“The number trusted is growing larger and larger each year. We select them very carefully. I take a boy out quietly in the evening and have a talk with him. I ask him if he will voluntarily assume that responsibility. If he agrees, I produce a bond, one that has been prepared with some red ink, red ribbon and red seals and burdened with all the meaningless expressions that our legal brethren have burdened us with. At the bottom of it there are two clauses of plain English that the boy is supposed to understand. There is nothing like being impressive as he signs the bond. I say to him: ‘Now here is the place for your surety. Where are you going to get it?’ He replies, ‘I believe my folks will give it.’ ‘That cannot be done, my boy. This is an honor bond.’ Then, ‘I will do it,’ I tell him. ‘I will be your first friend and stand for you with the deputy.’
“I have signed ten hundred and eighteen of those bonds and only five have been dishonored. That experiment has been worth a great deal more than it costs. It costs some anxiety. Next year I expect to put out about two hundred men if I live. I shall put out more and more each year and I shall expect this good record to continue, simply because the fellows inside are standing for it and even in their language they distinguish. The fellow who scales the walls gets the applause that always goes with the deed of daring, but the fellow who goes out after signing a bond with the superintendent’s name to it, ‘takes a sneak,’ and when he is brought back he is made to feel it.
“Those trusties are never informers with us. We have never let them inform us. The other boys have no prejudices against them. They want to be with them, but I keep them as far separated as possible. If I were building a new reformatory the ground plan would look like a spider’s web and I would have a detached cottage for those who have proven their trustworthiness.
“The second exceptional class calling for special discipline is _the bankrupt_. You men who have to deal with the indeterminate sentence know that no board of managers or set of men can make rules that will meet the peculiar needs of individual cases. You and I know that in every prison there are boys who cannot gain eligibility for parole under rules made for the average, notwithstanding the fact that they are not guilty of serious offenses, nor are they regarded as malicious or dangerous. They become bankrupt because of the accumulation of demerits for this thing and that. What are we going to do? If I excuse those reports it becomes a personal favor, which is wrong and leads to bad feeling. I asked myself the question: ‘What has society in all time done to meet such cases? What is done in the economic world?’ I recently read an article which said that sixty per cent. of the successful merchants were bankrupt some time in their life. If a man who has carried on a business comes into court with clean hands he is given the benefit of bankruptcy; his obligations are canceled and a new opportunity is afforded him. I asked myself the question, ‘Why can we not have something of like character here?’ So I instituted a bankruptcy court. Our general disciplinarian holds court on all offenses and fixes penalties under the general rules. There is, however, a right of appeal, first to the superintendent, and finally to the president of the Board of Managers. Why then another court? I wanted a court which would be free from any prejudice on account of the boys’ record, so I selected the assistant superintendent, who, while charged with the discipline in a general way, does not pass upon the original offenses, and then the chaplain, who has no embarrassing relations at all as to discipline. With these two officers we instituted a court in which were represented both the law and the gospel. The Board of Managers heartily approved the innovation. The rules governing that court are as follows: