Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-09-15

to the court within he was convicted
for period of two vars.
Gentlemen, / hope some day to sec
a law including these provisions on the
statute books of Iowa and admins
tered by men of heart, decision and
humanity Such law in the hands
or school board plan, SO eloquently adj
vocated here on this floor, would be a
powerful lever to the up-lift OF cities
and the destruction of the slum. Were
the executor of such law I would
round up under it every able bodied
man in Iowa who lives on a woman's
labor, every man who lives on wo-
mans shame, every able bodied man
who refuses to work for himself
or to support his family, va
grants, tranps, habitual drunkards who
scorn reform, or whose condition is
such as to render reformation and lib
erty incompatible and mark Iowa with
the tramps' maltese cross on road
camps from Clinton to Council Bluffs
and from Sioux City to Keokuk Out
under the Iowa sun and in the Iowa
winds they should learn the less on of
labor and sweat the whisky and the
meanness out of themselves. assume
that the accepted responsibility of the
state to feed and clothe, educate and
defend wives and children of men who
are unable to care for their own, car
ries the right to force men who are
able, but who will not, to work for
their helpless and dependent ones, and
that the state has the moral right to
1rhN nro1x 90
ital is labor, as it does from the man
whose property is lands, buildings and
bank stocks.
The man who has property can be
made by resort to the court to support
his family. The same kind of law
should apply to the man whose only
capital is labor. His moral RESPONSE
bility is as great. His legal response
bility should not be less.
Gentlemen, nine months of a law like
this will do two things. 1t will reform
hundreds of men now worthless and a
curse to the community they infest,
into measureably respectable citizen
ship; and it will force an exodus out
of this state Of the incurably vicious.
1t leaves but the three ways reform,
his family and remain decent as a
privilege or work for his family and
remain decent as a penalty. Otherwise,
he must get out Of Iowa or off the
earth. 1t is not inhuman to say that
whichever direction he takes, society,
his family, and even himself, will be
the gamer thereby. believe that in
most cases reform would result The
man would come from the camp in
good physical condition. Little more
ignominy would attach to the road
camp sentence than to a sentence to
the state jag cure. He would come
back to a home kept intact by his own
labor Always he would balance The
long sentence inevitable upon relapse
against the feeting delights of 'keg
party" Work for himself and for his
children would seem inevitably prefer
able to the monotonous drill of the
road camp. I guess that he'd think
twice after the first ninety days and
long and effectively after nine months.
don't you?
Gentlemen, our present police sys-
tenn, with its petty fines for those who
are able to pay, and the indiscrimlnate
imprisonment for those who cannot,
with it's waiting, and expectant atti-
tude toward the prisoner who has been
once to the court, with it's present pet
tiness, with it's entire lack of perspec-
tive, is a failure None know it better
than the men that turn the crank of
punishment and Of revenue And the
revenue, recorded on the police court
docket is the most expensive form of
taxation that any city can collect.