Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1873-01-23

BUTLER, Kcokuk Co., Iowa. [
,Jonnorx, TX 1871


January Is, 1878.
EDS. COURIER I'm your issue Of the
9th inst, saw a letter from U. s. 4
Marshall Root, to the Mt. Pleasant
Journal sand an editorial from the
Cedar Rapidsl Republican, also some
edltorlal comments of your own In re.
iation to the new Penitentiary author
lied during the last session Of the
General Assembly. All of these and
and other leading papers of the State,
you say, condemn the action of the Lee
gislature in making this appropriation !;
that 1t was made in the interest Of
rings, and carried TIL ough corrupt in
huences, and that the true interests
of the State required the enlargement
Of the Fort Madison Penitcntiary.
If this is true statement of the
case then ex-Gov. Merrill, for his re-
Communications in his biennial mes
sage; the visiting committee to that
| institution for their recommendation,
deserve the scorn and indignation of
every honest man in the State. And
as your humble servant was connected
| with some Of these transactions, IL
might be considered in order to rise
and explain.
| would state that I acted as chair
men of the committee of tho House on
Penitentiary, until the 10th of March,
when accepted another trust and va
Gated my seat. That was one of tho
visiting committee Oh the part of the
House and as such approved the re-
port of the joint committee, and am
prepared to take all the responsibility
of such approval.
| As Col. Roots letter contains the
most specific statements of alleged
facts, will pay my respects to his
letter in detail. He says II was led to
believe it, (the Pcnitentiary at Fort
Madison,} was full. Imagine my sur
price on personal visit, the 2lst of
this month, to find room for hundred
and fifty moro prisoners"
Now If you turn to the report Of the
Warden, sworn official Of the Insti-
tuition. dated November 1871, and the
last made, you will find on page 4, the
number of Prisoners confined in 1871
| thus far, 2S8; total number of cells 3lS ;
leaving at that date only 80 unoccu.
pied cells. When the committee
visited the Peuitentiary in Feb. 1872,
some three or four months afterward,
there had been but few changes; and
as our population increases doubt
less the number ofconvicts has at least
kept up the number. As Col. Root
promises another communication
suggest he give the number Of con.
! victs and number of cells.
/ Again he says, ION personal
examination / found nearly all
the shops nearly empty" and
detailing the different shops, clos
ing by inquiring of the Conductor
and Warden why they had no more
men In them, and was informed they
had room and work for $50 more men,
and the contractors were s'anrtous'
to employ all they could get. l do
not wish to use any harsh terms in al
luding to these statements, but Col.
Root has either allowed himself to be
| grossly misled, or is publishing a
known and malicious falsehood. Twill
proceed as briefly as ! can to prove the
taisehood of those statements and their
absurdity. Turn again to the War
den's report (the COURIER Office either
has one or can procure iD and on page
22.you will find in the contract, be-
tween the State and the contractors
for the convict labor for period OF
ten years from Jan. 1st, 1865, they are
to have the labor of not 10 enceed $50
men, if SO many there be, under GER
tain specifications, at 40h cents per
day. Now during the winter of 20
and II there were nearly so men idle
and in excess of the contract, after suf-
ficicnt details for cooking, tailoring
and shoc-making for the prison. The
contractors refused to employ these
men even at Is cents per day (sec page
10 w. report alleging want of shop
room and the necessary capital. The
Governor finally made contract with
them for this labor to bottom and
paint cnais= at fiynd price. tho State
erecting the necessary shops, the con-
tractors having the option at any time
they chose to take all of this excess on
their first contract at 25 cents per dag.
When this expired in JAM, '72. they
refused to renew il, and not till these
contractors saw that the State was GO
ing to employ these surplus convicts,
with profit to the State, did they
become anxious to employ $50
more" "Anxious;" should
rather think they were getting
"anxious" when they saw this labor,
which has been SO profitable to them,
being utilized for the benefit of the
| State.
Again he says he .'can prove to the
Governor and Legislature that the
building of new penitentiary is q
useless expenditure of the peoples
money!" that the old one can be en-
larged at moderate expenditure to
meet the wants of the State for twenty
years. Well, ! deny this, and ask the
Colonel to give us specific estimates in
detail; and to give your readers an
idea of the difficulties to be encoun-
tered, can do no better than quote
the language of the visiting commit.
| tee:
ITO fully understand the difficulties
that attend any further enlargement
of the present prison grounds tits neo-
essary to inspect In person the badly
chosen and unfortunate site upon
which the grounds are located. The
| site OF the prison enclosure consists of
a plateau dug out of the nose or de-
scending ridge of high bluff, having
deep ravine and running stream on
both sides. There is strip of ravine
land 253 feet wide on the west side Of
the prison wall belonging to the State.
This is the only practical direction in
| which an extension can be made. To
do this, however, the east half, or side,
of deep hollow must be filed up, re-
curing an immense wall of solid ma
sonry to hold up the embankment. TO
fill mp behind this wall would require
about $4,000 eighty-two thousand
cubic yards of eal tn to raise the ground
to the level of the present prison yard.
To do all this to obtain strip Of land
253 feet wide by $50 feet long is simply
absurd. We measured this strip Of
ravine by the best means at our COM
mand, and we arrived at the conclu-
sion that to make it part of the prison
yard, build the west wall, and fit il
for the use of the prison, would re-
quire an expenditure of one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and by the
time this is done we will be ready to
| commence another prison on better