The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XI Part 16

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 cla.s.s be put by themselves. Keep the s.e.xes 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 circ.u.mstances 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 const.i.tute 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 a.s.sault 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. Dest.i.tution 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pet.i.tion, 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 apt.i.tudes--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 circ.u.mstances 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 grat.i.tude--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 att.i.tude, 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 princ.i.p.al object for the establishment of the prison. The men in charge should be of the kindest and n.o.blest. 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 enn.o.ble.

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 a.s.sured--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 circ.u.mstances--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 pa.s.sion--the domination of want--the diseases of the brain--the tyranny of appet.i.te--the cruelty of conditions--the results of a.s.sociation--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, pa.s.sions, 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."