A certain number of prisoners, say ten per cent, always have and always will abuse probation and parole. The ninety per cent of prisoners who respect probation and parole more than justify the laws under which they are released. Probation to boys and young men should be extended. Paroles to first-time convicts should be more liberal. Paroles to second-timers might well be closely scrutinized, and for third-timers—if the Prison Board “throws the key away” on them they will die off and settle their own problem. I am in the third or fourth-timer class myself, and if I got back into prison and the board sentenced me to life with the privilege of applying for parole after fifteen years, I wouldn’t have to look very far for the person responsible for it. As I see it, the criminals of this generation should cause no concern. They will soon be out of the way. The problem wouldn’t be solved by shooting them all at sunrise, or by releasing them all at sunrise. Something might be done for the generation that is coming up. It seems to me there’s the place to start—but what to do, I don’t know. I am sure of but one thing—I failed as a thief, and at that I am luckier than most of them. I quit with my health and liberty. What price larceny, burglary, and robbery? Half my thirty years in the underworld was spent in prison. Say I handled $50,000 in the fifteen years I was outside; that’s about nine dollars a day. How much of that went to lawyers, fixers, bondsmen, and other places? Then count in the years in prison—suffering, hardship, privation. This was years ago when there was much less police protection. “What chance have you now?” I would ask any young man, “with shotgun squads, strong-arm squads, and crime crushers cruising the highways and byways; with the deadly fingerprinting, central identification bureau, and telephotȯing of pictures; and soon every police station broadcasting ahead of you your description and record? Then consider the accidents and snitches—what chance have you? Figure it out yourself. I can’t.” Had I spent that thirty years at any useful occupation and worked as hard at it and thought and planned and brought such ingenuity and concentration to bear on it, I would be independent to-day. I would have a home, a family perhaps, and a respected position in my community. I have none of those, but I have a job, I have two suits of clothes, I have two furnished rooms in a flat. I have as many friends as I can be loyal to. I am fifty years old, and so healthy that when I hear my friends holding forth about their ailments I feel ashamed of myself. I would not turn time backward and be young again, neither do I wish to reach the century mark and possible senility. I have no money, no wife, no auto. I have no dog. I have neither a radio set nor a rubber plant—I have no troubles.