St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-02-13
OFFERS AN ARGUMENT
For the State Account Plan-An
Opposite View.

opDJStbC sCN.
John Kelley (Tammany)-The pub
lie account plan is the best for both
state and convict. and is less injurious
to outside labor. The public account
plan would pay the state, I've ause under
it reformation of the men can be better
accomplished. The work could be SO
regulated as to give eight hours day
hard labor, and the industries so diver
Sified that more men could be taught
more useful things. With the eight
hours of work there would be time open
fol- the application of reformative mea-
sureS such as lectures and schooling, for
it is conceded that the tendency of edu-
cation is to lessen crime. Besides, the
public account system could in time be
made to pay financially; though to
make it pay. some inducement must be
given the convict. The idea of sending
him forth from here comparatively PEN
nilesS and without clothes, the outside
labor market crowded and himself
under hindering stigma, is discour-
aging and wrong. He should have
more chance to go out better equipped
to froWn down temptation and to seek
honorable employment. ! have been
here twenty EIGHT months, and. have
different shops, thus having enjoyed
opportunities denied to others. In the
engine shop was the only convict EN-
ployed; all others were citizens,
though soon after the thresher company
took hold the convict force was in
creased to about twenty-five. Some of
the young men were put at painting
wheels and at other jobs, for which the
contractors paid the state As cents per
day. but for which identical work
a free laborer received 50 to $3.50.
Under the contract system no one is
benefited eXcept-the contractor. Last
year that system cost the state goo,
and surely there could be hardly a
greater deficit than that sum under the
public account plan. Under the con-
tract system it is the shop foreman who
orders the prisoner; the guard is a
secondary figure, and is there to en-
force order SO that the contractor may
get all the work possible. Convicts do
not wish to antagOniZe outside labor,
and so favor the public account plan on
the ground that it is better all around,
and under il the men would no more
work. Ny time here grows short-I
60 out soon. But speak for those who
remain, and those who come after am
in the world again. AS has been said
of the contract system: lit has been
the cause of gripping the business Of
many CT our manufacturers: it has been
the cause of large percentage of the
reductions which have taken place
in the wages of our me
chanies; It has been of no bene-
fit to the state; as a reformatOry
agent it has been complete, total and
miserable failure; it has hardened more
criminals than any other cause: it has
made total wrecks. morally, of thou
sands and thousands who would have
been reclaimed from the paths OF vice
and crime under proper system of
prison management, but now who have
| resigned their fate to life of hopeless
degradation; it has not single COM
mendable feature: its tendency is per-
! niciouS in the extreme; it enables a
| class OF men to getrich out of the crimes
committed by others; it leaves upon the
escutcheon of the state relic of the
| very worst form of human slavery; 1t is
| abhorred by all and respected by
| none except those, perhaps, who make
| profit and gain out Of it.
ANOTHER FAVORS CONTRACTS.
J. L. Ryan-Though under the state
account system it would take at least
| three years TO make any sort Of show
ing, and though it would be an expert
ment, yet l must admit that it would be
better for the more ignorant prisoners.
/ They would have opportunity to learn
| and to secure something of book edu-
cation. But think for the state the
| contract system is better: it relieves the
state of direct trouble and manage
ment. Oh, theoretically, the state &C
count plan is alright, but practically?
My sojourp here, even during the con-
tract regime, has been of as much ben
eft TO me as a two years course in col
lege. All of US can do ourselves great
| intellectual good while here, under any
system, if we exercise will power and
| stick to our commemorate resolves.