[This scene gives in special detail Mr. Roland Molineaux’s attitude toward the present-day treatment of the delinquent. “The Man Inside,” written by Mr. Molineaux and presented by Mr. Belasco, had a successful run in New York early in the winter. The following scene was the original, which was somewhat altered because of the exigencies of the stage.]

Act II, Scene 16.

Object: Gordon pleads for a better system of justice.

Jim Poor (to Travesty): What shall I do now, sir?

Travesty (to Jim Poor): Gordon has asked me to postpone this case.

Jim Poor: Postpone it! What reason has he got?

Travesty: I’d like to know (holding up the evidence). Don’t you see, Gordon, that these men are a couple of habitual criminals? Why, they’ve been in prison time and time again! And even that didn’t do them any good!

Gordon: Of course, it didn’t! Do you suppose that to take these men and shut them away in prison—to make them walk in a degrading manner—to garb them in a humiliating fashion—to force them to the performance of tasks without compensation—or worse, to submit them to the horrors of enforced solitude and idleness of mind and body! Is there in such a system anything influencing them for good?—sending them out useful, honest and ambitious members of society?

Travesty: Why, Gordon, these men are shameless! Nothing will reform them—not even the severest measures. They go right back to crime at the first opportunity.

Gordon: Because imprisonment as a means of reformation is known to be useless! No one will trust the released convict! What chance has Red Mike got? Who would give Big Frank employment? The State releases them and tells them to go their way and sin no more, after the State has made it impossible for them to do anything else but sin! They have no chance to rehabilitate themselves.

Travesty: They wouldn’t take it if it were given them. You can’t reform them. “Once a crook always a crook.” They must be taught that if they break the law they shall suffer for it, swiftly and surely. Am I not right, your Honor?

Judge Dykeman: Certainly. Punishment is what they need.

Gordon: Oh, no your Honor. That was the old idea of vengeance. “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and life for life.” Surely, we have outgrown that theory long ago! Punishment for the sake of punishment—suffering as a curative agent—has always failed.

Travesty: Who says so?

Gordon: History proves it. Torture—death itself did not stop the pursuit of science: (To Creedon): It could not exterminate the Christian faith! Punishment never halted virtue and it will never conquer vice!

(Father Creedon greatly interested.)

Judge Dykeman: What would you suggest in place of punishment?

Gordon (with enthusiasm): Reverse the principle of Punishment—make it Reward! (Astonishment of all.)

Father Creedon (puzzled and astonished): Reward for criminals!

Judge Dykeman: Ridiculous!

Gordon: Not if we approach the subject in a constructive manner, abandoning methods which are obsolete and failures and direct our energies, not to destroying but to building up! Reward! All training and labor and success is built upon it. Children are trained that way. In schools, prizes and promotions are Reward. Why does the scientist and inventor work and study and succeed! Is it because of Punishment? The explorer sails and suffers—dies! The patriots fought not through the force of fear, but for the Reward of Glory!

Father Creedon (softly; half aside): The martyr’s crown!

Travesty: All whom you have mentioned were innocent and noble. Remember, we are discussing felons.

Gordon: Well, do you train an animal by locking it up and making it miserable? Will a snake dance for you if you hurt it?

Jim Poor (sinking into a chair with assumed weariness): Now, you’ve got him going!

Judge Dykeman: Ah, but punishment is an example to others! You cannot deny the deterrent principle.

Gordon: Does the procession of convicted men ever halt? Where there was one yesterday, there are two to-day and there will be three to-morrow.

Father Creedon (crossing himself): Do not say, Mr. Gordon, that you quarrel with the great principle of Example! Do not forget what one Man, divine, has given us!

Gordon: I remember that the Romans crucified that Man as an example. Did they accomplish what they thought to do? So we, instead of making the criminal an example to others, should make our treatment of him the example to the criminal himself. To-day we cannot claim example as our purpose when the life of the murderer is taken in the pale light of dawn, in a little room, and in the presence only of a few scientists. Surely, it is not these that need the warning! If punishment is intended as an example, let us be consistent; let the executions take place in the public parks and let the State declare the occasions holidays.

Judge Dykeman: You have forgotten, Gordon, the most important doctrine of all—Protection.

Travesty: Yes! Society has the right of self-defense. We are justified in imprisoning such people; even if it does them no good, because it protects Society.

Jim Poor: That’s right!

Gordon: Only while imprisonment lasts, and in almost every instance it releases them a more dangerous menace than before their incarceration. And all because we deal with crime by a system childishly futile! As well might we sentence the lunatic to three months in an asylum, or the victim of smallpox to thirty days in the hospital, at the end of these periods to turn them loose, whether mad or sane, cured or still diseased.

Jim Poor (with great dignity): Now listen to me! You’re going to claim that criminals are mentally diseased. There’s nothing in that idea of their being abnormal.

Gordon: They must be! No normal man chooses sickness rather than health, or selects poverty when he might be rich! No one seeks suffering when he could be happy! Why, then, does a man follow crime when it brings him only misery in the end?

Jim Poor (with great satisfaction): As some great man once said—I forget who it was—“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

Gordon: Apply this very theory of Protection which Judge Dykeman urges.

Judge Dykeman: Just so. Protect ourselves against them.

Gordon: No! The protection of society would be doubly sure if we applied the great principle rightly. Our criminal law aims to protect society—in this it fails; it should aim to benefit the criminal—in that it could succeed.

Father Creedon: You’re right!

Gordon: Physicians do not give medicine to those who are well, but to the sick who need it. The criminal law should protect the criminal against himself and the influences which have overcome him. It should cure and armor him with self-respect and courage.

Judge Dykeman: That would be a delightful state of affairs.

Travesty: And now I suppose you are perfectly prepared to substitute some new method of procedure? An original system of jurisprudence? What better method than imprisonment have you to offer for bringing a man to his senses?

(Annie does not understand the following.)

Gordon: I do not know, as yet. Is it fair to expect that I have found that which has been a mystery through all the centuries? But don’t you see that the present method is inadequate? We punish crime with fine, imprisonment, and death, but is the fine given to the one injured? Does imprisonment of the criminal compensate the victim? Does death restore the dead?

Travesty: It is the Law!

Gordon: Yes, but the Law is wrong!

Jim Poor: Listen to that!

Gordon: Has not the State, so clear in defining the duties of the individual to itself, failed in its duties to the individual after his conviction? Is it not absurd and unjust for the State to wreak vengeance on the criminal and then abandon him? There must be a better way! A scientific method which is not based on suffering and inhumanity! To find it is the duty of the State. The National Government should undertake it.

Jim Poor: It’s not the National Government’s business!

Gordon: Yes, it is.

Jim Poor: Where’s your precedent? (to Judge Dykeman). That’s right, Judge,—I beg your pardon, Your Honor,—got to have a precedent for it, hasn’t he?

Judge Dykeman: Certainly, he should.

Father Creedon: Perhaps he has.

Jim Poor: Go ahead, let’s hear it; but the United States has nothing to do with it.

Gordon: Why not? It studies questions less important. It maintains experimental stations in every State and Territory where scientists investigate preventive measures against the ravages of insects and fungus growths.

Travesty (interested): You mean the Department of Agriculture?

Gordon (taking book from case and turning the leaves): I do. Here is the annual report in your library. If you want to know anything about the eradication of ticks on sheep—hog cholera bacillus—the chestnut-bark disease—the control of pecan scab by spraying—worms in dried fruit, the gypsy and coddling moth eradication—the Department of Agriculture has bulletins and rules and even laws to regulate these matters.

Travesty: What of it?

Gordon: This! To regulate these blights and pests it costs the Federal Government twenty million dollars a year.

Travesty: But what has this to do with crime?

Gordon: Nothing! That’s the trouble! The cost of handling crime is over one billion dollars a year in the United States and there are one hundred and thirteen thousand men in prison there to-day.

Father Creedon: Incredible!

Gordon: And yet, our National Government spends twenty million dollars a year to study and exterminate the animal, insect, and vegetable pests, but not a dollar is appropriated nor an hour of attention given for the study of preventive measures against the human pest—the man gone wrong—the criminal! The greatest menace to humanity is not of such importance as the mould on apple trees; a weevil in the cotton plant, or even a potato bug! Why a poison squad of scores of men employed to determine the harmlessness of Benzoate of Soda in tomato catsup, when there are “procuresses” and “cadets” in every city?

Father Creedon: What a terrible contrast! (to Judge Dykeman). Can nothing be done to remedy such a condition?

Judge Dykeman: I think there should be; it has never been brought to my attention before. (to Gordon). Do you think there is a way?

Gordon: Of course there is! Efficiency demands it! Think how much is lost through the non-productiveness of criminals and of the energy wasted by reason of our great army of two hundred thousand tramps. And add to this what must be the amount of the depredation of all criminal classes. Save this—make this an asset, not a depreciation. Under the present system, what a waste—what a sin against efficiency! We should stop this just as we reclaim the worthless land by irrigation and plan the conservation of our forests.

Travesty: And how do you propose to accomplish it?

Gordon: By taking the treatment of criminals out of local politics.

Jim Poor: Can’t do it.

Gordon: Yes, by enacting a Federal criminal code with a Federal police to enforce it, and no longer leaving the management of prisons to keepers and wardens appointed because they are good fellows who can get out the votes, but providing for their appointment from a Government school of criminology established for this branch of the service, similar to Annapolis and West Point. And above all, establishing a Federal bureau of criminal research and control, which will study preventive and constructive measures and make crime almost impossible by doing away with poverty, drunkenness and the thousand and one causes of crime. Some day a President will come who will make it the Government’s duty to do something progressive; then there will be less study regarding the accumulation of wealth and more research for ways to benefit humanity. That day will come! Oh, God! that this our Land might be the first to welcome it! The day when crime will be controlled!

Jim Poor (sarcastically): When do you think that time will come?

Gordon: When woman votes!

Travesty (interested in spite of himself): It’s not a bad idea, “Federal control of crime.” I may use it some day in my campaign. What do you think of it, Your Honor?

Judge Dykeman: I am impressed by the conclusions shown.

Father Creedon (to Gordon): How did you find this out?

Gordon: From getting at the point of view of criminals themselves.

Father Creedon: But how did you do that?

Gordon: For years I have associated with men of this kind for the purpose of trying to understand the criminal instinct.

Judge Dykeman: Keeping bad company, as it were.

Gordon: Exactly that! Just what I’ve been doing!

Father Creedon: The end justifies the means, in this case.

Travesty: Been slumming in the interest of justice, have you?

Gordon: I have been trying to get at the truth.

Travesty: Worked yourself up into a state of mind in which you are in sympathy with these felons?

Gordon: Yes, I do sympathize with them! I realize the hopelessness of their lives and that they must move in the line of the least resistance!

Travesty: Well, you’ve wasted your time.

Gordon (earnestly): No, Mr. Travesty; think of the tremendous importance of any explanation in that direction. Isn’t it worth while to have gone into the underworld and to have talked with men who have been through criminal experiences? There lies the secret of it all—in their point of view.

Judge Dykeman: But what makes you think there is some secret cause of crime?

Gordon: There must be some universal law—some influence that sways—something that binds them all together!

Judge Dykeman: Father Creedon, you who are learned in the deep law of spiritual things, tell us your opinion—judge this matter for us.

Father Creedon (softly): I think in pictures. To me it is as if a mariner lost upon some unknown sea; I sailed my ship astray—bewildered—lost. A sail appears! Answers my signal of distress—heaves to—gives me my bearings and then passes on. Hail and Farewell! That’s all—but what it means to me! (to Gordon): You’ve put me on my course! A new day comes. You were the light illuminating all the East before Dawn! I want to see the splendid noonday when your answer comes. “Interested?” I want to see these men—I want to hear the evidence and the defense—I want to know that they are fairly treated.

Judge Dykeman (going towards door): Reverse your decision; come and sit with me. I want your help.

Father Creedon (crossing himself): I cannot give you help, but there is One who can.

(The Judge and Father Creedon about to exit. Creedon stops and comes back.)

Father Creedon (to Gordon): My son I bless you ere I go. (as if blessing Gordon): Be strong: Let nothing hinder you. I know that He will send His kindly light amid the encircling gloom—to lead you on.