PREFACE.

The annual congress of the American Prison Association was held in the city of Seattle, Washington, August 14 to 19, 1909. It was the first time in its history that it had convened west of the Rocky Mountains.

Thirty-four states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Cuba, Hawaii and China were represented by official delegates or visitors. The total registration was 353.

Seattle, in the midst of a great exposition, with its consequent innumerable conventions and meetings, had time and the inclination to extend to the Association a warm and convincing welcome. That the people of the Pacific Coast are alive to the importance of the questions discussed was made evident by an unusual local attendance at the meetings and the further fact that, excluding the Seattle delegates, more than one-fourth of the registration was from the three Pacific states.

On the opening night an informal reception was given by the local committee. By proclamation of the Mayor, Hon. John M. Miller, the following day, Sunday, was generally observed by the churches as "Prison Sunday," many of the pulpits being filled by members of the Association.

The annual sermon was delivered on Sunday morning in the First Presbyterian Church, by its pastor, Rev. M. A. Matthews, D. D., before a congregation of four thousand people.

On Wednesday afternoon the delegates were given an excursion by boat to Tacoma, where the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce became the host for a trolley ride about the city, ending

up with a "clam bake." Thursday afternoon was spent at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition as guests of the Exposition officials. Here, in the evening, in the Washington State Building, the Governor of Washington, Hon. M. E. Hay, tendered and presided at a banquet to the Association. The closing meeting was held the same evening in the auditorium on the Exposition grounds.

New York City, November 1, 1909.

J. P. B.

PROCEEDINGS.

OPENING SESSION.

Saturday Evening, August 14, 1909.

The Congress was called to order by Mr. Corwin S. Shank, of Seattle, after which Dr. A. Norman Ward, president of the Ministerial Association of Seattle, delivered the invocation.

Mr. Shank: It is a matter of delight to all who are interested in the great problems with which this Association is dealing that it engages the attention of the strongest and the best men of our nation, some of whom are with us tonight. Among these is our distinguished Governor, Honorable M. E. Hay, who will now address us and welcome this Association to this State.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME.

HON. M. E. HAY, GOVERNOR OF WASHINGTON.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen-It gives me great pleasure to welcome on behalf of the State of Washington the American Prison Association. This Association had its inception in a meeting that convened in Cincinnati, October 12, 1870. At that meeting twenty-five of the states of the Union were represented by men who had made a study of penology and were convinced of the necessity of arousing a sentiment in favor of changing the system, which had been followed from time immemorial, in the treatment of criminals. These men, actuated by the highest motives of humanity and a sincere desire to advance the cause of civilization, realized that in order to secure reforms in the treatment of criminals it was necessary, first, to carry on a campaign of education to arouse a general interest in their purpose without which no effective result could be ac

complished. As a result of the efforts of this organization, which has met annually for more than thirty years to study and discuss the various problems connected with the treatment of the criminal and delinquent classes of society, we are coming to recognize more fully that the surest way of reducing crime is through preventive and reformatory methods rather than the old retaliatory course.

This Association has not been composed of sentimentalists and idealists advancing impracticable theories. Its membership has been and is made up of the foremost minds of the country, who have devoted years to the study of this subject from a practical standpoint, the first president of the Association being Rutherford B. Hayes, then Governor of Ohio, and subsequently President of the United States.

As a result of the agitation for reform in the treatment of criminals carried on by this Association, many states have adopted legislation designed to carry into effect the principles and ideas advanced by it.

The State of Washington has made notable advancement along the lines advocated by this organization in the past few years in the provision for indeterminate sentences and the establishment of a reformatory in addition to the training school and penitentiary. In the administration of the penal institutions Washington is endeavoring to carry out the principle of probation of criminals through the wise use of the parole and conditional pardon, which in practical operation has proven most efficacious in the reformation of criminals.

While all these reforms are the direct outgrowth of the agitation and propaganda of education carried on by your Association, there yet remains much to be accomplished, and I trust that your deliberations in this city will result in the adoption of added reforms.

The people of Washington are certainly proud to entertain you as guests and we sincerely trust you will come back to us time and time again.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME.

HON. JOHN M. MILLER, MAYOR OF SEATTLE.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the American Prison Association-It is a long way from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. It is a long way from the great and grand old city of Boston to Seattle. It is a long way from Toronto and the great Canadian cities and from the great states and great cities of the sunny South. But wherever you go across this broad land you will find about the same social conditions. We struggle with the same conditions here that you do in the older and more populous cities of the East. Your problems are our problems. This West, this great Northwest, with its enterprises and its progress, is the Mecca for many of your citizens, gentlemen, that you and your officials are not sorry to lose.

In the last few years since we have passed our little childhood, a new system of laws has been framed along the line of reformation of mankind, particularly the kind that is bent on mischief. These laws are the results of years of experience and patient experimenting with the abnormal mischief-bent mind. The legislature of this State passed a few years ago an act known as the habitual criminal act, to which my seven years' experience as a prosecutor leads me to give hearty approval. The last session of the legislature passed an act wherein all first offenders are placed not within the penitentiary, but within a reformatory institution, better adapted to the reformation of the man who has committed his first offense. I am one of those who have taken the ground that a man who has committed a felony a second and third time is almost incorrigible and that it is well to protect society against his further mischief. That is the ground work and the basis of the habitual criminal act of this State. The warden of our State Penitentiary, acting under the guidance of our State officials, abolished many of the unsavory and unwholesome rules of our penal institution and is conducting it along the lines of the better institutions of the older and more experienced states.