_ CHAPTER XII. THE PRISON SILENCE
How many convicts, during the past twenty years, have served their terms and been released? and yet what does the public know of the real inside of prisons? This used to perplex me at first. My fellow prisoners with whom I talked were bitter and voluble enough in denouncing the conditions; but no sooner had they passed the gates to freedom than they became strangely silent. Some of them even were quoted in the local papers as praising and upholding what they had just before condemned.
There was a Japanese prisoner, for example, the only man of his nation there, I think, who gained attention by copies of well-known pictures which he made, to be hung on the walls of the chapel, and by designing back and side scenes for the stage. I never talked personally with him, or saw him but at a distance, as he hastened along the corridor; but men who knew him said that he was especially savage in his diatribes against the prison and its keepers, and had promised, as soon as he was freed, to make numerous ugly disclosures to the world. But when we searched the local papers after his release, what we found was a hearty and explicit laudation of the prison and its officials. Had it been written by the warden himself, it could not have been more sunny and satisfied.
Again, there was a man with us who had been sentenced for life on a murder charge of a singularly revolting kind; he had been in confinement seventeen years when I first knew him, but had always consistently protested his innocence. He applied for parole, and his application was granted. At this time he occupied a large cell containing eleven other prisoners, of whom I was one; and he attached himself very closely to me, and upon coming in from his work each evening, would sit beside my cot and hold my hand and pour out his heart to me in lamentations, asseverations of his innocence, picturings of the horrors of his long confinement, forecastings of what he meant to do when he was freed--to address audiences from the pulpit and rostrum, and convince the world of the horrors of penal imprisonment. He was deeply religious, and had the moral courage to kneel down, before all the men in the cell, and spend five minutes or more in prayer every evening before going to bed. Every one believed that he had been wrongly convicted, if for no better reason, because he had never once wavered from his claim of innocence during those seventeen years, and because his conduct and bearing in the prison had always been exemplary. He was a man of powerful body and strong, impressive mind; his speech was simple and convincing, and I told him that I thought he would succeed as an avatar of prison iniquities. He professed an ardent affection for me, and expressed enthusiastic anticipations as to the outcome of my own projects for calling public attention to the evils in question.
This man was tortured for five or six weeks by unexplained delay in fulfilling the promise of his parole, during which time it fell to my daily lot to comfort and encourage him; and I suffered no little emotional stress myself from this constant drain on my sympathies. Every evening, sitting beside my cot, he would repeat over and over again the same lamentations and speculations, interjecting at the end of each apostrophe, "It's terrible--terrible!" until at last I felt that I would gladly give up my own "good time" for the sake of seeing him freed without further procrastination. I was convinced, and so told him, that the delay could be due to nothing but neglect, inadvertent or criminal, on the part of LaDow, the President of the Parole Board, or of the Attorney-General himself; the papers had been thrust into a pigeonhole, and been forgotten or ignored.
What were the tortures of a man imprisoned for seventeen years, and now standing on the brink of salvation or despair, to a supercilious official up in Washington?
Finally, without explanation or apology, the order for release came; and for me and his other friends, as well as for him, it was a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving. But, remembering that he was on parole, and therefore liable, on the least infringement of discipline, to be thrust back in his cell, none of us expected that he would venture to denounce the wrongs and expose the miseries of the imprisoned; we were glad to learn that he had secured a position paying him twenty or thirty dollars a month, with a chance of better things later, and that he had announced his purpose of running down the real perpetrator of the crime for which he had suffered, and forcing him to confess. For a few days, one or two local papers gave him half a column, and then there was silence.
I had been denied parole, and the restrictions thereof did not apply to me when my own day of freedom arrived; and I gave a short interview to a reporter, in which I said that the warden was unfit for his position, that the food was abominable, and that punishment in dark cells and otherwise was still practised, though under cover.
The next day the newspapers printed an interview with my late friend, in which he was quoted as declaring that every statement I had made was a malicious lie, that the warden was in all respects the best, kindest and most lovable man he had ever met, and that the men in confinement had all the food they asked for, of the best quality, and that all tales of hardships and cruel punishments were false and wicked.
Is it conceivable that these statements were really given out by him? It seemed more likely that the words had been put into his mouth, under a threat, should he disavow them, of being sent back to prison. From such a threat the bravest man might shrink. But that statement of his still stands unmodified. And whether made spontaneously, or under the compulsion of a threat, its motive seems to have been fear of punishment for telling the truth. Such is the power of the System over its victims!
It is a state of things nothing less than nauseating. It is bad enough that men should be held in prison and maltreated; but that the truth should be imprisoned with them, gagged and terrified into silence, is a grave matter indeed. New York is complaining just now of the strength in corruption of its police system; but it seems almost trivial compared with this, for while the police ring profits by cooperating with the criminals they are paid to suppress, the prison ring profits by maiming or destroying human lives entrusted to their care to be restrained for a season from their own evil impulses, and thus if possible reformed; and, when they are released, it guards itself against exposure by the menace of revenge more formidable still. The parole and the indeterminate sentence, framed to open the way to reform of prisoners, is used by prison officials to intimidate and debase them; and if any ex-convict ventures to defy this fortified despotism, the immediate rejoinder is, "Who can believe a jail-bird? A man wicked enough to steal or murder is wicked enough to lie, and is not the malicious motive of the lie apparent?"
That rejoinder has been brought, and will continue to be brought against me. Among those who protested against the statements in my interview above mentioned was a lady whom I never spoke to--it is strictly against rules for a prisoner to speak with a visitor--and never knowingly saw, though I understand she was wont to sit on the stage during the Sunday exercises. She is thus quoted: "Julian Hawthorne is nothing more than an old grouch. A short time ago this old man told me himself that he was getting plenty to eat and had no complaint to make of his own or anybody else's treatment in the prison.... When he says such things as he is reported to have said, he should be made to prove them, or keep his mouth shut." Warden Moyer himself, less imaginative than this lady, contented himself with denying all charges and courting investigation, and added that he bore me no grudge, believed me to have been the dupe of malignant guards (since dismissed) and considers my motive to have been mainly the desire to make a little money. "The Department attaches little importance to these outbreaks," he remarked, "and I consider it unnecessary to place my word against that of convicts."
This may seem feeble; it is the mere instinctive stuttering of persons in a disturbed frame of mind. But the System will not depend for its defense upon persons of this kind. It has many strong forces at its command, of which the Secret Service, and the favorable prejudgments of the Government and of a large part of the public are but part. Any one opposing it may expect to be kept under strict surveillance in all his movements, his mail will be violated, his words, written or overheard, will be scrutinized for material that can be used against him. Nor is the line drawn there. While I was in prison, I received the confidences of many prisoners as to their own experiences, among others that of a Maine boy who had been convicted of robbing a postoffice. He had been arrested in the first instance as a vagrant, and while in the local jail had been approached by a postoffice inspector who charged him with the post-office crime. The boy had never been in the state in which the crime was committed; but he was told that, if he would plead guilty to it, he would be sent to Atlanta for a short term, whereas, should he refuse, he could be kept in jail awaiting trial for a year, and would then receive at least six months on the vagrancy charge. "Do as I tell you, and I will see that you get off easy," the inspector, who posed as a friend, told him. When he finally acquiesced, however, the judge imposed on him a sentence of five years, the inspector having testified that he was an old offender, implicated in many other crimes. The fact was, of course, that the real perpetrators of this postoffice robbery had not been caught, but it was expedient for the reputation and welfare of the detectives that a perpetrator should be produced--if not the real one, then one manufactured for the purpose. I learned of many cases similar to this--it is a common routine practise with the System. Moreover, when this innocent youth has completed his term, he will be thenceforth a marked man--"an habitual criminal," with a record against him; and he can be rearrested on general principles at any time. He will be given no opportunity to earn an honest livelihood, and it would be surprising indeed if his wrongs, not to speak of his empty stomach and hopeless circumstances did not make him a bona fide criminal ere long. Obviously, meanwhile, such a man is effectively gagged; if he be asked whether prison be a paradise, he will reply ardently in the affirmative, though his whole body and soul know it as a hell. For if, having blasphemed the Holy System, he is returned to the cell whence he came, every word of his rash revelation will be avenged upon him in torture and misery.
Am I attempting to retaliate upon the System for personal indignities and mishandling; or am I the dupe and tool of designing miscreants--convicts, guards or foremen--who plied me with false statements to wreak revenges of their own? I have already said that I was never harshly treated by any of the prison officials, and after the two first months indulgences were allowed me beyond the customary prison usage. During my two first months, to be sure, it seemed unlikely that I could live out my term, because I was kept at work in an underground place without ventilation or other than artificial light, and permeated with the hot-water pipes which supplied the buildings with heat and power. I was also unable to eat the prison fare, and was slowly perishing for lack of food. I never complained of this treatment, for it was in the ordinary prison course; but when the consequences of it became visible in my physical appearance, I was put on a diet of oatmeal and milk, morning and evening, and allowed to exercise in the open air. I voluntarily, during this period, went without dinner, being unwilling to poison myself with the rancid grease and garbage served under that name; but I made the most of the simple but nourishing milk diet, though it was insufficient in quantity; and I improved to the utmost the outdoor privileges, besides adhering resolutely to a regimen of daily calisthenic exercises; so that, when I was set at liberty at the end of six or seven months, I was in physical condition quite as good as when I went in. I was never denied leave to write "special letters," and my intercourse with the warden and his deputies, though always as seldom and brief as I could make it, was uniformly suave and smiling. The reasons for all which I shall have occasion to discuss later.
So much for the "grouch." As for being made the dupe of designing persons among the lower officials, and my fellow prisoners,--beyond replying tersely to questions put to me, I never had any communication with the former, and never heard or spoke a word with them reflecting upon the prison management. But what of my fellow prisoners?
They looked me over keenly and thoroughly to begin with; and no inquisitors have more sensitive intuitions or are quicker to suspect double-dealing than they. My aspect, my bearing, my speech, my affiliations, my treatment, all came under their scrutiny, and were debated in that secret court which prisoners hold. Not at first, nor lightly, did they give me the honor of their confidence. I might be a spy sent in from without, or a stool pigeon made within, or I might be indifferent or loose-mouthed. But when they did resolve to trust me--when I was elected a member of the "inner circle," as one of them phrased it,--they had no reservations. I was called on to make no protestations, to register no oaths, nor did I solicit any communications. They came to me freely, and either by laboriously penned or penciled letters written on surreptitious scraps of paper in ill-lighted cells, or by circumspect word of mouth mumbled into my ear on the baseball ground of a Saturday afternoon, they would disclose their long hoarded and grievous facts. "I wouldn't lie to you, Mr. Hawthorne--what would be the use? it would come back on me!" But I was listening to the break and tremor in their voices, the hurry and awkward indignation, the eager marshaling of insignificant details, the dreary, apathetic recital of sordid or callous outrages, the hopelessness striving once more to hope. "If they'd only send us an inspector who wouldn't be always dining with the warden, and junketting in his auto, and taking the screws' word against ours--a fellow who'd peel off his coat and size things up independent!" Their wish was not fulfilled in my time; the inspections were a farce and a scandal. There was a tradition of one inspector who had really effected something--who seemed to think of his duty, as well as of good dinners and joy rides--but that was long ago. That he never repeated his visit would seem to indicate that his report was found inconvenient.
Meantime, I did not need their asseverations of veracity; the truth shone through their uncouth stories. They were widely different from the glib patter that runs out of a crook's mouth in the presence of an official. Some of these men were seasoned criminals; often they did not themselves understand how iniquitous was the "deal" that had been given them, being too much inured to the tricks and treachery of the detectives' practises to feel special animosity regarding them; but more or less dimly they felt that wrong was being done them that was not contemplated or recognized by the law. The last thing to die in a man is his sense of justice; "I'm as bad a man as you like, and I'm willing to take my proper medicine; but they ought to give a man a square deal!" There was a young fellow there, well educated, with an intelligent, agreeable face and gentlemanly bearing; I got his story, not from him, but from the reminiscences of others. One time "Bob got nutty, and wouldn't come out of his cell, and started setting fire to his bedding. His cell got filled with the smoke and he was near choking to death, and fell down on the floor. A bunch of screws stood in front of his door making fun of him, and they held a blanket up so the smoke wouldn't get out. At last they opened the door and pulled him out, and they clubbed him good and plenty, and then they dragged him down the stairs--he was in an upper tier, understand--with his head bumping against every step. They threw him into a dark cell, and left him there." There he had leisure to recover from his "nuttiness." It was nothing much out of the usual, only the incident happened to offer spectacular features which served to keep the memory of it fresh. But does the Department of Justice countenance such diversions?
To return to my theme--I came to feel that whether or not I was handled softly, others as deserving as I, or less deserving, or more deserving, were not; and that if I had no personal grounds for complaint, they had. I could not adopt the point of view of one of the "better" class of convicts: "The warden has always treated me decently, and I don't mean to bite the hand that caressed me." I need not affirm, either, that my good fortune was due to an expectation that I would respond in kind; that would be an unverifiable inference. But it was plain that the officials took interest in the prison paper as a medium for advertising and gaining credit for the penitentiary; and that when I began to write for it, newspapers all over the country quoted the articles and commented kindly on them. My name was given a prominence, unwelcome, though well meant; accounts of my doings and condition, entirely apocryphal (for I never saw a newspaper man during my stay, or gave out any form of interview), were published and featured from time to time; I was kept more or less in the public eye. If, now, I were to be starved and clubbed, dungeoned and otherwise maltreated, not only would I be incapacitated from contributing to the paper, but some hint of the facts might leak out and impair the reputation of Atlanta Penitentiary as a Gentleman's Club and Humane Paradise. Accordingly, if I were found smoking out of hours, or were missing from count,--"Never mind--it's only Hawthorne!" It may be, of course, that my personal charm was so irresistible that every official from the warden down fell victim to it, and would rather prove recreant to their oath of office than interfere with me; my vanity craves to believe so, yet I hesitate. At any rate, with whatever sugar the gag was sweetened, or whether the suggestion of it was inadvertent, I did not feel justified in accepting it; and when I got out, the waiting reporters at last obtained what they had so long awaited. But though my eight hundred comrades seem to have been gratified with my words, I cannot think that they were equally satisfactory to the officials; for I am informed that Hawthorne's writings are henceforth barred from the penitentiary. I must have hurt their feelings in some way; no one can please everybody.
The naive surprise expressed in some local quarters outside the penitentiary went to show how unexpected and almost incredible my statements appeared to be--or, from another point of view, how successfully hitherto the truth had been suppressed. The truth being once unshackled, I was anxious to get the widest possible circulation for it, and therefore arranged for its publication in various newspapers distributed over the country; but I was not altogether sanguine that my plan of public enlightenment would prove an unqualified success. The System, as I have indicated, had several guns which it might bring to bear, and it was conceivable that some of the editors who had subscribed to the syndicate might find reason to regard the articles as not adapted to the taste of their readers, and decline to risk offending them any further. If other guns of the System should prove inadequate, there was always the great gun to be depended upon, known as the Law for Libel. I took what precautions I could with respect to this formidable and most respectable weapon; I stipulated that a competent lawyer should read each article before it was offered for publication, and inform me of any passage in any of them which might be obnoxious to the provisions of this law, in order that such passages might be modified or expunged. He carefully discharged his function; and if any reader should detect a lack of continuity or explicitness in any of my statements, he may charitably ascribe it to the consequences of the lawyer's advice; since, even in this free country, the proprieties must be observed. If I were fortunate enough to escape the missiles of the Libel gun, I had still to be on my guard against more obscure and personal weapons; I am an ex-convict, and any lenity of treatment which I had hitherto enjoyed is not to be looked for in the future. If I were sent back to prison, my shrift was likely to be short; and I could only hope, in that event, to have been able to say enough to afford my entertainers ample provocation for giving me, as my comrades would say, the limit.
"You would have only yourself to blame!"--I hear that comment. If you are kicked, be like the puppy--roll over on your back and hold up your paws for mercy. But if canine models are in question, I feel more inclination to the thoroughbred bulldog, who does what he can and would do more if he could. I have undertaken a heavy responsibility, and must make the best showing I may with it. I no longer have a lifetime before me, but I have learned while I have been alive that the methods of the puppy are not remunerative in the end. Every natural instinct in me calls out for rest and peace, and to forget the valleys of grief and humiliation; but there is another voice which summons me to other issues. I am sensible of my lack of strength and fitness for the enterprise; but I believe that it was no idle circumstance that called me to it; I believe in a Divine government of the world, which chooses sometimes to use unlikely instruments to accomplish its will. The little I can do may inspire worthier deeds by more powerful hands. Emerson found simple words for a mighty thought--
"One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost!"
The prophets of old had no dignity or weight in themselves, but they delivered messages which changed the world. "What! that old numskull be the mouthpiece of Jehovah?" his townsfolk might exclaim. But so it was. What is any one of us in himself?
However, I don't wish to bear too hard on this pedal. It is easier to look at things from the commonplace standpoint. One thing or another prevented any of my companions in the jail from doing what it was desirable to do, and circumstances quite unforeseen opened a way for me to do it. What I have said above was with a view of showing how difficult it may ordinarily be to bring prison facts to light; and if, by chance, some individual should find means to his hand to open a window, he would be a poltroon if he forbore to do it. I am under no illusions as to the obstacles in my way, nor do I anticipate that what I am trying to do will result in prompt or vital changes for the better in prison management. The facts I adduce may be discredited, but if they are true they will not be lost. My eight hundred inarticulate comrades are always present in my thoughts. I have left them in the body, but I see their faces wherever I turn. It is a crime that any human beings should be arbitrarily kept in the conditions which surround them, and if I can loosen one stone of the Bastile which, at Atlanta and elsewhere, annually engulfs and destroys so many of them, I shall be content. _