Various
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, March 1899
The California labor unions recently adopted resolutions favoring "the quarrying of stone by convict labor, and the placing it upon market undressed at a low figure, in order to give employment to stone-cutters, stone-masons, and others employed on buildings." The State rock-crushing plant, if kept running, will utilize the labor of about two hundred and fifty convicts. Any advance beyond this point means open war with all the labor unions.
Evidently the time when the prisons of California are to be entirely self-supporting is still remote, and the public as well as the union need much more education upon the subject. Some reduction of expenses, together with any utilization of convict labor that indirectly benefits a few classes, is all that can be hoped for at present, but ultimately the reformation of the criminal by making him capable of self-support as well as anxious to live in peace with society, will be recognized as the aim of wise penal legislation.
There is no doubt but that many profitable industries can be found, as yet unnaturalized in California, and therefore coming only incidentally into competition with existing industries, but well adapted to prison labor. One of these industries is the growth and preparation of osier willows of many species, and their manufacture into many useful forms, especially into baskets for fruit pickers and for wine makers. Another possible industry is the growth and preparation of various semitropic species of grasses and fiber plants, from which hat materials, mattings, the baskets used in olive-oil manufacture and a multitude of other articles can be made. The sale of crushed rock at Folsom should, of course, be at a price which at least pays for the sustenance of the convicts employed. The enormous water power of the prison should ultimately be fully utilized for manufacturing purposes.
Let us now turn to a consideration more in detail of the separate prisons, and to a brighter side – that which concerns the men who are doing the best they can with a bad system. San Quentin, the oldest of the two, has been for six years under the wardenship of an able and attractive man, William E. Hale, formerly Sheriff of Alameda County. Those who have read the wonderfully interesting reports of the National Prison Convention are familiar with his methods and views. The report for 1895 (Denver meeting) shows that Warden Hale, in the breadth and sanity of his views, easily takes rank among the best wardens of the country. He thoroughly understands California and the Californians, and while progressive has never attempted the impossible. In his various reports and addresses he especially urges more industrial schools, better care of children, and more kindergartens, such as those established in San Francisco by the late Sarah B. Cooper. And, indeed, who can read Kate Douglas Wiggin's story of Patsy without recognizing the value of kindergartens in the prevention of crime? The San Francisco police once traced the careers of nine thousand kindergarten pupils, and found that not one had ever become a law-breaker.
Last summer San Quentin was the scene of an "epidemic of noise" on the part of many of its inmates. Some of the newspaper accounts of the affair were painfully exaggerated, and the prison management in consequence was severely criticised. The fact is that the outbreak was quelled rapidly and effectually, without outside help, with only a few days' interruption of work on the jute mill, and without injury to any person. A hose was simply turned into the noisy cells until their inmates were subdued.
There have been very few escapes in the history of the prison, and none in recent years. Its situation, on the extreme eastern end of a rocky peninsula of Marin County, projecting into the bay of San Francisco, is extremely well chosen for safety and isolation. The State owns a large tract here, but it is very poor soil, and much of its surface clay has been stripped for brick-making, so that no income from it is possible unless more bricks can be made and sold. The prison accommodations are extremely cramped, and large quantities of brick should be used in needed extensions. Many small industries could be carried on here, if permitted, for water carriage to and from San Francisco is very cheap. Heavy manufactures requiring expensive steam power are not justified here.
The abandonment of the large State improvements at San Quentin seems contrary to the dictates of economy. Equally unwise is the suggestion that it be made a prison to which only the most dangerous classes of criminals should be sent. On the other hand, Folsom, with its quarries and water power, seems fitted for a receiving prison, where all convicts, without exception, should be placed on indeterminate sentences at hard labor, and from which, on good behavior, on the credit system, they might be removed by the prison directors to San Quentin, there to work at more varied but no less self-supporting trades. The ponderous jute-mill machinery should all be transferred to Folsom, where power is now running to waste. At San Quentin, first, the State should adopt more advanced reformatory methods.
Official statistics of the two prisons contain many interesting features. In mere numbers the increase during the past two decades has not kept pace with the increase in the State's population. San Quentin at present usually contains about fourteen hundred and Folsom about nine hundred, but an increase equal to the gain in population would give them three thousand instead of twenty-three hundred. Even during the so-called hard times of recent years there has been no marked additions to the criminal classes in California, and the two great strikes – that of the ironworkers and that of the railroad brakemen and firemen – led to surprisingly few violations of the laws.
Close observers say that there has been a marked increase during the past decade in the number of tramps, and that petty criminals have increased everywhere. But there are no statistics of the county and township jails. It seems certain that many villages and small towns, even where incorporated, have increasing trouble with gangs of hoodlums who are rapidly fitting themselves for State prisons. The reform schools have been largely recruited from this semi-criminal element, but stronger laws, swifter punishment, more firmness in dealing with young offenders, and, in brief, a higher grade of public sentiment on the part of citizens of small towns is evidently necessary. According to recent discussions in the New York Evening Post, the same sort of thing occurs in staid New England, and there, as here, it is one of the most serious problems of the times. From such a class of idle and vicious boys the prisons will hereafter be recruited, rather than from newcomers.
The nativity tables of both prisons show that the number of California-born convicts ranges in recent years from eighteen per cent in 1890 to nearly twenty-five per cent in 1895-'96. In that year in San Quentin, out of 819 American-born convicts, 314 were born in California, 68 in New York, 44 in Pennsylvania, 41 in Illinois, 36 in Ohio, and 35 each in Massachusetts and Missouri. Oregon sends 12, Arizona 10; Washington and Nevada are represented by only one apiece. The Southern States, excepting Kentucky and Virginia, send very few. Something the same proportion throughout holds at Folsom, and fairly indicates the States from which the population of California is chiefly drawn. The total of American nativity at San Quentin is sixty-four per cent; at Folsom, as last reported, it was about sixty-five per cent. Of the foreign born (thirty-six per cent at San Quentin), 99 out of 481 were Irish, 82 were Chinese, 56 were German, 49 were Mexican, and 44 were English. No one doubts that the laws are strictly enforced against the Chinese and the Mexicans (meaning Spanish-Californians); the other classes have votes and influence, and often have better chances for avoiding punishment for misdeeds. Japan contributes only one convict to San Quentin and two to Folsom. The Chinese as a rule go to prison for assaults upon each other ("highbinding"), for gambling, or similar offenses, but seldom for crimes against Americans. The Mexicans generally come to grief from an old-time penchant for other people's horses, or from drunken "cutting scrapes."
A racial classification attempted at Folsom showed that out of 905 convicts 704 were Caucasian, 89 Indian and Mexican, 62 Mongolian, and 50 negroid. I do not find this elsewhere, so it may stand alone as merely one year's observations.
Of much more importance are the statistics of illiteracy, kept for a term of years. Warden Hale reports in 1896 that out of 1,287 prisoners, 120 can neither read nor write, 220 can read but can not write, and 947 can both read and write. Of course, many who are rated in the third class read and write very poorly, and a careful classification in terms of the public-school system is essential to clearness. Warden Aull, at Folsom, reports that out of 905 convicts, 6 are college men, 81 are from private schools, 53 from both public and private schools, 582 have attended public schools only, and 147 are illiterate, while the remaining 36 call themselves "self-educated."
According to the evidence of the wardens, no full graduate of any American university has ever been an inmate of either prison. The so-called college men were men who had spent some time at a college of one kind or another. So-called professors appear among the convicts, but I have been unable to discover that any professor in an institution of standing has been at either San Quentin or Folsom since its establishment.
The preceding statistics of illiteracy are defective, but some additional light can be had from the tables upon occupations. Among 905 prisoners at Folsom, 96 occupations were represented. In round numbers, thirty-four per cent were mechanics, twenty-nine per cent were rated as laborers, twenty per cent were in business, and seven per cent were agriculturists. But a closer analysis of the statistics on this point shows that nearly fifty-seven per cent of the entire number came from the following occupations: acrobat, barber, bar-tender, butler, cook, gardener, hackman, hostler, laborer, laundryman, mill-hand, miner, nurse, sailor, vaquero, and "no occupation" (22).
The classification of crimes is very complete in all prison statistics, and usually follows the legal phraseology. Nearly all come under three great divisions – crimes against property, crimes of anger, and crimes which arise from a perverted sexuality. From year to year the proportion in these great divisions varies but little. In 1894 out of 1,287 convicts, 796 were sentenced for crimes against property, 358 of which were for burglary, 170 for grand larceny, and 39 for forgery; there were 343 commitments for assaults and murder, 188 of which were for murder in either the first or the second degree; lastly, there were 85 commitments for rape and other sex crimes. This was a typical year, and will serve to illustrate for all and at both prisons.
The terms of imprisonment are long: out of 1,300 men in one annual report, 143 were for life, and 392 for ten years or more. Over 300 prisoners had served more than one term, and some were even serving their eighth term. Some at Folsom have reached their twelfth term. The ages of the prisoners have ranged from sixteen to eighty-six, but the danger period is evidently between eighteen and forty.
All of the prison officers agree respecting the bad physical condition of the convicts. Many of them are weak and ill when they enter the prison; many are the victims of unnamable personal vices. The physicians at San Quentin in 1895 reported 27 cases of scrofula, 30 of syphilis, 22 of epilepsy, 29 of opium habit, 62 of rheumatism, 70 of typhus fever, and 124 of general debility. Medical statistics at Folsom show similar conditions, aggravated by the malarial climate of that locality. The death rate, formerly higher at Folsom than at San Quentin, is now considerably lower, owing to the much better accommodations for the prisoners, and the hard outdoor labor required. In 1896 it was but .79 of one per cent.
It is gratifying to observe that the cost of maintenance of the prisoners has been gradually reduced. Nearly thirty years ago legislative committees reported that the cost of running the State's prisons was four or five times as much in proportion to the inmates as that of any other State in the Union, and that the prisoners lived better than the average landowner. More economical methods were gradually adopted, and by 1891 the cost per diem of a convict was 40 cents. This has been still further reduced; at San Quentin to 30.45 cents, and at Folsom to 32.50 cents.
There will always be outside criticisms of the food supplied as "too good for convicts," but it is merely that of ordinary field laborers, with much less variety. Under California conditions it could not well be made cheaper. If the food statistics of the prisons were so compiled as to separate the butter, olives, raisins, canned fruit, etc., properly used on the tables of officers and wardens, from the articles purchased for the prisoners, much misapprehension would be prevented.
As long as the State pays the entire expense bill, however, there will be a natural restiveness on the part of the taxpayers; the prison management, no matter how careful it is, must suffer for the sins of the system. The present directors and wardens are intelligent and honest men, who could put the prisons on a self-supporting basis if they had the authority and the necessary means for the plant required. A comparatively small amount of manufactures would pay the daily maintenance of the prisoners, and thus render the management much less subject to public criticism.
This article is already as long as seems desirable, and I must close without describing the California reform schools, which are comparatively new, but have attracted much attention. At some future time I may have an opportunity to take up that subject.
THE SCIENTIFIC EXPERT AND THE BERING SEA CONTROVERSY
By GEORGE A. CLARK
In the November number of the Popular Science Monthly for 1897, Dr. Thomas C. Mendenhall reviews at some length the workings of the Bering Sea Commission of 1892. Dr. Mendenhall was himself a member of this commission, and his account of its inside history is interesting and instructive as throwing light upon the after-work of the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration for which it was to prepare the natural-history data.
Dr. Mendenhall naturally finds little to commend in the work of his colleagues, the British experts, but he does not stop there, and proceeds to generalize in an uncomplimentary way regarding scientific experts as a class. For example, he lays down the following just and admirable rule for scientific investigation: "It should be commenced with no preconceived notions of how it is to come out, and judgment should wait upon facts," and then continues to say: "Justice to the man of science obliges the admission that, take him in his laboratory or library, with no end in view except that of getting at the truth, and he generally lives fairly up to this high standard; but transform him by the magic of a handsome retainer, or any other incentive, into a scientific expert, and he is a horse of another color."
It is not the purpose of this article to argue the cause of the man of science, or to say whether or not this arraignment is just. It is the intention merely to bring into contrast with the notable example of failure which Dr. Mendenhall cites, an equally notable example of success on the part of the scientific expert. If I mistake not, this simple comparison will be all the vindication the man of science needs.
To understand the full force of Dr. Mendenhall's article, it must be remembered that it appeared on the very eve of the meeting of a second Bering Sea Commission called to consider the selfsame issues which occupied the attention of the commission of 1892. The article therefore stands as a prediction of failure for the new commission. Nor does Dr. Mendenhall leave his meaning obscure in this regard. He says, "It is difficult to see what good will come from further discussions, investigations, or declarations"; and his conclusion is, "It will be impossible to know absolutely which group of scientific experts (American or British) was right in regard to pelagic sealing," this last subject being the rock on which the commission of 1892 split.
It is not necessary here to go into the details of this first commission. These are given in Dr. Mendenhall's article. Two things only are essential to bring this meeting into contrast with the one of 1897. These are the instructions under which it was organized and its final report. Both are brief. The first is comprehended in the following statement, quoted from the Treaty of Arbitration of 1892: "Each Government shall appoint two commissioners to investigate conjointly with the commissioners of the other Government all facts having relation to seal life in Bering Sea, and the necessary measures for its protection and preservation."
The commissioners duly visited the fur-seal islands in Bering Sea, made their investigations, and were called together at Washington to deliberate upon the results obtained, and to prepare a joint report for the guidance of the Tribunal of Arbitration then about to convene at Paris. With Dr. Mendenhall was associated, on behalf of the United States, Dr. C. Hart Merriam. Great Britain was represented by Sir George Baden-Powell and Dr. George M. Dawson. The commission began its labors on the 8th of February, and completed them on the 4th of March following. Its final report, shorn of verbiage, consists of the following colorless statement: "We find that since the Alaska purchase a marked diminution in the numbers of the seals on and habitually resorting to the Pribilof Islands has taken place; that it is cumulative in effect, and that it is the result of excessive killing by man." One half of the work set for the commission – namely, measures for protection – was left wholly untouched.
In view of this meager and unsatisfactory result, it is perhaps not to be wondered at that Dr. Mendenhall should grow skeptical of the value of expert scientific evidence. But had he sought a cause of the failure of 1892 he might easily have found one more rational than the alleged "handsome retainer," or other "incentive."
It is manifestly true that the man of science can legitimately appear as an "expert" only when his evidence is desired on some line along which he has done work. An invertebrate morphologist is not an expert in electricity; nor a physicist in the habits of pinnipeds. One only of the four gentlemen, called upon in 1892 without their own consent to act as experts, had even a passing knowledge of the life history of marine mammals. Dr. Mendenhall was a physicist, Dr. Dawson a geologist, and Sir Baden-Powell something of a sportsman. Dr. Merriam alone, a mammalogist of the first rank, was a scientific expert in any proper sense.
Moreover, the investigations conducted by the two commissions were, from a scientific point of view, of the nature of a farce. Less than two weeks were spent upon the islands, and that at a date in the season least favorable of all for observations. This meant that the greater part of their information was got second-hand by the commissioners.
In marked contrast to the findings of the joint meeting is the individual report of the American commission, prepared largely by Dr. Merriam. This stands out as a notable contribution to the subject of which it treats. Though largely a compilation, so well was the work of sifting and weighing evidence done, that not a single statement of fact in it has proved fallacious, and the more exhaustive investigations of 1896 and 1897 corroborate its conclusions in every particular. This was the work of the true "scientific expert," and he can ask no better vindication. The joint commission contained "experts" of another sort, and its report was necessarily different.
The second Bering Sea Commission came into existence in much the same way as the first. An agreement was reached in 1896 between the two nations whereby the entire fur-seal question should become the subject of a new investigation. This agreement was the outgrowth of dissatisfaction on the part of the United States with the workings of the regulations of the Paris award.
The new investigation was begun at once and extended through the seasons of 1896 and 1897, and again the experts were called together at Washington to agree, if possible, on a joint statement of fact. The scope of the investigation and the object of the joint meeting are succinctly stated in the following words quoted in the preamble of the commission's report: "To arrive, if possible, at correct conclusions respecting the numbers, conditions, and habits of the seals frequenting the Pribilof Islands at the present time as compared with the several seasons previous and subsequent to the Paris award."
In the commission of 1897 the United States were represented by Dr. David S. Jordan and Hon. Charles S. Hamlin; Great Britain, by Prof. D'Arcy W. Thompson and Mr. James M. Macoun. It convened on the 10th of November and concluded its labors on the 17th, reaching a full and satisfactory agreement.
It will best serve our purpose to give the final report of the commission of 1897 in full. Two reasons make this appropriate: First, the substance of the sixteen concisely worded propositions of which it is made up can scarcely be stated in fewer words than the original. In fact, instead of condensing them, it will be necessary to amplify and explain many of the points made in order to be sure that they are clear to the lay reader. Second, the report has for some reason received practically no notice in the American press, and it is to be feared that the importance of the document has not been fully appreciated by the American public.
1. There is adequate evidence that since the year 1884, and down to the date of the inspection of the rookeries in 1897, the fur-seal herd of the Pribilof Islands, as measured on either the hauling grounds or breeding grounds, has declined in numbers at a rate varying from year to year.
This proposition is in effect a restatement of the first clause of the agreement of 1892, but it is much more definitely put. The decline is not made to date vaguely "since the Alaska purchase" (1867), but "since the year 1884." This latter date is significant for a number of things. Prior to it for a period of thirteen years there had been no difficulty in securing the normal quota of 100,000 skins annually. In other words, up to that time the herd had remained in a state of equilibrium, yielding a maximum product. Again, this date marks the advent of pelagic sealing in Bering Sea, and the beginning of that remarkable expansion of the industry which culminated ten years later in 1894. The decline of the herd is thus made synonymous with the rise of pelagic sealing.
The real significance of this proposition, however, lies in the fact that the decline is declared to have been continuous to the present time. In other words, it did not stop or even slacken with the season of 1894. In this season, it will be remembered, the regulations of the Paris award, avowedly for the "protection and preservation of the fur-seal herd," went into effect. Translated into direct statement, this proposition is an admission that the regulations have failed of their object.
2. In the absence for the earlier years of actual counts of the rookeries such as have been made in recent years, the best approximate measure of decline available is found in these facts:
a. About 100,000 male seals of recognized killable age were obtained from the hauling grounds each year from 1871 to 1889. The table of statistics given in Appendix I39 shows, on the whole, a progressive increase in the number of hauling grounds driven and in the number of drives made, as well as a retardation of the date at which the quota was attained during a number of years prior to 1889.
b. In the year 1896, 28,964 killable seals were taken after continuing the driving till July 27th, and in 1897 19,189 after continuing the driving till August 11th. We have no reason to believe that during the period 1896 and 1897 a very much larger number of males of recognized killable age could have been taken on the hauling grounds.
The reduction between the years 1896 and 1897 in the number of killable seals taken, while an indication of decrease in the breeding herd, can not be taken as an actual measure of such decrease. A number of other factors must be taken into consideration, and the real measure of decrease must be sought in more pertinent statistics, drawn from the breeding rookeries themselves.
We have already noted that in that portion of the period, 1871 to 1889, which falls prior to 1884, thirteen years in all, no difficulty was experienced in securing the full quota, and it may be added that this was completed not later than July 20th. A retardation of the date at which the quota can be filled is a direct indication of the degree of exhaustion of the hauling grounds. In marked contrast with these earlier years stand the conditions of 1896 and 1897, when greatly reduced quotas only were obtained, notwithstanding the unusual prolongation of the driving period.
The statement here made that the difference between the quotas of 1896 and 1897 is not an actual measure of decline in the breeding herd requires explanation. The quota of any year is dependent upon the birth rate of three years previous, killable seals being males of approximately three years of age. The difference noted, therefore, while not indicative of the actual decrease for the seasons 1896 and 1897, is a direct measure of such decrease for the seasons of 1893 and 1894, when the seals in question were born.
That the rate of decline as thus shown was greater in 1893-'94 than in 1896-'97 is explained by the fact that, whereas only 30,000 seals were taken at sea in 1893, 60,000 were taken in 1894; while in 1896 43,000 were taken as against only 25,000 in 1897. In other words, the pelagic catch of 1894 exceeded that of 1893 by one hundred per cent, while that of 1897 fell seventy-two per cent below that of 1896. It is not, therefore, strange that the quota of 1897 should show a reduction of thirty per cent as against one of twelve per cent in the breeding herd for the same year.
3. From these data it is plain that the former yield of the hauling grounds of the Pribilof Islands was from three to five times as great as in the years 1896 and 1897, and the same diminution to one third or one fifth of the former product may be assumed when we include also the results of the hunting at sea.
This proposition needs little comment. It is a simple deduction from the conditions of the preceding paragraph. The minimum estimate of former conditions is the lowest possible figure that could be in any way defended. The larger figure is apparently more nearly correct. The quota of 1898, of which we now have the record also, was about 18,000. It is not so stated in this paragraph, but the inference is inevitable that what is thus given as the decline of the "yield of the hauling grounds" is equally the decline of the breeding herd. A breeding herd which yielded without difficulty annually 100,000 killable animals (superfluous males of three years of age) must be reduced to something like one fifth its former size when it is able only with extreme difficulty to yield a quota of 20,000 such animals.
4. The death rate among young fur seals, especially among the pups, is very great. While the loss among the pups prior to their departure from the islands has been found in the past two years to approach twenty per cent of the whole number born, and though the rate of subsequent mortality is unknown, we may gather from the number which return each year that from one half to two thirds have perished before the age of three years – that is to say, the killable age for the males and the breeding age for the females.
The maximum and minimum figures here represent a division of opinion. The larger figure of two thirds would even seem to be a conservative estimate. The birth rate of 1897, as we know from close estimate, was approximately 130,000; it must have been greater in 1894, approaching 200,000. From this larger birth rate only about 20,000 males survived (the quota of 1897). There was doubtless a like number of females, the sexes being equal at birth and subject to like causes of natural loss. This gives a total of 40,000 in all, out of a birth rate of 200,000, which survived to the age of three years. This is one fifth, and it is evident that the mortality exceeds rather than falls below the maximum of two thirds.
5. The chief natural causes of death among pups, so far as known at present, are as follows, the importance of each being variable and more or less uncertain:
a. Ravages of the parasitic worm Uncinaria; most destructive on sandy breeding areas and during the period from July 15th to August 20th.
b. Trampling by fighting bulls or by moving bulls and cows, a source of loss greatest among young pups.
c. Starvation of pups strayed or separated from their mothers when very young, or whose mothers have died from natural causes.
d. Ravages of the great killer (Orca), known to be fatal to many of the young, and perhaps also to older seals.
At a later period drowning in the storms of winter is believed, but not certainly known, to be a cause of death among the older pups.
The causes of death here enumerated are natural and inherent in the conditions under which the herd exists. That some of them were not known or fully understood until the investigations of 1896 and 1897 does not make them new or recent in their action. They have been constant factors, acting with greater intensity in the past when the herd was larger and more crowded upon its breeding grounds. Photographs taken in 1891 and 1892 show that the parasitic worm was then doing its deadly work, and more extensively in proportion as the herd was larger. For 1,495 pups dead from this cause counted by us on Tolstoi sand flat in 1896, 4,000 were counted on the same ground by the British commissioner of 1892. Moreover, the bones of innumerable pups on ground already abandoned in that year by the declining herd attest the existence of this cause of death prior to that time. We have no reason to suppose that it has not always preyed upon the herd. Death by trampling must at present be at a minimum on account of the scattered condition of the rookeries. The storms of winter and pelagic enemies must, of course, take toll in proportion to the number of animals.