Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-10-14

,OU,UUu. eWDdbtNDdlu NC tllOuStit VI u ZAP /
talist who would run his establishment
orty-one years, during which it had paid
expenses only two years, proposing to con
inue the same system Of management? he
wouldn't be a capitalist long. The
question was, what could be done?
Was this present expensive system
% be pursued? In his last canvass for
he position of Governor, be went before
Inc people, more for the purpose Of bringing
his matter and the railroad question before |
The people, than for anything else. All that
was necessary for the success Of this enter
prise was for the mechanics to go to work
In earnest, and demand justice from the !
He was satisfied from this |
large meeting that the mechanics were |
alive to the necessity of action. The best |
thing to be done was to make the labor of |
the convict purely productive. Let it pre-
pare the raw materials and let the mechanic !
work it up. (Applause.) In that way the |
convict would become the helper instead of !
the oppressor of the people. Tennessee
was destined at some future day to be one |
of the great manufacturing States of the |
Union. She held the position TO be the manu-
facturer for the South or great part
of the North. No nation ever became great
in a commercial point of view, except
through coal and iron. 1t was the founda-
ton of Englands greatness. In 1869, she
brought to market 104, 100000 tons of coal,
95 per cent. of which was used at home.
That was $1,000 car loads per day dug out
of the earth. Now, excepting England and
part of Scotland, there was no part of the
earth where coal and iron were in such
quantities, and could be SO cheaply pro-
duced than in Tennessee, There has
not been a single day since the
war that coal could be had in
Philadelphia so cheap as it can be
had in Nashville-that is for manu-
featuring purposes. In New England it was
even dearer than in Pennsylvania. What
was the cause of it? Why these strikes in
the Pennsylvania mines had become so fire.
quent that the coal dealers always calculat-
ed on them in the price of coal. The Sc
vance coal mines were the only ones in
America that were free from strikes. They
were worked with convict labor of which
the proprietors were certain, and the people
protited by that certain labor in cheap coal.
With an extension of the system of convict
labor in the mines fuel would be produced
at even lower rates, Other districts were be-
ing opened up by new railroads in which coal
was plentiful and could be produced at
prices lower than in any other
State in America, Now, Coy. Brown stood
pledged on this question and he would do
all he could to bring relief to the mechanics
of Nashville. Year after year, while thepeO-
pie had been taxed to support the Penitenti-
airy, it had been breaking down the mechan-
les and driving them from the city. If any
thing was to be done it must be done at
once, for in five years hence, instead Of $50
miners in the State there would be 10000,
and five years after that 10000, and five
years later 10000, if the coal trade was to
increase here as it had increased in other
States. The future great buainess here
would be the coal trade, Now, Judge
Whithworth had spoken of the increase
OF convicts. In a few years. there was lit
tie doubt, they would be increased to nearly
two thousand. How were they to be EN-
ployed? Why, in pure drudgery-simple
labor, for experience had demonstrated that
any other kind of labor undertaken by
them did not pay. Why not try the plan
he proposed, to set them to work in the
coal mines? He had tried slaves and found
| that they made good miners. A year ago
one hundred conyicts had been taken to the
mines and the experiment tried. 1t had
! proved successful and brought to the State
forty cents per day for every convict
so employed, and only for this same
revenue, the penitentiary could hardly have
been run during the last twelve months,
The convicts liked the work and would not
| 20 back to the pententiaFy if they could.
| The State gained by it, the mechanics were
relieved, and who was to gainsay the sys-
| tenn? Coal was cheapened, and the manu-
| facturer was thus furnished with the found
alton of prosperity. He proposed to do
away with the penitentiary altogether. At
the mines they had built a prison at the
cost of $1,000 TO keep the criminals
in at night. During the day
! the mines were the safest prison. Let
| these cQpvicts be distributed among the
mines and break up the Penitentiary alto
gether. When he looked abroad and saw
what other places were doing, he could not
help thinking that we were asleep here. He
was a young man yet, but London had
doubled, Liverpool trebled, New York in
creased $50 per cent, st. Louis had bean
! built from the ground, and Chicago, that
beautiful city that had been burned up the
other day, had been built up from the foun-
dation-all within his recollection. The
mechanics of Nashville were the men he
looked to for the future prosperity of our
city, and he wished them God speed. ZAP
plause.]
The committee appointed to draft resOlu-
tions expressing the sense of the meeting
on the question of convict labor, submitted
the following
| Whereas, our mechanical and manufac-
turing interests upon which much if not the
greater portion of our prosperity depends,
have been in the past almost entirely neg
lected, and
/ Whereas, We feel that we have been I'M
justly dealt with, owing perhaps to lack
Of information on the part of our legislators
i'll regard to the mechanical branch of trade,
and the worth and nobility and grandeur of
labor: therefore be it
Resolved, by the mechanics Of Nash
vile in mass meeting assembled, that we
appeal to the General Assembly now in
session, to consider the subject of convict
labor, and to remove this incubus which
has been so long fastened upon our energies
Resolved, that the distribution of labor
at the State Prison through the various de-
partmentS Of manufacture is not only pre-
Judicial to our interests as a class, but de-
grading to the noble calling to which we
belong,
Resolved, that the position heretofore as
sumed by the State can be regarded in nc
other light than that of an oppressive COM
petitor against the energies of honest in
dustry.
Resolved, that the present system of labor
at the Penitentiary is degrading to the me-
chanical interests inasmuch as it educates
the felon and thief at the public expense, tC
compete with the honest sons of toll, to be
found not only in our cities, but throughout
every village and hamlet in the State.
JAMES T, BELL,
JOHN j. NCCANS,
j. e. WAND,
In. WALKER,
CHARLES RICH,
Committee.
Thomas L. Dodd, Esq, in reply to re.
peated calls, said that after hearing the sub
iect so well handled he felt that he could dc
no more than heartily endorse what had
| been said.
Mr.. J. j. Mccain in humorous speech
called on the Association to unite in an effort
to persuade the Legislature to take action
in the matter. There was about to be a
vacancy in the House of Representatives,
and he proposed that Mr.. COlyar should be
the man to fill it. He called on the meet
| ~ IL ~,