This Week in Texas Prison History

April 20:   

1926 - Huntsville - Hope was revived in the resigned spirits of inmates behind the walls of the Texas penitentiary here today when Governor Miriam A. Ferguson and her husband, former Governor, James F. Ferguson, visiting the institution yesterday, told the prisoners that "Ma" would be re-elected as governor and during the next two years would establish a new record in the number of pardons granted. The visit was dramatic from the beginning to the close. Two negroes, in their death cells only a few feet away from the electric chair, abandoned their Bibles when the governor came to them and knelt at the bars, clutching the hem of her dress and kissing her hand. Scores of prisoners told their pitiful stories to the governor as she made the rounds of the cells, workshops and yards, and asked for pardons. In her brief address to the prisoners in the auditorium, the governor said: " I am very much pleased with everything as I have found it, and am especially glad to see that you boys are happy as can be under the circumstances. "I want to tell you this: That working well and being good under my administration means more than anything else and I am always happy to pardon you, of course, under the law. "This is not such a bad place to stay after all. We all have to be punished for some of the bad things we do. It could be worse." "I want you to try to be as good men as you can, especially after leaving the prison. Make good men, work hard and if I ever get a chance I will be only too glad to do something for you."
(AP. San Antonio Light, April 21, 1926)