The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1912-01-20
COMING DOLLARS AT SALTWATER.

s-=s=- COMING DOLLARS AT SALTWATER.
Representative Spooner Of Morris and Warden
Henry Wofer Of the Saltwater prison attended the
convention of the Minnesota Retail Implement Deal
ers Association which was held in Minneapolis last
week, and they were gracefully given the privilege
OF the floor to reply to statements made by certain
members of the association against the prison Irvine
and farm machinery industries conducted at the
prison.
The following significant questions were SUBJ
mitted by D. H. Evans of Tracy:
els it right under our organic law for the state
to engage in manufacture and commerce in compe-
tltlon with it's citizens?
''Ethcally, is it right for the state to employ
men incarcerated for crime and appropriate to itself
the fruit of their toll?
Upon what fundamental basis do you support
the statutory authorizing the state to enter
into manufacture and commerce in competition with
it's citizens?''
Mr.. Spooner attempted to answer the first two
questions and he used the stock argument which
every person admits ''that convicts must be pro-
vided for with kind Of labor during their term
of incarceration. If the prisoners were not given
something to keep their minds active insanity dis
senslon and even mutiny would result among them -
However, the supreme courts decision in the
state elevator Grippe v. Becker, Sc MINI. 1907
would lead to believe that the third question
submitted by MIR. Evans contained the real 'meat
in the cocoanut. - The state under cover Of it's
police power undertook to build and operate a
grain elevator at Duluth. The court practically
held that the state had no right to engage in private
business, until the legislature granted afirma-
tive authority to do by the constitution.
There is an apparently we'll grounded opinion
among the workingmen Of this state that the indus
tries at the prison are not conducted much in the
interest Of the reformation of the prisoner as they
are in the interest of profits.
According to statement made by Warden
Wofer the Irvine factory at the prison had earned
in twenty years for the state the enormous sum of
$4,000, AZ in profits. Mr.. Wolfer declared that
last year the first time the implement industry
was placed upon paying basis and from now on
we expect to reap good profit from both fac
tories''
1t is all very we'll to appeal to the prejudice of
farmer, the big political factor Of Minnesota with
the claim that the state is freeing him from the
torton OF the Harvester trust but it is beginning at
the wrong end to destroy the power of monopoly,
forind DING free, honest and law-abiding working
men being forced into competition with labor
conditions that do not lift up, but which have their
influence in pulling downward. Prison labor at
Saltwater is employed ten hours day, it was
when we last investigated the subject there and for
a number Of good reasons chief among which is the
health of the prisoner, this is two hours too long,
particularly in the binding Irvine factory.
No state, and no keepers of the states penal
institutions, can justly be regarded reformers Of
the unfortunate placed in their care so long as
the principal OBJECT OF PRISON workshop to
dollars
The state account system of New York, while not
ideal by any means, seems at least to have mimi
mized the injury done to free labor and free indus
tries, and is giving the prisoner wholesome healthy
instructive useful and diversified employment that
fits him for better citizenship when he shall have
earned his freedom, and which is the one system
that has succeeded in removing the danger of ex-
plotting convict labor for profit at the expense of
reformation.