Benj. F. Butler
To Miss Clara Barton
Dansville, New York
Nothing could have surprised her more than this invitation and it was four months before she decided to accept it. Even then she accepted with the stipulation that she would need to close her service in time to attend the International Convention of the Red Cross in Vienna in the following year.
Her acceptance of the position involved the giving of a bond of $10,000. With her customary independence she declined to ask any one to sign her bond, but deposited with the State Treasurer of Massachusetts $10,000 of interest-bearing bonds and became her own guarantor.
Prison work was something of which Clara Barton knew nothing and she did not bring to it any considerable number of theories as to how it ought to be performed. In her first report, rendered at the end of six months, she took pains to give large credit to those who had preceded her. She disclaimed for herself either knowledge or achievement. A portion of this report will bear record here:
With only the little experience of six months, you will readily concede that it cannot be considered my work; it would be unjust arrogance in me to assume it. The noble women and men who toiled for its existence, the faithful, tireless body of commissioners, who have watched, prayed, and labored unpaid for it, often unthanked since with its first baby breath it cried aloud. We, the women of the old Commonwealth, and more than all perhaps the two grand women who have preceded me in its charge, are entitled to consider Sherborn Prison their work. The strong brave-hearted woman, Mrs. Atkinson, who first dared to lay her hand, untried, upon that mass of chaos, and command order and law, life and reformation, to come out of it, was braver than a general. The peaceful, skillful, beloved Dr. Mosher who had the womanly courage to follow her, and strive and labor to shape still more perfectly the swelling, yeasty mass of human sin and misery till, like a wounded color-bearer she fell, bravely praying some comrade to bear them on to victory. These are the people whose work that prison is, and in their name, and theirs only, let me speak of it a moment and commend it to your loving interest and tender care.
Last May I found, as I entered its great halls, 230 women convicts. It has at present 275 to 280 women convicts, and, with those who so kindly care for them, make up a family of something over 300. These convicts I am expected to feed, clothe, work, and govern, they in turn to be fed, clothed, to work and obey. The most comprehensive and I believe correct report I could make would be, that we all faithfully perform what is expected of us. The manner in which it is accomplished, and the causes which lead to the necessity for such accomplishment, are, then, the remaining points of importance. The causes are as various and widespread as the sins and mishaps which beset erring humanity, but if you asked me what proportion I thought would be left, after all the temptations of liquor and men were removed, I should not require a large sheet on which to write it down.
Sherborn Reformatory is classed as a State’s Prison, and is thus squared by the same rule of discipline as ordinary State Prisons for the retention of State criminals.
And yet it is to be remembered that not a one-fourth part of these women are guilty of, or convicted of, any real crime, simply offenses—drunkenness and unseemly appearance upon the streets; and yet these poor hopeless, misguided, rum-wrecked women and night-walking girls are sentenced to the same servitude, subjected to the same code of discipline, and go out with the same brand of shame upon the brow, nay, far deeper than the clear-headed, cool, intelligent, calculating men of Concord, where every inmate is convicted of a crime. The sad conviction settles down upon me every day that the soul, brains of the crime of the Commonwealth are in Concord; the wrecks they have made are in Sherborn; and in my dealing with these women, I cannot lose sight of this fact. They are more weak than wicked, often more sinned against than sinning. This, to my mind, invites a parental, maternal system of government, and to this they are all amenable; even the most obstinate yields to a rule of kindness, firmly and steadily administered.
The records of this period are necessarily meager. Yet there have come to the author unsought testimonials of the great work which Clara Barton accomplished while there. While she never criticized her predecessors, but gave them generous praise, she stood not at all on any precedent established by them. She changed the atmosphere of the place from an institution of punishment to one of instruction and character-building. One who visited the prison while she was there has told the author of Clara Barton’s power over the incorrigible; how women that were violent and untamable by the ordinary methods became docile under her direction. As for the younger women who were not hardened, and were often more sinned against than sinning, they idolized her. She established two letter-boxes in the halls, one to receive letters addressed to herself. Any one of the three hundred inmates was at liberty to write to Miss Barton. A number of the letters which she received were preserved by her and have been read by her biographer. They were a pathetic group, some of them absurd in their requests, and others tragic in their appeal for help. The gratitude of others was quite beyond the poor power of expression possessed by these girls. In many instances these letters were followed by personal conferences very fruitful of good.