Bates Designates Gill as Guiltless in Talk to Massachusetts Civic League

In a speech delivered before the Massachusetts Civic League at the Twentieth Century Club yesterday afternoon, Sanford Bates, United States Director of the Bureau of Prisons, styled Howard B. Gill '13, whithdrawn superintendent of Norfolk Prison as "guiltless," and outlined as ideal, a program which coincides almost exactly with that being conducted at Norfolk.

This remark came early in an address entitled "Can We Rehabilitate the Criminal," Bates, a solidly built, quick-witted, unaffected speaker, began his remarks in this vein: "I daresay there is considerable difference of opinion here on this subject. Furthermore, I am a bit hesitant about talking penology before such a gathering as this--between the Gloomy Gluecks on the one side and the Guiltless Gill on the other. (Loud and prolonged clapping) If I had said guilty, (aside to Gill) I suppose there wouldn't have been any applause."

Approached after the meeting, Mr. Bates refused to comment, directly upon the Norfolk case saying, "I have a high personal regard for Mr. Gill, but, since I have been away from the scene of action, I do not wish to discuss the merits of this particular case."

Three or four times, during the course of his short address Bates made what were taken by the audience to be indirect references to the Norfolk investigation. Upon one occasion he remarked that, "Penologists are handicapped, at every turn, by the fickleness of public opinion, and by what seems to be almost a deliberate attempt to misunderstand the new ideas of penology." This remark closely followed by another, that, "Prisons appear to be the biggest, shiniest target in the world. Anything that goes wrong is fair meat for almost anybody. A penologist's life, if I may borrow from Gilbert and Sullivan, is not a happy one." And again that "if prisons exist for the sole purpose of being agreeable, then the best citizens ought to be in them. If they exist in order to be primarily disagreeable, then we should certainly fire Mr. Gill. That, however, is not part of his policy."

The CRIMSON was informed, after the hearing that, "At the time of Mr. Bates' appointment to Commissioner of Correction in Massachusetts, some years ago, the Boston Herald editorialized the story as a 'terrible appointment.' Since then, of course, Mr. Bates has become internationally renowned as a penologist."

Gill has recently been undergoing a hearing in the presence of Governor Ely to determine Whether the Charges of Francis X. Hurley '24, State Auditor, that Gill was operating Norfolk under too lax penal regulations, were true. At the trial, Ely was convinced of the invalidity of Hurley's charges.