Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1885-03-26
soururRs CONVICT SYSTEMS.
How the Conyicts Are Worked and Treated
A Field for the Observation-Disclosures
laxs Made Only for Negroes.

Laws Made only TOT Negroes.
The Shooting Of ~Penitentiary Con-
yicts," was the beading OF a dispatch
In a newspaper which l read on last
Friday, and which gave the details OF
the shooting of three hired convicts,
who were at work in the Coal creek
mines in East Tennessee, writes an
indianapolis correspondent Of ibe o'n-
csnndti Eaqairer. To-day read
other paragraph which stated that h
conyicts in Arkansas are hired out TO
farmers at 50 per month. Within the
past ten years, and often during that
time, / have had opportunities to see
every phrase of the system OF leasing
convict labor in various states, but
have given special attention to those
states which allow the ~conyiets TO be
worked out of doors. What i shall
write on this subject will be unvar-
nished facts, and l will try to make
them so distinct that no n can dis
pute one statement which l will make.
The states which l know lease their
convict labor TO be worked outside OF
the penitentisries are Arkansas, lex
as, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and
Kentucky. Most of the states lease
their prison labor, but in the north the
! convicts are worked within the prison
walls; the tasks are regulated by the
state; Though its own oficersi the
! state feeds the convicts, treats them
when sick, attend to their sanitary
condition, has them bathed and their
clothing properly washed and mended:
shall not make comparisons, they
are unnecessary, for the intelligent
reader a do that when he has the
facts. / only want to call atten-
ton at the outset to the fact that the
constitutions of all the states, follow
ing the eighth amendment to the
national constitution, provide that
excessive bail shall not be required.
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel
and unusual punishments inflicted"
1t may be that do not know what
| constitutes ''cruel and unusual pun
ishments," so that those who read the
facts will have to be their OWE judges.
During the years 1875, 1876, and
1877 the ~convicts of the state OF Ar
kansas were leased to MI. Zeb Ward,
of kentucky. Nh. Ward had been a
prison-labof contractor in Tennessee
when | first knew him. His lease Of
the ~penitentiary of Arkansas and of
the convicts was for the term Of ten
wears. One of the conditions Of the
lease was that Mr.. Ward should not be
hampered with the presence of q ward
EN- or any state officer who could stand
between the cupidity or passionate
cruelty of the lessee. During the term
for which the persons were sentenced
the state had no control whatever over
the criminals. The contractor fed,
clothed, and cared for them as he saw
tit. About 1875, perhaps 1876, Mr..
Ward found that he could not work
all the convicts in and about the peni-
Tertiary, so he opened a large cotton
plantation and penal farm up the Ar
Kansas river, and in what is known as
the river bottoms. There the soil is
very rich, but the malaria Is general,
and il not fatal, produced the result
which was fatal in the end. / visited
this prison farm twice during the sum-
mer of 1877, once at the invitation of
Mr.. Ward, and once at the request of
citizens Of the little town on the Little
Rock and Fort Smith railroad. Dur
ing my first visit | saw that the con
victs we're fed on corn-bread and fat
meat; that they were huddeled to-
gether in the yilest, filthiest dens of
cabins within a stockade; that they
were not half clothed, and no regard
was paid to their sanitary condition;
and, worse, that there were no bathing
facilities within the blockade. There
was not a white prisoner among the
three hundred then on this prison
farm, and i do not think there was a
white man in the p%enitentiary at Lit
tie Rock who was subject to the con-
tractor. Several white men, who in
gentlemanly bouts had killed other
white men, and who feared lynching
or assassination II kept in the iails OF
the counties where the crimes were
committed, were confined on their own
request in the penitentiary until the
courts could go through the form of
releasing them. They, of course, were
not ~convicts, and when they felt like it
came down town and had a good time
with the special guards who looked
after them. 1t seemed TO me that the
criminal laws applied only to negroes
except where the crime was horse
stealing. This observation applied to
all the states, in a general way, where
convicts were leased out to contrac-
tors, and it appeared to me that the
arrest of a negro for any offence
seemed accepted as proof positive
that 10 was guilty. I gave especial
attention to this subject, and no.
ticed that conviction almost al
ways followed arrest. l do not
know that the negro is always a thief;
perhaps he is, which would account
for his almost universal conviction
when charged with a crime. The
treatment of leased convicts has been
discussed through the newspapers,
and in Kentucky and in Georgia l have
heard of Legislative Investigations, bu
/ am not aware that any legislatic-
has ever followed which was intended
to mitigate or change the methods O
treatment to which the victims were
subject. l once talked TO Mr. Ward OF
this subject, and he told me some o
the methods by which he controlled
refractory convicts. In one case 8
man refused to leave his cell to worE
in a orickyari. MIR. Ward went U
the blacksmith shop and had two Ions
iron hooks made, which were heatet
red-hot, and then taking two guards
who covered the man with shot-guns
he told the man to come out in on,
minute or he would have him dragge
out with the hot irons. The maj
marched out and was bound and givel
one hundred lashes. / asked Mr.
/. Ward what he would have done hat
the man refused to obey the order, anC
he replied that he would have dragged
him out with the irons, and if he ha,
attempted to assault any of them tn,
guards would have killed him. II,
said that n guard could watch eigh
men, and then, with a significant look
added that sometimes il took eigh
men TO control one desperate man, bu
that such fellows usually attempted Il
escape aud were killed by the guards
But | never regarded Mr.. Ward as
brutal man; on the contrary, / though
he desired to find the average unde,
which at the least exnansa ha caul,