Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-08-24
should the Lease be Abrogatedp


Should or can the lease be annulled
by the Governor are questions that
are not properly up for consideration
now. The question is not, sis the
lease system right ?" The only ques-
tion for Tennesseans now to answer
is, "Shal the laws of the State be re-
spected p If the lease system is
wrong the legislature should not have
made it. If it is wrong, the legis-
lature since its creation ought to have
abolished it. If there is a better plan,
why have not our representatives
adopted it; why didn't Gov. Buchan-
an and hi hii- Legislature repeal it if il
was wrong? Our convicts have got
to be worked somewhere. The PEG.
pie OF Tennessee are not able, and if
they were able, they ought not to be
taxed to feed and support in idleness
fourteen hundred criminals. When.
ever it is the policy of the State to
support in idleness the felons and
lawless element of the State a pre-
MUM will at once be placed on crime
and the abiding citizens of the
State will be the slaves of thieves and
murderers. Our convicts must do
something. If they make farming
tools, wagons, furniture and other
things they will come directly in
competition with free labor. Someoi
them might be worked on the county
roads, but not great many, for this
would require the erection If branch
prisons over the State. However, if
this or any other plan is thought bet
ter than the lease system, then let the
next legislature make the change.
1t is the law as it is, until the repre-.
sentatives elected by the people
change it, and no set of men has the
right TO defy the law. Some say the
lease system is inhuman, too severe
on the convicts, ana that they are not
properly treated. That does not ex.
plain the present trouble, for the
miners and not the convicls created
the trouble. Gov. Buchanan's
position in this matter, that
he is going to abrogate the lease,
is just about as silly as many other
Things done by the Governor. If the
Governor had turned his at
tention to settling the trouble
In East Tennessee, putting a
stop to murder, robbery and arson
instead of writing letters to the les
sees he would have served his State
better. He notified the lessees that
one of their bondsmen was insol-
vent. Gov. Buchanan knew that
this same man has been insolvent for
two years. He ordered all the pris-
oners sent to the main prison and
threatened to abrogate the lease il
the lessees would not take care of
them, and then he ordered them to
remove them from the main prison
and threatened to annul the lease If
the lessees refused to remove them.
They were driven from East Tennes.
SEQ by a lawless set of men, headed
by one of Governor Buchanan's own
arpointees. The stockades were
burned, the guards captured and
many OF the convicts turned loose.
The conduct OF the Governor has
been simply silly. 1t is to be hoped
that the other prison inspectors will
show,a little more judgment, sense
and manhood than the Governor, for
Tennessee has suffered enough shame.
Let's settle that the law is supreme.
That no set Of lawless men can run
over the decent people of the State.
That no set of men have the right to
burn property, destroy life, commit
other crimes and put the people of
Tennessee toan expense of hum
dred thousand or more dollars and
not sufferer for it.