You’ll be up in court, Kid; you went fish’n without permission”, I heard one of them yell to another, and a little later, when one of the recent arrivals wanted to go to the farmhouse to see the incubators, an older member of the colony instructed him in a casual way.
“You gotta git p’rmission from Bob first.” “Bob” is Mr. Rosenbluth.
How open and frank the spirit of the conduct of the “court” is, and how it reflects the character of the whole institution, I could only guess, for unfortunately no session of the court could be held that Sunday, as is the custom. In the midst of conversation of a group of some ten of the boys one of them remarked that there would be no court that day.
“We ain’t got many cases, Bob, only one fight, one fishin’ without asking, and one fellow smoking out of time.” There was no secret report or accusation; only a cooperative policing, with apparently no trace of grudge. Yet the boys average probably more than twenty years of age.
The unfortunate circumstances that prevented court session, as well as the regular base-ball game and morning service that Sunday, was the lamentable drowning of one of the boys while taking a swim, the Thursday preceding. Despite the presence of several good swimmers, and their desperate efforts to save him, he went down beyond aid. The river was dragged the same day, but no trace of his body was found. The next day and the day following was the real test, in my opinion of the spirit of the Farm. The officers were preoccupied, the coroner, undertaker, reporter were busy about the place; some of the boys were taken from their regular work to search for the body; supervision was practically naught. But the season was late. The farm behind time. Work had to be continued. And the boys did work, though with hearts heavy with real sorrow. The next day, Saturday, the coroner dynamited the river in order to bring the body to the surface. Curiosity was added to possible desire to shirk work. Yet all but those aiding in the search were at their ploughs or hoes. Several acres were ploughed and five acres of corn planted by less than twenty boys on Saturday afternoon alone.