Newspapers / The State Journal (Raleigh, … / May 9, 1913, edition 1 / Page 14
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14 THE STATE JOURNAL. Friday, May 9, 1913. Behind Prison Bars. (Continued from page 5.) where the victim has screamed and begged for mercy within the hour, after being 'cinched up.' . . . "From no viewpoint, can the strait jacket be defended. It is purely and simply a relic of barbarism. It ac complishes no good. I have never seen one man who has suffered pun ishment in the jacket who was not filled with bitterness and who was not a worse man by reason of the humiliation and torture he had been through." Alexander Berkman's "Prison Me moirs" is even more interesting be cause more subtle than Donald Lowrie's "Life in Prison." Mr. Berk man will be remembered as the young anarchist who tried to shoot Henry C. Frick in Pittsburgh at the time of the Homestead riots in 1892. He served fourteen years in the West ern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania. He is now the editor of an Anarchist monthly. It is interesting to note that Mr. Berkman, like Donald Lowrie, draws on Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Gaol" for inspiration. As a sort of key note to his book, he sets the lines: But this I know, that every Law That men have made for Man, Since first Man took his brother's life, And the sad world began, But straws the wheat and saves the chaff With a most evil fan. Mr. Berkman, indeed, is a roman ticist through and through, and his vivid memoirs, chronicling his boy hood in a Russian village, his entry into America, his thwarted effort to wreak vengeance on a man whom he regarded as an enemy of the people, his years of torment in confinement, his unsuccessful plan to escape from the penitentiary, challenge compari son with Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and the great writers of his native land. Frankness of utterance is carried here to its farthest point. No detail of prison conduct or prison psycho logy is lost on Berkman's mind. He dramatizes, in particular, the abnor mality of the prison situation. He shows us what happens when men are separated from women, when sex instincts are repressed. We realize, in passage after passage, the corrup tion that falls alike on jailer and jailed when an artificial world of pun ishment is created. "Beneath the torpid surface smol der the fires of being now crackling faintly under a dun smothering smoke, now blazing forth with the ruthlessness of despair. Hidden by the veil of discipline rages the strug gle of fiercely contending wills, and intricate meshes are woven in the quagmore of darkness and suppres sion. "Intrigue and counterplot, violence and corruption are rampant in cell house and shop. The prisoners spy upon each other, and in turn upon the officers. The latter encourage the 'trusties' in unearthing the secret do ings of the inmates, and the stools enviously compete with each other in supplying information to the keepers. Often they deliberately inveigle the trustful prisoner into a fake plot to escape, help and encourage him in the preparations, and at the critical moment denounce him to the authori ties. The luckless man is severely punished, usually remaining in utter ignorance of the intrigue. The prov ocateur is rewarded with greater lib erty and special privileges. Frequent ly his treachery proves the stepping stone to freedom, aided by the War den's official recommendation of the 'model prisoner' to the State Board of Pardons." One of the most notable sections of the book is that in which. Mr. Berkman tells of his agonized efforts to readjust himself to the outside world after his release from prison. He felt dazed for many months. He wandered distraught and solitary. He almost went out of his mind. His "resurrection" came at last when he "found work to do." No one can read such records as these of Alexander Berkman and Donald Lowrie without feeling that existing prison methods are in urgent need of revision. "It is remarkable," Hutchins Hapgood writes in the New York Globe, "how a very great num ber of people now know, in their hearts, in their deeper conscience, that prisons are immoral monstrosi ties." He continues: "No human being ought to be shut up in a place where he is under the absolute control of a body of men whose acts do not automatically reach public knowledge. Absolute power makes men into beasts, and also tends to kill all spark of humanity in their victims. Even a keeper who origin ally was an angel would tend to be come a beast after being a prison keeper for a certain length of time. Lincoln Steffens was once asked by a prison reformer if he would accept the position of warden of a certain penitentiary. He replied: 'If I did, I would be as bad as any other war den after a few years.' "Prisons affect the health unfavor ably. They affect the mind unfavor ably. They affect the character unfav orably. They are bad industrially and economically. They do not reform. They do not make better. They make the convicts worse. They make keep ers worse. They demoralize the com munity. They increase rather than diminish crime, for they help to ren der men incapable of work, and they also fill them with hatred and the sense of wrong. In the great major ity of cases they do greater wrong to the criminal than he, by his crime, does to society. Wrong inflicted on the wrongdoer does not help. It makes him feel the balance of iniqui ty is still on the side of society. "If we are interested in the build ing up of a better society we can not take hope away from any per son; we cannot tear down the health and the character. We must build it up. Ask anybody who knows any thing about prisons whether health and character and fineness and 'sweet ness and light' and idealism are built up there. They will laugh or cry, in accordance with their specific char acter, at the absurdity of such a question." What we need ultimately, Mr. Hap good asserts, is a system of penology highly individualized, that shall op erate like the will of a just but kind father in his relation to his children. Someone had given little Willie a pocket compass. His teacher was carefully explaining the different points. "See," said she, "you have the north in front of you, the east to your right, and the west to your left. Now, what have you behind?" Willie pondered for a moment. "There," said he, "I knew some one would see that patch, but mother says I must wear these trousers for a month yet." JAMES A. SALTER Architect RALEIGH : : N. C. Call to see me when in town, or if you can't come write and I will come to see jou. Where Buyers and Sellers Meet If you are a buyer or seller of anything, let The State Journal help you through these columns. Write for price of space under this head and also for regular display advertising. Remember The State Journal cir culates from one end of the State to the other, and is read by all classes of people who have money to spend or things to sell. Use the mails and increase your business. Rubber Stamps That satisfy with prices to suit. Deep cut and artistic. Reference: State, County and Cify Officers. Send for Catalogue. W. T. TERRY, The Stamp Man, 210 1-2 Fayetteiille Street. BEAUFORT Insurance & Realty Company, Beaufort, N. C. Insurance and Real Estate. CASH PAID for old stamps. Ad dress "STAMPS," care The State Journal, Raleigh, N. C. WHEN IX RALEIGH don't fail to visit Toyland, the great China and Toy Store. A little city within itself. RALEIGH, N. C. J. M. Brough ton & C, oldest real estate firm in the city, offer very desirable homes for sale or rent. SOY BEANS FOR SALE. Mam moth Yellow Soy Beans for sale at $1.50 per bushel f. o. b. MENDON DAVIS, Pungo, N. C. BERMUDA GRASS SETS Guano sack full, one dollar f. o. b. station. LAWRENCE S. WOLFE, Orange burg, S. C. PEAS! PEAS! PEAS All varie" ties for sale; price and sample on application. HATTAWAY & COM PANY, Spartanburg, S. C. FOR SALE CHEAP. One boiler and engine, one Dewey saw-mill, one cotton gin, press and fixtures. Ad dress, W. N. PARKS, LaGrange, N. C. FARMS FOR SALE Large or small in many of the best counties in th State. State size and location preferred. It. E. PRINCE, Raleigh, N. C. COWPEAS FOR SALE Several hundred bushels best quality, cheap. Samples and prices on application. B. P. RONEY & CO., Memphis, Tennessee. WANTED You to write to-day for our free book about 6 per cent bonds secured by real estate mort gage. PIEDMONT TRUST CO., Bur lington, N. C. WANTED Position. Office work, hotel clerk, etc., during the summer, by high school prirncipal. Address, "HUSTLER," care The State Journal, Raleigh, N. C. IF YOU WANT to make money, buy Real Estate from the leading agent in North Carolina. Record: two and one-half million dollar sale. E. L. EDMUNDSON, Goldsboro, N. C. WANTED You to know that the Carroll Advertising and Lettter Writing Company has the best equip ped letter writing plant in North Carolina. Located at Raleigh, with Ernest R. Carroll as Manager. WILLIAM WALKER JONES Man ufacturers' Agent, Wood and Iron Working Machinery, Engines, Boil ers, Pulleys, Hangers, Steel Rails, Logging Cars, Railway and Mill Sup plies. Office 511 Tucker Building, Raleigh, N. C. READY NOW. Genuine unmixed stock of our famous Nancy Hall and Porto Rico sweet potato plants at $1.75 per thousand. Globe, Earli- ana, and Redfield Beauty tomato at $1.50. THE BEAR'S HEAD FARMS, Pine Castle, Florida. FANCY PATENT FLOUR Four- forty per barrel car lots. Baking samples by parcel post upon request. Timothy hay sixteen-twenty-five per ton car lots. Correspondence so licited. J.. G. SIZER CO., 302 Mu tual Building, Richmond, Va. FIRELESS COOKERS Saves fuel and cooks while you sleep. Roasts, bakes, steams, boils. Never burns the food. ALDERMAN, TOY & CHINA CO., Raleigh, N. C. NON-TAXABLE Investors seek ing a security bearing 6 per cent, fiee from taxes, will find it of inter est to communicate with A. L. COX, Attorney, Raleigh, N. C. THE BEST INVESTMENT. A good home among good people, with room for flowejs and garden, in Cam eron Park. PARKER - HUNTER REALTY CO., Raleigh, N. C. ANCONAS, Silver-Spangled Ham burgs, Rhode Island Rtis, Barred Ringlets and White Plymouth Rocks. State Fair prize-winners; 15 eggs, $1.50; 30, $2.50. S. E. WINSTON, Youngsville, N. C. FOR SALE at greatly reduced prices, seventy-five thorough-bred S. C. White Leghorn pullets and hens at 75 cents and $1.00 each; forty nice Buff Orpington hens and pullets at $1.00, $1.50, and $2.00 each; also fine male birds of each breed at $2.00 and $3.00 each. These are all splen did birds, worth more money, but must be sold at once. MRS. SARAH GRAY, Route 5, Lebanon, Tenn. DO YOU WANT cash and interest bearing notes for your real estate? Land at auction our speciality. We sub-divide land into town lots, or large farms into small tracts, and sell at auction. We do vigorous, up-lo-date advertising, and with our force of auctioneers, advertisers and ground men (the best in the South), we get the best result possible, and get it. quick. We sell in ten States. We sell on commission. We have had six years' experience and know how to get results. Write or wire us SOUTHERN REALTY & AUC TION CO., E. M. Andrews, Manager, 229 South Elm Street, Greensboro, N. C. FOR SALE. 350 acres, fine water power corn mill. One hundred acres in cultivation, balance in timber, will cut half million feet. (Two and a half miles of station on railroad now being built). Two seven-room dwell ings, two large stock barns, out buildings, orchard, school house on place, near churches. Price, $7,000. Fifty-two acres one mile from center of Statesville. Eight-room dwelling beautifully located, barn and out buildings, fruit. Forty acres in cul tivation, balance in timber, level, pro ductive. Well located for dairy and truck farming. Eight months' school near. Price, $6,400. Other small farms for less money. E. G. GAITHER, Statesville, N. C. Cut Flowers Designs DAY OR NIGHT H. STEINMETZ Rale gh, N. C. When writing advertisers, please mention this paper.
The State Journal (Raleigh, N.C.)
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May 9, 1913, edition 1
14
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