what was now known as the Old Death House (where at
present only visitors to the inmates of the new Death House
were received), and at the other into the execution room in
which stood the electric chair. Two of the cells on the lower
passage—those at the junction of the narrower passage—
faced the execution-room door. The two opposite these, on
the corresponding corners, faced the passage that gave
into the Old Death House or what now by a large stretch of
the imagination, could be called the condemned men’s
reception room, where twice weekly an immediate relative
or a lawyer might be met. But no others.
In the Old Death House (or present reception room), the
cells still there, and an integral part of this reception plan,
were all in a row and on one side only of a corridor, thus
preventing prying inspection by one inmate of another, and
with a wire screen in front as well as green shades which
might be drawn in front of each cell. For, in an older day,
whenever a new convict arrived or departed, or took his
daily walk, or went for his bath, or was led eventually
through the little iron door to the west where formerly was
the execution chamber, these shades were drawn. He was
not supposed to be seen by his associates. Yet the old
death house, because of this very courtesy and privacy,
although intense solitude, was later deemed inhuman and
hence this newer and better death house, as the thoughtful
and condescending authorities saw it, was devised.
In this, to be sure, were no such small and gloomy cells as
those which characterized the old, for there the ceiling was
low and the sanitary arrangements wretched, whereas in
the new one the ceiling was high, the rooms and corridors
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brightly lighted and in every instance no less than eight by
ten feet in size. But by contrast with the older room, they
had the enormous disadvantage of the unscreened if not
uncurtained cell doors.
Besides, by housing all together in two such tiers as were
here, it placed upon each convict the compulsion of
enduring all the horrors of all the vicious, morbid or
completely collapsed and despairing temperaments about
him. No true privacy of any kind. By day—a blaze of light
pouring through an over-arching skylight high above the
walls. By night—glistening incandescents of large size and
power which flooded each nook and cranny of the various
cells. No privacy, no games other than cards and checkers
—the only ones playable without releasing the prisoners
from their cells. Books, newspapers, to be sure, for all who
could read or enjoy them under the circumstances. And
visits—mornings and afternoons, as a rule, from a priest,
and less regularly from a rabbi and a Protestant minister,
each offering his sympathies or services to such as would
accept them.
But the curse of the place was not because of these
advantages, such as they were, but in spite of them—this
unremitted contact, as any one could see, with minds now
terrorized and discolored by the thought of an approaching
death that was so near for many that it was as an icy hand
upon the brow or shoulder. And none—whatever the
bravado—capable of enduring it without mental or physical
deterioration in some form. The glooms—the strains—the
indefinable terrors and despairs that blew like winds or
breaths about this place and depressed or terrorized all by
turns! They were manifest at the most unexpected
moments, by curses, sighs, tears even, calls for a song—for
God’s sake!—or the most unintended and unexpected yells
or groans.
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Worse yet, and productive of perhaps the most grinding
and destroying of all the miseries here—the transverse
passage leading between the old death house on the one
hand and the execution-chamber on the other. For this from
time to time—alas, how frequently—was the scene or stage
for at least a part of the tragedy that was here so regularly
enacted—the final business of execution.
For through this passage, on his last day, a man was
transferred from his better cell in the new building, where he
might have been incarcerated for so much as a year or two,
to one of the older ones in the old death house, in order
that he might spend his last hours in solitude, although
compelled at the final moment, none-the-less (the death
march), to retrace his steps along this narrower cross
passage—and where all might see—into the execution
chamber at the other end of it.
Also at any time, in going to visit a lawyer or relative
brought into the old death house for this purpose, it was
necessary to pass along the middle passage to this smaller
one and so into the old death house, there to be housed in
a cell, fronted by a wire screen two feet distant, between
which and the cell proper a guard must sit while a prisoner
and his guest (wife, son, mother, daughter, brother, lawyer)
should converse—the guard hearing all. No handclasps, no
kisses, no friendly touches of any kind—not even an
intimate word that a listening guard might not hear. And
when the fatal hour for any one had at last arrived, every
prisoner—if sinister or simple, sensitive or of rugged texture
—was actually if not intentionally compelled to hear if not
witness the final preparations—the removal of the
condemned man to one of the cells of the older death
house, the final and perhaps weeping visit of a mother, son,
daughter, father.
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No thought in either the planning or the practice of all this of
the unnecessary and unfair torture for those who were
brought here, not to be promptly executed, by any means,
but rather to be held until the higher courts should have
passed upon the merits of their cases—an appeal.
At first, of course, Clyde sensed little if anything of all this.
In so far as his first day was concerned, he had but tasted
the veriest spoonful of it all. And to lighten or darken his
burden his mother came at noon the very next day. Not
having been permitted to accompany him, she had waited
over for a final conference with Belknap and Jephson, as
well as to write in full her personal impressions in
connection with her son’s departure—(Those nervously
searing impressions!) And although anxious to find a room
somewhere near the penitentiary, she hurried first to the
office of the penitentiary immediately upon her arrival at
Auburn and, after presenting an order from Justice
Oberwaltzer as well as a solicitous letter from Belknap and
Jephson urging the courtesy of a private interview with
Clyde to begin with at least, she was permitted to see her
son in a room entirely apart from the old death house. For
already the warden himself had been reading of her
activities and sacrifices and was interested in seeing not
only her but Clyde also.
But so shaken was she by Clyde’s so sudden and
amazingly changed appearance here that she could
scarcely speak upon his entrance, even in recognition of
him, so blanched and gray were his cheeks and so
shadowy and strained his eyes. His head clipped that way!
This uniform! And in this dreadful place of iron gates and
locks and long passages with uniformed guards at every
turn!
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For a moment she winced and trembled, quite faint under
the strain, although previous to this she had entered many
a jail and larger prison—in Kansas City, Chicago, Denver—
and delivered tracts and exhortations and proffered her
services in connection with anything she might do. But this
—this! Her own son! Her broad, strong bosom began to
heave. She looked, and then turned her heavy, broad back
to hide her face for the nonce. Her lips and chin quivered.
She began to fumble in the small bag she carried for her
handkerchief at the same time that she was muttering to
herself: “My God—why hast Thou forsaken me?” But even
as she did so there came the thought—no, no, he must not
see her so. What a way was this to do—and by her tears
weaken him. And yet despite her great strength she could
not now cease at once but cried on.
And Clyde seeing this, and despite his previous
determination to bear up and say some comforting and
heartening word to his mother, now began:
“But you mustn’t, Ma. Gee, you mustn’t cry. I know it’s hard
on you. But I’ll be all right. Sure I will. It isn’t as bad as I
thought.” Yet inwardly saying: “Oh, God how bad!”
And Mrs. Griffiths adding aloud: “My poor boy! My beloved
son! But we mustn’t give way. No. No. ‘Behold I will deliver
thee out of the snares of the wicked.’ God has not deserted
either of us. And He will not—that I know. ‘He leadeth me