St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-17

THE CONTRACT SYSTEM.
This system is in use in nearly every
Northern state prison as well as in a few
city warehouses and reform schools.
Under this system the state feeds, clothes
and guards the prisoners. The contractor
pays fixed sum per day for the labor of
each prisoner, ranging in different prisons
and for different classes of prisoners from
30 cents per day to 81 per day. In Massa-
chusetts as high as $1.25 per day has been
paid. The usual range is from As cents to
Is cents per day. The contractor furnishes
instructors, but the discipline is under con-
troll of the state. The contract system is
opposed by prison reformers and labor
unions alike but for different reasons. The
prison reformer desires that all prisoners
who are not completely hardened be re-
formed. He considers the contract system
inconsistent with reformation.
First-The essence of the contract system
is to make money out of the prisoner. 1t
is difficult to reform men while they feel
they are being used for the profit of con-
tractor,
Second-Under the contract system it is
necessary to place the contractors interests
before the best good of the prisoner.
Third-Under the contract system it is
almost impossible to avoid interference with
reformatory discipline by the contractors or
their agents, such as extra pay for overwork
and other favors to increase the profits Of
labor.
The labor unions object to the contract
system on the ground that it enables the
contractor, by purchasing labor below the
market price. to undersell competitors and
force down the price of free labor engaged
in the same occupations.
The ''piece-price" system is now advo-
Gated by many high authorities as a remedy
for all of the evils of the contract system.
Under this system convicts work by the
piece instead of by the day. wish now to
lay down certain
GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
I. Convicts must work.
First-As sanitary measure to preserve
mental and bodily health.
Second-As reformatory measure; you
cannot reform man in idlnness.
Third-As an economic measure and as
matter of justice to honest men.
II. Convict labor should be useful.
Penal labor, such as tread-wheels has been
abandoned in nearly every prison in the
world.
III. Prison labor necessarily completes
with free labor to certain extent, but need
not compete injuriously.
The objection to the contract system is
that it makes unjust competition possible.
This can only take place when the con-
tractor is able to control large amounts OF
labor in one occupation.
". Thus far the pressure of the con-
tract system in the Minnesota prison upon
free labor has been little felt because OF the
small number of convicts working at any
one trade. There are now 402 convicts at
Saltwater, employed as follows: On state
work and invalids, "a; constructing new
cells, 80; sash, door and blind shop, AZ;
manufacturing threshers and portable en-
gines, 246.
The work of these 246 men is distributed
as follows: soft-wood shop, AZ; wagon
shop, 81; paint shop, %; blacksmith shop,
"a: machine shop, SO: foundry, 80; bolt
shop, 16; bookkeepers and clerks, IA. The
largest number in any one employment is
81; the next largest, ~.
At Joliet, ILL.,, Sept. 80, 1882, $50 men
were employed manufacturing boots and
shoes alone-ten times as many as are en-
plOyed in any one line in our prison.
V. There is danger that with the
growth of the state injurious competition
may arise. A law was passed by the last
lGRlSldluT6 1OT W OotdDliou o.
second state prison upon some OF the stone
quarries of the state. l suppose that means
that the great bulk of the labor of the prison
shall be employed upon stone quarrying
and stone-cutting.
Recently the workingmen of Minneapo-
lis resisted successfully the use OF Joliet
stone in the new postoffice. If the second
state prison is established upon stone
quarry, and the labor of the prison en-
ployed chiefly upon stone work we shall
have stone monopoly upon our own soil
as great as that of Joliet
VI. This danger can be averted by MAX
ing the second prison reformatory for
young convicts, with variety of occupa-
tions In such a prison the contract sys-
tenn should be abandoned and the piece
price system substituted. the object of the
prison being not to make money for the
state, but to make these young men over
and convert them into honest. self-sup-
porting citizens.
The above is quoted from the original
manuscript, and covers what was said re-
specting the contract system. Yours re-
spectfully. Fl. FL. HART, Sec.
st. Paul, Nov. IA.
There is report that ex-Gov. George s.