Bridgeton pioneer., 1912-12-12
IcONVIcTs BUILT ROADSH

! New York is coming into line. These
roads have cost millions of dollars.
| Then we travel westward across 1,500
miles of thickly settled country with
very few all-the-year-good roads until
we, reach Colorado, where the good
roads problem is being demonstrated
in a way which must sooner or later
| command the attention of all the other
states. There / 200 miles of highway,
ranking with the best in the world,
have already been constructed entire
| ly with state-convict labor. And these
good roads have cost IA cents, which
otherwise would have cost 81. In
other words. the money which ordi-
narily would have built one mile has,
under the Colorado system, built
seven miles.
1t was my privilege last month to
listen to Thomas B. lyman, warden
of the Colorado penitentiary, who oc-
| casionaily finds time to leave home
and tell the intensely interesting story
of how he has solved the question, not
only of what to do with convicts, but
how to reform them at the same time.
He te,'s part of the story in moving
pictures. showing his men in citizens
clothes busily at work drilling, blast
ing, plowing. hauling and surfacing;
| in many cases, out in the mountains,
| in sparsely settled districts, with ey-
| cry facility imaginable for escape. But
one looks in vain for the customary
guards with long-range rife at COM
| mand. No guards. no Shackles, no
distinctive garb. absolutely nothing to
distinguish the convicts from their
foreman, except that the foreman
| rides a horse. These men work in
large bodies, often several hundred;
only one barrier stands between them
and escape; and it is impossible for
the moving picture to show that bar
rier for it is a Mans Honor. In fact,
the honor system was partly a result
of the discovery that, to efficiently
guard the prisoners, the expense was
equal to the saving effected by their
work, and hence of no financial ad-
vantage. And so the honor system
was proposed amid plenty of predic-
tions of failure and very few of sue
| cess.
Now, as Warden lyman remarks,
the Colorado convict is no saint and
about 25 per cent of them are danger
Gus and should be confined. Of the
IS per cent. some really should not be
where they are, and all can be trained
to better citizenship for return to free
dom, by treating them as men. In
accordance with this theory, which
has been confirmed in practice, the
| men who are allowed to go out on the
work are treated, housed and directed
| in their work like any well-arranged
| railroad camp outfit. They construct
| their own temporary living quarters,
but there are no bolts on the doors,
nor bars on the windows True, they
all retire to bed and arise at one time,
but SO do soldiers. The men are
| worked in rural districts; they do not
go to town, and unless a man breaks
| a rule. he need never return to the
prison. He can serve his full term in
| the open air. and when his time ex-
pires he has become proficient in
something-survey blacksmithing,
| farming or other occupations for
which there is a demand Not only
| that, but by earnest, faithful work of
eight hours daily and observance of
| the rules ne can reduce a five-year
| term one half
During the past two years only one
| man in 200 has run away; he is in
variably fecaptured and must then
serve 10 years within the prison walls
Colorado is about to put all its county
jails under the penitentiary board
when the Jail prisoners will be worked
in the same way. The spirit of the
| Colorado system is Unconscious re-
form. growing out of the feeling
that some one has confidence in him.
The good roads they build and the
farms they work for their own sup
port, are a part of the means to the
| greater object.
Every year, in the United States,
| 100000 men are added to the prison
roll. OF these about 112,5OO are cap
able of reform under the Colorado
plan But from the mere standpoint
Of wasted production this vast army
| should be employed.
| The results are tremendous, for
| 100000 men represent 30,000,00 days
work a year If Warden lyman could
only tell his simple story and show
his pictures in every city and town in
the land. in 100 years we should have