Factory

Last week newspapers paid a debt to crime. It is one of their greatest news assets but seldom do editors have a chance to say nice things about men who have committed crimes.

The subject, and beneficiary, of last week's articles was one Joseph ("Jake") Pensendorfer. The press "discovered" him at the head of a woodworking factory near Camden, N. J. He and his 15 employes are all ex-convicts.

At the turn of the century, in Philadelphia, Joseph Pensendorfer was sentenced to hang for the murder of his father-in-law who had attacked his wife. Two days before his death day, the sentence was commuted to "life." Nine months ago he was pardoned and released from Pennsylvania's Eastern Penitentiary, after an exemplary term during which he had made himself a master carver and inlay worker. He had patented tricks of his own in woodworking and had a $50,000 bank credit (royalties) awaiting him.

Free, he went home to his 79-year-old mother, took a two-story stucco building and filled its walls with windows. "Some of us have not seen much sunshine," he said. Then he took in men he had known --a pardoned murderer, an embezzler, a forger--and let them work on at the trade they had learned in prison, rigging ship models, turning radio cabinets, joining chairs.

"During my time," said Mr. Pensendorfer, whose business already flourishes, "I saw that the released convict had no chance in the world. I saw them come in, serve their term and go out with the determination to go straight.

"Then I saw them come back--licked. They had tried but their prison records and the cops were too much for them. . ."

In the Pensendorfer factory at West Berlin, N. J., the workmen need have no names. They have only three rules to obey: keep straight, shun booze, work hard. Ex-convicts skilled at woodworking are welcome at West Berlin.