Picture the situation--two human beings face
to face, one helpless and in agony, the other with absolute power! The
official faced the man deliberately, with an amused smile. "I can," he
said, slowly, "but--I won't!" How would you have felt in such a case?
Could you ever forget it? and would you not be ready, for that
official's sake, to hate mankind, and to curse God and die? But you
perhaps believe that convicts have no human feelings, and that they are
cheerful under such treatment.
The value of these remarks lies, of course, in their general character;
the conduct of an individual, regarded by itself, would have small
importance. And if I do not instance the conduct of those honest and
manly officials who are to be found here and there, it is because the
public is already informed concerning them; their deeds do not seek
darkness, but are visible by their own light. It is the rascals that we
do not hear about, or if we do, it is through reports of press agents in
newspapers and otherwise, who are mere mouthpieces for the lying
self-praise of the rascals themselves.
While I was in jail, I had access, by a fortunate circumstance, to the
annual reports to the Department of several wardens of prisons in
various states, and was able to compare their stories of themselves with
the accounts given me by prisoners who had lived under them and with my
own first hand knowledge of prison conditions, which, with a few shining
exceptions, are so terribly and remorselessly alike the civilized world
over.
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