The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-05-19
CHEAP CONvICTLAROR.
White Laborers in Tennessee Made Des
perate by Competition With Conyicts-
some Fruits of the Democratic
Policy of Cheap Labor and
Free COmnatit;n,, ~.

Democratic
Policy of Cheap Labor and
Free Competition.
The mining region of East Tennessee
is the wealth and opportunity of the
State. 10 the man of money and the
man OF muscle it offers hopeful out
look. This mountain region is noted
for the independence of its people.
From Sewers time downward, thew
have been proud that slavery could not
live among them. These convict
stockades, born of the lease system,
have been asgrowing menace to gain
full occupation, and an offense to the
natural sense of right. The associa-
ton OF free and convict labor is in
every way unnatural. The free miner
may live in a cabin, but he is as free as
the winds that blow through it,, Free
dom loves freedom. His bread lies at
the bottom of the mine. The faces of
his rosy mountain children he does not
see much of but by lamplight, yet all
day his occupation compels him to toll
with the convict, face to face, for
companion. At nightfall, when he
comes to the upper region, his days
work is weighed up in convict lease
scales, by convict guards, and rated by
convict wages. All the surroundings
are most repulsive; armed guards
everywhere; the clank of chains; the
zebra cloths; the foul-mouth language
of crime, whippings, fortunes, and
shootings, such as can hardly be de-
scribed, fill the air. ..
Is it possible, is it probable even,
that the man who deposits his free bal
lot to make the laws of his country,
elects governor and legislature, who
shoulders his musket when that conn
try calls to arms; is it likely that he
will subnait long to this order of things?
Put yourself in his PLACE before YOU
answer; would you do it? Bread he
must have; his occupation is mining.
There is'no place to fall back to, and
the thing that runs him out here, the
convict and the lease, can follow him
through ten southern and two northern
States. He reasons the matter over.
He was here first; he is not to be
blamed for having been born in the
mountains. Somebody's management
has brought this about. The convict
is not to blame; the clanlzing of his
iron-fettered feet tell him that. Who
is behind the convict? The s'lease.''
And who made the lease? The State.
Is he himself not a part of the State?
Then he can unmake it. It is right to
do it; so the hot feeling of Indignation
telegraphs itself from the bosom of one
free man to that of another. One little
wrong after another keeps building the
feeling stronger and the fever of dis
content rises higher. Governors, leg
islatures, and lessees are common men.
The time for action comes. The
governor sits in his chair at Nashville
grasping that 100000 lease, dreaming
of coming elections. The telegraph
brings him word that the guard at the
mines has been overpowered, the torch
applied, and in the glare of it's light
every convict has been told to take
care OF himself. He hurries forward
to quell the rising insurrection, and to
save the met revenue.'' After him
hurry few hundred boys who, in Or
der to play soldier on holidays, have
enrolled themselves as estate Militia -
They have been called out They
catch up muskets and gattling guns,
and follow him. The charred and
burning camps greet their arrival.
They are put in camp at the stockades,
and ordered to defend the lessees'
property. A hundred Thousand dollar
lease is involved in this thing. Some
of the escaped convicts have been cap
tured and brought in. The boys,
whose noble duty it is to defend the
lessees' slaves, find themselves suddenly
in the darkness of morning, surrounded
by men who had not played soldier, but
acted it on many a crimson battlefield.
Surrender or die, is the stern demand.
One or two OF the outpost civic guards
already had been shot. The numbers
are overwhelming. SensibIy they
hand over their guns, are placed on
the cars, and sent by the miners to
find their governor. Other stockades
are similarly treated. The woods and
mountains are again filled with con-
victs. The governor with pale face,
this time more sensibly sends for his
attorney general to hold parley with
the miners. Eight hundred convicts