The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-09-05
DEFENDS OPEN AIR WORK FOR CONNECTS Judge Baldwin Speaks at Bud-
 apest Congress PUNISHMENT SECONDARY Favors Allowing Well Behaved Con vlcts to Wear Masks When
 Working on the Public
 Highways.
PUNISHMENT SECONDARY


 Budapest. Hungary, September 4-At today's session of the international con- gress Judge Simon F. Baldwin of Con- necticut, professor of constitutional and international law at Yale university, pre- scented a report on the question "by what principles and in what manner may con- victs be given work in the fields or other public work in the open air
 In opening his report Judge Baldwin asked whether society had not pushed refinement too far in it's notions of the duty of society toward the individual and whether tho rights of the individual were not inferior to those of the community. He held that he who offended against the laws should be treated as the in- terests of society demand and that those charged with the administration of the laws should take such steps toward the culpable as would make good citizen of him. In the beginning of law he said, reparation by the criminal was judged to be more important than punishment and ohastisement was inflicted only when the offender was unable to make repar- ation. Society. he held, had no less rights today than at It's origin and even had more, for the world has come to recognize that 1t Is necessary in the public interest to regard crime first of all as wrong against the community at large, how ever severely 1t may affect one of the community in particular.
 Objections to Open Air Work. The objections to the forced labop of convicts in the open air, Judge Baldwin stated to be as follows:
 1. It exposes the criminal to public hu- initiation.
 g. It degrades him in causing him to fall into vile company.
 B. It exposes him to the abuse and ty- ranny of those who direct his work. 1 It facilitates escapes.
 B. It makes an unjust competition with the labor of free citizens.
 Taking up these objections in order, Judge Baldwin declared that the crim- inals' conviction being notorious fact, had already caused him to lose public esteem, and besides 1t was easy to pre- vent new occasions of shame to the con vict.
 Without great expense the fields in WHICH tHS pTlSOtltTS dlt tIilDlOycu iillS HI be surrounded by walls to protect them from the public gaze.
 Pointing out the fact that most convictS come from class of persons unftted for any trade or occupation except the most unskilled labor Professor Baldwin sug- gested that the government should buy up vast tracts of poor, Idle or wild land and send its eonvicts there to work with shovel and pickaxe. draining and irri- gating. Though great expense would be entailed in buying such land, he main tained that the state would be able to sell 1t at an ultimate profit
 Cites North Carolina Example. Citing the example of North Carolina, where 95 per cent of the condemned are by natural occupation rural laborers, and where this plan is in successful financial operation. the professor concluded never theless that the new scheme Is some what more expensive than the ordinary one of putting the convcts at road labor and other public employment where he is constantly before the public eye. Where the latter kind of work is found unavoidable Professor Baldwin suggest ed that the better class of criminals be allowed to wear a mask. This privilege he would make dependent on the recommen- dation of a chaplain or other competent authority and also on the prisoners con tinued good behavior.
 As remedy for keeping prisoners who still have left some sense of shame away from contact with their more evil-minded companions, 1t was proposed that the number of guards be increased so as to enforce a law of no talking. and that the most degraded clements might even be denied outdoor work and kept in their cells for the good of the other con victs.
 That open air work where the criminal Iaborers is often almost alone with his guards, affords the maximum opportu- nity for cruel treatment Professor Edwin regarded as indisputable He proposed only two remedies, first that kind guards be selected so far as possible, and second that only the state be allowed to put convicts at outdoor work. Convict em- ployment outdoors in connection with pri- vate enterprises he regarded as tending to endles cruel practices.
 Divided Into Two Glasses. In considering the question of escapes facilitated by open air work, criminals were divided into two cases, the long term and life convicts, men who had lost their right to citizenship in one class, and short term prisoners who still might be- come good men, in the other. For the first class Professor Baldwin advocated the ball and chain, and road work very near the prison cells where the convicts could return each night But for the other class whom he asserted had less temptation to escape, he declared that the ball and chain were harmful both mentally and physically and that prison suit and a place of work far removed from railway or water transportation should be sufficient safeguards against es- cape.
 Replying to the implication that outdoor convict labor makes unjust competition x.-f4 Fr11 f-t. ID that indoor work, the only alternative of outdoor labor was open to precisely the same objection. Then he maintained that the open air occupations competed less against free labor than indoor work. first because indoor products, being those of handcraft, had a local market. that is limited market, where this disposal was a hardship to free labor, whereas the outdoor rural labor had the world as its market. Moreover he asserted that nearly all products of the outdoor work of convicts, living in the colonies pro-