The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-08
CONVICT LABOR.

The Tennessee law, under which leased
convicts work in mines. works injustice
to the miners whose places they take, is a
bad law and sustains q vicious system
which has no defense except that it re-
lfeves the state of the burden of the sup
port of the convicts and makes them a
source of income. 1t is a frightfully in
human system, for under il the convict is
sure to be horribly abused in order to get
out of him the largest possible return to
the lessees above his cost in food, guards
and rent to the state. OF
course under such system the
convict is regarded and treated simply as
an animal TO be pushed to the extremity
of his endurance at the least possible cost
TO his slave-drivers. Such a system de-
grades the convict to the level of mere
beast and sends him back to society neces-
sariIy more formidable foe to its order,
safety and peace than it found him. 1t
also forces competition with free labor and
puts free labor at great disadvantage.
OF course convicts should be kept en-
ployed. for il is ruinous TO the convict's
bodily and mental health and fatal to all
chance of improved moral sanity to keep
him without work; but contractors should
not be allowed 10 work both convict and
free labor in the same mine, nor
should convict labor be used to
break down the wages OF free labor.
The Tennessee law, authorizing the leasing
of convicts for employment in the mines.
was evidently used to eoerce the miners to
submit 70 injustice at the hands of en-
ployers, and it ought to be repealed and the
whole chain-gang system extnguished. and
the state should train the convict to some
form OF useful labor that brings II
as little as possible into direct competition
with the labor of shops and factories.
Colonel Carroll d. Wright, of the Fed
eral bureau of statistics, has declared that
the competition of prison labor with the
labor Of the whole country is almost inn
perceptible. He states that the market
value of all the prison products made by
$4,000 men and women, is about S26 500. =
600, or less than half a dollar for each of
our 60,0o0,000 people-who annually pro-
duce more than 500 each, or 200 times as
much. This competition of one person
with 200 or $50, is not only in itself imper-
perceptible, but is vastly less than il would
be il these 81. 600 couvicts were outside the
prisons. And, whether inside or outside.
each laborer has a right TO compete with
every other, and that competition instead
OF harm is great benefit to the COM
munity"
The stupid laws passed in several states
have destroyed the diversity of prison in
dustries by excluding power machinery
from the prisons. and this destruction of
diversity OF industries Of course limits the
after employment of the convict instead of
promoting it. Every form of industry and
every stimulus TO honest employment is
necessary 70 make sny degree of reforma-
ton among convicts possible. Convicts
supported in idieness, ss they were AZ one
time IN New York state, deteriorate rap.
idly IN body aud mind and moral capacitv
for industrious, upright; life after their re-
lease, and the prison becomes a charge
upon the state instead of earning its sup
port, while the convict is almost NOR.
ally certain to again become a
charge upon the state, 70 continue
a life Of crime, suhiecting the state 70
expense as long as he lives. unless the
prison industries are sufficient TO keen
him from deterioration and to make
honest self-support possible after his
release. To enact legislation that is in.
human and immoral 10 please few feather.
head labor demagogues is in violation
OF sound public policy. The Southern
Changing and leased convict system is
desessabie anu disgraces human nature by