The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-07-28
FROA OTHER PENS
CONVICT LABOR AS TRUST

If a trust can be broken by convict
labor, perhaps even the labor unions
will find nothing Objectionable about
IL. AT any rate, down in Texas they
are talking about trying the expert
ment. The bagging trust is the con-
Germ aimed at. 1t is said that so per
cent OF all the bagging made in this
country is made by one concern in
Brooklyn. Texas used something like
25.0O0,000 yards of this stun each year
to wrap up it's cotton crop. That is
about one-fourth of all that is made
Texas cotton growers have an idea
that they are paying altogether too
much for bagging, so their suggestion
is that the state operate bagging fac
tory with convict labor. The assertion
is made that by this means the cost
can be cut at least two cents a yard
save the farmers at least $500 900 a year
and keep at home the very large
amount which now goes elsewhere for
the purchase of bagging.
There is also a suggestion that the
iron cotton ties used in baling should
also be made by convict labor The
penitentiary system of Texas includes
small furnace as a starter for such
a plant. The argument in this case is
that the prices of these ties have been
forced upward 80 per cent by the Pitts
burg manufacturers, and that the cot
tongrowers should not stand for the
exaction of extortionate prof1ts.-Buf-
nNctS ASApASSS.
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN GIvERS
Oxford is having a hard time to
raise the $1,000,000 endowment fund
which was started by Lord Curzon on
his election to the chancellorship. So
far only s55O,000 has been secured,
and of that sum 100000 was given
by William Waldorf Aston. who is not
an Oxford man. When it was pro-
posed several years ago to raise a
81 000,0 900 fund for Harvard the COM
mfttee in charge of the movement
was able to turn over the full sum
on the appointed. date. OF special
donations for scholarships. for new
buildings and for other restricted uses
there has long been more or less
steady stream. What Harvard needed
was general fund of which 1t could
devote the revenue to whitewashing
cellar or paying professors salary,
as occasion might require. It is with
this idea that the practice has been
esta blished that each class on the
twenty-fifth anniversary of gradua-
ton shall voluntarily raise fund
this month turned over $106,60O,
made UP Of individual subscription
running from $50 to $4,000.
Scores of smaller colleges and uni
versities in this country have been en-
riched in similar ways. The million-
are oeHeldCtor As no AOHSer stusH SOie
reliance. The little Quaker college
Swarthmore. near Philadelphia, for
instance, few years ago came into q
100000 endowment fund that had
been contributed in varying sums by
it's friends and former students. OK
ford is one of the two leading uni
versities of England. 1t has on the
average about $500 undergraduates.
BY its traditions, it's prestige, its in
| huence in the affairs of the nation, 1t
appeals to the pride of the whole
| British people. and yet to collect ST.
000,0 for its support seems to be
too much of a task. Is this because
Englishmen, with all their immense
| invested wealth, have yet to learn the
American habit of giving to their
public institutions New York
Warld.