The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-10-11
NO MORE MINING
For Penitentiary COnvicts If
Present Projects
Are Carried Out by the Exec
utiVe Council.
WILL BE CHAINGANGS.
Put to Work on the Public
Roads
As Is Done In Some Other
States.
Will BE CHAINGANGS.

There was little to do at the meeting
of the executive council yesterday af-
ternoon, and as the state officers had
not been together before for some time
they naturally drifted into a discussion
of the campaign and the issues with
which the Populist party had to deal.
Among the bills to be passed upon by
the council was one for the transporta-
tiOn of coal from the penitentiary to the
different state institutions, and this
naturally brought up discussion con-
cerning the convict coal coming into
competition with the product of the
miners in the Kansas coal fields.
1.-The way we are running things now
there is no coal on the market in com
petition with the miners coal,'' remark
ed Secretary of State Bush
THAT may all be- said Auditor Nor
ris, "but still the miners look upon the
coal which is used by the state institu-
tions as cause for complaint They
know that the convicts furnish all the
coal used by the state and they think
the state ought to buy its coal like
other people. The only way to stop
this thing is to shut down the peniten-
tiary mines altogether
well, we have got to have something
for the cOnVictS to do, replied Mr..
Bush. "They must be kept busy at
something, and coal mining seems to
them. There is hardly anything they
could do in which they would not come
into competition with somebody, and
the coal the state institutions use is
not drop in the bucket It would not
make any perceptible difference to the
miners if the state did buy it's coal"
That is true, too" said Mr. Morris
again. But the miners can not see
it that way. If you get them to figure
it out it would be different, but they
won't figure it out"
1T is not question of economy -
said Mr.. Bush, for am told that at
Emporia, Hutchinson, Winfield and Be
lott coal could be purchased in the mar
ket for the institutions at those points
for less than the freight amounts to
from the penitentiary. 1t is solely a
question of employing the cOnvicts and
keeping them busy. If anyone can sug-
gest a. better scheme 1 would be in
favor of it,
well, for my part" said Mr. Nor
ris, Il am inclined to think that it
would be a good idea to shut -own the
penitentiary mines altogether and put
the cOnVictS to making roads. That
would simplify matters"
Good idea, "said "UncIe Dave" Hef1e-
bower with one of his accustomed ex-
pletives as he sat astride a chair, lean
ing on its back.
''Those are my sentiments" said Sup
erintendent Stryker, not noticing the
force of ''Uncle Dawes" remark.
IF the cOnvicts made roads" 4cOntin-
ued Mr. Morris, their work would come
in competition with nobody, because We
all hate to work on the road There is
not man in Kansas that will do
days work on the public highway If he
can get out of it. They can keep on
making their own clothes and the things
they need for their own use"
Il am inclined to favor the idea" said
Mr.. Bush. ''They could also be made to
run a farm and raise everything they
need for eating"
''That would come into competition
with the farmers said some one.
THE farmers are not a class to kick
at that amount of competition" replied
Mr.. Bush.
This road business is the very idea"
said Superintendent Stryker. Il have
always advocated good roads and that
is the way to get them. That is good
solution of a veXed question. The con-
VictS, part of them, could be kept in one
place crushing the rock for the roads
and gangs could be sent out to make
the roads themselves. I will endorse
any such proposition as that"
IF am rightly informed said Mr..
Morris by way of closing the argument
is comparatively limited anyway. If we
depend on mining to keep the convicts
employed it is only a question of time till
we would have to move the peniten-
tiary. We ought to keep our present
supply so that we could have it to fall
back on in case of a combine of the coal
mOnOpOlies. The change would do the
miners but little good except to furnish
them a little more employment, but it
from state management. Looking at
the other side of it, it might settle the
poll tax question to a great extent al
So"