Wanted Man

by Tamsin Spargo

  Coincidentally, just weeks after New York's greatest train robber started his hunger strike, Thomas Edison, inventor of the electric lights that had illuminated Utica in 1891, thrilled America with the first real 'feature film' to be shown in the nation's vaudeville theatres: The Great Train Robbery. At twelve minutes, this was the longest, most dramatic moving picture ever, telling the story of bandits robbing a train. While the action took place in the 'West', it was filmed in studios and on the railroads in New York and New Jersey. Edison publicists boasted that New York's own 'frontier' train robberies could only enhance the film's appeal to eastern audiences. A dramatic scene in which a robber fired his gun straight at the shocked but delighted audience showed just how powerful this new medium would be, with crime a favourite subject as it had been in the dime novels of the 1890s.

  It was, of course, one Perry would never experience. Life in an asylum for a blind man must have been at best tedious, at worst terrifying. There was no work or education and, although he made some friends, he was frequently housed with the most irrational and disturbed men. But, with difficulty, he had sustained his own love of writing. He was dependent on others to read and write for him, and the only way to get another patient to do so was by paying him with tobacco. When this worked, he could hear letters and books and dictate his own thoughts. But when his keepers or doctors wanted to punish him, they could easily stop him buying tobacco, or simply lock his door. His supporters, and state officials, repeatedly advised the doctors that letting someone read and write for him could only help alleviate his situation and their own, giving him some mental stimulation to distract him from his complaints. One governor even sent word that Perry should be allowed notepaper to write to him. But time and again, the response to his unruly behaviour was to deprive him of this outlet. The officials' actions may well be understandable - Perry must have been infuriating - but they made the problem worse.

  His many notes and letters, from the periods when he was allowed to write, testify to his desperate need to communicate, to find a voice that could not be silenced by drugs or double-doored cells. He also continued to write poems, which he had transcribed into a little book that was his prize possession. The poems were generally protests or appeals for sympathy. Some were religious in theme, with conventional messages of promised renewal and redemption designed to appeal to his supporters. Some expressed more personal and tangible hopes.

  One written in 1904, called 'My Prospective Friend', was addressed to a new physician, Dr Charles North, who had recently arrived in Dannemora from a post in Matteawan. The physician was reported to be a fine amateur actor and shared Perry's love of music: an accomplished violinist, he even started a patients' orchestra. If Perry had known him in Matteawan, he gave no hint of their relationship in his poem, but, as he had so often, he was pinning his hopes on one man:

  Oh! Doctor Nord; if thou only

  Let me tell my stomach's tail [sic]

  It will reveal how very lonely;

  Veryly [sic] do I moan and wail;

  Ere long I pray that thou may find

  Room in thy heart for one whose [sic] blind.

  The Patients' Orchestra at Dannemora (Courtesy of Special Collections, Feinberg Library, State University of New York at Plattsburgh).

  Dr North's reaction to his welcoming poem is not known but he would occupy a place in Perry's thoughts for over a decade. In the coming years Perry would repeatedly accuse him of both systematic corruption and personal vindictiveness, and North would block all attempts to review Perry's case. None of Perry's accusations was investigated and many of North's practices, that seem harsh or insensitive today, were common at the time. Two examples reveal North's rigidity and Perry's frustration.

  First, a few years after his arrival, North refused Amelia Has­well's request to be allowed to send Perry a mandolin for Christmas. She and some of his other friends hoped would that this would help occupy and cheer Perry who, like the physician, had always loved music. But North was unmoved. Perry remembered the decision for the rest of his life. Years later he reminded his friend that the Superintendent allowed some patients to buy beer 'but when I was anxious to drink in a few notes from a mandolin which you and others desired to send me, oh! that was different and yet he has never suggested any occupation for the mind'. To mark another Christmas, Amelia Haswell hoped to send Perry a ring. In her accompanying letter to Dr North she acknowledged her impulse might seem odd, 'but when you consider how few things one can send a blind man, and knowing how much he used to prize a ring and as some one suggested it, I acted upon it. It is inexpensive (not solid) and I thought whether in the circumstances you might allow it.' North again refused. He may simply have been following the letter of the law, but his decisions appeared insensitive and short-sighted to Amelia Haswell who believed some kindness would encourage Perry to cooperate with his doctors. To Perry they appeared to be the work of a vindictive man bent on persecuting him.

  Returned letter from Amelia Haswell

  Whatever the rights and wrongs of both men's behaviour, Perry's 'prospective friend' swiftly became his most hated 'adversary', a personification of the brutality, indifference and cruelty of the system. To make matters worse for Perry, towards the end of 1904 Henry Allison died and Robert Lamb returned to Matteawan as Superintendent, leaving a vacancy in Dannemora that Charles North hoped to fill.

  Perry's fear about North's likely promotion was evident in a letter to Amelia Haswell, urging her to start a new petition to the Governor for his parole to a regular asylum near his friends. Amelia Haswell was working hard on his behalf, sending stories to the press. As his hunger strike had changed into a long-term campaign, Perry had turned his attention to getting out of Dannemora. But, aware of his damaged reputation, he had evidently decided that 'escape' to an asylum for free men was his only real hope. He wanted her to publicize it in the press because, as he noted with his ever acute understanding of the power of the press, 'President Roosevelt says that the only way to work quick reforms is through the public newspapers and he is right.' By this time, even Cole Younger, a killer as well as robber, had been paroled and pardoned. But he, unlike Perry, had been a model prisoner, had never complained and had certainly never been certified insane. Perry's letter, accompanied by a poem that combined religious sentiments with scathing references to North's 'crooks', was annotated 'Not mailed owing to the many false statements referring to other patients, which if true would have no relation to Perry's affairs. C.H.N.'

  But Amelia Haswell kept trying on his behalf, even telling the New York Evening World that he had blinded himself for her sake. She claimed that for a man who had always chosen an outdoor life, being confined was torture, and whenever he glimpsed the sky he was driven to attempt to escape. If he could no longer see, he would no longer be tempted; if no longer tempted, he could not disappoint her again. The story was a 'hook' to draw press and public attention to Perry's present situation explained in an excerpted letter from the prisoner.

  He described a brutal and mean regime, with men stealing blankets from one another in order to endure the harsh winter conditions. In a move calculated to appeal to Christian reformers, he also drew attention to the lack of religious services for many months, because the attendants used the only suitable room for their weekly dances instead. The image of attendants dancing while their damaged charges were deprived of the consolations of religion was surely bound to appal the respectable reader. 'Is this a hospital in reality?' asked Perry. 'Shame upon all Christian taxpayers who know and still allow this degrading and brutalizing mismanagement to continue.' The stories were most probably true, but, as ever, Perry did not miss a trick in spinning them to appeal to his readers. He had declared years before that he was no longer a believer, but he knew that his most faithful supporters were.

  Amelia Haswell kept trying to explain Perry's behaviour to his doctors in the hope they would understand and help him. 'Oliver is naturally quick and fiery and impulsive, and his intentions m
ight be the best, but when brought to the test of patient waiting and forbearance, in this he was sorely lacking, not having learned self-control in his past life it is not so easy now.' 'This would be no evidence of insanity to me,' she added, rather naively, 'for I know it was his natural temperament.' She was at pains to show she was sympathetic to the doctors. 'I can understand how Oliver might be a very trying patient - but when I attempt to put myself in his place, imagine my being blind among lunatics, and no way of diverting my mind, it would be enough to drive a sane man insane.' She repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, urged the Superintendent to try a new approach: 'Such men are used to cuffs and blows and curses, but kindness in time I believe will touch the hardest heart.'

  Whatever the miseries of his life, and the restrictions imposed by his doctors, Perry had retained three distinctive characteristics from happier days: a love of music, a concern for his personal appearance, and an almost childish sweet tooth. Inmates were generally allowed to receive carefully vetted gifts, and also money to purchase goods through the steward. Amelia Haswell duly sent money, usually $2, every few weeks, so that Perry could do so. Many of his requests were refused, but they reveal his tastes. At the end of 1904, for example, he hoped to purchase a 'twenty-five cent harmonica made by M. Hohner in A or D key', 'granulated sugar', a 'pound of raisins', and a 'pound of stick peppermint candy'. In a later note, that may reveal the heightened senses blindness brought, he asked for '2 jars of scented cold cream 20c, 2 envelopes of sen sen [breath perfumes] - 10c, 41bs of roasted peanuts for 50c, shiff of keenans [tobacco] - 20c, 2 plugs of Climax - 20c, lib of B & J peppermint drops - 20c, 2 coconuts, Adams wintergreen flavored gum - 25c'

  Perry's sweet tooth, and the occasional treats he was allowed, contributed to another of his problems. He had been suffering from the sharp torment of constant toothache for years. Campaigns at the time to allow prisoners to purchase toothpowder show that dental hygiene was non-existent in correctional institutions. Eventually his teeth were in such a bad condition that eating, even when he wanted to, was a near impossibility. Amelia Haswell offered to pay for them to be replaced with dentures. After protracted negotiations with the dentist who worked for the hospital, a set was produced, but it was shoddy and ill-fitting. Perry was infuriated, but retained his sense of humour. He wrote to the dentist, accusing him of using inferior materials, knowing that when the dentures broke 'you could rest securely in your position as a respectable citizen and say "Oh! I can't help it, the poor fellow is crazy and has probably been trying to take a piece out of his iron bedstead, or something of that sort."' In the end Amelia Haswell demanded her money back and Perry's teeth were forgotten.

  But Perry had also retained his ability to make friends among his fellow prisoners. One wrote to him from New York City:

  Friend Oliver,

  I wrote you in a poem that I would remember you. I am out, and as I thought about my promise to-day, I count [sic] help writing this letter. Is Miss A. Haswell sticking to you still, I know she cares a good deal about you and I hope you still respect her in your heart.

  How is Supt. Lamb and Dr. North, the nurses, attendants and the boys. How is your health and let me know if possible everything worth knowing about yourself.

  Friend Oliver I am in good health, getting stout and doing well. 'The unexpected often happens' and I experienced it as never before when I was told to pack up and be good to myself. Well, I never in all my life felt so happy; liberty was sweeter, the air was better, food tasted different, and in fact nature seemed a smiling; everything was good with the exception of the Devil, the same old Satan.

  Cheer up and be of good courage, don't worry, for you ought to know worry has not done anybody good. Oliver the unexpected in your life may happen some day, if not in this world perhaps in the next. I hope it will be for the better. Good old New York town has changed greatly; for old time sake I took a car to see the city; first I went through the subway by local and express, then I took a ride on the Third Ave. Elevated Road, then the surface roads as the Third Ave., Madison Ave, and horse car. One fine day I went to Coney Island, and I must say it was greatly changed for the better. Gee if I told you one quarter of what I saw it would fill a good sized book. Dear old Coney Island was still waiting for me, and I was glad to see it looking so well. I enjoyed myself greatly and left early, because my money gave out. I could stay there all day, it was so good, with the bands of music playing and the people so happy also so many new things that was interesting and your money going, gee it was all to the good.

  Not wishing to bore you with a long letter I will cut it short by wishing you God's luck, also all them that I have mentioned in this letter.

  I remain,

  your friend,

  Hyman.

  Hyman Epstein had been Perry's fellow inmate and, it seems, friend, although this is the only record of their relationship. Epstein's own story was a strange one. In 1901 the twenty-one-year-old Jewish New Yorker had been sentenced to two years in prison. In Auburn he converted to Christianity but his behaviour was interpreted as religious mania and he was declared insane. After a spell in Dannemora where he befriended Perry, he was sent, at the end of his sentence, to the asylum on Ward's Island in Manhattan where he was to be held indefinitely. His family made no attempt to aid him as they refused to accept his conversion as the act of a sane man, while the asylum authorities insisted that he was insane because he claimed to have 'seen Jesus Christ'. Epstein seemed doomed to remain incarcerated indefinitely. So one September morning in 1903 he slipped away from the guards, crept to the riverbank and started swimming across the East River to freedom. Powerfully built, he was making good progress against a swift current when a policeman in a patrol boat spotted him. Assuming he was an unfortunate sailor who had fallen overboard, the patrolmen tried to rescue him. Epstein attempted to dodge the boat but eventually gave himself up.

  He was taken to the police court in Harlem, where he explained his story to the magistrate. For the first time, almost miraculously, somebody in authority believed him. The magistrate, impressed by his rationality, declared that it was an outrage that he had been locked up in an asylum. It was, he said, no crime for a sane man to attempt to escape from such confinement. The asylum physician's explanation did not impress the magistrate: 'I have seen a number of religious persons who have contended that they have seen Christ, and they were not insane, either.' He declared Epstein sane, and announced that he would spend his own money to help him gain his freedom. Eventually a Supreme Court writ was issued against the asylum to show cause for Epstein's detainment, and in due course he left Ward's Island a free man.

  Perry may have lost a friend but he was now just as determined to escape. In June 1906 he wrote a letter of appeal to the new Governor, Republican Frank Higgins, accompanied by an acrostic poem called 'Chief Executive'. Composing acrostics, a form he used many times, was quite a feat for a blind man who relied on the help of men whose literacy was rarely developed. The challenge was clearly something Perry relished but this time the ambition of the poem's content, begging for a chance to prove his worth as a reformed man, was let down by the form. In an unusual lapse, either he or his transcriber thought 'Governor' only had one 'r', and the first letters of each line consequently spelled out 'Honorable Govenor [sic] Higgins'. What Higgins would have made of the poem, or appeal, will never be known, as the authorities decided it was unacceptable and marked it 'Don't Send'. Undaunted, Perry kept up a sustained campaign to convince politicians and government officials that his case should be reviewed, writing to successive governors and members of the Commission in Lunacy responsible for overseeing the state's institutions. Just as each new doctor would receive a poem, so each time a new man took up public office, he would hear from Dannemora State Hospital 216.

  Perry's keepers heard his complaints even more loudly, as a special Fourth of July poem called 'A Parody' revealed. Written to be sung to the music of 'Marching through Georgia', it commemorated a protest that Perry seems to have
particularly enjoyed:

  How the turkeys gobbled when they heard me yell so loud;

  How the Doctors wondered that I was never cured;

  How the village people all gathered in a crowd When I was yelling for freedom.

  (Chorus) Hurrah! Hurrah! come give a shout with one;

  Hurrah! Hurrah! I know you would be free, And so I hope to make it, to live in good old Troy.

  For I am working so hard boys.

  How the 'Bugs' did curse that time O yes it was a fright;

  How they damned and double-damned the man who's out of sight;

  How they would have choked me all in my sightless plight When I was yelling for freedom.

  (Chorus)

  How the Doctors suffer when they see one with a friend;

  How they long to queer me when money they do send;

  How they try to starve me, no solace to extend When I am yelling for freedom.

  (Chorus)

  Someone, presumably a doctor, wrote on the poem, in red ink, 'Illustrative of Perry's Egotism'.

  CHAPTER 19

  '0 God, how much longer?'

  I NAUGUST 1907 the men of Dannemora rioted for the first time. Only five years after opening, the asylum was already so overcrowded that some of the most dangerous men were housed in a dormitory, allowing them to collaborate in planning what turned into a desperate siege. They improvised weapons by getting hold of some sash weights and breaking up several beds and a steam radiator. Guards used ammonia fumes, then resorted to turning the high-pressure water hose on men who appeared through the windows, and finally to shooting. The order was only to kill if absolutely necessary, but when the riot was finally quelled, it was discovered that one patient, Isaac Dubois, had died from gunshot wounds. In the past, Perry would surely have been at the centre of any dramatic event, but this time he was not involved. A blind man would have had little chance of taking part in such a protest, and Perry spent his time composing letters and poetry to demand a better life.