The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1892-09-08
them. Only let them be suitable, and
of an elevating tendency.
O FOR SHAME!

~ FUN S0AMC!
Mrs. c.. O. Keller has contributed to
the NeaD York Witness valuable and
interesting article on the convict lease
system. There is no doubt that Mrs.
Keller has made the history of Amer
lean slavery special study and as she
says, "Spared no pains to learn the
present condition of the freedmen"
After dwelling on the guilt of this ma
ton in enslaving the Negro-the Dutch
ship which brought the first slaves to
our shores, landing them at jamestown
the dreadful impetus given to the
slave trade by fast American clippers,
nineteen American vessels being en-
gagged in that traffic as late as 1838-she
says:
But alas! there is another dark page in our ma
tons history which yet remains to be written.
| 1t will tell of new and most revolving form of
slavery, a slavery which is not known as the "pe-
culiar institution but has been pronounced
"the CHASTITY institution 1t seems that slavery
had prepared the public conscience so that in
time of temptation the South was found ready to
go from bad to worse. After the war the South
ern States were left in an impoverished cOndi-
ton. Then it was that most of them adopted
the convict lease system, system the character
of which is substantially the same everywhere
and always. This system was adopted as the
quickest and most renumerative way of dispOs-
ing of criminals. In the North, where the States
support and care for criminals, sometimes their
labor yields small revenue to the State and in
9TH how nn1Xy tn Rnf
the United States Commissioner of Labor in his
report on convict labor published in 1856 says of
the convict lease system: "This system is the
most renumerative of any in vogue, its proceeds
constituting three hundred and seventy-two per
| cent. of its running expenses, taking all States
together that work under the lease SYSTEM
| page 3s) In other words, for every dollar the
| State pays out in caring for its cOnvicts it re-
| ceveS nearly four dollars in return.
Usually the law requires that the lessee shall
| be a person of some moral standing; but anyone
who lives where saloons are licensed and remem-
bers that the salOOnkeeper is recognized by the
| board of excise to be of 'gOOd moral character -
can form some idea how far such laws are eff
fective. The revised code of Mississippi gives no
moral qualification whatever of the lessee, and
distinctly declares that in the counties the Off
Gals shall accept the best bid and deliver the
convict to the person paying most for him."
The fact is that in almost every instance where
the lease system is adopted, the State and the
lessee alike recognize the fact that the prisoner
has no one to protect him, that he cannot pro-
tect himself from their cupdty, and that they
therefore have it in their power to get all the
money out of him that he has vitality and work
ing capacity to develop Every person that
stands over the leased convict has moneyed in
terest in him and is going to get it out of him.
How some of these lessees make money is illus
trated in the case of one Zeb. Ward who began
before the war and has been leasing convicts
much of the time since then. He leased for a
time the Kentucky pententiary and in four
years CATER paying the state six thousand dollars
a year for his lease) made one hundred thousand
dollars. He is now retired from business very
wealthy man.
1t seems that the first thorough inves
tigation into the character of the lease
system was made by DR.. Sims in 1886
while chairman of the committee of the
board of prisons in Tennessee. His
object was not alone to compare the
system in use in his state with that Of
the other Southern States upholding
such barbarity, but to gather the neces-
sary statistics that would prove beyond
doubt that the cause of the enormous
death rate among the convicts was
brought about by "bad prison manage
ment, cruelty, and abuse, insufficient
clothing, filthy and unhealthy surround
ings would all speak through an in
crease in the death rate" He found
that though in the other states the
deaths were more than siXty-four per
thousand in Tennessee "to my NORTH
cation and shame he said, II found
that it presented mortality of seventy
seven per thousand per annum.' AS
George w. Cable says, "the day is not
remote when in every such region, the
sentiment of the people will write over
the gates of the convict stockades and
over the doors of the lessees, sumptu-
Gus homes, one word: "Aceldama-the
field of blOOd.''
Tho ciIvar dollar of 1904 is worth S6O0