Crimes Against Criminals
State Bar Association, Albany, N.Y., January 1, 1890.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1890)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 11.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/crimes-against-criminals/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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• "An Address delivered before the State Bar Association at
    Albany, N. Y., January 1, 1890."

IN this brief address, the object is to suggest—there being no time to
present arguments at length. The subject has been chosen for the reason
that it is one that should interest the legal profession, because that
profession to a certain extent controls and shapes the legislation of
our country and fixes definitely the scope and meaning of all laws.

Lawyers ought to be foremost in legislative and judicial reform, and
of all men they should understand the philosophy of mind, the causes of
human action, and the real science of government.

It has been said that the three pests of a community are: A priest
without charity; a doctor without knowledge, and, a lawyer without a
sense of justice.

I.

All nations seem to have had supreme confidence in the deterrent power
of threatened and inflicted pain. They have regarded punishment as the
shortest road to reformation. Imprisonment, torture, death, constituted
a trinity under whose protection society might feel secure.

In addition to these, nations have relied on confiscation and
degradation, on maimings, whippings, brandings, and exposures to public
ridicule and contempt. Connected with the court of justice was
the chamber of torture. The ingenuity of man was exhausted in the
construction of instruments that would surely reach the most sensitive
nerve. All this was done in the interest of civilization—for the
protection of virtue, and the well-being of states. Curiously it was
found that the penalty of death made little difference. Thieves and
highwaymen, heretics and blasphemers, went on their way. It was then
thought necessary to add to this penalty of death, and consequently, the
convicted were tortured in every conceivable way before execution. They
were broken on the wheel—their joints dislocated on the rack. They were
suspended by their legs and arms, while immense weights were placed upon
their breasts. Their flesh was burned and torn with hot irons. They
were roasted at slow fires. They were buried alive—given to wild
beasts—molten lead was poured in their ears—their eye-lids were cut
off and, the wretches placed with their faces toward the sun—others
were securely bound, so that they could move neither hand nor foot, and
over their stomachs were placed inverted bowls; under these bowls rats
were confined; on top of the bowls were heaped coals of fire, so that
the rats in their efforts to escape would gnaw into the bowels of the
victims. They were staked out on the sands of the sea, to be drowned
by the slowly rising tide—and every means by which human nature can be
overcome slowly, painfully and terribly, was conceived and carried into
execution. And yet the number of so-called criminals increased. Enough,
the fact is that, no matter how severe the punishments were, the crimes
increased.

For petty offences men were degraded—given to the mercy of the rabble.
Their ears were cut off, their nostrils slit, their foreheads branded.
They were tied to the tails of carts and flogged from one town to
another. And yet, in spite of all, the poor wretches obstinately refused
to become good and useful citizens.

Degradation has been thoroughly tried, with its maimings and brandings,
and the result was that those who inflicted the punishments became as
degraded as their victims.

Only a few years ago there were more than two hundred offences in Great
Britain punishable by death. The gallows-tree bore fruit through all the
year, and the hangman was the busiest official in the kingdom—but the
criminals increased.

Crimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes were committed to
prevent crimes. The world has been filled with prisons and dungeons,
with chains and whips, with crosses and gibbets, with thumbscrews and
racks, with hangmen and headsmen—and yet these frightful means
and instrumentalities and crimes have accomplished little for the
preservation of property or life. It is safe to say that governments
have committed far more crimes than they have prevented.

Why is it that men will suffer and risk so much for the sake of
stealing? Why will they accept degradation and punishment and infamy as
their portion? Some will answer this question by an appeal to the dogma
of original sin; others by saying that millions of men and women are
under the control of fiends—that they are actually possessed by devils;
and others will declare that all these people act from choice—that
they are possessed of free wills, of intelligence—that they know and
appreciate consequences, and that, in spite of all, they deliberately
prefer a life of crime.

II.

Have we not advanced far enough intellectually to deny the existence of
chance? Are we not satisfied now that back of every act and thought and
dream and fancy is an efficient cause? Is anything, or can anything,
be produced that is not necessarily produced? Can the fatherless and
motherless exist? Is there not a connection between all events, and is
not every act related to all other acts? Is it not possible, is it not
probable, is it not true, that the actions of all men are determined by
countless causes over which they have no positive control?

Certain it is that men do not prefer unhappiness to joy.

It can hardly be said that man intends permanently to injure himself,
and that he does what he does in order that he may live a life of
misery. On the other hand, we must take it for granted that man
endeavors to better his own condition, and seeks, although by mistaken
ways, his own well-being. The poorest man would like to be rich—the
sick desire health—and no sane man wishes to win the contempt
and hatred of his fellow-men. Every human being prefers liberty to
imprisonment.

Are the brains of criminals exactly like the brains of honest men? Have
criminals the same ambitions, the same standards of happiness or of
well-being? If a difference exists in brain, will that in part account
for the difference in character? Is there anything in heredity? Are
vices as carefully transmitted by nature as virtues? Does each man in
some degree bear burdens imposed by ancestors? We know that diseases of
flesh and blood are transmitted—that the child is the heir of physical
deformity. Are diseases of the brain—are deformities of the soul, of
the mind, also transmitted?

We not only admit, but we assert, that in the physical world there are
causes and effects. We insist that there is and can be no effect
without an efficient cause. When anything happens in that world, we are
satisfied that it was naturally and necessarily produced. The causes may
be obscure, but we as implicitly believe in their existence as when we
know positively what they are. In the physical world we have taken the
ground that there is nothing miraculous—that everything is natural—and
if we cannot explain it, we account for our inability to explain, by
our own ignorance. Is it not possible, is it not probable, that what is
true in the physical world is equally true in the realm of mind—in that
strange world of passion and desire? Is it possible that thoughts or
desires or passions are the children of chance, born of nothing? Can we
conceive of nothing as a force, or as a cause? If, then, there is behind
every thought and desire and passion an efficient cause, we can, in part
at least, account for the actions of men.

A certain man under certain conditions acts in a certain way. There are
certain temptations that he, with his brain, with his experience,
with his intelligence, with his surroundings cannot withstand. He is
irresistibly led to do, or impelled to do, certain things; and there
are other things that he can not do. If we change the conditions of
this man, his actions will be changed. Develop his mind, give him new
subjects of thought, and you change the man; and the man being Changed,
it follows of necessity that his conduct will be different.

In civilized countries the struggle for existence is severe—the
competition far sharper than in savage lands. The consequence is that
there are many failures. These failures lack, it may be, opportunity or
brain or moral force or industry, or something without which, under
the circumstances, success is impossible. Certain lines of conduct are
called legal, and certain others criminal, and the men who fail in one
line may be driven to the other. How do we know that it is possible for
all people to be honest? Are we certain that all people can tell
the truth? Is it possible for all men to be generous or candid or
courageous?

I am perfectly satisfied that there are millions of people incapable of
committing certain crimes, and it may be true that there are millions
of others incapable of practicing certain virtues. We do not blame a man
because he is not a sculptor, a poet, a painter, or a statesman. We say
he has not the genius. Are we certain that it does not require genius
to be good? Where is the man with intelligence enough to take into
consideration the circumstances of each individual case? Who has the
mental balance with which to weigh the forces of heredity, of want, of
temptation,—and who can analyze with certainty the mysterious motions
of the brain? Where and what are the sources of vice and virtue? In what
obscure and shadowy recesses of the brain are passions born? And what is
it that for the moment destroys the sense of right and wrong?

Who knows to what extent reason becomes the prisoner of passion—of
some strange and wild desire, the seeds of which were sown, it may be,
thousands of years ago in the breast of some savage? To what extent do
antecedents and surroundings affect the moral sense?

Is it not possible that the tyranny of governments, the injustice
of nations, the fierceness of what is called the law, produce in the
individual a tendency in the same direction? Is it not true that the
citizen is apt to imitate his nation? Society degrades its enemies—the
individual seeks to degrade his. Society plunders its enemies, and now
and then the citizen has the desire to plunder his. Society kills its
enemies, and possibly sows in the heart of some citizen the seeds of
murder.

Iii

Is it not true that the criminal is a natural product, and that society
unconsciously produces these children of vice? Can we not safely take
another step, and say that the criminal is a victim, as the diseased
and insane and deformed are victims? We do not think of punishing a man
because he is afflicted with disease—our desire is to find a cure. We
send him, not to the penitentiary, but to the hospital, to an asylum.
We do this because we recognize the fact that disease is naturally
produced—that it is inherited from parents, or the result of
unconscious negligence, or it may be of recklessness—but instead of
punishing, we pity. If there are diseases of the mind, of the brain, as
there are diseases of the body; and if these diseases of the mind, these
deformities of the brain, produce, and necessarily produce, what we
call vice, why should we punish the-criminal, and pity those who are
physically diseased?

Socrates, in some respects at least one of the wisest of men, said:
"It is strange that you should not be angry when you meet a man with an
ill-conditioned body, and yet be vexed when you encounter one with an
ill-conditioned soul."

We know that there are deformed bodies, and we are equally certain that
there are deformed minds.

Of course, society has the right to protect itself, no matter whether
the persons who attack its well-being are responsible or not, no matter
whether they are sick in mind, or deformed in brain. The right of
self-defence exists, not only in the individual, but in society. The
great question is, How shall this right of self-defence be exercised?
What spirit shall be in the nation, or in society—the spirit of
revenge, a desire to degrade and punish and destroy, or a spirit born of
the recognition of the fact that criminals are victims?

The world has thoroughly tried confiscation, degradation, imprisonment,
torture and death, and thus far the world has failed. In this connection
I call your attention to the following statistics gathered in our own
country:

In 1850, we had twenty-three millions of people, and between six and
seven thousand prisoners.

In 1860—thirty-one millions of people, and nineteen thousand prisoners.

In 1870—thirty-eight millions of people, and thirty-two thousand
prisoners.

In 1880—fifty millions of people, and fifty-eight thousand prisoners.

It may be curious to note the relation between insanity, pauperism and
crime:

In 1850, there were fifteen thousand insane; in 1860, twenty-four
thousand; in 1870, thirty-seven thousand; in 1880, ninety-one thousand.

In the light of these statistics, we are not succeeding in doing away
with crime. There were in 1880, fifty-eight thousand prisoners, and
in the same year fifty-seven thousand homeless children, and sixty-six
thousand paupers in almshouses.

Is it possible that we must go to the same causes for these effects?

IV.

There is no reformation in degradation. To mutilate a criminal is to say
to all the world that he is a criminal, and to render his reformation
substantially impossible. Whoever is degraded by society becomes its
enemy. The seeds of malice are sown in his heart, and to the day of his
death he will hate the hand that sowed the seeds.

There is also another side to this question. A punishment that degrades
the punished will degrade the man who inflicts the punishment, and will
degrade the government that procures the infliction. The whipping-post
pollutes, not only the whipped, but the whipper, and not only the
whipper, but the community at large. Wherever its shadow falls it
degrades.

If, then, there is no reforming power in degradation—no deterrent
power—for the reason that the degradation of the criminal degrades
the community, and in this way produces more criminals, then the next
question is, Whether there is any reforming power in torture? The
trouble with this is that it hardens and degrades to the last degree the
ministers of the law. Those who are not affected by the agonies of the
bad will in a little time care nothing for the sufferings of the good.
There seems to be a little of the wild beast in men—a something that
is fascinated by suffering, and that delights in inflicting pain. When
a government tortures, it is in the same state of mind that the criminal
was when he committed his crime. It requires as much malice in those
who execute the law, to torture a criminal, as it did in the criminal to
torture and kill his victim. The one was a crime by a person, the other
by a nation.

There is something in injustice, in cruelty, that tends to defeat
itself. There were never as many traitors in England as when the
traitor was drawn and quartered—when he was tortured in every possible
way—when his limbs, torn and bleeding, were given to the fury of
mobs or exhibited pierced by pikes or hung in chains. These frightful
punishments produced intense hatred of the government, and traitors
continued to increase until they became powerful enough to decide what
treason was and who the traitors were, and to inflict the same torments
on others.

Think for a moment of what man has suffered in the cause of crime. Think
of the millions that have been imprisoned, impoverished and degraded
because they were thieves and forgers, swindlers and cheats. Think for
a moment of what they have endured—of the difficulties under which they
have pursued their calling, and it will be exceedingly hard to believe
that they were sane and natural people possessed of good brains,
of minds well-poised, and that they did what they did from a choice
unaffected by heredity and the countless circumstances that tend to
determine the conduct of human beings.

The other day I was asked these questions: "Has there been as much
heroism displayed for the right as for the wrong? Has virtue had as many
martyrs as vice?"

For hundreds of years the world has endeavored to destroy the good by
force. The expression of honest thought was regarded as the greatest of
crimes. Dungeons were filled by the noblest and the best, and the
blood of the bravest was shed by the sword or consumed by flame. It was
impossible to destroy the longing in the heart of man for liberty and
truth. Is it not possible that brute force and cruelty and revenge,
imprisonment, torture and death are as impotent to do away with vice as
to destroy virtue?

In our country there has been for many years a growing feeling that
convicts should neither be degraded nor tortured. It was provided in the
Constitution of the United States that "cruel and unusual punishments
should not be inflicted." Benjamin Franklin took great interest in
the treatment of prisoners, being a thorough believer in the reforming
influence of justice, having no confidence whatever in punishment for
punishment's sake.

To me it has always been a mystery how the average man, knowing
something of the weakness of human nature, something of the temptations
to which he himself has been exposed—remembering the evil of his
life, the things he would have done had there been opportunity, had
he absolutely known that discovery would be impossible—should have
feelings of hatred toward the imprisoned.

Is it possible that the average man assaults the criminal in a spirit
of self-defence? Does he wish to convince his neighbors that the evil
thought and impulse were never in his mind? Are his words a shield that
he uses to protect himself from suspicion? For my part, I sympathize
sincerely with all failures, with the victims of society, with those who
have fallen, with the imprisoned, with the hopeless, with those who have
been stained by verdicts of guilty, and with those who, in the moment of
passion have destroyed, as with a blow, the future of their lives.

How perilous, after all, is the state of man. It is the work of a life
to build a great and splendid character. It is the work of a moment to
destroy it utterly, from turret to foundation stone. How cruel hypocrisy
is!

Is there any remedy? Can anything be done for the reformation of the
criminal?

He should be treated with kindness. Every right should be given him,
consistent with the safety of society. He should neither be degraded
nor robbed. The State should set the highest and noblest example. The
powerful should never be cruel, and in the breast of the supreme there
should be no desire for revenge.

A man in a moment of want steals the property of another, and he is
sent to the penitentiary—first, as it is claimed, for the purpose of
deterring others; and secondly, of reforming him. The circumstances of
each individual case are rarely inquired into. Investigation stops when
the simple fact of the larceny has been ascertained. No distinctions are
made except as between first and subsequent offences. Nothing is allowed
for surroundings.

All will admit that the industrious must be protected. In this world it
is necessary to work. Labor is the foundation of all prosperity. Larceny
is the enemy of industry. Society has the right to protect itself.
The question is, Has it the right to punish?—has it the right to
degrade?—or should it endeavor to reform the convict?

A man is taken to the penitentiary. He is clad in the garments of
a convict. He is degraded—he loses his name—he is designated by a
number. He is no longer treated as a human being—he becomes the slave
of the State. Nothing is done for his improvement—nothing for his
reformation. He is driven like a beast of burden; robbed of his labor;
leased, it may be, by the State to a contractor, who gets out of his
hands, out of his muscles, out of his poor brain, all the toil that he
can. He is not allowed to speak with a fellow-prisoner. At night he
is alone in his cell. The relations that should exist between men are
destroyed. He is a convict. He is no longer worthy to associate even
with his keepers. The jailer is immensely his superior, and the man who
turns the key upon him at night regards himself, in comparison, as a
model of honesty, of virtue and manhood. The convict is pavement on
which those who watch him walk. He remains for the time of his sentence,
and when that expires he goes forth a branded man. He is given money
enough to pay his fare back to the place from whence he came.

What is the condition of this man? Can he get employment? Not if he
honestly states who he is and where he has been. The first thing he does
is to deny his personality, to assume a name. He endeavors by telling
falsehoods to lay the foundation for future good conduct. The average
man does not wish to employ an ex-convict, because the average man has
no confidence in the reforming power of the penitentiary. He believes
that the convict who comes out is worse than the convict who went in.
He knows that in the penitentiary the heart of this man has been
hardened—that he has been subjected to the torture of perpetual
humiliation—that he has been treated like a ferocious beast; and so he
believes that this ex-convict has in his heart hatred for society, that
he feels he has been degraded and robbed. Under these circumstances,
what avenue is opened to the ex-convict? If he changes his name, there
will be some detective, some officer of the law, some meddlesome wretch,
who will betray his secret. He is then discharged. He seeks employment
again, and he must seek it by again telling what is not true. He is
again detected and again discharged. And finally he becomes convinced
that he cannot live as an honest man. He naturally drifts back into the
society of those who have had a like experience; and the result is
that in a little while he again stands in the dock, charged with the
commission of another crime. Again he is sent to the penitentiary—and
this is the end. He feels that his day is done, that the future has only
degradation for him.

The men in the penitentiaries do not work for themselves. Their labor
belongs to others. They have no interest in their toil—no reason for
doing the best they can—and the result is that the product of their
labor is poor. This product comes in competition with the work of
mechanics, honest men, who have families to support, and the cry is that
convict labor takes the bread from the mouths of virtuous people.

VI.

Why should the State take without compensation the labor of these men;
and why should they, after having been imprisoned for years, be turned
out without the means of support? Would it not be far better, far
more economical, to pay these men for their labor, to lay aside their
earnings from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year—to
put this money at interest, so that when the convict is released after
five years of imprisonment he will have several hundred dollars of his
own—not merely money enough to pay his way back to the place from which
he was sent, but enough to make it possible for him to commence business
on his own account, enough to keep the wolf of crime from the door of
his heart?

Suppose the convict comes out with five hundred dollars. This would be
to most of that class a fortune. It would form a breastwork, a fortress,
behind which the man could fight temptation. This would give him food
and raiment, enable him to go to some other State or country where he
could redeem himself. If this were done, thousands of convicts would
feel under immense obligation to the Government. They would think of the
penitentiary as the place in which they were saved—in which they were
redeemed—and they would feel that the verdict of guilty rescued them
from the abyss of crime. Under these circumstances, the law would appear
beneficent, and the heart of the poor convict, instead of being filled
with malice, would overflow with gratitude. He would see the propriety
of the course pursued by the Government. He would recognize and feel and
experience the benefits of this course, and the result would be good,
not only to him, but to the nation as well.

If the convict worked for himself, he would do the best he could, and
the wares produced in the penitentiaries would not cheapen the labor of
other men.

Vii

There are, however, men who pursue crime as a vocation—as a
profession—men who have been convicted again and again, and who will
persist in using the liberty of intervals to prey upon the rights of
others. What shall be done with these men and women?

Put one thousand hardened thieves on an island—compel them to produce
what they eat and use—and I am almost certain that a large majority
would be opposed to theft. Those who worked would not permit those
who did not, to steal the result of their labor. In other words,
self-preservation would be the dominant idea, and these men would
instantly look upon the idlers as the enemies of their society.

Such a community would be self-supporting. Let women of the same class
be put by themselves. Keep the sexes absolutely apart. Those who are
beyond the power of reformation should not have the liberty to reproduce
themselves. Those who cannot be reached by kindness—by justice—those
who under no circumstances are willing to do their share, should be
separated. They should dwell apart, and dying, should leave no heirs.

What shall be done with the slayers of their fellow-men—with murderers?
Shall the nation take life?

It has been contended that the death penalty deters others—that it has
far more terror than imprisonment for life. What is the effect of the
example set by a nation? Is not the tendency to harden and degrade not
only those who inflict and those who witness, but the entire community
as well?

A few years ago a man was hanged in Alexandria, Virginia. One who
witnessed the execution, on that very day, murdered a peddler in the
Smithsonian grounds at Washington. He was tried and executed, and one
who witnessed his hanging went home, and on the same day murdered his
wife.

The tendency of the extreme penalty is to prevent conviction. In the
presence of death it is easy for a jury to find a doubt. Technicalities
become important, and absurdities, touched with mercy, have the
appearance for a moment of being natural and logical. Honest and
conscientious men dread a final and irrevocable step. If the penalty
were imprisonment for life, the jury would feel that if any mistake were
made it could be rectified; but where the penalty is death a mistake is
fatal. A conscientious man takes into consideration the defects of human
nature—the uncertainty of testimony, and the countless shadows that
dim and darken the understanding, and refuses to find a verdict that, if
wrong, cannot be righted.

The death penalty, inflicted by the Government, is a perpetual excuse
for mobs.

The greatest danger in a Republic is a mob, and as long as States
inflict the penalty of death, mobs will follow the example. If the State
does not consider life sacred, the mob, with ready rope, will strangle
the suspected. The mob will say: "The only difference is in the trial;
the State does the same—we know the man is guilty—why should time
be wasted in technicalities?" In other words, why may not the mob do
quickly that which the State does slowly?

Every execution tends to harden the public heart—tends to lessen
the sacredness of human life. In many States of this Union the mob is
supreme. For certain offences the mob is expected to lynch the supposed
criminal. It is the duty of every citizen—and as it seems to me
especially of every lawyer—to do what he can to destroy the mob spirit.
One would think that men would be afraid to commit any crime in a
community where the mob is in the ascendency, and yet, such are the
contradictions and subtleties of human nature, that it is exactly the
opposite. And there is another thing in this connection—the men who
constitute the mob are, as a rule, among the worst, the lowest, and the
most depraved.

A few years ago, in Illinois, a man escaped from jail, and, in escaping,
shot the sheriff. He was pursued, overtaken—lynched. The man who put
the rope around his neck was then out on bail, having been indicted for
an assault to murder. And after the poor wretch was dead, another man
climbed the tree from which he dangled and, in derision, put a cigar in
the mouth of the dead; and this man was on bail, having been indicted
for larceny.

Those who are the fiercest to destroy and hang their fellow-men for
having committed crimes, are, for the most part, at heart, criminals
themselves.

As long as nations meet on the fields of war—as long as they sustain
the relations of savages to each other—as long as they put the laurel
and the oak on the brows of those who kill—just so long will citizens
resort to violence, and the quarrels of individuals be settled by dagger
and revolver.

Viii

If we are to change the conduct of men, we must change their conditions.
Extreme poverty and crime go hand in hand. Destitution multiplies
temptations and destroys the finer feelings. The bodies and souls of men
are apt to be clad in like garments. If the body is covered with rags,
the soul is generally in the same condition. Selfrespect is gone—the
man looks down—he has neither hope nor courage. He becomes sinister—he
envies the prosperous—hates the fortunate, and despises himself.

As long as children are raised in the tenement and gutter, the prisons
will be full. The gulf between the rich and poor will grow wider and
wider. One will depend on cunning, the other on force. It is a great
question whether those who live in luxury can afford to allow others to
exist in want. The value of property depends, not on the prosperity
of the few, but on the prosperity of a very large majority. Life and
property must be secure, or that subtle thing called "value" takes its
leave. The poverty of the many is a perpetual menace. If we expect a
prosperous and peaceful country, the citizens must have homes. The more
homes, the more patriots, the more virtue, and the more security for all
that gives worth to life.

We need not repeat the failures of the old world. To divide lands among
successful generals, or among favorites of the crown, to give vast
estates for services rendered in war, is no worse than to allow men of
great wealth to purchase and hold vast tracts of land. The result is
precisely the same—that is to say, a nation composed of a few landlords
and of many tenants—the tenants resorting from time to time to mob
violence, and the landlords depending upon a standing army. The property
of no man, however, should be taken for either private or public use
without just compensation and in accordance with law. There is in the
State what is known as the right of eminent domain. The State reserves
to itself the power to take the land of any private citizen for a public
use, paying to that private citizen a just compensation to be legally
ascertained. When a corporation wishes to build a railway, it exercises
this right of eminent domain, and where the owner of land refuses to
sell a right of way, or land for the establishment of stations or shops,
and the corporation proceeds to condemn the land to ascertain its value,
and when the amount thus ascertained is paid, the property vests in the
corporation. This power is exercised because in the estimation of the
people the construction of a railway is a public good.

I believe that this power should be exercised in another direction. It
would be well as it seems to me, for the Legislature to fix the amount
of land that a private citizen may own, that will not be subject to be
taken for the use of which I am about to speak. The amount to be thus
held will depend upon many local circumstances, to be decided by each
State for itself. Let me suppose that the amount of land that may be
held for a farmer for cultivation has been fixed at one hundred and
sixty acres—and suppose that A has several thousand acres. B wishes to
buy one hundred and sixty acres or less of this land, for the purpose
of making himself a home. A refuses to sell. Now, I believe that the law
should be so that B can invoke this right of eminent domain, and
file his petition, have the case brought before a jury, or before
commissioners, who shall hear the evidence and determine the value, and
on the payment of the amount the land shall belong to B.

I would extend the same law to lots and houses in cities and
villages—the object being to fill our country with the owners of homes,
so that every child shall have a fireside, every father and mother a
roof, provided they have the intelligence, the energy and the industry
to acquire the necessary means.

Tenements and flats and rented lands are, in my judgment, the enemies of
civilization. They make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. They put a
few in palaces, but they put many in prisons.

I would go a step further than this. I would exempt homes of a certain
value not only from levy and sale, but from every kind of taxation,
State and National—so that these poor people would feel that they were
in partnership with nature—that some of the land was absolutely theirs,
and that no one could drive them from their home—so that mothers could
feel secure. If the home increased in value, and exceeded the limit,
then taxes could be paid on the excess; and if the home were sold, I
would have the money realized exempt for a certain time in order that
the family should have the privilege of buying another home.

The home, after all, is the unit of civilization, of good government;
and to secure homes for a great majority of our citizens, would be to
lay the foundation of our Government deeper and broader and stronger
than that of any nation that has existed among men.

IX.

No one places a higher value upon the free school than I do; and no one
takes greater pride in the prosperity of our colleges and universities.
But at the same time, much that is called education simply unfits men
successfully to fight the battle of life. Thousands are to-day studying
things that will be of exceedingly little importance to them or to
others. Much valuable time is wasted in studying languages that long ago
were dead, and histories in which there is no truth.

There was an idea in the olden time—and it is not yet dead—that
whoever was educated ought not to work; that he should use his head
and not his hands. Graduates were ashamed to be found engaged in manual
labor, in ploughing fields, in sowing or in gathering grain. To this
manly kind of independence they preferred the garret and the precarious
existence of an unappreciated poet, borrowing their money from their
friends, and their ideas from the dead. The educated regarded the useful
as degrading—they were willing to stain their souls to keep their hands
white.

The object of all education should be to increase the use fulness of
man—usefulness to himself and others. Every human being should be
taught that his first duty is to take care of himself, and that to be
self-respecting he must be self-supporting. To live on the labor of
others, either by force which enslaves, or by cunning which robs, or by
borrowing or begging, is wholly dishonorable. Every man should be taught
some useful art. His hands should be educated as well as his head. He
should be taught to deal with things as they are—with life as it
is. This would give a feeling of independence, which is the firmest
foundation of honor, of character. Every man knowing that he is useful,
admires himself.

In all the schools children should be taught to work in wood and
iron, to understand the construction and use of machinery, to become
acquainted with the great forces that man is using to do his work. The
present system of education teaches names, not things. It is as though
we should spend years in learning the names of cards, without playing a
game.

In this way boys would learn their aptitudes—would ascertain what they
were fitted for—what they could do. It would not be a guess, or an
experiment, but a demonstration. Education should increase a boy's
chances for getting a living. The real good of it is to get food and
roof and raiment, opportunity to develop the mind and the body and live
a full and ample life.

The more real education, the less crime—and the more homes, the fewer
prisons.

X.

The fear of punishment may deter some, the fear of exposure others; but
there is no real reforming power in fear or punishment. Men cannot be
tortured into greatness, into goodness. All this, as I said before, has
been thoroughly tried. The idea that punishment was the only relief,
found its limit, its infinite, in the old doctrine of eternal pain; but
the believers in that dogma stated distinctly that the victims never
would be, and never could be, reformed.

As men become civilized they become capable of greater pain and of
greater joy. To the extent that the average man is capable of enjoying
or suffering, to that extent he has sympathy with others. The average
man, the more enlightened he becomes, the more apt he is to put himself
in the place of another. He thinks of his prisoner, of his employee, of
his tenant—and he even thinks beyond these; he thinks of the community
at large. As man becomes civilized he takes more and more into
consideration circumstances and conditions. He gradually loses faith in
the old ideas and theories that every man can do as he wills, and in the
place of the word "wills," he puts the word "must." The time comes
to the intelligent man when in the place of punishments he thinks of
consequences, results—that is to say, not something inflicted by some
other power, but something necessarily growing out of what is done. The
clearer men perceive the consequences of actions, the better they will
be. Behind consequences we place no personal will, and consequently do
not regard them as inflictions, or punishments. Consequences, no matter
how severe they may be, create in the mind no feeling of resentment, no
desire for revenge.' We do not feel bitterly toward the fire because it
burns, or the frost that freezes, or the flood that overwhelms, or the
sea that drowns—because we attribute to these things no motives, good
or bad. So, when through the development of the intellect man perceives
not only the nature, but the absolute certainty of consequences, he
refrains from certain actions, and this may be called reformation
through the intellect—and surely there is no better reformation than
this. Some may be, and probably millions have been, reformed, through
kindness, through gratitude—made better in the sunlight of charity.
In the atmosphere of kindness the seeds of virtue burst into bud
and flower. Cruelty, tyranny, brute force, do not and can not by any
possibility better the heart of man. He who is forced upon his knees has
the attitude, but never the feeling, of prayer.

I am satisfied that the discipline of the average prison hardens and
degrades. It is for the most part a perpetual exhibition of arbitrary
power. There is really no appeal. The cries of the convict are not heard
beyond the walls. The protests die in cells, and the poor prisoner feels
that the last tie between him and his fellow-men has been broken. He is
kept in ignorance of the outer world. The prison is a cemetery, and his
cell is a grave.

In many of the penitentiaries there are instruments of torture, and now
and then a convict is murdered. Inspections and investigations go
for naught, because the testimony of a convict goes for naught. He is
generally prevented by fear from telling his wrongs; but if he speaks,
he is not believed—he is regarded as less than a human being, and so
the imprisoned remain without remedy. When the visitors are gone, the
convict who has spoken is prevented from speaking again.

Every manly feeling, every effort toward real reformation, is trampled
under foot, so that when the convict's time is out there is little left
on which to build. He has been humiliated to the last degree, and his
spirit has so long been bent by authority and fear that even the desire
to stand erect has almost faded from the mind. The keepers feel that
they are safe, because no matter what they do, the convict when released
will not tell the story of his wrongs, for if he conceals his shame, he
must also hide their guilt.

Every penitentiary should be a real reformatory. That should be the
principal object for the establishment of the prison. The men in charge
should be of the kindest and noblest. They should be filled with divine
enthusiasm for humanity, and every means should be taken to convince
the prisoner that his good is sought—that nothing is done for
revenge—nothing for a display of power, and nothing for the
gratification of malice. He should feel that the warden is his unselfish
friend. When a convict is charged with a violation of the rules—with
insubordination, or with any offence, there should be an investigation
in due and proper form, giving the convict an opportunity to be heard.
He should not be for one moment the victim of irresponsible power. He
would then feel that he had some rights, and that some little of
the human remained in him still. They should be taught things of
value—instructed by competent men. Pains should be taken, not to
punish, not to degrade, but to benefit and ennoble.

We know, if we know anything, that men in the penitentiaries are not
altogether bad, and that many out are not altogether good; and we feel
that in the brain and heart of all, there are the seeds of good and bad.
We know, too, that the best are liable to fall, and it may be that the
worst, under certain conditions, may be capable of grand and heroic
deeds. Of one thing we may be assured—and that is, that criminals will
never be reformed by being robbed, humiliated and degraded.

Ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. As long as
dishonorable success outranks honest effort—as long as society bows and
cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to
fill the jails.

XI.

All the penalties, all the punishments, are inflicted under a belief
that man can do right under all circumstances—that his conduct is
absolutely under his control, and that his will is a pilot that can,
in spite of winds and tides, reach any port desired. All this is, in my
judgment, a mistake. It is a denial of the integrity of nature. It is
based upon the supernatural and miraculous, and as long as this mistake
remains the corner-stone of criminal jurisprudence, reformation will be
impossible.

We must take into consideration the nature of man—the facts of
mind—the power of temptation—the limitations of the intellect—the
force of habit—the result of heredity—the power of passion—the
domination of want—the diseases of the brain—the tyranny of
appetite—the cruelty of conditions—the results of association—the
effects of poverty and wealth, of helplessness and power.

Until these subtle things are understood—until we know that man, in
spite of all, can certainly pursue the highway of the right, society
should not impoverish and degrade, should not chain and kill those who,
after all, may be the helpless victims of unknown causes that are deaf
and blind.

We know something of ourselves—of the average man—of his thoughts,
passions, fears and aspirations—something of his sorrows and his joys,
his weakness, his liability to fall—something of what he resists—the
struggles, the victories and the failures of his life. We know something
of the tides and currents of the mysterious sea—something of the
circuits of the wayward winds—but we do not know where the wild storms
are born that wreck and rend. Neither do we know in what strange realm
the mists and clouds are formed that darken all the heaven of the mind,
nor from whence comes the tempest of the brain in which the will to
do, sudden as the lightning's flash, seizes and holds the man until the
dreadful deed is done that leaves a curse upon the soul.

We do not know. Our ignorance should make us hesitate. Our weakness
should make us merciful.

I cannot more fittingly close this address than by quoting the prayer
of the Buddhist: "I pray thee to have pity on the vicious—thou hast
already had pity on the virtuous by making them so."
