United labor bulletin., 1910-10-13
FIGHT BETWEEN PRISON
LABOR AND FREE LABOR.
A Prison Congress Delegate Discusses
the Industrial Side Of the Prison
Question.


the Industrial Side Of the Prison
Question.
"One of the biggest questions to come
before the International Prison Con-
gress," said Mr. j. Lebovitz, delegate
from the national committee ON prison
labor, "is the prison labor problem.
For the last one hundred years there
has been a steady and bitter fight be-
tween the workingmen in prison and the
workingmen outside of prison.
Very few people realize how big an
industrial army is cooped up in our
prisons. The average penal population
is over 100000 able-bodied men. Most
of them are not dangerous criminals at
all, but simply ordinary workingmen who
happened to trip for the first time.
once behind the bars they have to be
put to work, otherwise, if left to brood
alone in their cells, they go mad. So it
happens that most of our prisons are
really big factory villages; If you were
to enter an average prison shop, espe-
cially in states where the convicts are
allowed to wear a blue jean uniform and
leave their hair grow, you would find it
very difficult, if it were not for the pres
ence of the guard with his loaded cane
or rifle, to believe that you were not in
an ordinary factory.
"In these prison factories, often con-
trolled by contractors, they turn out mil
lions of articles OF every description
shoes, shirts, overalls, carpets, rugs,
mattings, chairs, brooms, brushes-most
everything, in fact, you can think of.
But when these goods go out into the
open market the trouble begins. Convict
labor, being practically, slave labor, is
sold so cheaply-sometimes as low as 80
cents a day-that the prison contractor
is able to undersel outside manufactur-
ers, who are in turn, compelled to reduce
wages in order to meet this competition.
Naturally the free workingman rebels
at this so, as l said before, there has
been a continuous battle between prison
labor for the last hundred years. In
New York City there were riots against
convict labor competition as early as
1884, and the revised constitution of 1894
almost went on the rocks over this ques-
ton, being saved only by the deft han
ding of Senator Root, who was one of
the constitutional delegates. He was in
strumental in passing an amendment
which introduced what is called the
'state-use' system, that is, the employ
ment of convicts in the manufacture of
articles needed by the state for use in
its own institutions such as uniforms for
inmates of its asyums, furniture for its
offices, broOms for the street cleaning de-
partment Of its cities, etc. In this way
the goods made in Sing Sing, Auburn
and the other state prisons do not COM
pete with other goods and, besides, cost
the state SO much cheaper than goods
bought in the open market would cost.
But this has only half solved the prob
lem New York has succeeded in pro-
tecting its own manufacturers and work
ingmen against its own prisons; but it
has not succeeded in keeping out prison
made goods from other states. which are
dumped here in vast quantities and make
mischief in half dozen important indus
tries.
But other states haven't even solved
the first half of the problem yet. There
is scarcely a session of one of our state
legislatures outside of New York at
which this question does not come up in
some vexing form or other. Recently,
however, a national committee on prison
labor has been Incorporated under the
ldNb Ol lHt bldbt Ol NEW iOAh WIN LHS
object of studying this question from
every standpoint, and formulating some
remedy which shall be just to all par
ties concerned, the state, the convict, the
convict's family, the manufacturer. and
the free laborer. The membership of
this committee includes such men as
Commissioner of Labor Charles p. Neill
of the Federal Bureau of Labor; Commits
sioner John Williams of the New York
Department of Labor; Mr.. John Mitchell
of the American Federation of Labor;
Prof. Charles r. Henderson, president OF
the coming International Prison Con-
gress; Homer Polks, president of the Ma
tional Conference of Charities and Cor
rections; Mrs BallingtOn Booth of the
Volunteers of America; Miss Helen v.
Boswell. chairman of the industrial COM
mittee of the General Federauons of
Women's Clubs, who was chiefly instru-
mental in the organization of the COM
mittee, and many other representative
social workers.
THE chairman Rev. Thomas r. Slicer,
and two other members of the commit
tee, Commissioner of Labor Williams,
and Judge Baldwin of Washington have
spent the summer studying the convict
labor system of Europe and are expected
back in time to participate in the ses-
sions of the coming prison congress at
Washington"