we have made and are making for his benefit, are our efforts misdirected and are we really making him more criminal? Is it the lack of moral tone? Is it that since the relation of master and servant has been severed, the negroes are segregated and no longer have the benefit of early daily contact with the better class of whites, from whom they received a certain moral impress, whether they would or not; and are we vainly trying to fix the keystone in place while the arch lacks foundation? Have we suddenly thrust upon them too great a responsibility? Is the political diet we have given them too strong for their mental digestion and assimilation, and is it expecting too much of them, so recently removed from the most primitive condition, to compass at one bound that which it has taken the white man cycles upon cycles to accomplish?

If so, the fault is not altogether theirs, but wherever the fault, these facts reveal a situation pregnant with consequences, a situation that must be met, and coming consequences that must be provided for and against. And I bring the matter to your attention as being perhaps the most enlightened body and occupying the most advanced position on this and kindred subjects, in the hope that you may suggest to the various law-making bodies such wise and humane legislation as will best meet the requirements of the situation and correct the growing evil.

I know the idea may suggest itself to some of you that this question is peculiarly ours and not yours. In a sense this may be true, but not only are you vitally interested, on the principle that any diseased member affects the whole system, but the people who make this peculiarly our question today, are rapidly spreading over the entire country and wherever they go they carry with them, in proportion to their numbers, these same questions for solution. The situation that is ours today, may be yours tomor

row.

We are all in the midst of an experiment. So far as I am informed, the annals of history afford no example of two separate races successfully occupying the same country, at the same time, upon the same terms, and when these separate races represent the two extremes of humankind, how great the necessity for caution. To each of you, therefore, I appeal personally to give this subject your most serious consideration to the end that the best preventive measures may be adopted and crime lessened. There is no prison management so good as that which keeps the prison empty, and there are no measures to keep it empty so effective as those which prevent crime.

DISCUSSION.

A Delegate-It would seem from this paper that to educate the colored people is to prepare them for crime. I would like to know if the great proportion of those who have become criminals are not from the uneducated part of the colored race. Two facts are very prominent among the colored people. One is that the great multitude of them have no real home. Another is that a great many of the colored people are aiming to have their children grow up without work, thinking that will make them in some sense the social equal of the white. They are readily led into vice and crime. In our city jail you may see from fifteen to twenty little boys incarcerated for misdemeanors. They have had no restraint at home, no real training; no endeavor has been made to make them useful citizens. I should say with regard to the educated colored people that you will not find many criminals among them in the city of Richmond.

Mr. Easley-I do not want it to be understood that I am not a friend to the negro. I have stated facts and ask you for the remedy. I do believe that the system of educating the negro is defective. A large percentage of the criminals in the penitentiary can both read and write. But what the negro needs is moral and industrial education. If necessary we must put over him people capable of impressing upon him that he must be an upright and honorable citizen and that the obligation of a citizen means something. The colored youth should be taught that the white people are his friends. In one county a colored girl who was hired as a servant, received a letter from an officer of some secret society. Not being able to read it she carried it to her employer. It read: "Do not work for the white people if you can possibly avoid it, but if you cannot help it, give them all the trouble you can." That is what I am objecting to. That is what is going to prove the downfall of the negro if not stopped.

Mr. Coates-We have as the next speaker a man with whom you are all acquainted. If I were asked to describe him with one word, I would say he is the philosopher of this Prison Congress. I have great pleasure in introducing to you Dr. Charles R. Henderson, of the University of Chicago, who will speak to us on "European Criticism of the Indeterminate Sentence and of our Reformatory Methods in General."

Dr. Henderson-I wish first to call attention to the Committee on Jails, of which I am chairman. Immediately after the Chicago Congress of the American Prison Association, the report of your committee was sent to over five hundred important newspapers in all parts of the Union. In the counties where local investigators had visited the county jails and reported their conditions, an especial effort was made to secure the publication of our report and its recommendations, together with a description of the conditions found. The results of this campaign of publicity are most encouraging. The newspapers responded to our requests and gave full notice to our criticism, and there is evidence that improvements will follow the discussion.

In this connection we call attention to the energetic and effective service of "Charities and The Commons," which not only published our study but also bore the expense of the investigation and correspondence. Mr. L. E. Palmer should receive our hearty thanks for his intelligent and efficient labors in connection with the committee. It is exceedingly fortunate that we have an organ of publicity and education ready at hand, with so wide a patronage, and with such an able editorial force, and quick to discern the best method of securing public attention to matters of vital importance.

A volume of clippings collected by "Charities and The Commons" shows that the report has had a remarkably wide and sympathetic hearing. In rare instances and only in minor matters were any of the descriptions of jails called in question by local editors; and in almost all places the statements of the report awakened the conscience of responsible leaders of the communities.

It did not seem prudent at once to continue and extend the investigation of facts, for these are well known.

The members of this Association must continue in their several communities, as in the past, to educate public opinion in relation to the county jails, with the hope that ultimately a rational system may be found by legislatures to take the place of jails which are a scandal and disgrace to our nation.

EUROPEAN CRITICISM OF THE INDETERMINATE SEN

TENCE AND OF OUR REFORMATORY
METHODS IN GENERAL.

CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON, CHICAGO, ILLS.

The visit of several progressive jurists from Germany to study our reformatory system has provoked considerable discussion in that land of learning, and we shall be wise if we weigh the criticisms made in the progress of this discussion. For we are only in the beginnings of a great experiment and the central principle for which the American Prison Association stands is always in danger from errors in administration. The old principle of mere retribution required omniscient judges to measure the sentences, but any shrewd brute could administer it; the new principle of reform exacts at least the highest ability of judges and also demands the finest qualities of mind and character in administrators. Can we doubt that this demand will be met in all civilized lands? We have in this paper particularly in mind the books of Baernreither (Jugendfürsorge and Strafrecht), B. Freudenthal (Amerikanische Kriminalpolitik, and Unbestimmte Verurteilung), P. Herr (Das Moderne Amerikanische Besserungs-system), Hintrager (Amerikanisches Gefängniss und Strafenwesen), and discussions before the German Association of Prison Officials (Blätter für Gefängniss-Kunde, Bd. 42, Heft 2, pp. 393-455). But many of these criticisms have been collected from hearing lectures and from conversations in Germany itself.

The analysis of Freudenthal is clear and recent, and in great part, is followed here.

First Objection: It is asserted that the indeterminate sentence cannot be applied to all forms of crime, as to murder when capital punishment is legal, and to light offenses where a fine is the wisest form of penalty.

The answer to this objection is easily given. No American friend of this law claims that it should exclude variety in penalty; reprimand, fine, reparation for injury, and even the death penalty may be employed in their proper place as required by social defense.

But the objectors do not touch the essential principles of our movement when they criticise the so-called "indeterminate sentence." We claim that in no case can the aim of reformation be abandoned, even where the outlook is dark for success. We try to apply this principle even to those condemned to death.

Second Objection: It is claimed that under our reformatory system the prison, which is an institution for showing that the way of the transgressor is hard, becomes a palace of luxury, a club house of well groomed students.

Those of us who are familiar with the inside of our state prisons and reformatories are tempted to smile at these images drawn from the inventions of fancy. Herr, Baernreither and Freudenthal, Germans who have actually visited American institutions, never repeat these stories, and they are trying to correct the false impressions.

Those who know our wardens are not inclined to accuse them of sentimentality. Most of the pictures are taken from Elmira Reformatory; but, if we were to believe his newspaper and political enemies in New York, Mr. Brockway was not carried off his feet by waves of excessive tenderness and foolish indulgences.

Dr. Fliegenschmidt, director of a prison at Bremen-Orlebshausen, speaks of our reform schools and reformatories as free from the "popular but ill-suited leniency and luxury of the state prisons, which is quite adverse to punishment. The treatment is purposeful and strict, and in the reformatories it takes the form of a rigorous compulsory cure (treatment) for improvement." Now if the Bremen warden would visit Mr. Garvin or Mr. Wolfer for an hour each he would see the fact instead of this perverted image of the relation of reform school to state prison. Another German warden, Dr. Gennat (Blatley f. G.), is bitterly opposed to our reformatory sentences and also accuses us of sentimentality. He repeats the assertion that a "por