Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-10-15
SOUTHERN PRISONS
SCHOOLS OF CRIME
Hardened Criminals Are Chained to
Petty Offenders.
CONVICT LEASING SYSTEM
Or. Thirkield Says Prison Camps OF
the South Are Schools of Deprav-
ity From Which Criminals
Are Graduated.

Cincinnati, o, Oct. 13.-Dr. w. F.
Thirkield, corresponding secretary OF
the Methodist Freedmen's Aid and
Southern Educational society, Monday,
in delivering the opening address OF
the Evangelical alliance, charged that
the crimes of negroes in the south are
due to the chain-gang prison system.
He said in part:
Far be it from me to utter one word
in ex%tenuation of the ~unspeakable
crime of which some black men are
guilty. Let us keep in mind, however
that only about 20 per cent. of the
black men who are lynched have even
been charged with the ~unspeakable
crime against the sacredness of WON
anhood.
Let the black men bring in every
influence to bear to make such crimes
impossible. Let there be prompt ex-
ecution of the law against this and all
crimes of all men.
Lynch law, however, is anarchy. 1t
brings in the reign of barbarism. II
brutaliZeS members of the mobs; it un-
dermines government; it does not stoI
crime.
in estimating ~criminality among the
black people we should keep in min6
that since Appomattox nearly every
southern state has maintained a school
Of crime, an organized institution fol
the training of criminals. This !
oh orra oc-ainct tho nnnuiat-1noCn c1yc.
TEN of the south. This system, with
its thousands Of victims, has been the
cause of much Of the outbreaking OF
crime among the black people through
its brutalizing and dehumanizing in.
iuence on thousands of negroes.
Under this system both prison anC
prisoners are farmed out under the
control of private corporations-sold to
the highest bidder.
ITO the lessees the body and soul
Of convicts are assigned.
THE motive of both state and les
sees is not morals, but money; not
reformation, but exploitation of Grim
inals for gain. 1t is crime turned into
a source Of revenue; the Drawn and
blood Of criminals bartered for gain.
Criminals are generally scattered in
branch prisons-quartered in rude
stockades without proper sanitation
food or clothing The average life
of these convicts is less than ten years,
Old and young are promiscuously
chained and herded together. Even men
and women are in some camps, not
separated.
Hardened criminals and the DO,
convicted of his first crime; the com.
paratively good and the most depraved,
vile and abandoned are chained to-
gether. One warden of a state peniten-
tiary protests in his report that under
the present law and custom the peni.
tertiary is the school of crime, instead
of being a reformatory institution OF
so boys under 18, nine-tenths of them
leave prison much worse than when
they came in. ,
There is in these convict camps nc
organized reformatory effort. Reform
does not enter into the system. 1t is
a matter of barter and sale of con.
Wet men and women to the highest
bidder. The aim of the state is not
the moral reformation of her criminal
classes, but the care of them without
cost and even the reduction of taxes
through the sale of criminals.
"In a period of two years over 1,10(
of those convcts escaped from southern
prisons. Think of LOO thieves, muir
derers, thugs, at large, lawless men
roaming about in defiance of all law
and order. Think of a system that has
no reformatory element; no system tc
cure men of crime, but that educates
young criminals in crime, and that
by it's barbarity bruttalizes and de-
humanizes men. and sends out those
that do not die under the horrors OF
the system to debauch and degrade So
ciety. From such criminals what won
der if there come forth hundreds Of
moral monsters?
"The south should reform it's present
system, and thus stop the education
of criminals. The present system is 6
sowing to the wind, and is bound to
rean the WhirlWind."