The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-02-17
COUNTY OFFICIALS
 OPPOSED ID FEES Gillespie and Going Fear Con-
 vlct Experiment THINK 1T TOO EXPENSIVE Going Says Free Labor Is Not Paid Any More Per Month Than Is
 Now Realized From
 the convicts.


 'I am against the fee system in paving county officials said John S. Gillespie, clerk of the city court, yesterday. "The fee system Is an evil, and the method of paying salaries would be better both for the county and the officers If the Iegisla- ture could devise a proper salary scale for county offices it would be an improve ment over the present conditions. How ever, I do not believe that any county officers have received enough money from fees to build mansions, nor do I think they have been receiving money like water
 "On the other hand, dlsapprove of the idea of working convicts on tile roads. The theory is fine, but 1t is not practical in the least. I say this from ordinary experience, for convicts have been thor oughly tried on Jefferson county roads, and have proved a failure.
 "The convicts cannot be centrally To- cated, for if they are kept in one prison they will spend more time walking or rl9- ing to work than they spend at the work itself. The county is so large that hand ling conviets would develop into nothing but confusion. If they were stationed out in half dozen camps, the negroes and criminals would all escape. or if would take numerous expensive guards to watch them.
 "The plan is expensive and impractical. has proven a failure in this county. and l hope it will not be adopted. I was county physician at the time we tried it here, and the other objections are too numerous to name''
 Job Going, member of the Board of Rev. enue, said: When we cannot get any thing but nominal price for our con victs I will be in favor of putting them to work on our roads, but it would cost us far more than free labor to guard, clothe and feed convicts, as we'll as keep up the fine and forfeiture fund We receive from the Tennessee company s25 for men sen- tenced over one year. Of course, all crim- inals sentenced over two years are turned over to the state. For men sentenced over six months we get s21, and for men under that sentence. SIS; boys and women, S10
 "The average per head is over $20. We seldom pay free labor that much per month because they only get paid by the day as they work, and so much of the time is rainy, when convicts would be a dead exnense The fine and forfeiture fund has to be kept up, and the road fund would not last. if we had to pay 45 cents a head per day to clothe, guard and feed the convicts as well as s2O head per month to the fine and forfeiture fund.
 1T understand from a close friend that in Mecklenburg county. North Carolina, the probation system is used extensively in working convicts on the roads. It is not mineral section like ours, the men in the chain gangs are life residents of the county under short sentences, and the fear of being rearrested and fined again is sufficient to keep them from running away. In Jefferson county such plan would, of course, be Q complete failure. With the present laws the county gets ss5 OOO from the hire of convicts, in com parison to the s2o.oOO annually before we let the contract"