The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-02-04
NOTABLE ALLY TO THE CAUSE

| NOTABLE ALLY TO THE CAUSE
From the Mobile Register.
| In that powerful and progressive pa
per, The Birmingham Age-Herald, there
| is no department more readable than that
on the editorial page which is conducted
under the nom de guerre of Ned
| Brace" 1t is an open secret who Ned
| Brace is-beng no less person than E. w.
Barrett, the brilliant editor who has
made The Age-Herald one of the fore
| most journals of the state
| In a recent issue the following ap-
peared in the column conducted by the
sprightly and thoughtful Ned relative
to the convict leasing system:
Really what Birmingham wants now
| is good streets, and what Jefferson
county and all Alabama wants is good
roads.
Some of my good friends in the coal
mining business think me drastic be-
cause l want the convicts of the counties
and the state to work on the roads.
There are lots of things | could say, bu.
| only one I shall say-and that is If the
convicts are put on the roads we will
have good roads-well built and properly
maintained If they are not the board
of revenue is responsible.
1.-THE present board of revenue of JEFF
ferson county was elected on this issue
1t was work the convicts on the roads
county.
| This was promised and pledged. A
campaign to make it failure is on. Ii
the proper engineers and supervisors
are not employed the burden will be upon
the board of revenue and be there fail.
ure in doing the work which has been
done in MeclSlenburg county, N. c., and
in Fulton county. Ga, there will be
those who will come forward, and of a
so profitable to coal mining companies
and county officers that they were taken
off. the roads.
"Why should a state convict or a
county convict be leased to an individual
or a corporation to work for him or it
and make him or it a profit or a for
tune?
Let the state use its convicts to build
up the state in It's road construction, but
not to mature mines nor TO make money
fer a favored few who fancy that they
can frolic with the finances of the state
Were 1 Governor ONeal l would take
every convict out OF every mine in the
state of Alabama and put everyone on
building roads. Suppose few escape?
| The total will not be as many as are
Killed in the mines and who escape there
from. In the meantime the state will be
raade into a garden spot-the farmer VIII
lie in town with his produce and the man
of training will work in the mine without
having to compete with the shackled SER
want who must work under the whip.
TOO many men are living in Alabama
on the labor of the convict. Let them
live of themselves"
| When editors like Mr.. Barrett become
truly interested. determined that the in
defensible convict lease system must 60.
the beginning of the end is in sight.
The system is wrong, first of all, from a
moral standpoint. The state has no right
to take convicts and so, use them tha;
they are destroyed for private gain, or
else turned loose upon society at the ex-
piration of the term of Imprisonment
worse than when they went within those
Confines which mean utter moral annihi-
! lation.
The cause of the 800 homicides in Jeffer-
I, son county last year is not hidden one
| With the penitentiary daily disgorgins
desperate men-made so by a system
which has no charter but greed and nc
law but avarice, little else may be ex-
pected than a most appalling condition
Chat The Age-Herald has taken up ths
cudgels for the abolition of the system is
a matter of considerable Importance