Or, if you reserve your protest till after you get out, and can then
find any medium for ventilating it, the prison authorities will promptly
and smilingly "welcome an investigation"; and the Department will
eagerly send down some old friend and boon companion of the officials,
to make a "strict investigation," "without fear or favor." Now, at last,
the truth shall be known, let it hurt whom it may! So the severe and
incorruptible inspector comes down; and after snubbing and insulting a
few prisoners, and taking notes of the information of a few snitches,
and dining and wining with the officials, and inspecting the country in
the government automobile, he goes back to Washington with the
reassuring news that the reports of abuses, where they were not absolute
fabrications, were gross exaggerations.
Is this an imaginative sketch--or colored a little--or a good deal? How
shall it be determined?--for I am only an ex-convict, and we all know
what an ex-convict's word is worth. I can only suggest that, for your
own individual satisfaction at any rate, you commit a bona fide crime
and get sentenced to prison for it. If you survive, we can converse
further on the subject. Or--to offer a bolder suggestion yet--perhaps
the head of the Department himself might take a hand; perhaps he would
oblige us by breaking a law. Let him be handcuffed and brought to
Atlanta or elsewhere--we are not particular--and there be numbered and
U.
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