Chapter II: Part 2

When Eytinge entered the State prison he realized that he must find some means of making money. One could not forge checks in prison. Eytinge was placed in the chronic ward. Around him were Indians, Mexicans and others who in their spare moments made hat bands, watch fobs and other articles out of horse hair. They decorated these with rosettes hammered out of Mexican dollars. These articles were sold whenever possible to chance visitors at the prison, but it was a slow way of making money.

And then one day the big idea came to Eytinge! Opportunity knocked on the steel bars and Eytinge was there to talk to Her! The crude handiwork of the prisoners was the vehicle by which Eytinge began to make his way. He began by writing letters to retail dealers on the outside asking them to take the agency for the hat bands, belts, watch fobs and other articles. It was not long until the money began to pour in. There was a big demand for the articles, but it was the letters that Eytinge had written that opened up the field. In these letters Eytinge had given the dealers a straightforward account of what the articles really were. He told the truth absolutely and unvarnished, and one day he discovered that he had been doing this.

Does honesty pay? This was the question that Eytinge asked himself. He did not have to ask others--he had the proof before him. He had discovered that honesty did pay and that it paid well. But just at that time this new business received a severe setback. Prison officials became suspicious that many of the letters going out from the prison were not what they purported to be. Some of the salesmen were suspected of filling their letters with fake statements which were little short of appeals for help.

Word went out from the warden’s office that each prisoner could write but two letters a week. Eytinge had been dealing with forty retail merchants. Many a man would have thrown up the sponge and quit. To have thirty-eight customers taken away in that manner would have proved a shock that few concerns would have been able to withstand. But Eytinge did not admit defeat. He soon recovered from the shock and saw that something must be done. Two letters must be made to do what forty had been doing before.

The wholesale field was the only thing left. Eytinge began again through that channel. And the letters he wrote! They were full of business from the “Dear Sirs” to the “Yours Very Truly.” These letters did not whine. Eytinge did not have the time nor space for that. He had to talk business, and he talked it so well that it was not long until the two letters were doing all that the forty had ever done.

In the meantime a new administration had taken hold of affairs in Arizona. The State prison was removed from the banks of the Colorado up the Gila Valley to Florence, and with this change came a change for the better in Eytinge’s health. When he entered the penitentiary at Yuma he weighed 119 pounds and now he weighs 190 pounds, is the picture of health and physicians declare that he is cured of tuberculosis.

Finding himself had given Eytinge two things. It gave him a new self, one of which he was as ignorant of as you or I, and it also gave him health. The necessity for money with which to fight off death had done this and it had been his desire for money that had placed him in a position where he had to get it by some other means than by placing some one else’s name on a check.

By this time Eytinge’s letters had begun to attract the attention of people other than those with whom he was dealing. He had become a student of criminology also, and when Governor George P. Hunt, the first Statehood governor of Arizona, began his fight for better penal laws after his inauguration in February, 1912, Eytinge had published a booklet of which he was the author, dealing with this question. A noted sociologist has pronounced this to be the cleverest thing ever published on the question.

Magazines soon began to find Eytinge a man worth telling their readers about. Advertising booklets such as “Letters,” published in Chicago; “Printers Ink,” and others sent men to Arizona to “write Eytinge up.” In this way he became well known to men who held high positions in the advertising field. His advice was sought by business houses whose sales forces needed bolstering up, and he has also been offered numerous positions as business manager and business counsel.

Eytinge has made thousands of dollars out of his business since in prison, but in an article a fellow prisoner has written about him it is said that Eytinge is in debt. Why? Well, principally because he is a man, and goes out of his way to help others. These laws of ours give a discharged prisoner a five-dollar bill and a cast-off suit of clothing when he starts out to face the world. Eytinge says this is not enough, and thousands agree with him, so when he sees a man leaving prison who is deserving and in need, he is the first to come forward with financial aid. He has helped hundreds of men fight through the courts for their freedom, and the families of hundreds of prisoners can thank Eytinge for money that has tided them over the prison term of the head of their house.

Don’t forget that Eytinge now before you is the man who seven years ago entered the penitentiary many thought to die. Yes, the old Eytinge is dead--Eytinge, the crook, has passed away, but it has left an Eytinge whom the world will be glad to greet. Peter Clark Macfarlane, a Collier’s writer, says this of Eytinge: “They had penned him up to die. They sent him to jail, a crook, and lo, his voice was a power for honesty.”

That is the way Eytinge is spoken of by hundreds who have become acquainted with him through correspondence and the few who have taken the trouble to visit him in his work shop. Among Eytinge’s first really influential friends after he got on the right track were McCrary, the old parole clerk at the prison, and J. J. Sanders, the new parole clerk, who was appointed when Governor Hunt made Robert B. Sims warden of the institution. Sims had never had any dealings with prisoners or penitentiaries before, but he had some ideas as to how they should be run. One thing that he remembered, which the wardens of many States seem to have forgotten, is that prisoners are human beings.

These three men helped Eytinge to pull himself up out of the rut. He was made a “trusty” and given a clerkship in the parole clerk’s office. These were about the first honest men Eytinge had ever associated with. Honest men to him up until that time were “rubes” and “dubs” whose money he looked upon as his own. But in his efforts to help the parole clerks guide the footsteps of the prisoners who had been given a chance through the parole law, Eytinge found that happiness can come to a man by doing something for someone besides himself.

Lecturing did not bring these things about. It was the man’s ability to see for himself, and his horizon was the prison walls. Here he saw before him hundreds of men who had violated the laws of society, and he saw also that the happy ones were those who had violated no laws but were trying to help those who had. Step by step Eytinge was bringing himself up out of the mud. He declares today that the happiest moments of his life were those in which he found that he was regaining the confidence of those who had lost all faith in him.

One of the best indications of the regard in which advertising men of the country hold this prisoner is the fact that a paper written by him was read during the convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America, which was held at Toronto, Canada, June 21-25. This paper received greater applause than any other read before the convention, and the delegates were so enthusiastic over it that they voted to send Eytinge a vote of thanks.

The paper was read on Thursday at the close of the sessions when many of the visitors were anxious to get away for their homes, but 300 men remained in the hall in rapt attention while the paper was being read. A storm of applause swept through the hall as the reader concluded the message from the man who “puts his brains in an envelope.”

It has been a long, hard struggle for Eytinge. Will it win him his freedom? That is the question many are asking. No one can tell. Perhaps the law will unbend and open the gates to him sometime. Those who know him are hoping that such will be the case, and many are already doing what they can to bring about this result. That Eytinge has hopes that such a thing will come about goes without saying. He has served the average length of time that a “lifter” serves in Ohio, and he is a better man than many of those who are now released from prisons through pardons or influence.

EVENTS IN BRIEF

[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]

_The Ethics of Governor Blease._--The executive of South Carolina, who has pardoned 1200 convicts in three years, has written about it all. Here are some of the reasons he gives for pardons.

In telling why he paroled a negro named Sam Gaskins, convicted of manslaughter, the Governor wrote:

“This negro, being engaged to a negro girl, called to see her and in fooling with a pistol it went off and killed her. It seems to have been a very sad accident. However, after a second thought, possibly it was for the good of humanity, for had they married no doubt they would have brought forth more negroes to the future detriment of the State.”

In explaining why he pardoned J. Allen Emerson, a white man, who was serving a life sentence for murder, he said that the imprisonment of Emerson had seriously impaired the health of the man’s sister. “Her life,” the Governor states, “is worth more to her and her children and is worth more to the citizenship and motherhood of this country than the incarceration of her brother is worth to the State.”

In pardoning Roland Parris, who was convicted of assault and battery on his brother-in-law, with intent to kill, the Governor explains that Parris was protecting his sister from abuse. “I congratulate him,” the Governor says, “for being man enough to protect his sister from a drunken husband; in fact, I think there should be an appropriation made by which the Governor could award him a gold medal of honor for his action.”

The Governor thinks that if any white man calls another a certain vile epithet and is killed the verdict should not be greater than manslaughter. If a negro applies the epithet to a white man he doesn’t care to say what he thinks the verdict ought to be, but “people may draw their own conclusions.”

_Germans to See Prisons._--An unofficial tour of inspection of American prisons and reformatories by Prussian Government officers will be made during the month of August. The Prison Association of New York has been asked to arrange the details of the proposed tour. The chairman of the delegation will be Dr. Karl Finkelnburg, who for many years has been prominent as a German prison warden, and who has recently been promoted to the position of director of Prussian prisons under the Ministry of the Interior, a position which had been occupied by the late Dr. Krohne.

Dr. Finkelnburg, who will arrive upon the Imperator about the end of the first week in August, will be accompanied by Professor Darmstaedter, of the University of Berlin, and also by a member of the Prussian Parliament. The tour of correctional institutions will cover a period of thirty-five days, during which time many of the most important prisons and reformatories of the Eastern and central positions of the country will be visited.

In recent years American correctional institutions have been frequently the object of careful study by foreign countries. In 1910, several hundred foreign delegates not only attended the International Prison Congress at Washington, but made a ten day’s tour, by invitation of the Federal Government, of many institutions. In 1913 a tour of inspection was arranged for four official representatives of the Prussian Government--Messrs. Plaschke, Schlosser, Hiekmann, and Remmpis. During a month and a half nearly fifty separate institutions were carefully inspected. The official report to the Prussian Government of these gentlemen has not yet been received from that Government by the United States.

The German Government is discussing the proposed revision of the penal law of Germany. Some of the most modern and successful features of American prison and reformatory management are being carefully considered in this connection.

_A “Relic of the Dark Ages”_--So the American newspaper correspondents called the Vera Cruz prison in Mexico.

Most famous of all Mexico’s prisons, noted for the untold thousands tortured within its walls, the castle prison of San Juan de Ulua, stands today on a little island overlooking Vera Cruz pretty much as it stood in the centuries of its existence. On April 28 the flag of Mexico fluttered down from its flagstaff. The stars and stripes rose in its place as Captain Paul Chamberlain and a company of marines from the North Dakota took possession.

In his despatch to the navy department reporting the taking over of the fortress Rear Admiral Fletcher said:

“The prison has been taken over under mutual agreement made between myself and Colonel Vigil, in charge, which agreement was signed and approved by Admiral Badger. There are in the prison 43 prisoners who have been sentenced for crime, 75 who have been accused of crime but have not been brought to trial and also 325 who have not been accused of any misdemeanor whatever. These 325 were arrested mostly within the last two months in order to be forced into the federal army and for no other reason. The above data were obtained from the officer in charge. The conditions in the prison under which the 325 men are living are described as frightful.”

Secretary Daniels directed the release of these 325 men, ordering that the seventy-five awaiting trial should be held pending investigation by the American authorities into the charges against them.

“No stage manager putting on ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ could imagine anything more creepy than the sight which met the eyes of the American officers when the keys were turned in the rusty locks and they entered the ancient vaults,” wrote an American newspaper man describing his visit to the prison.

In the grim, forbidding, gloomy pile of San Juan de Ulua the Spanish inquisitors found a building suited to the purposes and one which appealed to their torture-loving tastes. Only a fifteenth century Spaniard could have designed such a castle.

_First Field Day at Auburn (N. Y.) Prison._--Despite several hundred light cases of Scarlet fever, at the century old prison at Auburn “on Memorial Day traditions were set aside when the 1,400 prisoners there were given three hours in which to loaf or play and enjoy themselves in the open air,” says the Poughkeepsie Press. “At two o’clock in the afternoon they were marched into the yard in their usual companies, and at a bugle signal they were disbanded. Then they played baseball, and participated in other outdoor sports. There were cheers for the winning contestants and a good time generally. At the end of the three hours the bugle sounded the recall, the companies were formed again, and when the men marched back into the prison there was not a prisoner missing, and there had not been a single infraction of discipline.

“In this instance the short outing was a complete success. It did not destroy discipline, nor will it tend to create the supposition that the men are pampered at Auburn.”

_Road Making in New York._--In accordance with the policy of the State Prison Department and by means of an appropriation made at the last session of the legislature, the Department has placed groups of convicts from the various State prisons at work improving roads in different parts of the State. The plan will be extended as fast as possible with the available appropriation and it is hoped that some 500 miles of earth road will be improved during the summer.

At present there are five convict squads on the roads. Three squads have been sent out from Dannemora. They are all engaged in Clinton County one squad improving a bad stretch of the old military turnpike. Two more squads are out from Great Meadow, one working on the Comstock-Whitehall road and the other on the Ticonderoga-Schroon lake road in Warren county.

So far the plan has proved most successful. The convicts are keen for the chance of work in the open air and the result to the counties in which the work is being carried on is gratifying in improved traffic conditions.

Several squads have been made up to be sent out from Auburn prison, but an outbreak of scarlet fever in the institution has delayed the plan. As soon as the quarantine is lifted many prisoners will be put to work.

By the provisions of the new law the thirty-mile radius from the walls of prisons within which convicts could be engaged in road work has been removed, so that they may be employed in any part of the State. In addition to this, for the first time an appropriation has been made of $50,000 for carrying on the work of improving roads by convict labor. Boards of Supervisors of the various counties are applying to the Prison Department for convicts to improve roads in the counties which are not included in the State macadamized system.

Under the plan of Superintendent Riley the $50,000 will be spent in improving earth roads rather than trying to build roads of macadam because of the much greater use of the appropriation. Ten miles of good earth road may be built for the amount required to construct a single mile of macadam where gravel or other proper material for surfacing is obtainable. It also costs less to maintain ten miles of gravel road than one mile of macadam, declares Superintendent Riley.

“After the $100,000,000 to which the State is pledged is expended on the State highways there will be a very large percentage of the roads in the State which will not be touched by this expenditure,” said Superintendent Riley. It is for the good of these roads, many of them of the greatest importance, that he wishes to direct the convict road labor particularly. _Hudson Republican, June 8._

NOTES

A new county workhouse costing $25,000 has been built at South Range, Wis., on a tract of 160 acres, which will be worked by the prisoners.

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A modified form of self-government has been introduced at the New Jersey State Reformatory at Rahway by Dr. Frank Moore.

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Governor Major of Missouri will recommend legislation to provide for a prison farm, 1000 acres in size to start with.

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Road work by State prison convicts will start in a few weeks in Wisconsin. The men will be paid a certain sum for their work.

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Sir A. Conan Doyle recently visited Sing Sing, and agreed with everybody but the legislators of the State of New York that Sing Sing ought to go.

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A commission has been authorized by the State of Pennsylvania and appointed by the Governor, to consider revision of the penal laws. Two of the members of the commission are Edwin M. Abbott of Philadelphia and Warden McKenty of the Eastern Penitentiary.

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On the first of July much more stringent regulations regarding the sale and possession of cocaine and other habit-forming drugs came into effect in New York State. A spectacular and effective campaign is now being waged in New York City against dope-vendors.

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More than seven hundred prisoners out of 2000 at San Quentin prison have been taking correspondence courses given by the University of California. Spanish is a favorite language to be studied.

* * * * *

At Sing Sing the new warden has started out well. He has given to the inmates Saturday afternoon for recreation, and has introduced base ball and other sports. If it works successfully the inmates will have a recreation hour daily, at the close of the day’s work.

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Several members of the board of managers of the Prison Association of New York recently made a tour of inspection of correctional institutions in New York, Pennsylvania and the Province of Ontario, being the guests of Mr. Richard M. Hurd in his automobile. The tour included about 1800 miles, and some twenty correctional institutions, among them Clinton and Auburn State Prisons in New York, the Prison Farm at Guelph, Ontario, the new Central Prison site at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the State Reformatory of Pennsylvania at Huntingdon, the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania?, the State Prison at Trenton, New Jersey, the Berkshire Industrial Farm and the State Industrial and Agricultural Farm in New York, and about a dozen county jails. The tour occupied two weeks, and gave a remarkable opportunity to make careful and immediate contrasts of various institutions.

* * * * *

In New York State road work by convicts is assuming important proportions. Superintendent of Prisons John B. Riley is strongly in favor or the outdoor employment of prisoners on roads.

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The Prison Commission of New York is investigating the charges of Ex-Warden Clancy that drugs are smuggled into Sing Sing prison by officers and others.

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On July 4th, at Great Meadow Prison, six hundred inmates were marched down to the prison ball field, one half mile from the prison, under the supervision of inmate officers. The regular prison guards were not used.

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Miss Katherine B. Davis, commissioner of correction of New York City, has been having plenty of activity in the administration of the department. Several riots occurred at the Penitentiary in the early part of July, following effective methods of reducing the amount of “Dope” purveyed by the prisoners. More modern methods of conducting the city’s correctional institution and a certain antagonism to the new reform administration of the city’s correctional institutions, also played a part. The riots were successfully overcome, and Miss Davis was not only “on the job” but in the midst of it.

* * * * *

In Buffalo, N. Y., a new county jail is to be built for the detention of prisoners prior to or during trial. The Prison Association of New York is making a strong campaign for the erection of a thoroughly modern jail with outside cells, as contrasted with the old traditional type of inside cages, the prevalent American type of jail construction. In this campaign the Association is cooperating with a group of the Board of Supervisors of Erie county. Among those who have written long letters advocating the outside cell type of construction are Professor C. R. Henderson of the University of Chicago, Commissioner Katherine B. Davis of New York, Dr. Hasting H. Hart of the Russell Sage Foundation, Superintendent Frank Moore of the State Reformatory of New Jersey. Amos W. Butler of Indiana, and Drs. S. A. Knopf and G. M. Parker of New York City. The special committee recently appointed by the Board of Supervisors will visit institutions of both types of construction, among them the Prison Farm at Guelph.

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Because of the absence of any work under the proposed State-use system which the prisoners could do, it was found necessary to continue for the present the contract system at the State Prison of New Jersey at Trenton, although by law all contracts should have expired on June 30th.

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There is agitation in Baltimore for a State Workhouse similar to that of Occoquan, in the District of Columbia.

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, ETC. of THE DELINQUENT.

Published monthly at New York, N. Y., required by the Act of August 24th, 1912.

NAME OF POST OFFICE ADDRESS
Editor, O. F. Lewis, 135 East 15th St.,
New York City
Managing Editor, O. F. Lewis, 135 East 15th St.,
New York City
Business Manager, O. F. Lewis, 135 East 15th St.,
New York City
Publisher, The National Prisoners’ Aid Association, 135 East 15th St.,
New York City
Owners, The National Prisoners’ Aid Association, 135 East 15th St.,
New York City

There are no bondholders, mortgages, or other security holders. O. F. LEWIS, Editor and Business Manager.

Sworn to and subscribed before me this 27th day of March, 1914.

H. L. McCORMICK, Notary Public No. 6, Kings County. My Commission expires March 31, 1914.

Transcriber’s Notes

A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Issue number was corrected from 6 to 7