"Stone Upon Stone"

(See front cover)

When a barked shin itches, it is healing. Barked were the shins of state and national government last summer by four major prison riots. Itches to state and Federal authorities were the disclosures, following the riots, that prisoners were herded in quarters scandalously inadequate. Worst sufferer was New York State, with two fierce outbreaks, at Auburn and Dannemora (TIME, Aug. 5).

Last week to Albany, at the summons of Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, went New York State's prison experts to consider methods of salving the itching New York penal shin.-- To the conference went the Auburn and Dannemora wardens; also Warden Lewis Edward Lawes of Sing Sing, whose 2,000 prisoners, cowed by machine guns when they became restive, did not riot.

Two general curatives were up for study at Albany. Immediate and definite was a new $10,000,000 prison to accommodate 2,500 inmates. A subtler, further-reaching problem was the reform of prison administration embracing: discipline, parole, classification of prisoners, the honor system, adequate employment for all inmates.

To the suggestions of Warden Lawes, the conferees listened needfully. For 25 years a New York prisonman, he began as a reformatory guard, advanced by merit and not by politics. For ten years he has been Warden of Sing Sing. It is expected he will retire next year, when he becomes eligible for a pension. Keeper Alfred Conyes of Sing Sing celebrating his soth year as a prisonman last week, said: "Of all the 20 wardens I have worked with, I like our Warden Lawes best."

New York has capital punishment. Warden Lawes has arranged and witnessed more than 100 electrocutions. The stringent, lately adopted Baumes Laws provide a life sentence for all four-time felons, also tightening down on paroles and time off for good behavior. State Servant Lawes has faithfully administered these statutes. But the State does not enslave his opinion. Militant foe is he of the death penalty. "One fellow gets it, another gets away with an easier penalty," he says. He believes in individual consideration of each prisoner rather than the mechanical formula of the Baumes laws. Ardently he favors parole and the earning of "good time." "There are no born criminals," says he. "Best results with convicts can be obtained by humane treatment . . . reasonable privilege . . . common sense."

His Sing Sing, a name which chimes fearfully in the ears of malefactors, which calls up to all U. S. citizens a vision of bleak grey prison walls, is not a "bad" prison. From the Indian "ossine ossine"-- "stone upon stone"--came its name, appropriate to the old damp-walled dungeon beside the river, with cells 7 ft. x 3 ft. 3 in. x 6 ft. 6 in., built in 1825. But today most of the inmates live in new cell blocks on the hill above the Hudson River. The sizeable cells are equipped with modern sanitary apparatus. In each is a desk and chair. At the head of each bed is a, radio headphone. Prison-wise felons would rather go "up the river" to Sing Sing than to other New York penitentiaries. Most famed Sing Sing inmate is Charles E. Chapin, onetime city editor of the New York World, serving 20 years as a wife-killer. He has charge of the prison bird house, cares for Sing Sing canaries, parrots, lovebirds.

Less pleasant than Sing Sing are New York's Auburn and Dannemora, with their ancient cell blocks, cramped, fetid cells, loathsome bucket system of sewage disposal, where last summer's riotings began. Less pleasant, too, is the State Penitentiary at Canon City, Colo., where a deadly, guard-killing outbreak took place (TIME, Oct. 14). Less pleasant also is the Federal prison at Leavenworth, Kan., last summer's fourth rioter, where Warden T. B. White has had to pack convicts by twos and threes into one-man cells, stuff them by scores into cell-house basements.

The Leavenworth outbreak awoke the Federal Government to its prison responsibilities. Though wardens' reports had reiterated figures on overcrowding, the only Federal prison reform of recent years was when Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, then Assistant Attorney-General, sent fake convicts to Atlanta and Leavenworth to snoop. She demanded the resignation of Atlanta's Warden John W. Snook "because of utter want of administrative ability" (TIME, March 25). Out went Snook, in came A. C. Aderholdt, who first worked for Atlanta prison as a construction gang foreman in 1906, later as prison guard, as record clerk. Now, as warden, he is softspoken, reticent, diligently eludes publicity. But Mrs. Willebrandt, busily though she snooped, got nothing done about cattle-herding in the Federal prisons.

After the Leavenworth eruption President Hoover evolved a plan for quick penal relief. Near Leavenworth Penitentiary is the Army's Ft. Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks. The President ordered the 690 bad soldiers held there to be quartered in other Army penal institutions, making room for 1,800 civilian prisoners from crammed Atlanta and Leavenworth. Already over 1,000 have been transferred to Ft. Leavenworth. Not transferred was famed Dr. Frederick Cook, North pole "explorer," "blue sky" stock salesman. A well-behaved inmate, he took no part in the riot last summer.

Last fortnight Attorney General Mitchell detailed over the radio the Administration's plan for permanent prison betterment. It called for $6.500,000 to build five new Federal prisons: a 1,200-inmate penitentiary in the northeastern states, an industrial reformatory in the West for 1.200, three Federal jails to hold 500 short-term convicts each. The plan also projects reorganization of the parole system, development of prison industries, provision for education of prisoners.

Good prisonmen keep a peeled eye on conditions and methods in other prisons than their own. Some of the institutions which the conferring penologists at Albany and the penal officials at Washington view with alarm, note with pride are:

San Quentin, Calif., where inmates are enabled to take extension work in the State University at Berkeley by correspondence. There Warden James Bernard Holohan, a firm-fisted 200-pounder, guards over 5,000 inmates. Among them are Norman Selby ("Kid McCoy"), killer of his common law wife, now chief of the convict fire department; Clara Phillips, who killed a lady intimate of her husband with a hammer; famed Thomas J. Mooney and Warren Billings, sent up for life from San Francisco on evidence since found to be perjured. Currently famed is Mrs. Frances Leano, for whom San Quentin can provide no maternity ward for her soon-expected needs. She may have to be given a pardon.

New Castle, Del., where the whipping post contrasts strangely with a "model'' prison system. Warden Elmer Joseph Leach, denouncer of whippings which he has to administer, has developed at New Castle the unique plan of his predecessor Warden Plummer. Over the 600 convicts stand only three guards. The inmates are given prison keys, allowed to work unguarded outside the prison walls, permitted to drive trucks to Wilmington unaccompanied. Escapes are rare. The convicts themselves deliver discipline, ostracize rule-breakers. The inmates are given piecework, earn money for cigarets. clothes, sweets. During the day they wear blue denim work clothes, in the evening they dress like citizens for dinner.

Frankfort, Ky., where the oldest U. S. cell block (1798) is still in use. Several Southern prisons use the disciplinary strap, but not Kentucky. Said the late Warden John Chilton, dean of U. S. wardens, who died six months ago: "If I used a strap on those hillbillies they would lay for me till their dying day. I'm a hillbilly myself, so I know."

Salt Lake City. Murderers sent to this prison for execution are allowed to choose between hanging and shooting. Almost all take shooting.

Joliet, Ill. Illinois has two prisons there, the old dingy, dank bastile, in Joliet and the new structure nearby called Stateville, with circular, sanitary, well-lighted cell blocks. Major Henry C. Hill is warden of both. He keeps his two most famed prisoners, boy-murderers Leopold and Loeb. in old Joliet in cramped, dark cells, with buckets for sewage disposal. He allows them one day's yearly recreation, the Fourth of July, unless it rains.