“If the party making the appeal for clemency has a clear record for thirty days next preceding the date of the application, the appeal will be referred to the Bankruptcy Court, consisting of the assistant superintendent and the chaplain, who will give the applicant a hearing, carefully review his case, and make a report of their findings to the superintendent. In case the appeal is granted, the applicant will be placed in the second grade under the same conditions as apply to inmates on first entering the institution, and his consideration for parole will not be prejudiced by his previous record. “Any inmate who shall have served one year in the second grade, and who has failed of promotion to the first grade because of minor acts of omission or commission, may make written appeal to the superintendent for promotion to the first grade, and his case will be dealt with in like manner and on like conditions as stated above. The superintendent will not remit time lost or make special promotions except in the manner above indicated. “People who come to our institution sometimes ask, What is the best thing you have done? In making reply I do not point to any material thing. I call attention to the bankruptcy court. It has relieved us of embarrassment, strengthened our discipline, opened the door of hope, extracted the teeth of criticism. It has done wonders in this direction. I had a talk with one of those sinister, embittered boys one day. He was sullen, not personally insolent to me, except in a degree unconsciously, and I said to him, ‘I am thinking, my boy, of that good day coming when you will do just the opposite.’ He said, ‘Why do you think that day will ever come?’ ‘Simply because you have sense enough in your head; it is sure to come. You are not so bad. You fancy you are a bad fellow. You are bad enough for all practical purposes, but you are not so bad as you think. All you have to do is to turn around. You are a six-cylinder fellow. You have force and will, and you have obstinacy and lots of other things you ought not to have, and when you turn around, then we are going to have one of the best boys instead of the worst.’ He said, ‘You cannot make the officers of this institution believe I would turn around.’ I said, ‘No, but you and I can make them believe it, not I, but you and I, and I shall expect it some day.’ After six weeks there came this letter from him: ‘I have turned around, but in doing so I’m face to face with a hopeless lot of demerits, and I therefore appeal for the benefit of the bankruptcy court.’ He was working in the right direction. I would not take the time to tell you his career afterwards. It was all I hoped for.