The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-07
Work With Axe Along side of Men. WEAR THE PRISON STRIPE
 AND ARE UNDER GUARD The Dope Fiends of Birmingham Put to Good Use. The Outdoor Work Has Proven a Most Efficient Treatment For
 the Users of Co.,
 caine.

Crashing with axe and saw and snag- butler through hundreds of acres of swamp land of Autauga county. two- score negro convict laborers are en- gagged upon a reclamation project, by which the many acres are to be re- deemed from the alligator-and mocca- sin-haunt they once were to fertile farm land.
 The land Is the property of Mcqueen smith, planter of Autauga county, who employs convlcts from several counties of the State.
 Among those who labor in draining and clearing the low lands are negro women. and the sight of the women. garbed in stripes of the prison, and wfedling axe and saw along side of the neen, Is unique. Women at the blow and women in almost every other oc- cupation are common, but women as land makers play an unusual role es- pecialIy as they work in stripes. and under surveillance of a guard with a shotgun.
 The women who work in the squad are from Birmingham. Dragged from the streets of the city, imbued in al- most every instance with the drug habit. with the traces of indulgence of their desire for cocaine in every feature, they are being made, as well as is the land.
 Only last week there was sent to Mr. Smith twenty-one of the negro wo- men from Birmingham. MT. Smith hired them for work, and when many of them arrived. so shattered by the drugs that physical action was almost im- possible, he sent them back. The re- mainder, less affected by their habit fb a n the others at
 The very fact that. incidentally. some of the women hired by MT. Smith were Hope -fiends" brings to light a new, and it Is bought, an efficacious mode of treatment. For MT. Smith tells of the recovery of several of the "dopes' within his experience, after they were brought from the city to the country, away from any possible means of pro- curing their drug, and put to hard work in the open air. He cites one es- pecial instance. of a negro woman through the enervating effects of CO., caine.
 For awhile. he says. she could do little or nothing. Placed in the cotton fields, her work was insignificant at first.
 She pleaded, time and again, for CO., caine but ,as MT. Smith says. his es- tablishment is more of the nature of a reformatory than anything else, she was refused.
 She began to develop into a farm worker of the first water, after the ef- fects of years of drugs wore off. Within three months. Mir. Smith tells. she picked her 19o pounds of cotton each day.
 And that is only one of many cures of "dopes'' accomplished on his farm.
 Not Partial To Dopes.
 But he says that he does not want the impression to be scattered that he receives the ''dopes" purposely. On the other hand, he sends them back, if their condition is such that their work Is impaired thereby. But it is impossible. he declares. to find women who do not Init the pipe" among the criminal negro class, So when they work, and he gets them for work, he takes them sometimes, despite the hab- 1t. Hence his experience in the ways of the "dopes."
 Many of the women now at work on his place show effects of the drug. But they work efficiently, and their value is increasing daily as the effects of the drugs wears off in the open air and the absence of the cocaine. Among the men, there are none who 
 work throughout the day, with pick axe or sovel. and thrive on it. The women work too. and rehabilitation after a period of bad living follows.
 Altogether the study of such a situ- ation brings a defense of convict-leas- ing. For there, in the open, with healthy work and healthy fNod, and compulsory healthy hours. the convicts are rebuilt physically, and, in many instances, mentally and morally, for Mir Smith tells of one or two instances where his convicts graduate into good house servants. cooks, etc.
 The convicts are now engaged in clearing the waste land on his planta- ton, digging ditches. that the swamp water may run off. up-rooting trees by the nag-puller. saving up the timber as it falls, burning stumps and there by making of their work service to the county and the State at large, as we'll as to themselves.