The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-04-20
PRISON LABOR.

One of the unceasing cries of the labor
organizations is against prison labor. Year
after year they ''resolven againstpermlttlng
prisoners to work, and every little while
we hear of manufacturers being boycotted
by workingmen's associations for employ
inc prison labor The matter has been
taken into politics, and some states are to-
day supporting their prisoners in idleness
because of a fear of the politicians and the
Lawmakers to offend the labor element. 1t
has never been satisfactorily explained why
an honest laborer should insist upon work
ing hard in order that thief or robber
may be supported in idleness by the state.
Common sense would suggest that the
more work that could be forced from crimi-
nal classes the better, and that the more
profitable that work, the less burdensOme
would be the tax upon the community.
But strange and incomprehensible as 1t is,
the law-abiding, honest toilers would pre-
vent prisoners doing anything that could
be done by others. In this connection we
publish below a letter on the
subject by the Quaker poet, JOHN
G. WHITTIER, than whom the laboring
man never had warmer friend. The let
ter is deserving the attention of legi slators
and of workingmen. Mr.. WHITTIER writes
William H. +. Round, Esq:
MY DEAR MR.. ROUND-I am glad to hear
that public meeting is TO be held in your city
to protest in the name of Christianity and hu-
mainly against the enforced idleneSS in prisons,
perilous alike to body and mind, which can only
result in filling your prisons with maniacS. My
SympathieS are with the labOring class in all
their just demands, and l would favor any legiti-
mate measure which promises to benefit them.
But the suppression of labor in prisons is too
small gain for them to be purchased by the
transformation OF prisons into Warehouses;. /
trust further reflection and the knowledge of the
terrible consequences of the slow torture Of
brooding idleness will ere long induce them TO
fOregO what must be very triting benefit at the
best With my best wishes for the success of
your philanthropic endeavors, I am. very truly
thy friend JOHN G. WHITTIER.
DANvERs, Mass, fourth month"; fifth, 1889.
One of the very best arguments advanced
and it is about the only valid argument
presented-by those who are urging the
general adoption of an eight-hour day, is
that the country is full of idle men who
could find employment if the hours of
labor were shortened. They say there are
a million men who cannot get work be
cause those already at work are compelled
to labor two hours more day than they
should do. There is a self sacrificing,
benevolent spirit in this which is highly
praisewOrthy. The Willingness to share
the labor and the pay with their less fortu-
nate fellows is commendablc. But the
strange inconsistency comes in when these
same eight-hour advocates insist upon it
that prisoners shall not work at all. If the
million idle men were to turn criminal, and
90 to robbing banks, stealing, fighting and
cutting threats and thus get themselves
into prison, the honest workers would in
sist upon supporting them in idleness.
Why not support them in idleness outside
the prisons! Is an honest man deserving
of less consideration than rascal! Is the
one who obeys the law to be treated with
more harshness than the malefactor.
Too many of the agitatOrs among the
worlkingmen are unreasonable if they are
not ignorant