The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-16
A sLANpER oN THF sourH.

One Rev. pr. Thirkield. ina recent ad- dress in Cincinnati went considerably be- yond the limit when he said:
 In estimating criminaIity among the black people, we should keep in mind that since Appomattox nearly every Southern State has maintained a school of crime an organized institution for the training of criminals. This charge against the convict lease system of the South. This system, with its thousands of victims. has been the cause of much of the outbreak ing crime among black people, through its brutalizing and -dehumanizing influence on thousands of negroes.
 This is a virtual charge that the pri- mary object of the prisons and convict camps of the South Is to take good ne- groes and make criminals of them. It is to practically declare that the negroes are imprisoned for no other purpose than to educate them in criminal practices; that. in short. they are all good negroes till they get into what this man calls ''schools of crime.' As one reply to his charges We submit this from The Chattanooga Times,
 And we mayesay with all frankness that swe do not believe Dr. Thirkield is justi- ned in charging the criminal character of the Sthriftless, Idle and unpfoductive ne groes who find their way to our jails and penitentiaf3es even remotely to the con- vict lease System. That may be- a bar barous method of dealing with convicts and wholly incompatible with the higher hardly accounts for the bestial lusts of the ravfsher, the bloodthirstiness of the murderer or the prevalence of the thiev- ish propensity. All these crimes exist to = AA ~t.x x-lA ton of that against woman-in the North ern States-"God's country"-than they do in the South. and there are no con- vict lease systems in those States. There are more aggravated cases of murder. more burglary. theft and arson in the cit les of Cincinnati, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York in one month than in the entire South in year, for all it has its large negro population.
 Speaking from a strictly humanitarian point of view we might say that any method of punishing criminals Is brutal. Some of the very best men on earth ar- que earnestly and strongly against capi- tai punishment for any crime, but as long as there are criminals there must be some method of punishment and If that is sometimes cruel We must charge 1t to the criminal instincts of humanity.
 We have prisons and convict camps in Alabama and a great majority of the pris- oners are negroes. They are there be- cause they commit more crimes than the whites do. Whether that Is their misfor- tune or their fault is of little consequence. The fact remains that they violate the laws and must be punished. We have yet to read of any State where criminals are fed, housed. petted and treated as hon. ored guests. No doubt there are instances in Alabama where .convicts are cruelty treated. There has been wonderful ad- vance in recent years in this State in the way of more just and humane treatment of convicts but it is possible that there is yet much to be desired. Be that as 1t may. the man who tries to impress his hearers with the belief that our prisons are schools of crime is .slanderer. and the fact that he is a minister makes his slanderous charges less defensible. He should talk on subjects about which he N0ous sovoaFhtpo