The convict has no rights,
no friends, and no future; the amateur may walk out whenever he pleases,
and will be received by an admiring family and friends, and extolled by
public opinion as a reformer who suffered martyrdom in the cause. Yet what
he has experienced and learned falls as far short of what convicts endure,
as the emotions of a theater-goer at a problem play (with a tango supper
awaiting him in a neighboring restaurant) fall short of the long-drawn
misery and humiliation of those who undergo in actuality what the play
pretended.
Meanwhile, scores of animated humanitarians, penologists, criminologists,
theorists and idealists have consulted, resolved, recommended, and
agitated, striking hard but in the dark, and most of their blows going
wide. Commissioners and inspectors have appeared menacingly at prison
gates, loudly heralded, equipped with plenipotentiary powers; and the
gates have been thrown wide by smiling wardens and sympathetic
guards--tender hearted, big brained, gentle mannered people, their
mouths overflowing with honeyed words and bland assurances, their clubs
and steel bracelets snugly stowed away in unobtrusive pockets--who
have personally and assiduously conducted their honored visitors
through marble corridors, clean swept cells, spacious dining saloons,
sanctimonious chapels, studious libraries and sunny yards; and have
stood helpfully by while happy felons told their tales of cheerful hours
of industry alternating with long periods of refreshing exercise and
peaceful repose; nay, these officials will sometimes quite turn their
backs upon the confidences between prisoner and investigator, lest there
should seem to be even a shadow of restraint in the outpourings.
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