We do not look the facts of crime fairly in the face. We do not see what heathens we are. Why, there is not a Christian nation in the world that has not a Secretary of War, armies, soldiers, and the terrible apparatus of destruction. But there is not one that has a Secretary of Peace, not one that takes half the pains to improve its own criminals which it takes to build forts and fleets! Yet it seems to me that a Christian State should be a great peace society, a society for mutual advancement in the qualities of a man!
Do we not see that by our present course we are teaching men violence, fraud, deceit, and murder? What is the educational effect of our present political conduct, of our invasions, our battles, our victories; of the speeches of "our great men?" You all know that this teaches the poor, the low, and the weak that murder and robbery are good things when done on a large scale; that they give wealth, fame, power, and honors. The ignorant man, ill-born and ill-bred, asks: "Why not when done on a small scale; why not good for me?" If it is right in the President of the United States to rob and murder, why not for the President of the United States Bank? Do famous men say, "Our country however bounded," and vote to plunder a sister State? then why shall not the poor man, hungry and cold, say, "My purse however bounded," and seize on all he can get? Give one a seat in Congress if you will, and the other a noose of hemp, there is a God before whom seats in Congress and hempen halters are of equal value, but who does justice to great and little!
To reform the dangerous classes of society, to advance those who loiter behind our civilization, we need a special work designed directly for the good of the criminals and such as stand on that perilous ground which slopes towards crime. Some good men undertook this work long ago. They found much to do; a good deal to encourage them. Some of them are well known to you, are laboring here in the midst of us. They need counsel, encouragement, and aid. We must not look coldly on their enterprise nor on them. They can tell far better than I what specific plans are best for their specific work. Already have they accomplished much in this noble enterprise. The society for aiding discharged convicts is a prophecy of yet better things. Soon I trust it will extend its kind offices to all the prisons, and its work be made the affair of the State. The plan now before your Legislature for a "State Manual Labor School," designed to reform vicious children, is also full of promise. The wise and anonymous charity which so beautifully and in silence has dropped its gold into the chest for these poor outcasts, is itself its hundred-fold reward. Institutions like that which we contemplate have been found successful in England, Germany, and France. They actually reform the juvenile delinquent and bring up useful men, not hardened criminals.[35] We are beginning to attend to this special work of removing the causes of crime, and restoring at least the young offenders.