The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-06-07
MANY INDICTED IN
 PEONAGE CASES
Federal Grand Jury at Mont
 gomery Returns Bills
GOVERNOR JELKS TALKS
He Is In Full Sympathy With Any Movement That Will Bring to Jus tlce the Guilty Persons.
 Discusses convicts.

Montgomery, June 5.--(special)-T Federal grand jury made further re port today returning twenty-eight addi- tional indictments, many of them charg= ing peonage. The total number of bills returned to date is 127, and there IS ru- nor to the effect that the jury may re- main in session several weeks Invest igating peonage charges in various coun- ties in the state
 Governor Jelks is in full sympathy with the action of any court that will bring to justice parties that may be guilty of reonaEe. He regrets that these eases are not before the state, rather than the Federal court but with it's limited detec- tive force, 1t has been very difficult for the state to secure proper evidence to convict. though there are indictments against several parties of Coosa and Tai- lapoosa-
 Understands Situation.
 The governor thoroughly understands the situation In all the counties where these outranges are alleged to exist and he has been making every effort to ferret out the crimes and the criminals. In this work he has been assisted by the state board of convict inspectors. The law governing the convict system is defective in this that the state Is not given super vision over county convicts, and the state Is not allowed to approve first contract made by the county for the hire of It's eonvicts.
 The governor, in a message to the leg l islature, recommended that the convict l laws of the state should be 80 amended | as to allow the state board of convict in 1 spectors to approve all contracts Tor the l hire of convlcts made by county boards l of revenue or commissioners courts. This would have placed county convicts indi- rectly, If not directly, under the care of | the state and the state could have looked after them as 1t now looks after state convicts.
 Governor Jelks Talks.
 Tt Is an anomolous condition of af- fairs" the Governor said, when penal eonvicts are treated better than misde- J meanor oonvicts-convicts sent up for small offenses from counties. But it Is q fact. The state looks carefully after its convicts. At least twelve hundred of the eighteen hundred state convicts are directly under the care and supervision of the state. The state has its own physicians and those physicians deter mine every day whether any convict should be worked, and if worked how and where. If he Is sick and unable to work, he Is not forced to work and his food Is carefully looked after as is the sanitary of the prison which Is regarded as of prime importance to his health and comfort. I hope by the time my term of office expires that the state will have every one of it's cohVicts under its own control and care, as we now have those we are working in the mines. l under stand that farming with convicts has been profitable, but there are other things convicts can be put to doing at which they can be worked profitably in brick yard for instance. l think 1t awful that the county conyicts should be taken out of county jails, where they have been confined for months in close cells and with surrounding unsanitary condition where they have been made weak by confinement and sent directly to coal mines and put to regular hard work | which only the ablest and healthiest con- victs or man can work
 Only Able-Bodled Men.
 "The state selects out of it's convicts i only ablest bodied men to put in the mines, not more than one in every three being selected; and when we consider that | the state convicts are generally strong country negroes, who have been used to working in the fields, and the county convicts are generally those about the towns, convicted on some slight misde- meanors and are naturally weak and in poor health, we can readily see the harm that will result to their health. Why l have been called on to pardon out of some of our jais men who were really dying 1 have had hacks sent for them to carry them home to die.
 q hope the legislature will do some thing to remedy the evils and especially as to the limitation of the power of the justices of the peace to hire convcts. The abuses under the present system should be made impossible