Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-09-09
CONVICT LABOR
How 1t Affects InlurlOusIy the Bone and
Slnew Of Trade.

Frank Leslie's illustrated Newspaper
1t is sad commentary on legislation
that Imprisonment for crime should
be used as means to strike down pri-
vate capital, to wreck old-established
Industries, and, in too many instances,
to establish suffering and beggary by
creating enforced idleness in various
branches of production. 1t cannot be
questioned that such results have been
the natural outgrowth of the employ
ment Of convict labor in the penal
institutions of the country. What
are some of the facts as they have
transpired? 1t is not long since that
an eminent Cincinnati founder testi-
fled before a committee of.the Ohio
legislature that, in consequence of
the ruinous competition of prison
labor, he was obliged to close his
works and discharge his whole body
OF employees. Another gentleman,
connected with large manufacturing
establishment in the same city, testi-
fed that the company of which he was
a member gave employment to about
one thousand men, but that, owing to
the prison system of competition, they
were conducting business at loss,
and could not we'll prolong the strug-
gle. Others gave like testimony, and
it was shown to the satisfaction of the
committee that many Ohio firms had
been driven from business through
the vicious system of employing con
Wet labor in the industrial branches
of trade.
Ohio is not the only State in which
this pernicious system operates to the
| disadvantage of both capital and la
Dor. Only a few years ago the manu-
tacture of fur hats in Connecticut,
| New Jersey and other States, gave
employment to some 1900 hands at
remunerative wages. A hatters' con
vention, held at Orange, N. j., in
| 1873, appointed committee to exam
inc the condition of the trade, and ac-
cording to their report, made in the
month of May of the present year,
free labor now has only 5000 persons
engaged in making and finishing fur
hats, while 800 convicts are engaged
in the same branch of industry. The
report afirms that the work outside is
never carried on more than eight
months in the year, while the i'm
Iprisoned conyicts work six days in the
week the whole year round, thus max
| ling the amount of work of 800 con-
yicts equivalent to that of 1400 free
laborers. The work of such convicts
costs the contractors from twenty FIVE
to forty cents per day, and against
this both employers and employed are
obliged to compete. At this very
time large force in Dannemora pris-
on, in this State, are engaged in hat
making. The labor is contracted to a
firm in this city at twenty-five cents
per day for each man, and the con-
tract calls for ten hours labor each
working day of the year. Each CON
vict is forced to turn out four dozen
hats for women or two dozen men s
hats as days work. The price paid
by the trade for this class of work
has been one dollar per dozen for
ladies' hats and two dollars per dozen
for mems hats. By this bargain the
State of New York gets twenty-five
cents from the contractors for four
dollars worth of work, and provides
shelter, food and clothes for the con-
vict workmen. Another feature in
this contract is that the convicts are
inhumanly overworked. Expe-
rienced workmen assert that two
dozen ladies hats or one dozen men s
hats per day is fair daily task for
any one man working throughout the
whole year.
Under such circumstances, is it any
wonder that many hating establish
ments have ceased operations, that
the force of workmen has been re-
duced more than fifty per centum,
and that, as stated in the resolutions
passed by the hatters' convention, in
1873, convict labor is taking from
each journeyman halter an average of
800 per annum in wages2
i Among the several branches of
business carried on in the Ohio peni-
tentiary Ia that of cigar making, Some
sixty men are steadily engaged in this
branch Of business at contract price
of forty cents per day for each work
man, or $240 per week. For the
kind and quantity of work there
turned out an ordinary cigar maker
would receive from $40 to $l2 per
week. The contractor saves from 81 go
to $500 perweek on the cost of manu-
factUre, thus making it an utter i'm
| possibility fox % outside manufacturer
to compete with him. What remains
to be done under such circumstances?
Either the employer or free labor
must reduce wages below starvation
rates, or else discharge his workmen
! and go out of business. Nowhere can
| the manufacturers of the country,
! engaged in the production of boots,
shoes, Furniture, carpets, hats, chairs,
hollowware, buckets. stone cutting,
cigars, aad other mechanical produc-
tions, stand up against men who en-
| glGy convict labor in the same
branches. The former must either
seek market Got invaded by prison
products, or reduce the wages of
workmen, or, as last resort, retire
from the field.
While this system may have ten
dency to cheaper goods in the market,
il is cutting away the ground from
under the iest of the employers Of
free labor and pauperizing American
workingmen. Who can say how much
this employment Of prison labor has
had TO do gjtb the troubles now every
where prevailing in industrial eireles2
If eonvicts can be employed at prices
ranging from twenty-five to forty cents
per day, and be forced to execute two