Prisons and Prayer Part 30

UNJUSTLY CONDEMNED.

Judges often sentence men and women to years of hard labor in prison for the slightest offenses. An old colored man employed in a store took a box of cigars, but regretting the act, returned them confessing his wrong, and asked forgiveness. He was arrested and sentenced to twenty-five years in the stockade; one year for each cigar. Another colored man was found on the street at night carrying five ears of corn. He was sentenced to prison for five years. He with others was working where the earth caved in and killed him. Who will answer in the day of Judgment for that man's life and death? Yes, and his soul?

Were I to here relate some things I know to be true, awful in the extreme, they would not be believed. Let us have the laws of G.o.d enforced. Let those who may be anxious to punish wrong and have men condemned upon circ.u.mstantial evidence, look into their own hearts and lives and see if they have been free from condemnation. I do not want to condemn judges nor jurymen, for they are not all to blame. A man or woman should never be condemned until known to be guilty. People are often prejudiced, and without proper investigation many are condemned to punishment for crimes of which they are innocent. The cries of such are come up before the Lord and He will hear and answer prayer. At one time there were forty stockades in one state and about four thousand prisoners in one state. Let us help those that are down.

In many stockades I found men and women living together promiscuously and children being born in the camp. The poor creatures were subjected to all kinds of abuse and suffering, the women in great need of better quarters, better food, and care. Ofttimes they were afraid for their very lives. Many were killed outright; in one place where they were far out in the coal mines many were brutally whipped and ill-treated.

I went to the Lord in prayer, and then to the state authorities and the Governor went out with men and opened the graves of many, who had died in camps. One of the officers was imprisoned for ten years; another made his escape; others were dealt with more or less severely.

I had been out there myself, getting on the engine to ride out to the stockade, and requested to see the prisoners after their day's work was done, and as they came up from the mines they were so ragged that I was compelled to turn my back as they pa.s.sed. I got permission to hold a Gospel meeting. After it was over, I requested the captain to let one of his men take us to the next house, a distance of a mile or more from the camp. When we knocked asking permission to stay for the night, and telling who we were, the woman of the house said, "You had better go and preach to those prison guards, who are killing off the poor prisoners." She said she could not stand it to hear such awful cries as reached her ears even at that distance from the stockade. She told the guard just what she thought of the brutality shown the prisoners and convicts. He said he was not to blame. He seemed to be a kind young man.

In one place I found one old colored man who was condemned to death.

He was filthy and dirty and had nothing to lie on but a heap of straw; he was hungry and his cell was dark and damp. My heart ached to see him so shamefully abused. Even condemned men have rights and they should be respected; it is enough for them to know that they are to die a horrible death, without having all kinds of abuse heaped upon them; yet I have seen this in many prisons. How is it that friends are so often denied the privilege of seeing those that are under death sentence or those who are sick and dying? Let the truth be told and let there be some one to investigate these things. I believe that those who are most against prisoners, are those who are not familiar with the conditions. Let good discipline be maintained, but let prisoners never be brutally treated, simply because they are powerless to help themselves. I find many things going on that are not right, but I have never made complaint to the governors of the states, unless compelled to do so, because of cases of extreme cruelty.

NEED OF REFORM.

There is great need of reformation in the management of prisons, and especially in the prison lease system and management of women prisoners in the south. Oh, the shocking sights that have greeted me on almost every hand! There is nothing more heart-rending to me than the terrible, brutal treatment of helpless humanity. These prisoners are entirely at the mercy of officers who are oftentimes void of feeling, coa.r.s.e and vulgar in the extreme. To get positions and make money is the aim of many of today. The poor unfortunates shut up in prisons and asylums are in many cases most shamefully mistreated. They are supposed to be there for the purpose of reformation or treatment, but were it not for the grace of G.o.d in my soul, I never could endure the torture and anguish resulting from the sufferings I find among these poor helpless men and women. I am not supposed to know the conditions in these places, but twenty years of experience going inside these walls have opened my eyes and I get behind the scenes.

There is a time of settling up of accounts and there will be a final reckoning day at the judgment bar of G.o.d, for what was done in this life, and how many will be weighed in the balance and found wanting!

The following paper by Clarissa Olds Keeler was written to Brother S.

B. Shaw and read at the meeting of the National Convocation for Prayer at St. Louis, Mo., May, 1903, and will serve to convey some idea of conditions as they have existed in some parts of our land; though we are glad to say that they are somewhat improved, in many places at least.

"LET THE SIGHING OF THE PRISONER COME BEFORE THEE."

"Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place."--2 Chron. 7:15.

When attending the Christian Workers' Convention in New York in 1887 a man from Tennessee also attending the convention, said to me, "I wonder the Christian people do not take up the work of alleviating the sufferings of prisoners in the Southern States."

For years he had been an eye witness to treatment which he described as "most atrocious," and the condition of the convicts, especially those hired to contractors to work in coal mines, as one of "starvation, fear and disgusting filth." Since these words were spoken to me I have spared no pains to inform myself about this new and most revolting form of slavery, and I can find no words more applicable than these: "This is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses; they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil and none saith, Restore. Who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come?" (Isaiah 42:22, 23.)

Each one of the twelve convict leasing states has had its own b.l.o.o.d.y record which has been written down in G.o.d's book.

Influential politicians, United States Senators from both north and south, members of state legislatures, private citizens, heartless corporations, have all shared in the money coined out of the bodies and blood of convicts in our southern states.

But it is not my purpose now to go over the past. Wherever the convict lease system has been introduced "Its presence has," as a Georgian once said, "been marked by a trail of blood." The accounts of this ghastly inst.i.tution are too revolting to present.

But I want to call the attention of the Christian people to the present condition of convicts, most of whom are colored, and many of whom are guilty of but trifling offences and some of them none at all.

A man in Buncome County, North Carolina, wrote to the _Asheville Gazette_, under date of March 15, 1903: "Where are we at and where is the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals that they or the Christian world have never heard the cries from the poor unfortunate prisoners in the buck and the ringing of the cruel blood stained lash? I have seen white men beaten until their persons were blue and blood oozing from the lash from the captain's hands in the Buncome chain-gang. And negroes--there is no use talking." These prisoners, the writer says, have been guilty of some misdemeanor and being poor and unable to pay a fine are "sent to the road prison and there the lash is administered on the naked back contrary to the spirit of the const.i.tution in abolis.h.i.+ng imprisonment for debt and the lash at the whipping-post."

Now I would suggest that a society be formed for the prevention of cruelty to prisoners. While the good people are praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on other lands may they not forget that we need a baptism of fire right here in our own land.

Our Saviour's last act of mercy and forgiving love was shown toward a prisoner and shall we imitate His example, or shall we not? His last command was: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to _every creature_." How many inmates of our prisons have the gospel presented to them? When we all meet at the judgment, as meet we must, how many will be there from the mining pits and prison pens who can say truthfully, "No man cared for my soul!" Neither do we care for the bodies of these unfortunates; and as proof of this I will give you a few extracts from papers of recent date.

When the National Conference of Charities and Corrections was holding its session in Atlanta the first of the present month, some of the delegates were invited to visit the city prison stockade where misdemeanor convicts are housed at night. This was done "just for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the delegates." Hear what Mr.

Timothy Nicholson of Indiana, a delegate, said about his visit to this "school of crime." He says: "I found in one room one hundred and sixty prisoners, white men and women, black men and women and even children, both black and white, male and female, all mixed together indiscriminately. I was surprised and shocked to find such a condition of affairs in a civilized country. It is simply a shame and disgrace to civilization." The delegates declared the place "inhuman and degrading." Yet this does not fully represent the awful pen picture that might be given of this cla.s.s of prisoners in the county chain gangs all over the state.

The following extracts are taken from an account given by an Atlanta correspondent of the _Was.h.i.+ngton Post_ written under date of May 5, 1903. "Revelations made to the Ware County grand jury in regard to the horrors of the Georgia convict camps reached Governor Terrell today. Hon. E---- M----, one of the leading members of the Georgia House of Representatives, is involved in the findings of the grand jury.

"According to the report M---- and his brother operate an extensive camp in Lowndes County. Witnesses before the grand jury testified that in the M---- camp the brutalities are such that it is revolting to describe them. For the slightest offence, it is alleged, prisoners are stripped and chained and unmercifully lashed by the whipping bosses. It is also alleged that the M---- brothers go into counties adjoining Lowndes, pay the fines of misdemeanor convicts, carry such convicts to their Ware County (convict) camp and there keep them in serviture long after the term for which the criminals were sentenced have expired.

"The grand jury claims that at least twenty citizens of Ware County are held as slaves in M----'s camp although their terms expired over a year ago. There men are kept in stockade about which armed guards march in order to prevent an escape, and men thus illegally detained who escaped have been chased by bloodhounds and recaptured."

Official reports show that this cla.s.s of convicts are guilty of but trifling offences and some are vagrants. (For further particulars see _Atlanta Journal_ May 5 and 11, 1903.)

The penitentiary convicts of Georgia are worked in coal mines and are subject to the same treatment. An experienced penologist said recently concerning convicts worked in the mines: "In the rooms of the mines are perpetrated practices too horrible to mention.

They become the nesting places of a b.e.s.t.i.a.lity that in many cases lead the liberated convict into that crime to punish which the mob, the rope and the stake are ever ready." (See Atlanta Const.i.tution, May 14, 1903.)

Under the heading "Convict Camp Horrors," the editor of the Memphis, Tennessee, _Commercial Appeal_ says in his paper, dated April 11, 1903, concerning the facts recently brought out by the legislative investigating committee: "The stories coming from Brushy Mountain mines, with side lights from the state's convict system, generally, furnish painful reading to the people of Tennessee. When human beings who through fault or fortune's untowardness are condemned to helpless and unresisting servitude and who are subjected to torments and tortures, floggings and flaggellations which are merciful only where they terminated in speedy death, humanity is outraged and a sort of savagery in the public cries out for speedy vengeance." Continuing the editor says:

"Convicts have been whipped to death. Convicts have been whipped into physical helplessness. Convicts have been whipped sufficiently to keep them in bed for months and injure them permanently. Torturing them in the prison or in the mine recesses is a sin against high heaven." These are some of the facts brought to light by the prison investigating committee.

The average number of prisoners worked in the Brushy Mountain mines is about seven hundred and fifty. These convicts, which form but a part of the number of the state's convicts, and who were so inhumanly treated, earned last year for the state, clear of all expenses, the sum of one hundred and ninety-five thousand, seven hundred dollars. (See Nashville American, March 30, 1903.)

Recent developments also show that many innocent men are kidnapped and worked and treated as convicts; especially is this done in Alabama. Women and children share the same fate. During the recent investigation into the enforced slavery of negroes in Alabama by the United States Secret Service, among the abuses which were unearthed was the whipping to death of a negro woman.

"This woman accused of being rebellious was laid across a log and given one hundred lashes. Still showing a rebellious spirit her hands were tied, and the rope was thrown over the limb of a tree and pulled up so as to make it barely possible for her feet to reach the ground. The woman, it is said, died two days later."

(See Was.h.i.+ngton Times, May 29, 1903.)

The system of peonage slavery has been practiced for years in Alabama and Georgia. One of the most successful plans practiced is to bring a negro before a magistrate on a flimsy charge. As the matter has been arranged beforehand, the negro is convicted, and having no money to pay his fine, a white man offers to advance him money provided the negro will make a labor contract with him for the money and trouble he has taken to keep the negro out of jail. He is taken away and begins what is usually a long term of cruel servitude, frequently whipped unmercifully, and every moment watched by armed guards ready to shoot him down at any attempt to escape.

Among the evils which have grown out of the prison contract system, the number of which is legion, is that of turning out men and women, boys and girls, thoroughly educated in these schools of crime. They are thrown upon the world homeless and friendless to poison and destroy those with whom they come in contact. Many soon find their way back into prison, and some end their lives upon the gallows.

We sometimes on a Sabbath morning hear the President of the United States prayed for, but what minister ever prays for the poor parish behind prison bars?

When the book is opened and we hear the words: "I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me not," what are we going to answer?

1415 A. St., S. E., Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. CLARISSA OLDS KEELER.

For about four years at times Mrs. M. A. Perry, of Was.h.i.+ngton, D C., traveled with me. In answer to my request for a brief report of the work during that time I received a lengthy letter, from which I extract the following:

Dear Sister Wheaton:

I praise G.o.d for the privilege of adding a few words for your book.

May the blessing of G.o.d rest upon it. To the readers I will say: I first met Mrs. Wheaton in Boston, in February, 1893, in the home of H.

L. Hastings, the well-known publisher, where she was a guest. She had then spent ten years in prison and other evangelistic work. I had visited a jail and stationhouses, but never a penitentiary. We first went to the Boston and Maine Railway office. Sister Wheaton said: "You pray while I go and ask for a pa.s.s to go to the Thomaston, Maine, prison." In about ten minutes she returned with the desired transportation. By the kindness of the railroad officials from ocean to ocean they have helped to forward the work of G.o.d. Many earnest prayers are offered by Mrs. Wheaton for these men. We never boarded a train without asking our Heavenly Father to bless the train men from the engineer to the flagman. Many times we have spoken to conductors who have said, "No one ever talks to railroad men about their souls."

At Thomaston we had to wait until Sunday morning to enter the prison.

If ever the Lord Jesus Christ revealed Himself in a prison chapel He was in the midst that Sabbath day. While "Mother Wheaton" preached, I prayed for her and the presence of the Holy Spirit was so manifest that every man expressed a desire to serve G.o.d. The result of that day's work for the Master will not be known until we meet when Jesus will reward his servants.

We next went to the jail in Bangor, Maine, and G.o.d blessed the work there in the salvation of souls. Then we went to the prison in Wethersfield, Connecticut, and from there to the Vermont State Prison at Windsor. But I cannot tell about them all! But wherever we went I saw that the prisoners, both men and women, greeted "Mother Wheaton"

with a heartfelt welcome.

We went to the prisons of New York state--to Auburn, Sing Sing, the Troy jail and on to Buffalo. We visited the penitentiaries in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and the workhouses of Maryland and the District of Columbia. We met in these places many precious souls whom the Lord gave his life to redeem and many of them were Christians. The blood of Jesus is all powerful to reach any man or woman who will repent and forsake sin and believe in Him. We have great reason to praise G.o.d for the power of the Holy Spirit to reach the hardest hearts. But O, there are behind the bars and "in the shadow of the walls" loving and tender hearts. O, that professors of religion would wake up to the fact that when Jesus, the King of Glory, shall come He will say, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me."

May G.o.d by his presence and power reveal to the managers of penal inst.i.tutions in every land and nation that Jesus Christ is the friend of sinners in every condition. I believe the dear Lord Himself has put such love for prisoners in the heart of our sister Wheaton that she is willing to take a mother's place--no matter when she sees them. In riding along on the trains sometimes we came to prisoners (leased out to hard labor) in the most unexpected places. We were soon off the train to look after these men who were marched from the camp or stockade.

I must speak of some of the experiences we had in the prisons, stockades and prison farms of the southern states. We were, in most cases, courteously received and entertained by the wardens and their families. G.o.d bless the men who have done what they could! But O, how I have been shocked at things we saw in these places, many of which I cannot write. I wish I could give some idea of how glad the poor manacled prisoners were to see their white-haired "mother" come again.

I believe the seed sown shall not be lost.

The women on the farms are required to roll logs, clear land and do all kinds of drudgery.