Corrections_Today_Spring_2026_Vol.88_No.1

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Orlando F. Lewis, executive head of the Prison (now Correctional) Association of New York. It was in 1913 that Thomas Mott Osborne, as chairman of a New York Commission to Investigate the State Prisons, embarked on a career dedicated to prison reform. I was his disciple and later his assistant and successor. Ed Cass, however, had the jump on me by four years, for I did not get into the “prison business” until 1917. I remember meeting Ed in 1916, but we did not become close friends. I considered him an established profes sional and stood in awe of him. I am not sure when we became friends as well as co-workers in prison reform, but it was certainly not later than 1926. That year I at tended and was a speaker at my first Congress. It was in Pittsburgh, and I stunned Ed and Sanford Bates, who was president that year, by insisting that my travel expenses be reimbursed. My relationship with Ed was somewhat stormy, es pecially when I was an eager young reformer and locked horns with anyone who did not agree with me. But we were both aiming at the same targets: trying to bring about improvement in correctional institutions and services, and to give ex-prisoners a new start in life. In the closing years of his life our bonds of friendship were especially strong and secure. He served on the Os borne Association’s board of directors, and was helpful to us in securing substantial grants from a foundation to which he was an advisor, and in many other ways. At the end of my stay in the funeral home on the day before his burial, Anna and I kneeled in silent prayer be side his coffin. I shall not say what my unspoken words were, but my thoughts were a farewell to a man who had been my friend and co-worker through a half-century of correctional progress. By Richard A. McGee The passing of Ed Cass marks the end of one of the most important eras in the history of correctional administration. The American Prison Association, later the Ameri can Correctional Association, has been that somewhat

by Roberts J. Wright, who was Ed Cass’s highly efficient assistant for 22 years. My thoughts during Ed’s terminal illness and since his death have dwelt more often on our personal relationship than our professional association. The afternoon before the burial service I went to the funeral home. His wife, Anna, several other close relatives, and a few neighbors were there. After the neighbors left, Anna and I began to reminisce about “the good old days” when a group of wives used to come to the Congresses year after year and served as informal hostesses. Those were the days too when wardens and other Associa tion members who were old-timers got acquainted quickly with newcomers in the friendly atmo sphere of the hotel lobbies between meetings.

I considered him an established professional and stood in awe of him.

We talked of many times and places: the Con gresses in 1929 at Toronto, 1936 at Chicago, 1941 at San Francisco, several times in the 40’s at New York, and the Centennial Congress at Cincinnati in 1970. I tried to remember how many times the name of E.R. Cass, general secretary, appears in the Schedule of Congresses through 1975. I count ed them when I got home. Ed’s name and title were listed each year from 1922 to 1962, with the excep tion of one year (1928) when he was president. His career in the correctional field began earlier than 1922. He became assistant general secretary of the American Prison Association in 1913, and assistant to an early American prison reformer,

Corrections Today | Spring 2026

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