The prison mirror. [volume], January 18, 1894, Image 1

About The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
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Vol. VII. — No. 24
THERE MUST BE SOMETHING
WRONG.
When earth produces, free ami fair
The golden, waving corn.
When fragrant fruits perfume the air.
And fleecy flocks are shorn:
Whilst thousands move with aching head
And sing the ceaseless song:
•We starve—we die—oh give us bread! ”
There must lie something wrong.
When wealth is wrought as seasons roll.
From off the fruitful soil;
When luxury, from pole to pole.
Heaps fruit of human toil;
When, from a thousand, one alone
In plenty rolls along;
The others only gnaw the bone—
There must be something wrong.
And production never ends.
The earth is yielding ever;
A copious harvest oft begins,
But distribution never:
When toiling millions toil to li 11
The wealthy cotters strong:
When hands are crushed that work and till.
There must be something wrong.
When poor men's tables waste away
With barrenness and drought.
There must be something in the way
That's worth the finding out.
With surfeit one great table bends.
While numbers move along.
With scarce a crust their board extends—
There mi st be something wrong
—The Voice.
A NATIONAL DISGRACE
America’s Sons made Criminals through
the Medium of our Immigration Laws.
American boys, partly because of the |
passing away of the apprentice system '
and partly because of the hostility of;
the foreign-controlled labor unions, are |
virtually excluded from the mechan- ;
ical trades. This exclusion is an in
justice to the boys, and the conse
quences are serious to the moral wel
fare of the whole country. We are
bringing up our boys, or a very large
portion of them, in enforced idleness,
turning over the fields of honorable and
useful toil, which belong by natural
right to them, to foreigners, nearly all
of whom are ignorant, many of whom
are vicious and depraved, and few of
whom have any sympathy with Ameri
can institutions and ways of life. What
are the consequences?
Through the courtesy of Mr. Robert;
P. Porter, the Superintendent of the j
Census, we have been allowed to exam-;
ine the advance proof-sheets of the
statistics relating to pauperism and
crime, which have been collected and
prepared by the Rev. Frederick IT.
Wines, and* which, will be published j
some time during the present year as |
one of the volumes of the forth-com- j
ing Eleventh Census. These figures
tell their own story with such startling
plainness that comment upon them
seems scarcely necessary. What they
show is that American boys are be
coming criminals and filling our prisons
because of lack of occupation. They
are denied the privilege of learning a
trade, are brought up in idleness and
turned into the world with no means
of earning an honest livelihood. It is
an old story that idleness leads to vice
and crime. In all our large cities there
are thousands of boys coming to man
hood every year who are denied the
opportunity to fit themselves for up
right, industrious and useful lives be
cause the doorway to every trade is shut
and barred against them. It is in the
large cities that the apprentice rules are
most nearly prohibitive, yet it is these
cities which offer the best field for
mechanical labor, for the best W'ork is
done there. If a boy cannot learn his
trade there he cannot learn it thoroughly
anywhere, on the apprentice plan. It is
to the cities that the swarm of foreign
laborers come, finding ready admission
“ IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND.”
STILLWATER, MINNESOTA, JANUARY 18, 1894.
to all trades unions and tilling the
places which American boys would
have were they permitted to learn the
trades.
As a nation we are shutting our own
sons out of the lield of American labor,
thus tilling our prisons and reform
atories and almhouses with them and
are letting into that tield for full pos
session, hordes of foreigners who make
it a menace to the safety of American
institutions and a constant peril to the
peace and welfare of American society.
Is this an enlightened policy for a
nation to follow? ('an we bring up
our own sons to lives of idleness and
crime, and not reap the consequences
in widespread national humiliation and
disaster? Can we hope to make better
citizens out of the socialists and anarch
ists and other degraded and disorderly
elements of foreign countries than we
can make out of our own sons? If we
could perform this miracle, should we
still not be guilty of gross, heartless and
shameless neglect of our own offspring?
In every way in which the matter is view
ed, the*folly of it is apparent, but all
other aspects of it sink into insignifi
cance when compared with the injustice
which it indicts upon our sons. No
right-thinking American who loves his
fellow man, and has the welfare and
honor of his country at heart, can
contemplate this without shame and
anxietv.—The Century.
Is Poverty a Crime?
Until recently I thought the above
question disposed of in a musty corner
of a mind assumed to be in a state of j
moral degeneracy, by the irrevocable j
fiat of that society which demands un- j
swerving allegiance of those who stand
as votaries at its shrine, else, ( Jorgon
like. destroys those who now cater to
its decrees. But my serenity has been
disturbed by the "dictator" filling the
gubernatorial chair of "bleeding Kan
sas;” he. standing at the head of the
new political order in that state, has
declared that poverty, the genuine, the
pure, is not a crime. The assumption, i
alone, is false, irrespective of the denial.
Poverty always has been, is, and will be ;
a crime. The history of the world
proves it, doubt, dispute, or reason as
you may, the fact cannot be consist
ently denied. It were useless to cite
instances and quote history to establish !
the point taken; history only learns us
that human nature in any one era is
but an epitome of the age. For us, the
present is all sufficient to prove the
position taken, to be firm.
If a Diogenes chooses poverty as his
happiness —and he has a right to be
happy in his own way, harming none by
[so doing—is it not placing a premium
on wealth by declaring Diogenes a
vagrant, and, because of his poverty
putting him in jail for violating the
laws of the state? Hence, Diogenes has
j no right to be poor, for poverty is a
! legal crime, punished by fine or im
j prisonment, or both. Poverty is also a
social crime. Ostracized, is written on
| the brow of the poor; society demands
I that you have wealth if you will have
j justice; "get money" is its admonition,
1 honestly or otherwise, it matters not, so
that you are not caught, for as some
one has said: ‘‘society forgives every sin
in the decalogue except that of being
found out." If your sin shall find you
out, society’s Shvlocks, to hide their
own sin, will demand the pound of
tiesh; and, unless you have the golden
salve to heal the wound, the Shylocks
win; lacking it, you curse your fate,
and your kind who imposed a condition
upon you and then destroyed you for
accepting it. Surely poverty is a social
crime. Poverty is also a moral crime;
each individual of society owes to it
certain duties and obligations, these
take precedence over those of the in
dividual, only by rendering the former,
may he secure the latter. Hence, if a
Diogenes or a Columbus prefer poverty,
he commits a moral crime, since poverty
renders us incapable of fufilling our
duties toward our fellow r -man. Poverty
then is a three fold cri.me, legal, social,
and moral. By what right does this
man in Kansas declare otherwise, and
by his proclamation practically nullify
the laws relating thereto? Not by the
right of custom, for custom elsewhere
is against such dangerous innovations
and declares poverty to be a crime; yet
he maintains custom to be wrong and
the laws illegal. The illegality lies
rather in the nugatory process being
adopted in Kansas at his suggestion.
It has always been sound law for the
municipality and the state to defv the
constitution; they have always held the
right to deprive a person of liberty
without due process of law. the right of
denying to the poor man that equality
before the courts, which the constitution
guarantees to each and every person,
regardless of sex, color, or condition.
He respects not the right of the police
to bully and beat poverty's criminal;
he overlooks the right of the “bull-pen"
judge to earn his vampire living; such
illegality is infamous, even in concep
tion and savors of social secession; ‘tis
treason to society's irrevocable customs
and belongs to some other than the
present age: some dim shadowy epoch
lof distant time, when the query “is
i poverty a crime," shall disturb not the
| mind of an executive, or that of a
convict. Leoxahdis.
Not All Criminals
< )ur present population numbers 4Sfi, j
of whom 50 per cent, at least, should j
not be classed as criminals. I base this j
opinion upon personal experience and j
the careful study of the causes which ;
have placed this vast number of bright ;
young men behind prison bars. Close .
intimacy and study has taught me to
believe that fully one half of my com
panions in misfortune are here through
no premeditated criminal transactions
or intended criminal associations. Liq
uor, the greatest curse known to hu
manity is the principle cause of their
downfall; and a man who commits a
crime while under the influence of
liquor cannot and should not be justly
classed as a criminal. He is a more
hopeful and fitting subject for that
grand and noble army of Christian
evangelists who are ever seeking to
save fallen and unfortunate humanity.
A man who may have committed a
crime while under the influence of
liquor, would, in nine cases out of ten.
abhor the thought of crime, in his sober
senses, thus proving and substantiating
the fact that his true nature is far from
being a criminal one. Such a man may
be repeatedly convicted of trivial
crimes, and yet be far from a criminal.
Imprisonment cannot affect him, except
for the worse; it cannot restore to him
the will-power and power of self-control
! which he is lacking; other means must
I be used and other influences applied. A
i man in prison does not view his position
jas the public is said to view it. from a
! philosophical standpoint, he looks upon
j his imprisonment as a public revenge,
j and considering the methods too often
j used to accomplish his conviction, the
! latter view is a very natural and suggest
ive one. it were impossible to reform
j such a man, such a criminal, (?) for the
I simple reason that he needs no refor
mation, in a criminal sense. It is the
laws governing the liquor traffic which
needs reformation; -when this is done
the reformation of the drinking crimi
nal is accomplished, and fifty per cent,
at least, of our present prison popula
tion, will be emancipated from an ac
cursed slavery and restored to a sober,
industrious and honest manhood. The
laws of our land open up these hell
holes of destruction, and erects these
incubators of misery and vice; it and it
alone weaves these webs of infamy to
catch the weak and unwary, and when
they have fallen helplessly into their
accursed meshes, the great arm of the
same merciless law reaches out and
grasps the poor struggling victim by
the throat and with a grin of mockery
thrusts him into the confines of a piti
less prison, to reform (?) him.
Arkansaw Slim.
I SI.OO per year, in advance
I ERMS: si x Months 50 ('ents.
They Will Get Clear.
In a recent investigation that was
inaugurated by the postoftiee authori
ties, to determine the culpability of per
sons who used the mails as a medium
through which to contract for “green
goods," it was discovered that many
prominent men from ali over the Unit
ed States, a congressman and a candi
date for governor of one of our states
among them, were in direct communi
cation with the makers of counterfeit
money. The postoffice authorities have
decreed that these men are culpable,
and it is stated that they will be prose
cuted. Perhaps they will be, but when
one calls to mind the many cases of
law-breaking in which “prominent”
men were concerned, and the ease with
which they escaped a just penalty, it is
more than probable that not one of
j these will suffer for their crime. Their
j social position, their wealth and influ
ence will, no doubt, so nicely balance
! the scales of Justice, that a penalty will
| not be indicted. On tiie other hand,
S were these culprits units of that mass
! of humanity who are lighting daily, aye
; hourly, against that king of crime mak
; ers, poverty, punishment swift and
! sure, would be visited upon them. When
I these outwardly respectable leaders of
1 high society, who perhaps were loudest
|in clamoring for protection against
' the inroads and attacks of humbler law
j breakers, are found to be the principals
| in crooked transactions, how can it be
j expected that the lower strata of hu
; inanity will mend its ways and become
j morally perfect ? What incentive is it
j to the poor man, who occupies a felon's
cell for transgressing the law, to be
| come purer and nobler, when the
i wealthy and influential can transgress
! with impunity aiwl escape unscathed?
Our prisons and ref ormatories contain
I hundreds of malefactors who have be-
I come such through the circumstances
with which poverty surrounded them;
| but these wealthy law breakers have no
such excuse to offer in extenuation of
I their crime.
When that portion of society, which
loudly clamors for protection against
the common malefactor, inaugurates a
system of protection against the crim
inals who move in its own circles, in
stead of permitting them to escape a
just punishment, then, and not till then,
will it become less difficult to mitigate
the attacks of the poorer, less influen
tial and less finished rogues.
Pariah.
The Weight of the Earth,
One of the problems that men of
science occasionally undertake to solve
over again for the sake of getting nearer
to the exact truth is that of the density
and mass of the earth.
The density of a body is the quantity
of matter that a given volume of it
contains, while its mass is the total
quantity of matter that the whole body
contains. In a popular sense the mass
of a body is measured by its weight.
Recently a new method of measuring
the mass and density of the earth has
been put into practice in France. This
consists in changing the level of a small
lake which can be raised or lowered by
artificial means and noting the effect
upon the height of a column of mercury.
The results of these experiments have
given for the earth's mean density 5:41
times the density of water. The latest
previous estimate, made by Messrs
Corun and Bailie, gave 5:50.
It has been customary to speak of
the earth as weighing 6,000,000,000,000,-
000,(XX),000 of toils. Its weight, accord
ing to the recent determination, is,
5,757,000,000,000,000,000,000, or five sex
tillions, seven hundred and fifty seven
hundred quintiliions of tons. A very
weighty and substantial globe, accord
ing to our ideas, notwithstanding the
fact that the sun could swallow it in
one of the “spots” with hardly a wink.
—Youth’s Companion.