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THE LIFE PRESERVER

Published and distributed monthly be the National Association for the Abolition of Capital Punishment.
The National Association for Prison Reforms, Affiliated.
291 Broadway, Room 1401, New York City.

I. Baer Reinhardt, President and Legal Advisor.
Jerome B. Sabath, Secretry and Treasurer.
Mabel A Gluck Assistant Secretary.
Leo Kenneth Mayer, Historian and Editor.

Vol. 1. September, 1915. No. 1

This association, like all other active organizations, incurs considerable expense, the most important items of which are rent, statinery, postage and office help. This expense is sustained by the dues of the members and voluntary contributions. We have but one class of active membership, the dues for which are $6.00 per annum. This sum includes full membership priviileges in both the National Association for the Abolition of Capital Punishment and its affiliated association the National Association for Prison Reforms. We welcome the moral and financial support of any person interested in these progressive movements, either in the form of active members or contributors in any sum they may feel able to afford. The "Life Preserver" is mailed monthly to all members and contributors without any charge. Notices of meetings are mailed to all memebers and contributors two weeks in advance of the date set. All communications should be addressed to the Secretary.

The new Death House at Sing Sing has been completed. It will accommodate 33 people. Prisoners awaiting execution will now be made comfortable before being killed.

a signal given by a prison employee, the electrician shoves, with tremendous force, a lever which shoots the current through the person, whose life the State claims.

At the application of the first shock, the body, now helpless, jumps forward from the chair as far as the straps will allow, about eight inches. The voltage is then increased to insure death. A physical expamination follows by the prison doctors and by such other medical men present who may desire.

The death process has a decided nauseating effect upon the withness, some weakened by the ordeal, others unable to reconcile themselves to the fact that a life had already been extinguisehd and still others dumbfounded by the solemnity of the occasion.

Horror stricken are all the witnesses at the nonchalance exhibited by the representatives of Law and order in their performance of the only irrevokable act committed by State -- the destruction of human life.

Words can little describe the "damnable atrocity."

--Jerome B. Sabath

PERSONAL

I. Baer Reinhardt, our president, is taking a much needed rest at his summer home, Phoenicia, N. Y. President Reinhardt will be back for had work Monday, Septemer 13th.

Miss Mabel A. Gluck has been elected to the office of Assistant Secretary. Miss Gluck is the first woman to hold office in this Association.

Watch the next issue for full particulars of the October Quarterly Meeting.
Remember the date--October 30th.