The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-04-03
marched ont and was bound ana oiyen

marched out and was bound and given
one hundred lashes. asked Mr..
Ward what he would have done,had
the man refused to obey the order. and
he replied that he would have dragged
him out with the irons, and if he had
attempted to assault any of them the
guards would have killed him. He
said that guard could watch eight
men, and then, with a significant look,
added that sometimes it took eight
men to control one desperate mali, but
that such fellows usually attempted to
escape and were killed by the guards.
But i never regarded Mr.. Ward as a
brutal man; on the contrary, | thought
he desired to find the average under
which, at the least expense, he coulG
get the greatest amount of labor out
of the convits. But / remember that
me day in 1877 / came up to a gang
of convicts who we're working on a
Texas railroad, and where one of them
had been killed by a guard. / asked
one of the guards how it came about,
and he told me that the man was an
unruly fellow, who gave them a great
deal of trouble, and thatit was cheaper
and safer to, give him a chance to at
tempt to escape, which was done,
and the man was killed as he ran
The leasing system in Arkansas was
inaugurated while MI. Garland was
governor. Senator Garland is regard
ed as a just and humane man, with more
than average friendly bias in favor of
the negro, but in this matter he drifted
with the general sentiment of his state.
The Georgia convicts were hired out
to a number of people, and were am
ployed in a variety of pursuits. SEN
ator Joseph e. Browne has a large num-
Der of them employed in his Dade coal
mines, while ether gentlemen with
political influence have contracts for
large numbers of them. In the north
ern states, and notably in Ohio, polit-
ical parties abolished the convict con-
tract system inside of the ~penitentiary
because the workingmen, who were
voters, demanded that such competi-
ton with them be ended, but in the
south, the negroes being the working
class, the system is allowed to flourish
in the most extended form. But the
evils of the system are overlooked In
the profits resulting from it to the
contractors, who usually represent or
combine with themselves the strongest
political influences. 1t amounts to a
system of limited slavery, in which
the master has but one interest, and
that is to get the largest profit out of
the slave, losing sight of his physical
wants or the preservation of his health
for that matter, for the courts are
actively engaged in keeping his quota
full, no matter how short-lived the
convicts may be. That convicts are
short-lived anyone will admit who
gives the subject any attention, be-
cause under the methods of treatment
they could not live long. OF course,
the contractors always reply that
such statements are false, and dare
the writer to come dowG where they
are to prove them. That they are
backed by public sentiment goes with
out saying, for If they were not the
leasing system to contractors outside
of prisons would be ended at once.
Legislative committees have. visited
prison pens in Alabama, Georgia, and
East Tennessee, and found nothing in
them TO condemn. b 4g9ga U8k