The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-07-16

We have a money-making, state-deVelop-
ing penology; mostly an idea of our own.
Why not go farther with it? The impos-
ing brick structures at Prison Number /,
on the Coosa, We're all built of brick made
on the spot; and much of the brick was
made by state labor. So at the big Speign-
ers' plantation, there is a beautiful cotton
MILL warehouse, etc, constructed Of
brick manufactured on the spot by state
labor and put into houses by state labor
Why not make brick as here, and build
an executive mansion at the capital. Let
it be a southern house, wide, hospitable
halls, deep galleries for nine months of
open windows Good democracy would
glory in the achievement.
More than this, why not build a new
marble capitol? The state has mines and
quarrymen. In Bibb, Taadega and Cal
houn there are 100 miles of marble fields
white, black blue, pink marbles inexhaust-
ible, Where the Calhoun river and GER
tain creeks cut through these fields, the
marble bluffs are so to 50 feet high. The
creaking floors and falling walls of the
states residence should give way to a
nobler one, typical of the vitality of the
state and reared where the historic move
ment in defense of state rights took shape.
Don't the plain men we send to the palace
at Washington turn back in shame upon
home and forget us?
There are various penal colonies on the
fair face of Alabama, planted and pros
pering all along from the lumber mills on
the Gulf to the farm hills on the Tennes-
see
There are perhaps $500 pdhal coonists;
men of all shades of character; stout of
body and the manned; women of unsexing
tempers and weak natures, and, alas, too
many children of both races SO infantile in
years as to be wrongly accounted subjects
of an enlightened administration of public
Justice. l have seen daily quite a hand
someyoung widow, her young widowhood
self-inficted, on an involuntary visit there
fore, of five years to one of these model set
Elements There she takes rank as first
class mill hand. In cooler cimes she might
have used the legal divorce
When we reflect that the Robert Morris,
who gave his vast fortune and his genius
to financier this struggling country in it's
revolution, died in the prison of the COM
mon debtor, we may see in the progressive
penology of Alabama the movement of an
enlarging Christianity.
OF every 100 penal colonists of this state
So are negroes of all ages and both sexes.
We come to the later development of dis
cfpline over the negro and the reconstruc-
ton of the penitentiary, shifting the insti-
tuition from its original base to the XIV
amendment. Before my eye at this mo-
ment is an infant negro, male, romping
with the ours. He Is, perhaps, already
arrived at the age of seven of eight years,
is diminutive for his age, and bears the
impress of hard living in recent times past.
He was assigned to the penitentiary the
other day, and as he came In two white
male children in knee breeches, went out
after serving their sentences of two years.
This negro infant Is billed for lone year
and day." His conviction cost the state
thrnSha1
decently and turned him back to his moth
er? He took four bananas from a "da-
COS" stand; hence the great wrath of
Alabama.
The male convicts are sent in from the
county jais in various conditions of health
and capacities for labor. At Wetumpka
the main hospital is located. Ordinarily
there are, say $50 men and boys there. OF
this number not more than 50 can do any
kind of work. Dr. Judkins is successful and
only IS died in the last two years. At
Speigners DR.. Huddleston had no death
from diseases that are durable from De-
cember, 1897 to September, 1898, his last
report The Ward Lumber company en-
ploys some. Lewis H. McCurdy, of
Lowndes county, employs 50 as cotton
field hands; the lime works at Calera; the
coal mines of Jefferson county; the Bell
saw mill and farm on the Tennessee river,
cts, have others.
McCurdy pays 50 per month for the class
he takes the mines pay $14 for the best
men they take, and other contractors pay
along these rates according to class.
There are three plantations one of 1900
acres at Speigners, fifteen miles north of
Montgomery; one near Wetumpka and the
third in Montgomery county, on the ITALIA
poosa. From five hundred to six hundred
convicts live on these plantations.
The administration of the convict system
of Alabama in its present advanced stage,
is founded on the Coleman law" a stu
dent of which the judge of the Tenth cir
cult, Hon. A. "A. Coleman, then a legisla-
tor. caused to be introduced and passed.
Bass, Bankhead, the Dawsons, father and
and son, as officers of the penitentiary in
various times, have done much for the
cause of reform. Miss Julia Tutwiler's la
bors in county Jail refoms were effective in
sending prisoners not altogether so dis
eased and broken down from those insti-
tons to the penitentiary.
The governor is ex-officio the head of the
system. He is the real head. He approves
all OUTLAWS, even to the purchase of split
bottom chair. He appoints all officers on his
own responsibility, without the recognition
of the senate To the governor has fallen,
OH motion of Governor Johnston, a very
comprehensive new power in the system.
fly the convicts of the system of far-reach-
ing influence. I refer to the governors
parole. parole is not pardon. In fact.
it relieves the prisoner only of a part of
prison discipline. He may go out upon the
world without the garb of stripes, but he
must live strictly under the law He can
violate moral code, save at the
sacrifice of the partial freedom of
the parole. No further process of
the courts is needed to relegate
him to prison again. The governor
keeps an eye on him, and is Judge and jury
in his walk through the world.
The machinery of the system Is simple
and-a at present very active and effective
There is Convict Bureau comprising
three citizens, who undertake special du-
ties of an administering kind. The bureau
office is in the capitol
Tho president of the bureau Is Mr. sgd
enham b. Trap. an eeterprising farmer of
Calhoun county and a merchant of large
experience. He resides at Montgomery.
All reports from all sources and all officers
are made to him. He directly controls the
commerce and agriculture of the system
and determines the discipline under the
law. TIe personally visits all the penal set
Elements. Mr.. Trapp is not supposed to