The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1909-03-24
PRISON LIFE WILL
NOT Be 50 HARD
Oklahoma's Penal Institution Will Be
Run on Fresh Air And Fresh
Vegetables Principal.

Guthrie, okla, Mar. 24.-Fresh veg
etables and open-air work VS.. rancid
beef liver and dank pits of deep coal
mines.
This might be the proper heading for
story telling of the changed con-
ditions surrounding Oklahoma con
victs in their MeAlester prison after
the years in the Lansing penitentiaIy.
Superintendent r. w. Dick was i'll
Guthrie this morning to attend TO
some of his manifold duties as Gus
todian and manager of eight hundred
Oklahoma convicts. Ordinarily the
superintendent is a quick thinker and
a slow talker He comes to Guthrie
practically every week-and doesn't
average ten words per visit so far as
discussing what he and his convicts
are doing at McAlester. He was equ-
ally as communicative this morning
until something happened to be said
about gardens" radishes and other
green stuff"
"We are putting in 25 to 80 acres,
he remarked casually.
In what?" demanded a newspaper
man.
Vegetables" responded the prison
superintendent, vegetables for the
eight hundred odd convicts at McAles-
ter. Intend to raise nearly everything
used around the penitentiary Give
EN- radishes and onions and cab |
bages and fresh potatoes. Let 'em
have fresh air and make their own
maintenance"
Mr. Dick was once mayor of Ard |
more and attained fame for his way
of managing theings Listen to what
he proposes to do at McAlester with
his convicts and his big prison,
Congress" he says, has recently
passed law allowing penal institu-
tions to condemn and acquire as
much as 1000 acres of the surface Of
segregated coal and asphalt lands. The
law will allow the Doaru "a conrroi
to add 1000 acres to the 100 already
possessed at McAlester. On this q
600 acres will be worked the conyicts
Everything that is needed for men and
beasts of the penitentiary will be
raised.
The penitentiary will be made self
sustaining. We will not need to buy
food. We will make our farms yield
better stuff than can be bought. We
will raise corn. We will have a dairy
and our own milk and cows We will
have our own hogs Already have a
drove of forty odd We will have
canning factory and our fruit and will
can il in the penitentiary for peniten-
tiary use. We will have a broom fac Il
tory, raise broom corn and make our Il
own brooms Probably later we will L
have a cotton factory in the prison
for making coarse cloth for prison
use The penitentiary will be made
to pay for its own maintenance. In
stead of instituting prison workshops Il
coal mines and factories to compete
with free labor we viii aim to take
from the state 'he burden of keeping
its convicts
And at the same time" continued
Mr. Dick, the lot Of convicts will be
bettered, morally and physically
Many of them will fare better than
they did when at liberty. They will
not come out of the penitentiary with
the chalky prison pallor, souls rotten
and health ruined. They'll have the
advantage Of sunshine, fresh air. and
wide range of work-and plenty of
fresh good food to eat. Don't you
think that will be better for hem than
the coal mines?
YES, coming back to the vegetable
farm. Takes a lot Of such stuff to
feed a thousand persons. Can keep
number busy in the 25-acre garden
alone. Old men who need to be out
and can't do heavy work can busy
themselves in the garden. Women can
can fruit, milk the COWS, make clothes
for the convicts-we intend to have
our own tailor shop and make cur