The Mathews journal. (Mathews C.H. [Court House]) 1903-1937, 1912-02-01
GREAT PRISON TRUST
ASSAILED BY LABOR
Reliance Sterling Manufacturing
Company Employs Convict La
Dor In Eleven Institutions.
Largest Convict Working
Organization in Country.
RIG MoND. Va. snecial.-

r l C II NJ o N d, V A, Special
The Misunderstanding Manufacture
ing Company, of Chicago, which re-
Gently made a bid FOR 500 men in
mates and all the women (about 1000
inmates of the Virginia State peni-
tertiary, at siXty-fiVe cents per dav
for the men and forty-fiVe cents per
day for the women, is discussed in a
pamphlet printed in New York and
distributed in Richmond. The Reli-
ance-Sterling Manufacturing Company
is charac terized as a prison contract
trust. and the pamphlet gives a list
OF eleven prisons in which il has con-
tracts. This list Will be found below.
The Journal on Saturday was in re-
celpt OF the pamphlet, which bears
the following inscription:
Convict Labor. by Ethelbert Stew
art; reprinted from the New Ency-
clopedia of Social Reform; copyright,
1908; by special arrangement with the
publishers, Funk & Wagnalls Com
pany, y. Y; National Free Labor AS
ISOLATION, SS2-SS4 Broadway, y. Y,
June /, 1911"
Opening Paragraph.
Inc pamphlet opens as follows:
Labor of some kind is required of
all persons convicted of crime and
sentenced to penal institutions in the
several States of the United States.
In most cases the sentence of the
court itself requires that hard labor"
be added to the penalty of confine-
ment in prison. In order to preserve
the health and sanity of the prisoner
II Is necessary that exercise. at least,
if not actual toll. be provided. 1t is
only when the cupidity of the tax
payer enters so far into the man
agement OF prisons. and SO far die
tates the policy of prison manage
ment as to make it imperative that
prisons be made to pay, that convict
labor becomes a serious moral and
industrial question.
The Contract System.
Discussing the convict contract sys-
tenn, the pamphlet says:
Under this system the State feeds.
clothes. houses and guards the con-
Vict, and maintains an institution and
force OF guards and other employees.
\ contractor engages with the State
for the labor Of the convicts which
is performed in or near the institu-
ton. The contractor pays the State a
stipulated amount for the services of
each convict. supplies his own raw
material ana superintends the work.
Character of the Opposition.
Organized opposition to convict
competition is discussed as follows:
The organized opposition to convict
competition, especially under the con-
tract system, was for many years led
by the trade unions. The trade
unions objection is not primarily to
lue lODoI OF ConNlClS. nut 10 the use
of the products of that labor to re-
duce prices, and hence ultimately the
wages of free labor. 1t is conceded
that if the convict were not con-
Wet ne would labor; but in that case
he must work for a living wage"
and would enter the industry most
in need of his service. As a convict
he works at q fixed task, the State
selling his labor to a contractor at Il
rate which would not support him.
much less his family on the outside.
the contractor using the product of
the labor of convicts thus secured to
cut prices and terroriZe other manu-
facturers into cutting wages i'm the
hope of being able to meet the price
of these competitors. 1t is simply the
application Of the economic theory
that competition will eventually re-
duce all to the level of the lowest
price and lowest wages prevailing in
a given industry. The trade unionist
replies that If this is true, the mass
ing of convict labor into special occu- !
pations viii reduce all labor in those |
occupations to wages no higher than )