It was not
so much the exhortations or entertainments that did good, as the idea
thereby aroused in convicts that somebody cared for them. Between, them
and the community there was still war to the knife; but certain
individuals, separate from the community, were not hostile but well
disposed toward them.
A man fallen into evil may sometimes be redeemed by coming to feel this;
he will try to be good for the sake of the person who was kind to him in
his misery. I once asked a comrade in Atlanta whether if the warden were
to give him twenty dollars and tell him to go to the town, make a
purchase for him, and return, he would do so? He said, "No," and when I
asked him why, replied that he would know the warden had something up
his sleeve, and was not on the square in his proposition. I then named a
certain benefactor of the prisoners outside the prison, and asked if he
would do it for that person? After some consideration, he said that he
would, because he "would hate to disappoint" that person, and would
believe in the bona fides of that person's request. This man was held to
be rather a bad case; but he was still capable of acting honorably, if
the right motives were supplied.
But this is not enough. The great mass of convicts could not be reformed
by "hating to disappoint" any particular person who had been kind to
them or trusted them.
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