There was a time—and that not so very long ago—when popular ignorance and superstition looked upon an insane person as one possessed of the devil or of some other evil spirit. They sought to drive the “evil one” out by beating and torturing the insane, and often even by drowning, hanging, and burning. We have fortunately passed that stage of stupid brutality. Today even the most ignorant man knows that insanity is a disease. But in regard to crime and criminals we are still in the stage of dark-

Twenty-six years ago, in 1893, I paid the first toll for my opinions in the State of New York with a year’s free residence in the Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary. I found the cells small, dark, and filthy, the sanitary conditions appalling, and the general attitude toward the convict on the part of prison officials hard and cruel. Terrible as these conditions were, they had some justification. In 1893 there was barely a spark anywhere to discredit the antiquated and inhuman theory of predestinat

This country is at the present time going through the same throes of social and industrial rebirth that are convulsing England, France and other European countries. The steelworkers’ strike is merely one of the symptoms of the social evolutionary process that may in the near future culminate in revolution. The sources of labor discontent in this country are identical with those in every other land of our so-called civilization. The working masses are not satisfied any more with empty political d

In yesterday’s issue of your paper you printed an article under the heading, “Berkman Charges Brutal Methods in Atlanta Pen,” and which article is devoted principally to a personal attack on Deputy Warden Charles H. Girardeau. It is also charged that a majority of the guards are vulgar, brutal and dissipated men. It is not my custom to reply to ridiculous statements or attacks upon this institution made by irresponsible individuals, but in this case the attack is somewhat along personal lines, a

In your issue of October 4, 1919, Warden Fred G. Zerbst, of the Federal Prison at Atlanta, makes an alleged reply to my charges of brutality, corruption and incompetence on the part of the management of the Federal Penitentiary. The outstanding feature of Warden Zerbst’s statement is its entire failure to discredit my charges, much less to disprove them. I made definite accusations, gave facts, cited specific instances. The Warden’s only reply is, in essence, “All’s well, and there is nothing mo

Practically every political and industrial prisoner in the Federal Penitentiary at Atlanta, with the exception of Eugene V. Debs, has been the victim of special discrimination and persecution. In the case of Debs, the authorities considered it best, owing to his great popularity, to assign him to the hospital, where he enjoys better food and treatment, without any particular work to do. At the same time this partial isolation of Eugene V. Debs from the rest of the prisoners precludes opportunity

The results attained by penal institutions are the very opposite of the ends sought. The modern form of “civilized” revenge kills, figuratively speaking, the enemy of the individual citizen, but it breeds in his place the enemy of society. The prisoner of the State does not regard the person he injured as his particular enemy—as did the member of the primitive tribe, for instance, feeling the wrath and revenge of the wronged one. Instead, he looks upon the State as his direct punisher; in the re