What does it not
suggest of outrage and degradation perpetrated upon a human soul, that
he should come to prefer a cell and a master to freedom! There may be
slaveries so soft as to invite the base and pusillanimous, but they are
more rather than less depraving than cruelties to all that makes
honorable and useful manhood. The deepest and essential evil of prisons
is not hardship and torture, but imprisonment. If choice could be made
between the two, every manly man would choose the former. No disgrace is
inherent in hardship and torture; but imprisonment brands a man as unfit
to associate with his kind. No mortal creature has or can have the right
to inflict it, nor any aggregation of mortals.
This is a hard saying, but I will stand by it. There were criminals of
all kinds in Atlanta with whom I was brought into contact. One had grown
rich by organizing a system of "white slavery" on a large scale. He
dealt in woman's dishonor and turned it into cash, and he saw nothing
wrong in it. This man was advanced in years, he was incapable of
regarding women in any other light than as merchandise, he was
insensible to their misery, and laughed at their degradation. He was
physically repulsive; his face and swollen body suggested a huge toad.
It would be foolish to associate the idea of reform with such a
creature. I felt a nauseous disgust of him; he seemed on the lowest
level of human nature.
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