I would, for every consideration of humanity, have the most careful, intelligent, and scientific investigation made in all prisons for any possible tendency to insanity on the part of any prisoner. The willful subjection to prison rules and penalties of those from whose benighted souls the light of reason and the power of self-control have been withdrawn is cruelty inexcusable and accursed in the sight of God and man.
In the name of all mercy single these out and take them to their own place.
Again, I would in the name of humanity lessen so far as possible the stimulating qualities of the food generally given out in prisons—more of grains, vegetables, and fruit, and less of meat. The result of this I am confident would be seen in the better temper, more tractable natures, lessened irritability, and happier frame of minds on the part of all convicts. I would have the food plentiful, but unstimulating, and the cooking wholesome. The records of the punishments in a prison could not fail in time to demonstrate the beneficial result of this course.
Cannot this thought find somewhere and sometime a little consideration in your deliberations? In the name of humanity I suggest it.
There remains but one subject more which I would name, and but a word of that—simply the relations and feeling to be maintained between the inmates of a prison and those in charge of them. I would recommend not only a uniform kindness and firmness of course on the part of every attendant, but a uniform politeness as well. Like begets like in spite of everything. It increases self-respect. This they have lost, and this they need to have restored so far as may be. Make punishment as rare as possible, but sure, and in all instances as light as the case will admit of. I regard undue severity of punishment as far more harmful than no correction at all. Cultivate the love of the convicts by all proper means; it is more potent than punishment.
I believe the record of my last month at Sherborn shows not a single punishment among between three and four hundred women. They grew to feel that the only hurt of their punishment was the pain it gave me. When I met them for the last night in the chapel, and told them we should not meet again, and invited each to come and bid me good-bye, the sobs and wails that went out, and the tears that went over my hands as I held theirs for the last time, were harder for me than all the eight months’ work I had done among them. As I passed down the long corridors in the dark, unheard by them, at ten o’clock, and the low moans and sobs were still going out, it was too much to bear. I sought my own room—sank down, cold and shivering with the terrible thought that rushed over me—Had it not been all wrong? Was I far enough removed from them? Surely we must be too near alike, if not akin, or they would never have clung to me with that pitiful love.
I went out from the prison walls of Sherborn next morning. I have never seen a face there since. I have never returned and I have no desire to.
CHAPTER XII
THE RED CROSS IN PEACE
The Red Cross as organized in Europe, and as Clara Barton learned of it there, had no ministry except in times of war. It was one of the distinctive features of Clara Barton’s plan that the American Red Cross should give service in any time of national, or possibly of international, calamity. So far as the Red Cross existed by virtue of an international treaty, its work was to care for the wounded of the battle-field; but the American Red Cross, as incorporated in the District of Columbia, and as operated under the direction of Clara Barton, offered an agency immediately available for the relief of suffering wherever the need was greater than could be met by local benefactions.
It will be remembered that the first service of the American Red Cross was in the autumn of 1881, in the forest fires of Michigan, almost a year before the official accession of the United States to the Treaty of Geneva. The report which reached Clara Barton and the Nation that half the State of Michigan was on fire, was, of course, an exaggeration, and she was not deceived by it, but she knew that the need was greater than could be met by local philanthropy. Already there had been organized a single unit of the Red Cross, at Dansville, New York. Clara Barton flung out the Red Cross flag in front of her home, and called her organization into activity. The two neighboring cities of Rochester and Syracuse came immediately to her assistance. Contributions which aggregated three thousand dollars were placed immediately at her disposal. Miss Barton’s home became a center of activity, a dépôt for the packing and shipping of supplies. The second auxiliary of the Red Cross in the United States was organized at Rochester, with a membership of two hundred and fifty; that at Syracuse followed immediately. The total amount received and distributed by the Red Cross in money and material amounted to eighty thousand dollars.