Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1899-03-25
ACCORDING To DEBS.
The Great Agitator Speaks Of Prison Labor
and Its Effects.

and Its Effects.
About $50 members of the Nine
teenth Century club gathered at the
ball room of Delmonico's, in New
York, last Tuesday night, to listen to
an address to the organization by Eu-
gene V. Debs. There were number
of the substantial business, profession
al and scientific men present, and the
interest in Mr.. Debs's words was rath-
er out of the ordinary, and the speak
er was applauded mildly several times
during his remarks. Mr.. Debs spoke
on "Prison labor, its effects on indus
try and trade"
Among other things, Mr.. Debs said !:
"Here in this proud city, where wealth
has built its monuments grander and
more imposing than any Of the seven
wonders of the world named 10 classic
lore, if you will excavate for facts you
will find the remains, the bones of the
toilers, buried and imbedded in the
foundations. They lived, they wought,
they died. In their time they may
have laughed and sung and danced
to the music of their clanking chains.
They married, propagated the species
and perpetuated conditions which,
growing steadily worse, are today the
foulest blots the imagination can con-
ceive upon our much Wanted civiliza-
ton. And from these conditions there
flows a thousand streams of vice and
crime which have broadened and deep
ened until they constitute perpetual
and ever increasing menace to the
peace and security of society. Jails,
warehouses;, reformatories and peni-
tentiaries have been crowded with the
victims, and the question how to con-
troll these institutions and their unfor-
tunate inmates is challenging the most
serious thought of the most advanced
nations on the globe.
"The pernicious effect of prison con-
tract labor upon free labor so-called,
when brought into competition with it
in the open market, is universally con-
ceded, but it should not be overlooked
that prison labor is itself an effect and
not cause, and that convict labor is
recruited almost wholly from the prop
ertyless wage-working class, and that
the inhuman system which has re-
duced comparative few from en-
forced idleness to crime, has sunk the
whole mass of labor to the dead level
of industrial servitude.
"It is popular to say that society
must be protected against the crimi-
mails.
~ prefer to believe that criminals
should be protected against society,
at least while we live under system
that makes the commission of crime
necessary to secure employment. De-
veloping along this line it would be
only question of time until the state
would be manufacturing all things for
the use of the people, and perhaps
the inquiry would be pertinent: If
the state can give men steady employ
ment after they commit crime, and
manufacturing can be carried forward
successfully by their labor, why can it
not give them employment before they
are driven to that extremity, thereby
preventing them from becoming crimi-
nals?,
"Prison labor is accountable for the
appalling increase of insanity, suicide
and murder and a thousand other
forms of vice and crime which pollute
every foundation and coDtaminate
every stream designed to bless the
world. Prison labor did not create our
army of the unemployed; but has
been recruited from the ranks, and
both, owe their existence to the same
social and economic system. These
conditions are as fruitful of danger to
the opulent as they are degrading to
the poor"