"IN FOR LIFE" autobiography of Tom Runyon
Nov 3, 2005 6:25:21 GMT -5
Post by Ira A. Runyan on Nov 3, 2005 6:25:21 GMT -5
The interesting thing about RUNYON GENEALOGY is that the family is a true cross section of the American Society. We have Runyons from all walks of life.
On Ebay was an interesting item for sale...... a book called "In For Life, a Convict's Story by Tom Runyon.
It's a true story about and written by Tom Runyon. Its says he was convicted of bank robbery and second-degree murder. It was written in 1953. It says he's in the Iowa State Penitentiary.
REVIEW
"IN FOR LIFE"
WE seem to be acquiring a valuable library of
"prison literature." The number of books published
during the last five years, suggesting the need for
drastic revision of penological attitudes and
practices, has been enormous, and it is easy to
subscribe to David Riesman's theory that one bright
side of our times is the growing capacity of the
average person to feel human ties of sympathy with
men we formerly considered social pariahs.
In For Life (Norton, 1953 ) is the autobiography
of Tom Runyon, No. 17602 in Iowa State
Penitentiary, serving a life sentence for second
degree murder. One of the "hard-times" convicts
who robbed banks during the depression years,
Runyon tells an honest story of both his clash with
society and his subsequent psychological
transformations. The book is a sort of modern
Odyssey, beginning in confusion, interrupted by
mistakes and tragedy, but ending in the light of selfunderstanding.
In For Life is excellent supplementary reading in connection with volumes often mentioned here Duffy's My Home Is San Quentin, Kenyon Scudder's Prisoners Are People, Donald Powell Wilson's My Six Convicts, and the recently reviewed Diary of a Self-made Convict by
Alfred Hassler.
The most inspiring thing about Runyon's story is
the fact that, however deeply he feels the need for
penal reform, his own words are living proof that an
exceptional man and an exceptional mind may rise
above resentment, develop a talent for an occupation
entirely foreign to his before-prison days, and
become a valuable addition to "society" even when
permanently confined. Few readers will avoid the
feeling that it is a shame and a waste to keep Runyon
behind bars, but one sees, too, that a man like
Runyon is not entirely "wasted" so long as he is able
to write. Runyon is editor of a prison paper, The
Presidio, and has for years supplied valuable
material to sociologists concerned with prison
legislation. Though he would like very much to enter
into normal living again and rejoin his son, he has
over-ridden bitterness by discovering that his life
may have become more worth-while as a result of so
many troubling experiences. When he found his real
work—writing about prison problems—"there was
not much time to spend on anything as unproductive
as grief":
Life had more purpose than ever now, and the
deeper I went into our effort to make outsiders see
how it was inside, the less I thought about escape.
Gradually I was getting a kind of philosophy. I felt
that if I could help some convicts or all of them, in
the long run, I would be doing more real good here in
prison with my typewriter than I would have done
outside swinging a paint brush and drinking beer.
It is both a terrible and wonderful thing to come
of age in a prison, when no apparent hope for release
exists—terrible for obvious reasons, and wonderful
because here, at least, one man has found proof
positive that the true life of man is the life of the
mind. When Runyon speaks of developing a
"philosophy," he uses the word accurately, in our
opinion. For the philosopher must rise above
frustrations and angers, likewise escape the opposite
poles of maudlin sentimentality and flagellation.
Runyon's dreams of the society which should exist
balance delicately intelligent criticism of society and
acceptance of his own individual responsibility, at
least in part, for the very conditions which need
remedying. In the following passages Runyon
addresses himself briefly to aspects of the "moral
man and immoral society" equation:
My dream solution of the crime-prison problem
lacks the easy simplicity of many convict solutions; I
wouldn't be content to "lock up all the cops and turn
out all the cons." I would start at the beginning, not
at the end, at the weaning pen rather than the meat
grinder.
In my world children would gradually and easily
and naturally learn to respect themselves and others,
to be self-reliant and responsible.
The parents would have found marriage a slow,
difficult, solemn affair, with at least thirty days of
cooling off between the application for a license and
the ceremony. They would have found marriage a
privilege, not an automatic right. They would have
been counseled on their responsibility to each other,
their children, and their world, and they would not
value their home lightly. Indiscriminate, fly-bymorning
marriage would cease, but because my world would not be puritanical, there would be legalsanction of some kind for those who found release outside wedlock, and no child would be branded as a bastard. Character, not money or social position, would be the criterion for issuing a marriage license; intelligence, not a glib tongue or smooth appearance.
And if the marriage failed, as some would, divorce
would be obtainable without disgrace; common sense
would dictate a judge's decisions, not mere whim or
legal technicalities.
Laws in my world would be simple, with no
confusing terms at all, so a citizen could understand
and respect them "You shall not kill" would be the
first law, and it would apply to society also—there
would be no death penalty, for two wrongs would not
make a right. "You shall not steal" would apply
equally to light-fingered merchant and to highway
robber. A jury would decide the degree of guilt in
each case, for no attempt would be made to define all
human foibles in the statutes. "You shall not injure
another" might be the one necessary law.
In a later chapter he returns to this theme:
The word "respect" seems to get a bigger play
than any other in my plan. I wonder if it isn't the
most significant word, if any society will get far from
the jungle while its members fail to realize its
importance. It seems to me that if I respect society's
laws I will be unable to violate them, that cruelty and
malice and selfishness will have a hard way to go if
men ever learn to respect themselves and others.
But today neither officials nor laws are respected
even by the average citizen. From the years of venal
government this country has known, sometimes on a
local, sometimes on a national scale, has come a kind
of grass-roots cynical rottenness that must somehow
be cured. No nation can remain great indefinitely
while its citizens despise their leaders. Out of such
conditions comes Communism or some other form of
totalitarianism. Out of them will come a high and
rising crime rate with more and more prisons filled
until their walls almost bulge, and more riots and
higher taxes.
Runyon is neither a moralist nor a religionist.
He did, at times, have the uncanny feeling that some
sort of natural "destiny" was governing the turn of
events in his life and, after negotiating an escape and
being recaptured, he began to sense dimly, for the
first time, that external conditions are never the final
determinants of a man's state of mind. More than
anything else he misses the opportunity to "live close
to nature," but he has finally learned to draw
something of the serenity and inexorable
purposefulness of "nature" within the confines of
Iowa State Penitentiary.
MANAS recently heard from Alfred Hassler,
who thanked us for what he termed "an excellent
review" of Diary of a Self-made Convict. Hassler is
"very much encouraged these days by the reaction to
the book, and by the real concern on the part of many
readers to do something concrete in the prison field."
We are sure that the response to In For Life will be
equally rewarding to Mr. Runyon, and that he will be
able to feel himself a part of a vast movement of
thought away from the "eye for an eye and tooth for a
tooth" psychology which has been riding our social
back for so long. All the authors mentioned at the
beginning of this short review seem to belong to a
natural fraternity, and one's eligibility is quite
apparently not dependent upon being either a convict
or a warden. Runyon, even when he was in "solid
lockup," thought the same thoughts and lived much
of the same internal life as did Duffy and Scudder
when the latter were compassionately administering
prisons.
The next tangible step towards constructive
reformation should, all these men agree, be the
elimination of the death penalty in both state and
federal penitentiaries; when and if this finally occurs,
a new and better social philosophy will of necessity
have been born. In For Life brings sharply to mind
another factual dimension of the death-penalty
question. For Runyon escaped a first degree murder
conviction and execution by little more than a hair.
Any who concede social value to his subsequent
life's work of writing would, therefore, find it
difficult to favor execution of criminals. For see
what Runyon did and what he became! If this was
possible for Runyon, why not for others among those
who have been executed, or who, until the big
change comes about, will be?
Volume VII, No. 14 MANAS Reprint April 7, 1954
Source: www.manasjournal.org/pdf_library/VolumeVII_1954/VII-14.p
A check of the Iowa state Corrections web site inmate search does not list this Tom Runyon as a current inmate. He must have been released, or he has died.
Anybody know how this Tom Runyon fits in the family?
On Ebay was an interesting item for sale...... a book called "In For Life, a Convict's Story by Tom Runyon.
It's a true story about and written by Tom Runyon. Its says he was convicted of bank robbery and second-degree murder. It was written in 1953. It says he's in the Iowa State Penitentiary.
REVIEW
"IN FOR LIFE"
WE seem to be acquiring a valuable library of
"prison literature." The number of books published
during the last five years, suggesting the need for
drastic revision of penological attitudes and
practices, has been enormous, and it is easy to
subscribe to David Riesman's theory that one bright
side of our times is the growing capacity of the
average person to feel human ties of sympathy with
men we formerly considered social pariahs.
In For Life (Norton, 1953 ) is the autobiography
of Tom Runyon, No. 17602 in Iowa State
Penitentiary, serving a life sentence for second
degree murder. One of the "hard-times" convicts
who robbed banks during the depression years,
Runyon tells an honest story of both his clash with
society and his subsequent psychological
transformations. The book is a sort of modern
Odyssey, beginning in confusion, interrupted by
mistakes and tragedy, but ending in the light of selfunderstanding.
In For Life is excellent supplementary reading in connection with volumes often mentioned here Duffy's My Home Is San Quentin, Kenyon Scudder's Prisoners Are People, Donald Powell Wilson's My Six Convicts, and the recently reviewed Diary of a Self-made Convict by
Alfred Hassler.
The most inspiring thing about Runyon's story is
the fact that, however deeply he feels the need for
penal reform, his own words are living proof that an
exceptional man and an exceptional mind may rise
above resentment, develop a talent for an occupation
entirely foreign to his before-prison days, and
become a valuable addition to "society" even when
permanently confined. Few readers will avoid the
feeling that it is a shame and a waste to keep Runyon
behind bars, but one sees, too, that a man like
Runyon is not entirely "wasted" so long as he is able
to write. Runyon is editor of a prison paper, The
Presidio, and has for years supplied valuable
material to sociologists concerned with prison
legislation. Though he would like very much to enter
into normal living again and rejoin his son, he has
over-ridden bitterness by discovering that his life
may have become more worth-while as a result of so
many troubling experiences. When he found his real
work—writing about prison problems—"there was
not much time to spend on anything as unproductive
as grief":
Life had more purpose than ever now, and the
deeper I went into our effort to make outsiders see
how it was inside, the less I thought about escape.
Gradually I was getting a kind of philosophy. I felt
that if I could help some convicts or all of them, in
the long run, I would be doing more real good here in
prison with my typewriter than I would have done
outside swinging a paint brush and drinking beer.
It is both a terrible and wonderful thing to come
of age in a prison, when no apparent hope for release
exists—terrible for obvious reasons, and wonderful
because here, at least, one man has found proof
positive that the true life of man is the life of the
mind. When Runyon speaks of developing a
"philosophy," he uses the word accurately, in our
opinion. For the philosopher must rise above
frustrations and angers, likewise escape the opposite
poles of maudlin sentimentality and flagellation.
Runyon's dreams of the society which should exist
balance delicately intelligent criticism of society and
acceptance of his own individual responsibility, at
least in part, for the very conditions which need
remedying. In the following passages Runyon
addresses himself briefly to aspects of the "moral
man and immoral society" equation:
My dream solution of the crime-prison problem
lacks the easy simplicity of many convict solutions; I
wouldn't be content to "lock up all the cops and turn
out all the cons." I would start at the beginning, not
at the end, at the weaning pen rather than the meat
grinder.
In my world children would gradually and easily
and naturally learn to respect themselves and others,
to be self-reliant and responsible.
The parents would have found marriage a slow,
difficult, solemn affair, with at least thirty days of
cooling off between the application for a license and
the ceremony. They would have found marriage a
privilege, not an automatic right. They would have
been counseled on their responsibility to each other,
their children, and their world, and they would not
value their home lightly. Indiscriminate, fly-bymorning
marriage would cease, but because my world would not be puritanical, there would be legalsanction of some kind for those who found release outside wedlock, and no child would be branded as a bastard. Character, not money or social position, would be the criterion for issuing a marriage license; intelligence, not a glib tongue or smooth appearance.
And if the marriage failed, as some would, divorce
would be obtainable without disgrace; common sense
would dictate a judge's decisions, not mere whim or
legal technicalities.
Laws in my world would be simple, with no
confusing terms at all, so a citizen could understand
and respect them "You shall not kill" would be the
first law, and it would apply to society also—there
would be no death penalty, for two wrongs would not
make a right. "You shall not steal" would apply
equally to light-fingered merchant and to highway
robber. A jury would decide the degree of guilt in
each case, for no attempt would be made to define all
human foibles in the statutes. "You shall not injure
another" might be the one necessary law.
In a later chapter he returns to this theme:
The word "respect" seems to get a bigger play
than any other in my plan. I wonder if it isn't the
most significant word, if any society will get far from
the jungle while its members fail to realize its
importance. It seems to me that if I respect society's
laws I will be unable to violate them, that cruelty and
malice and selfishness will have a hard way to go if
men ever learn to respect themselves and others.
But today neither officials nor laws are respected
even by the average citizen. From the years of venal
government this country has known, sometimes on a
local, sometimes on a national scale, has come a kind
of grass-roots cynical rottenness that must somehow
be cured. No nation can remain great indefinitely
while its citizens despise their leaders. Out of such
conditions comes Communism or some other form of
totalitarianism. Out of them will come a high and
rising crime rate with more and more prisons filled
until their walls almost bulge, and more riots and
higher taxes.
Runyon is neither a moralist nor a religionist.
He did, at times, have the uncanny feeling that some
sort of natural "destiny" was governing the turn of
events in his life and, after negotiating an escape and
being recaptured, he began to sense dimly, for the
first time, that external conditions are never the final
determinants of a man's state of mind. More than
anything else he misses the opportunity to "live close
to nature," but he has finally learned to draw
something of the serenity and inexorable
purposefulness of "nature" within the confines of
Iowa State Penitentiary.
MANAS recently heard from Alfred Hassler,
who thanked us for what he termed "an excellent
review" of Diary of a Self-made Convict. Hassler is
"very much encouraged these days by the reaction to
the book, and by the real concern on the part of many
readers to do something concrete in the prison field."
We are sure that the response to In For Life will be
equally rewarding to Mr. Runyon, and that he will be
able to feel himself a part of a vast movement of
thought away from the "eye for an eye and tooth for a
tooth" psychology which has been riding our social
back for so long. All the authors mentioned at the
beginning of this short review seem to belong to a
natural fraternity, and one's eligibility is quite
apparently not dependent upon being either a convict
or a warden. Runyon, even when he was in "solid
lockup," thought the same thoughts and lived much
of the same internal life as did Duffy and Scudder
when the latter were compassionately administering
prisons.
The next tangible step towards constructive
reformation should, all these men agree, be the
elimination of the death penalty in both state and
federal penitentiaries; when and if this finally occurs,
a new and better social philosophy will of necessity
have been born. In For Life brings sharply to mind
another factual dimension of the death-penalty
question. For Runyon escaped a first degree murder
conviction and execution by little more than a hair.
Any who concede social value to his subsequent
life's work of writing would, therefore, find it
difficult to favor execution of criminals. For see
what Runyon did and what he became! If this was
possible for Runyon, why not for others among those
who have been executed, or who, until the big
change comes about, will be?
Volume VII, No. 14 MANAS Reprint April 7, 1954
Source: www.manasjournal.org/pdf_library/VolumeVII_1954/VII-14.p
A check of the Iowa state Corrections web site inmate search does not list this Tom Runyon as a current inmate. He must have been released, or he has died.
Anybody know how this Tom Runyon fits in the family?
