Baltimore Evening Sun (12 September 1912): 6.

The boomers! The boomers! Again they’re on the way! And soon we’ll see pictures in the papers every day!

Legend from a cartoon in the oleomaniacal Evening Serviette of yesterday afternoon:

BUSINESS MAN--Mr. Mayor, if the public knew but half the good work you are doing, you would he flooded with congratulations!

Is this a confession? Can it be that the public does not know, after Serviette and Hot Towel have been intoning the glad gospel for 16 months, and aiming at their hero such staggering discharges of vaseline, goose grease, graphite, tallow, lard, talcum, cold cream, witch hazel and mayonnaise? Can it be, in brief, that the public doesn’t read these greasy sheets? Let us hear from the Serviette on that subject.

The late grand jury on the dark cell for rebellious convicts at the Penitentiary:

The cell is small, little ventilated and inquisitorial.

More evidence that the Unspeakable Weyler should be canned. What is demanded, of course, is a cell as large as the Fifth Regiment Armory, fitted with shower baths, pianolas, punching bags and the works of Bulwer Lyiton. The niggero rapist who diverts himself in durance by breaking the rules and defying the guards must be “reformed,” and the one way to “reform” him is to coddle him, coax him, appeal to his “better instincts.” Don’t cuff him up! Don’t put him on bread and water! Don’t lock him in a dark cell! Don’t do anything to invade his self-respect!

Well, dear hearts, how would you like the job of “reforming” him on such terms? How would you like to trust your lives to him, with no means at hand for intimidating him, coercing him, breaking him? In the Penitentiary, I believe, the ratio of prisoners to guards is as 20 to 1. What chance would these guards have against the worst prisoners if the latter didn’t fear. them? And how are you going to instill fear into black scoundrels without attacking their hides and stomachs?

The grand jury denounces cuffing up as cruel, but offers nothing in place of it. Let us see how often its cruelty bears upon the average prisoner. The report of the warden gives the figures. Between May 1, 1911, and April 30, 1912, a period of one year, exactly 159 different men were cuffed up in the Penitentiary, an average of three a week. During that same time 1,416 different prisoners were in the prison. That is to say, but 11.2 per cent. of the prisoners were cuffed up at all. And a further inspection shows that but 42 of these, or rather less then 3 per cent., were cuffed up more than once. Is it hard to believe that 3 per cent. of the men in the Penitentiary are bad eggs, chronic lawbreakers, incurable criminals? I think not.

Some of the men thus punished were rebels of truly amazing pertinacity. No less than 59 of them, or 32 per cent., were before the warden ten times or mope for infractions of the rules. Fourteen were up 15 times or more. Four actually came before him 20 times or more. Imagine a man breaking the rules 20 times in a year, or, as in two cases, 23 times! Is such a fellow to be coddled, melted, reasoned with? Is there much chance of making a good prisoner of him by appealing to his intelligence? If he had any intelligence, wouldn’t he know that the rules must be obeyed? And having none, isn’t it necessary, for the sake of common order, to convince him by force?

The rules at the Penitentiary are not oppressive. The testimony of all the released convicts whom I have encountered is that they are strict but fair, that the man of ordinary good sense sees their necessity and finds it easy to obey them. That this is true is shown by the fact that half of the men in the Penitentiary never break them at all. During the year we have been considering, for example, but 769 of the 1,416 prisoners were reported to the warden, or, say, 64 per cent.; and of this number, 197 were reported but once during the whole year, and 337 but twice. Setting these aside, as chance misdemeanants, there remain but 432 who came into what may be fairly called conflict with the rules, or less than one-third of the total number of prisoners. The other two-thirds remained in order.

As for the comparative cruelty of the Unspeakable Weyler, it loses 99 per cent. of its horror when the actual figures are inspected. During the last year of Warden Wilkinson’s administration, in 1881-2, the ratio of prisoners flogged to prisoners reported was as 14.75 is to 100. During the last year of Warden Horn’s administration, in 1887-8, it was as 12=5 to 100. But during the first year of 1888-9, it dropped to 4 in 100, and last year, despite the abandonment of flogging and the adoption of the milder cuffing, it was but 7.6 in 100.

So much for the facts. They are not very poetical, it must be admitted. They do not give support to pious slobber-gobble. They have no drama in them. But they will have to be taken into account, I venture to opine, if the present investigation of the Penitentiary is to yield results of real and permanent value. The system in vogue there may need a radical overhauling. It may be defective in principle and ineffective in practice. But at its worst, it must needs be better than any system based upon the romantic notion that negro cutthroats are pathetic unfortunates, and that the way to deal with them is to treat them like Sunday-school pupils.

It is easy enough for a grand jury to spend four hours gathering the secret evidence of rebellious convicts and then denounce the whole institution. It is easy enough, in a place covering a whole city block and housing 1,000 men, to find a few roaches, a few places that the broom has missed. And it is easy enough for a well-fed grand juryman, trying the cuffs for 30 seconds, to conclude sagaciously that they hurt. But what do grand jurymen know, practically speaking, of the hard business of dealing daily with convicts, of its difficulties and dangers?

They are, as a rule, business men of middle age, men who, before their brief term of service, have never got closer to a yeggman than his picture in the newspapers. Are they competent, after four hours’ examination, to decide precisely how that yeggman is to be handled? Are they more competent than the warden of the Penitentiary to lay down rules for its government? Are they more competent, to come closer, than the members of the board? I think not. I may be wrong, and if I am, I apologize with tears in my eyes--but I think not.

Boil your drinking water! Let no guilty coli communis escape!