I need add no comment. The story is merely an illustration of the old
adage, "Give a dog a bad name, and you might as well hang him." I do
not want my remarks to be one-sided. The detective officer is needed.
Some of the officers are very able, bright men and I have known some
who have been fair-minded and good at heart but that great abuses of
power have been practiced and many men made victims to the old idea
that the once marked man has no rights, no honor, and can come to no
possible good, is an incontestable fact. Public opinion, steered by
Christian charity regarding the rights of those who cannot protect
themselves, is the safe-guard to which we must appeal.
Perhaps the bitterest experience is that of the man who succeeds
in getting a start, who strives hard and in time makes for himself
a position by faithful, honest work and who after it all, has the
building of years torn down, and his life blasted by the unjustifiable
raking up of the past. A story startling the state of Ohio was flashed
all over the country not long since, which very pointedly illustrated
this fact. A man in his youth had committed an offense which had sent
him to prison for five years; I believe it was the striking of a blow
in a moment of anger; he served his term and it proved the lesson
of his life. Coming out of prison, he moved into the state of Ohio
and found work in Columbus. It was humble work at the very bottom of
the ladder, but, as years passed, his industry was rewarded by great
success and at last he became a very prominent and wealthy business
man. He had had to confide his past to one or two people in the city,
so that when he commenced to work, he would not be doing so under false
colors. As time went on and wealth, social position and important
business connections became his, these people in a most unprincipled
manner commenced the levying of blackmail. For many years his life was
made miserable, and he was thus robbed of thousands of dollars.
There was nothing dishonorable in his life; he was a perfectly
straight, successful business man, but he knew well that the prejudice
against the man that has been in prison is so great that his successful
career would be ruined and he himself ostracized, if these blackmailers
published the fact which they threatened to reveal, that he had once
been in prison. At last when he could stand this wretched position
no longer, he made a statement to the papers, through his lawyer,
publishing to the world the fact of his early imprisonment, that he
might thus break the weapons of his enemies. If the world's attitude to
the returned prisoner were more rational and its judgment were passed
on his after life and conduct instead of the mere fact of the past
penalty, such a state of things would be impossible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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