Yet who was the greater criminal--the weak, ignorant, poverty-stricken
clerk, or the shrewd, experienced lawyer who preyed upon his client and
through him upon the community at large?
The confession of Miller, in the face of what the consequences of his
course might mean to his wife and child, was an act of moral courage.
The price he had to pay is known to himself alone. But the horrors of
life in prison for the "squealer" were thoroughly familiar to him when
he elected to do what he could to atone for his crime. In fact Ammon had
not neglected to picture them vividly to him and to stigmatize an
erstwhile client of his.
"Everything looks good," he wrote to Miller in Sing Sing, in reporting
the affirmance of Goslin's conviction, "especially since the _squealer_
is getting his just _deserts_."
With no certain knowledge of a future pardon Miller went back to prison
cheerfully to face all the nameless tortures inflicted upon those who
help the State--the absolute black silence of convict excommunication,
the blows and kicks inflicted without opportunity for retaliation or
complaint, the hostility of guards and keepers, the suffering of abject
poverty, keener in a prison house than on any other foot of earth.
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