The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1889-01-18
Convict Labor vs.. Honest Labor.

RS county have begun toyiew with
alarm the entertainments which
the administration of affairs at the
Huntsville and Rusk State Pris-
ons have made upon the industri-
al enterprises and the material de-
yelopment Of the state. We feel
it is time to call halt. This ruiz
nous policy of employing convict
labor in competition with honest
workinginen, sharpening manu-
featured products to starvation
prices, is eating out the vitals of
wage-workers, fGrmers and private
capitalists, it is stagnating local
commerce and driving away from
our State the young mechanics,
laborers and men Of small means
to whom every community must
accord substantial support and en-
enlargement if it does not wish to
topple to decay. The people of
Harris count, feel that their cause
and their grievance is the heritage
and condition of every county in
this broad and glorious empire
State. We ask your aid in bring
ing such pressure to bear upon the
coming Legislature as will insure
the removal of this penitentiary
incubus that threatens to crush out
every healthy interest and indus
trial enterprise in Texas. Go
forth to every honest citizen, ey-
cry neighhor and friend who be-
iieyes in the triumph of respecta-
bic labor over those whose work is
the wages of their sins, and ask
them to join you in movement to
check this evil. We ask you to
call meeting in every school DIS
trict of your county, in every yot-
ing precinct and in every town.
Tell your constituents what they
already know: That the taxes
which thex pay out Of their peck
cts for the prevention Of crime. is
being, and has been, appropriated
for years, to the building of extern
size plants Of machinery at Hunts
vile and Rusk, in which every me-
chanicaI fabric Is being made that
can enter into the economy oflife;;
tell them how these products,
made by laborers vino work for the
bare modicum ofsubsistenoe which
keeps body and soul together, are
being thrown upon the markets in
a constantly increasing volume,
with the result to kill with their
competition the respectable arti-
sans Of the state who are strug-
Cling honestly to give their fami-
lies comfortable homes; tell them
that favored contractors hire out
hundreds Of these eonyiots every
year. and work them under ire
sponsibIe and inhumane guards;
and work them in CHAINS for plan
tations for forty cents a day, and
ssk them how can the honest farm
err on the adjoining plantation
plantation compete with these
hired and half starved criminals.
ne ask you to do this from a sense
Of patriotic duty, and to do such
other things as in your judgment
the emergency Of the evil CON-
planned of may demand. A CON-
mittee of conference, consisting
of such a number of members IS
may hereafter be agreed upon
say one from each congressional
or state senatorial district, be Sc
lected, who viii proceed to Aus
tin and lay this penitentiary
grievance before the legislature
and ask such bill ofrelief as nav
forever remove the danger which
threatens The vital prosperity Of
the honest people of the State
The old cry echoed for so many
years at the State capitol; the old
cry that "the penitentiary should
be made self-snpporting," mus
be met by the cry hat "The mer
rho would observe the, laws ant
pay the taxes must not Ne disci
plined into a line leading = con.
tempt Of the law" There ar,
thousands OF county roads 70 g
built in the State; there are mil
lions of cubic yards of rock to b
quarried; there are thousands
acres of sugar land, in addition t
those already being worked b
convict labor. Let the state tax
charge of its own conyicts, an
cease farming them out to priyat
contractors, whetherin workshop
on public works or on plantation
Let the amount for which a pc
son can be sent to the penitential
lie increased to 500 from $40
at present, thus very material
lessening the number who are a
nualIy sent there. All those co
yicted for amounts under the sl(
to he kept in the various eegpii
and worked on county roads, e
There certainly should be a