The Advocate and news., 1897-12-15
DISPOSITION OF PRODUCTS OF STATE
INSTITUTIONS

women charged with the care of persons
who, in one way or another, have be-
come public charge and are fed, clothed
and taught at the expense of the State.
The matter has been at least partially
disposed of, as to portion of such per-
sons, in every one of the States
But another and quite as troublesome
q question has arisen out of a real or
supposed competition Of such labor with
that of persons who maintain themselves
in the ordinary occupations. Mechanics,
for example, object to the sale of prison.
made wares in competition with what
they produce. They assert that the work
of persons whose crimes have made it
necessary to keep them apart from hon
est and law-abiding people, ought not, in
common fairness, be put in competition
with the work Of clean-lived men and
women. So intense has this opposition
become that State Legislatures, from
time to time have been appealed to for
legislation on the subject, and Congress
has been respectfully asked to prohibit
the sale Of convicts' work in States other
than those in which the goods were
made.
In the State of New York, convicts are
idle because of this complaint. The
State authorities say there is no sense
in keeping prisoners at work in trades
If what they make cannot be sold in the
market In Georgia, the Legislature is
now considering bill to put the States
COnyicts at work on an island or some
tract Of land selected for the purpose
and have them work for the State. The
bill divides the conviCts into classes ac
cording to length of their periods of
Imprisonment, and provides that the
long term prisoners shall be put and
kept at hard labor in agricultural pur-
suits, the products of their labor to be
applied to the support of the conviCts,
and the surplus to be devoted to the sup
port of such other departments of the
State as the lunatic asylum, or as the
governor may direct"
The Georgia idea is at least on the
right line. A State has a right to pro-
tect itself, just as a family or an indi-
vidual person has. Misfortunes befall
some of us, and Others commit crimes
against the community; and so, from
one cause or other, the State, in its own
these people. We build asylums, ne
and prisons, and we must
support them out of the public treasury.
We have the right to make these per-
sons support themselves when that is
and we ought to cause them
to render some service to the State in
return for the outlay made necessary
by reason of their relations to the peo-
at large. Hence, in every case where the
labor Of inmates at one of the State in
stitutions can be made to supply neces-
sites at some other one, that policy
ought to be adopted, to the end that
in course of time all available labor of
this class shall be employed in the
and manufacture of supplies |
which the State now has to buy on the
market. Only last week the State Board |
If Charities let contracts to supply the |
various State institutions with great |
many articles, some of which are now |
being made, and others could be made, |
)y our own dependents.
We have land, more or less, connected |
with every one of these State places,
md where shops and machinery are re-
luired or can be prOftably used, they
ought to be supplied.
Such a policy would dispose of the
objections urged against the competi-
i've system. 1t would be the State TAX
ng care of its own interests, as family
nay do for itself by furnishing its own
supplies as far as its is able to do so.
Besides this the selfish view OF the sub
COT n vOuld taoph tho npOnlo ar largo |