After serving fifteen years, he applied for his parole
under the law; there appeared to be no grounds so far as his prison
record went for denying it; nevertheless, he was rejected. He asked the
reason, and was told that it was not considered safe to set him at
liberty; he had a "bad temper"--that was, I think, the explanation.
Psychological insight is a good thing in its way and place, but it may
be carried too far, or employed amiss; and this looks like an
illustration. The boy, in more than fifteen years, had never done
anything in prison that called for discipline; but because some
self-constituted and arbitrary psychologist chose to believe, or to say,
that his temper was not under full control, he was doomed to spend the
rest of his life in a cell. This prisoner knows, of course, that he has
been wronged, but he does not know how much; he does not know what life
in a world of free men is. But he, after being kept for half of his
lifetime under duress, must submit to the caprice of a man to whom the
country has entrusted absolute power. No man is qualified to exercise
absolute power; no man is justified in accepting it; but we bestow it
upon every chance political appointee, and what he does with it puts us
to shame, whether or not we can as yet realize it.
There was at least one life prisoner in Atlanta who merits a chapter to
himself; but I cannot speak of him now.
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