The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1883-03-08

bones and muscle? The recent his
tory of Texas is full of evidence of
the horrors of this system. What
delegate to spectators the high and
solemn trust of penitential and re-
formatory servitude for fellow men :?
1t Is trust which society imposes on
the state, and we are unworthy guar
dians If we repudiate it because it is
expensive, or weigh human misery in
the scale with gold. Tell me not that
state like Texas, free from debt.
with bOundleSs resources and pros
porous in all her borders, is UNEQUAL
to the task of furnishing in her own
name and under her own officers the
violatOrs of her law. If your peni-
tentiaries will not hold them and they
must be worked outside, let them be
taken by officers of the state, and not
by spectators, and worked in fields
now growing up in weeds for the
want of labor. Then prisons may be
built both for their comfort and Secur-
lty, and the humane purpose of the
law which cOntemplates reformatory
punishment may be accomplished. \
planter who works a large force of
them told me that the state could
lease two thousand field hands in
twenty days at fair wages to men who
would build prisons and work them
on plantations under state guards and
state control.
And now let me call your attention
to the fourth clause of this contract
and point out danger. 1t requires
the contractors to pay all the officers
and guards, it is true. From this the
state is relieved. Thus you will have
the mockery of officers and guards
put there by the state, but dependent
for the money which buys their bread
on the contractors, whose conduct
they are appointed to watch and con.
troll. No voucher for salary or pay
of these officers and guards can be
paid on the comptroller's warrant
| From superintendent down they are
fed from the pocket of the contract
orS. Beautiful guardians of the states
interests Beautiful protectors
against oppression of helpless men,
when their very bread is bought with
money paid, not by the state or its
treasurer, but by the men on whose
eXactionS or expressions they should
constitute check. Over every en-
plOye the superintendent is king,
and over him not the state, but the
contractor is master, for to him must
the bow be made each month when
the salary is due. Suppose that the
contractors say the times are hard, OF
they don't like some report made to
the governor, and they decline OF
postpone payment? Resumption, you
| say, is the remedy for a violated con-
| Y mi iCe f,,I
full thing that senate can be forced
by even the prospect of il to delegate
trust involving human suffering
and human life to specializing con-
tractors, who can hope that peni-
| Tertiary board will ever resume for so
small thing as the non-payment of
the salary of a sergeant and his
guard? Thus the lease contract
places the whole tribe of state guards
and convict protectors against inhu-
manity and.avarice in the pocket of
the leSSeeS, and no senator can gain
say it.
Do what you will with this matter,
no such power as this lease gives to
contractors over all the agencies de-
| signed for protection of life and limb
as well as for security, shall ever re-
ceive my vote.
Senator Pope-Will the senator per.
init me to interrupt him?
Senator Terrell-Is it to ask a ques.
/ ton?
Senator Pope-No. sir.
Senator TERRELL respectfully de.
cline to be interrupted. speak with
pain, for L am unwell, and will soon
| close.
If had no other reason to condemn
this lease, would find it in the fact
that from 1849 ZIP to 1870, period OF
twenty-one years, while the state con-
trolled her criminals, only seventy
five escaped; while from 1873 to 1882
a period of only nine years, 2034 peni-
tertiary convicts escaped under this
leasing system. Society suffers and
complains in vain of peaceful neigh
bOrhOods terroriZed by this infamous
system which makes man desperate
to escape at any risk of life, and
| which makes escape easy, and still
the senate hesitates, frightened by the
| ghost of resumption and the fear that
few dollars may be needed to help
the state discharge a solemn trust.
1t has been said that was not will
ing to tax the people over fifteen
cents on the one hundred dollars for
schools, but was yet willing to sus-
tain a tax fol-. the penitentiaries. i
fail to appreciate the force of the re-
minder when we know that of those
sent to our N1>Eentiary the number
who can real write and who can
not is about NfRl. Crime is the off
spring of bad heart and wayward
impulses, and not of the intellect. Its
preventive is the church, the Sabbath
school and the moral lesson at the
mothers knee, and is not afforded by
the school teacher, who instructS only
the head. L would have the state
just and liberal in the performance of
every duty-profigate and extrava-
CANT in none.
1 have left to other senators the
work of showing that this lease
would place in the pockets of the
contractors nearly three millions of
money; and well have they estab-
lished it by facts and figures. No man
can deny their estimates; yet in the
face of this, we are asked to pass an
act of ratification. which being the
last act on the subject having the
force of law, would invest the lesseeS
under the binding force of contract
with right so long as they observe
the terms of the lease to work these
convicts where they please all over
Texas for ten years, unless you adopt
my amendment.
How these convicts may be treated
when we have adjourned and they
will be guarded as 1 have shown by
paid hirelings of the lessees, miscalled
state agents and guards, we can guess
from what was seen by the visiting
committee of the senate. When that
visit was made we must suppose the
cOnvicts were made to appear to the
best advantage, for the visit was ex-
pected. Now see what the joint COM
mittee report:
"On account of the severity of the
weather your committee were pre-
vented from visiting any of the con-
vict camps except one known as the
Wynne farm near Huntsville. +
On the Wynne farm your COM
mittee found over sixty conVictS
being worked by Messrs. Cunning
ham & Ellis, lessees. They respect
fully submit that the prisoners on
said farm are not treated and provi-
ded for as, in their opinion, they
should be. They were quartered in
too small box house; the windows
were too small, with iron bars and
without shutters. There was only
one small stove in the house and so
arranged as to make it impossible for
more than five or six persons to de-