He has no one to argue
thus for him; he feels that he is alone and among enemies; and he can
make no effective defense. And the parole officer stands by with a sad
countenance, as of one who had done the best he could for a protege, but
was powerless to stem the tide of justice.
It can't be done, legally or justly; but it is done; that is the gist of
the matter. There is no one to know the wrong and to insist upon the
right; and the wrong is perpetrated. Unnumbered victims of it, in every
federal prison of the country, substantiate this fact. The parole
board--which means, in practise, its president--exercises more power
than the federal court, and there is no appeal from his decision. At his
will, a man may be tried twice for the same offense, behind closed
doors, without aid of counsel. He may be condemned, though the offense
was never committed except in the imagination of an enemy. We tell our
convicts that they have no civic rights; but it is not generally
understood, I think, that the Spanish Inquisition of the Middle Ages can
properly be reproduced in Twentieth Century America even with men behind
the bars.
But let that pass. Things are done under the parole law worse than this.
If it were used merely as a means to induce unruly men to be docile, no
one could complain; if men thus induced should after all be deprived of
the reward they had earned, we might condone it.
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