The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1900-12-21
Friday. Dec. q, 1900.
State Farming.

ne OtdtS Vi ASAdS 10 SOAnS INV ioi Ia
ing in grand style. 1t has laid out a farm
of 5000 acres on the Brazos river and is
putting up buildings and providing the
farm with the most improved machinery.
The farm is to be cultivated by the State
criminals. This is new departure in the
employment Of criminal labor, which is
at present largely employed i'll manu-
featuring industry, and the goods pro-
duced by the work of criminals competing
with those of honest laborers, causes loud
complaints from the latter class, the mar
kets it is claimed being overstocked with
manufactured products.
The products of agriculture differ from
those of manufactures, in there being no
possibility of producing too much food
for the wants or absolute needs of the
worlds population. Some not well in
formed farmers fear there may be too
much food produced and they may suffer
by fall in price caused by over-produc-
ton. This beliefs as selfish as erroneous.
An apparent over-production of food is
the inability of consumers to purchase
more, owing to shortage in money.
This surplus product is mistaken for over
production. Nature regulates the supply
of food by her arrangement of the seasons
1t requires just so many days, weeks and
months of sunshine to make the earth
yield up to man her harvests. His indus
try and knowledge may add somewhat to
the yield but he cannot increase the
number of harvests.
This Texas idea Of agricultural employ
anent for the States criminals is quite a
new one, and deserves consideration. The
outdoor, or farm employment, would be
a far more healthy life for the men who
are placed in confinement for protection
of the community against their vicious
propensities, and not for the mistaken
belief that it is to punish them for mis-
deeds. In addition to the restraint con-
fnement in prison places on them, the
philanthropist hopes prison life for the
vicious may exert reformatory influence.
Under the cat o. nine tails and prison pen
very little, if any, reform is ever pro-
duced. The process generally has a
hardening influence, confirming and
crystalizing the Ishmaelitst propensities
of the criminal.
The Texas plan has several features
..t,sot, ~xco,,,,,,a,d IL ~ ooos;da~ot;o., -, !
trial. A life in the open fields bathed by
sunshine and the pure air is both health
full and ennobling to body, mind and
spirit.
The State proposes to make model
farm of its criminal institution. The most
improved and best of machinery and farm
supplements will be provided, the proper
buildings erected, and men scientifically
trained placed over every department of
labor. The economy of such manage
ment is apparent. AS an object lesson
such farm would be teacher to the
entire agricultural community, constantly
widening in its influence
And why could not Maryland reform
her prison system by changing her pen
itentiary and House of Correction for a
prisoners farm of several thousand acres
There is no valid reason why the State
should not, and very substantial reasons
why it should. There are many idle short
term criminals confined in the county
jails, who are comfortably housed and fed
in idleness. They live better at the public
expense than when free, and the punish.
ment, if any is felt, is for the taxpayers,
not the criminals, who, in place of being
reformed, are encouraged in their idleness
and idleness is the mother of crime. All
of these Jail criminals throughout the
State could be sent to the State farm, and
earn their keep while working out the
punishment, restraint or reform-which-
ever our sociologists choose 70 designate
the process.
There can be very much said in favor
ofsuch prison reform. It would have
twofold influence by providing health
full exercise for the States vicious class,
while presenting to the farming commu
nifty an object lesson in organized agri-
culture, which would compel the one
man farmer to soon choose between CO.
operative farming and being forced off the
farm as proprietor, to become tenant,
with all that the life of the peasant farmer
of the old world implies.
The condition of the peasant farmer in
England and European countries is below
the line of political consideration. He is
not factor IN government. The Amer
lean farmer is headed the same way, and
in the late presidential campaign was the
least of all the several stratas into which
modern society is divided. A full dinner
pail was considered quite enough to sat
isfy the factory worker; if the farmer has
as much the predominating strata con.
siders that he will be content. This is
about all that blesses the lot of the Euro
pean peasant, and the conditions which
the majority of American farmers, with
little grumbling, seem willing to ACCEPT
in this land of freedom.
The American farmer has lost much of
his pride of independence and ambition
to be an important factor in society in the
ourush of commercialism and concen-
fration of capital in large enterprises.
There is wide and inviting field for him
to pursue the same course and by com.
bining his capital and labor, recover his
former power and influence. The old
time mechanic and manufacturer have
been crushed to the earth and entirely
disappeared in the consolidation of capital
by the corporation, and the farmer has an
open field inviting him to better condi-
ton by the same methods.