day afternoons and the Good Conduct League. Further consideration has
rendered both of us enthusiastic over the plan.

"Why, I know it would work, Tom," is Jack's decided statement. "The big
majority of fellows in this prison the Warden don't have any trouble with.
Well, just keep the rest of 'em out of the League. There's no reason why
the men who are tryin' to make good should suffer because those miserable
degenerates won't stand for what's right."

"Then you think that if the right men were trusted they could take care of
the bad ones?" I ask.

"Sure!" replies my enthusiastic partner.

"Well, now let's see about this thing," I say, becoming more and more
interested as the great possibilities of the plan present themselves to my
mind. "Suppose it is Sunday afternoon and Superintendent Riley has given
permission to use the yard. You can't have the officers coming back and
spoiling their day off. How would you manage?"

"Why, just let the League fellows manage themselves," is Jack's answer.

"Yes, but how?" I persist. "You'd probably have an occasional fight of
some sort, and you'd have to have some means of enforcing discipline.
Could each company have a convict officer, a lieutenant to assist the
regular captain?"

Jack looks grave. "That would be too much like Elmira," he says. "I'm
afraid the fellows wouldn't fall for it. You know they just hate those
Elmira officers; they're nothing but stool-pigeons."

Right here is where my Junior Republic experience comes to our aid.

"Yes," I say, "but we wouldn't have any Elmira stool-pigeons. Down there
the inmate officers are appointed by the prison authorities, aren't they?
Well, here we'd have the members of the League elect their own officers."

Jack stares at me a moment, and then his quick mind grasps the point.
"That's it, that's it," he assents, eagerly, "we've got it now. Of course
if the men elect their own officers they won't be stool-pigeons."

"Certainly not, they can't be," I rejoin, feeling now on familiar and
secure ground, "for if the men elect them, they will be representatives of
the men and bound to feel themselves responsible to the men. They may
turn out to be poor officers--dictatorial, or weak, or incompetent--but
they will not be stool-pigeons. Then you can guard against it still
further by providing that whenever the men of a company lose faith in
their officer he can be recalled and a new one elected."

As we discuss the matter new poss