The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-14
BY WILL n. sHEEHAN.

BY WILL n. SHEEHAN. in tie June sunshine with a double- barrelled shot gun thrown careiessly | over his shoulder. He wore sloucn hat pulled down over his eyes and as his coat on in the shade. He walked slowly but ceaselessly up and down In | the sun. stopping occasionally to dig
 hs tee rppns ms soDs soDs n of the ss saw | the mill a few yards away rose above every other sound, seeming In the re- | pose of warm summer afternoon to | In the second story of the mill. work ing among the cool dark shadows. men moved back and forth; The two logs spon s as rsaS ssy w hsr ana men emitted lows prolonged scream | as the whirring. saw bit it's way through the big log. Other men stood and here and there learnt the touch of a hand to complete the almost human intelligence of the machinery.
 Out in the sunlight in the yard piled high with lumber other men with crude rough gloves lifted and piled lumber about or trucked 1t aboard the waiting freight cars. A mulatto. tall ner of the mill on some errand. Evi- dently the dandy of the camp he wore tan shoes, loud tie and curled mous- tache.
 
 foot m stripes, And so were the men who worked in the shadowy mill or the sun-lit lumber yards. Their dress was of white cloth through which ran crime. the uniform of the breaker of the law.
 The white man with the double bar relied shotgun, his companion and as- sociate similarly armed who might be seen on the other side of the mill walk ing ceaselessly back and forth, were the State of Alabama on the one hand and of the penal condition of the mill 1aborers on the other.
 For this was the convict camp of where it so happened for the first time I saw e lumber mill operated by com victs and where for the first time I. saw the actual workings of Aiapamass our State was practically the pioneer bringing other States, to It's adoption. Inar,e sytem which has obliterated the old lease system and wiped out the injustices and the inhumanities of the W The new system does not turn the convicts over body and soul to the con- vict lessees. They remain the wards and the care of the State. The com psny which leases tnem ann tss n,see sne for them to work. The State does the rest. The men must work but they must be and are well fed and well
 What this system has done towards increasing the States income from .ts convict labor, what 1t had done towards bling up money in the treasury IFS known throughout Alabama. How the new order has trebled the States in- come from its convict labor Is known afar because 1t has been recited again fns aRe s2sse ssan whieh aovsrnor W 5 jelSs conceived and which President M Carmichael and his associates worked out to success along new and unknown lines has attracted wide comment. The States part Is known.
 Ies all right fer the State but, but hoy v 2 fine thing for the s state oqt IS ,r It a ried trip to typical convict camp was looking for the answer to those two questions. The answer was Yes"
 No Oppression Now.
 There be many stories told of the opss pression and the crueities of the old times when convicts were leased out right to men and to corporations. Ev. cry now and then some little piece of d story Of inhumanity to conicts would leak out and the man hearing It would yicts that old definition of a corpora tion a being "A thing which has no body to kick and no soul to damn In Alabama's sister State of Georgia where the lease system survives, the scandals of mlstreatment and injustice to convict are perennial. A new order however, came in with the new convict system in Alabama. The convicts were no longer abused, they were maoe to live cleanly and men were put there to see that they were given clean and wholesome food. The hurried view of the convict camp at noIIve for one thing taught that there were worse places for a young man entering upon career of crime and steeped in whiskey to spend ms | for A new struggle with the world: | There he has work out in the air and | the sunshine, the blessed sunshine. lie | has no breeding moments and he mas n chance to get the benefits of the ben- i eficent gift to man, labor. He has the ----------=-z----- -