The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1883-03-08
raE rENIrENrrARY LEASE.

Our Austin letter this morning contains
some valuable figures and suggestions rel
alive to the penitentiary lease which the
iessees have been urging the ratification of
for weeks at our state capital. and yester-
day succeeded in having the senate approve.
From the showing made in this letter all
honor is due to the shrewd and patriotic
senators and members who have been 20
persistently and ably fighting this lease
during the present session. Why the state
should deliberately throw away in the term
proposed 81 500 900 or s., 600 900, as it will
do, according to the figures furnished by our
correspondent, is a mystery. II can only
be accounted for on the supposition that
those making or ratifying such lease
know nothing about business or the
value of money or care nothing when they
see millions taken directly from the pock-
cts Of the people and placed in the pockets
Of two or three men. To lease state in
stitution for few thousand dollars that is
paying a profit of $l50,0O0, over aud above
all expenses, is simply preposterous. The
theory that the state cannot manage such
an institution rs successfully as can the
lessees is absurd and but a llimsy excuse
for throwing big, tat job into the hands of
two or three men. When members of q
legislative body have thrust into their faces
the undisputed and indisputable fact that
the state is losing thousands upon thou.
sands of dollars annually in persisting in
such and such course, and still heed not the
fact or attempt to rectiiy it, the conclusion
is irresistible that there is some.
thing decidedly "rotten in Denmark. :" The
chief reasons for the lease seem TO be the
want of business capacity in the state to
manage the penitentiary as well as private
parties, the possible loss in resuming con-
troll, and the foolish sentimcntality that
insists that the state should not run its
penal institutions for profit. The irsL
argument is extremely ilimsy, from the
fact that the state is as well able to hire and
pay superintendent and guards as are
lessees. In the next place, the appropria-
lions already Gnade for the penitentiaries
are so ample, while those institutions are
in their present condition, that the state
could have resumed control without
having to appropriate another dol
lar over and above the present muniiicont
provisions, or without losing dollar other
wise. And then again, while the penal in
atitutions OF state should not be run for
profit, every dollar that can be legitimatey
made by the state in the ordinary and
criminals, to render such burdens upon
the law-abiding people selfsustainng or
even remunerative should be made. II
costs the state and society much money to
punish its criminals, and the state is en-
titled to return, If possible, from the
labor Of these convicts of every dollar en-
pended by it, In other words, the people |
OF Texas must decide whether the senate
OF the state has done its duty or defrauded
the people when they take one OF the best
paying institutions in the state and |
turn it over for mere nominal price per
annum to two or three favored lessces. The
sder for there is no one but knows that
lessees, who take the penitentiary for the
simple purpose Of making money, will ex'
pend less in the care of and be far more eX-
acting in the labor of convicts than would |
the state, when its object was not to squeeze
every cent 1t could out of the institutions. |
If our pententiaries instead of paying |
clear profit to the state, larger than the |
amount for which they are now leased, had
been found source of loss and impossible |
of being made sci.snstainlng, there
would be wisdom IN getting rid OF
them on any terms that would pay u dol
lar. AS it is there isno earthly wisdom, so
far rs We can see, on the part OF Texas in
turning these Institutions into others hands |
annually for mere song. The whole bust |
ness looks bad, the manner In which the |
bids were advertised for, the manner in |
which the particular bid was accepted and
the ratification of the lease by sixteen sena- |
tors in face of the array of telling figures |
AID facts urged against the lease. All |
may be and doubtless is square and fair,
and results from honest and patriotic bust
ness notions, but the business capacity
exercised on the part of the state of Texas
in the premises is not to say the poorest at
least the most peculiar we have any knowl-
edge of, unles it was that of the now
famous female who killed tho fowl that laid
tho golden egg.