The organization was simple. Any prisoner could join the League. The motto was: “Do good, make good.” Unquestionably the incentive in the minds of most inmates to join the League was that there might be something in it for them. When similar motives are eliminated from the minds of men who undertake enterprises on the outside of the prison, it will be time to criticise unfavorably such motives inside the walls.
From the League members—and at present nearly every prisoner in Auburn is a member, wearing his little green and white button with “M. W. L.” thereon—a board of delegates, forty-nine in number, was elected by the prisoners themselves. This is Point Number Four. The prisoners did their own choosing of their delegate officers. The officers were not superimposed upon them by the prison officials. And in consequence, if these delegate officers did not act on the level; if they became stool-pigeons, bearing all sorts of tales to the prison officials and currying favor thereby, then the prison administration would not be to blame for the choice of inmate officers. It would be squarely up to the inmates themselves. What was the result? A very simple one. Both the companies of inmates and their officers instinctively aimed to adjust themselves to secure the minimum of trouble, at chapel, in the shops, at recreation. Splendid group psychology, and withal so simple. And incidentally it can be said that the inmates have been able to handle most dexterously not a few “tough guys” who had been giving great trouble to the prison administration.
At this stage the movement became bigger than any one man, even Mr. Osborne. The latter had imprisoned himself, he had suggested the formation of the League; he had organized the League; but now it was up to the inmates to make of the League a success.
The fifth stage in the development of the League came suddenly and through necessity. Early in June an epidemic of scarlatina struck the prison. Ultimately, about a thousand prisoners were infected. Few were in the hospital, but shop work slackened up to a considerable degree. Were the prisoners in consequence to be locked day after day in their cells? Was it longer necessary? The answer came one afternoon when Warden Rattigan took a long chance. He turned all the prisoners belonging to the League out to exercise or play according to their hearts’ content in the big yard, principally under the supervision of the delegates, who until now had been used to move the prisoners to chapel and to entertainments. It was a crucial test. It worked perfectly. Order was maintained, and no efforts to escape were made.
“The boys would tear a fellow to pieces that tried it,” one of the prisoners explained to me. “We’ve pledged ourselves to behave. Besides, do you think we want to lose the privileges we’ve gained?”
By the Fourth of July the daily recreation period, from four o’clock on, had been going for about a month. What have been the results?
“Everything,” answered one of the delegates. “Take my own case. Now I can sleep nights in that small hole in the wall called a cell. I have been here for years, and hardly ever had I had a decent night’s sleep. Now I get tired in the recreation hour. And then, too, we have something to look forward to. It’s a fearful mistake to make prison life so hopeless. You can’t get the best out of a man, in work or anything else, if you don’t give him something to work for. Now, if we behave ourselves and are decent members of the League, we have a decent amount of freedom and privileges. We have competitive games in baseball, bowling, and the like. We feel we amount to something. The boys march now with their heads up. We eat better. The food tastes better. A lot of the sullen resentment and hatred of the prison administration is gone. The work in the shops is better. There’s better discipline.”
“What about dope?” we asked. “They say it’s a curse at Sing Sing.”
“Very little here now,” said several delegates at once. “It isn’t needed now, and it’s frowned upon.” Then up spoke one of the huskiest and best proportioned of the Executive Committee of the League. “I’ll be frank,” he said, emphatically. “I’ve taken pretty nearly every kind of dope that’s known. I took it deliberately. Now I don’t need it, and I’ve cut it out.”
“Let me say something else, too,” said another delegate. “There’s mighty little prison vice here now. You know what I mean. Formerly, when we were all locked up for sixteen hours a day, and hadn’t had any decent exercise, or anything to take our minds off of ourselves and our grievances, all sorts of bad things happened. That’s the curse of the old prison regime. It turned out, among other things, a lot of degenerates. Now—well, we get pretty well tired, and our mind’s taken off of ourselves, and we sleep. There’s a good deal, too, in having that sort of thing put under the ban by the fellows themselves.”