Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1910-07-09

EN-, OREGON, SATURDAY, JULY 0
lists and investments by people of
great wealth. The bill was attacked
in the Supreme court and 1t was
held to be in violation of the clause
of the Constitution forbidding grants
to aid in the construction of local
highways. But state appropriation
open to every county in the state on
equal terms would not be subject TO
attack from that standpoint If any
county in the state were permitted to
lay off and propose to construct at
least one main highway across the
county to start with, on condition of
paying one-fourth to one-half the
cost, then said highway to be con.
structed and maintained by the state,
there could be no attack on the
ground of a local appropriation. The
counties of the state
wouldact under that plan, and the re-
suit would be a chain of highways
across the state east and west and
north and south built under state
supervision and control, under the
contract system, just as railroad con-
tracts are let, and the local roads In
the counties would be looked after by
the county courts and the road super
visors just as they are now A state
appropriation for Highways should
be open to each countp to build at
least one state road across the
county.
Use the Convict Labor.
There could be no greater god
send to the people of this state nor
to the convicts themselves than to.
employ at least one-half of them
in the construction of
state highways. Those men would
be better off and would be returning
to the people of the whole state some-
thing for their custody and in return
for the laws they have violated and
costs they have heaped upon the tax
payer The present system of en-
ploying them in the manufacture of
stoves on the contract plan is unjust
to free labor and unjust to the con-
victs themselves. The state should
not sell their labor for a mere pit
tahce, on which the contractors must
make enormous profits, or at least
not all of them, as there may be
some who cannot with safety be
worked on the highways or in stock
AIDES preparing material for the hign-
ways, but the man who is sentenced
for life should be given chance to
go out and work his way back into
upon the parole system,
predicated on good behaviour for
the privilege of becoming a loborer
for the commonwealth. The result
in states where this has been tried
is that many of these men become ex-
pert road builders and useful and
valuable citizens, instead of wasting
their lives in prison cells and having
their lives cut short in factories
where unsanitary conditions have to
be maintained because the labor is
being done by men who cannot be
given are propositions
Transportation of COnvicts.
The handling of convicts could be
facilitated by the state owning
train of about five steel cars, capable
Of sleeping and feeding forty to fifty
oonvicts. Two steel cars with hunks
Tor sleeping, car for cooking their
food and eating meals, car for the
engine and rock breaker, and a car
Tor the superintendent and guards
would make a train by which they
could be transported anywhere in the
state and the train pulled onto a
,idetrack where there are rock to be
had. In sixty days such a crew
could crush rock enough to build
many miles of macadamized high
way, that could then be distributed
by means of the railroads to centers
'or further distribution. Four sucn
rains each supplied with forty to
fifty able-bodied prisoners, and all
road surface material,
would accomplish a great deal toward
highway construction.
There may be better ways to handle
he prisoners. but in order that their
ieryices may be open to the whole
tate some such plan must be adopt
ID, under the direction of a state
highway commissioner who is Drac-
ical road builder and engineer.
would be opposed to a complicated
ystem. or another large commission.
With clerks and offices and expenses,
When one competent man under the I