Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-02-10

1t is plain that the contract sys-
TEN is a dead loss to the community
in dollars and cents. Now let us
measure it in terms of human life.
How does the prisoner fare under
the system? Is he given a reason
able opportunity to reform and to re-
enter the world with a clean record?
asks Julian Leavett in Pearson's. The
answer is to be found in the story
of the Nebraska penitentiary
In the average contract prison the
prisoner is regarded simply as the
slave of the contractor, workani-
NAL to be driven madly for private
profits. There are not ten prisons IN
the country today where the prison.
ers are taught a useful trade that
will enable them to face the world
working away at so-called needle
trades-such as shirt, overall or
shirtma1ing In the outside world
these are women's trades Be he ever
so skillful and ever so willing, the
convict who has spent several years
of his life learning to make shirts
or skirts or oyefalls can no more
earn an honest living when released
than if he had carefully been trained
TO serve as nursemaid or goyernessl
Another important prison trade is
boot and shoe making; but this is
also becoming feminized rapidly. The
census reports show that during the
fifteen years from 1890 to 1905, the
number employed in this industry IN
creased by $4,000, of whom nearly
$4,000 were women and children. The
prospect for man with the prison
stain OF his record is, therefore, not
overnight in this field; or the pris-
oner may be assigned to the foundry
or hollowware shop, where are manu-
featured those iron pots and pans,
skllets and skewers, which were 50
prominent in your mothers kitchen,
but which are today being largely re-
placed by aluminium and agate ware.
But the blight of the system falls
most heavily upon those least able to
bear it, the army of workingmen and
women which finds itself forced to
compete. on such unfair terms, with
the unpaid and sweated convict. The
extent and ferocity of this compe-
tition can scarcely be realized, and
cannot possibly be described within
the limits of the present article. At
this point / shall merely summarize
some of the findings of a special in
vestigation made by the United
States Bureau of Labor in 1904, at
the suggestion of President Roose-
welt
In general it found that "Manufac-
turers consider such competition I'M
fair and ruinous, demoralizing to
markets and business stability, COM
pelling the reduction of prices below
q fair margin of profit and often even
below the cost of production. Wages
are forced to the lowest limit in a
vain effort to lower the cost of pro-
duedon to that of the prison con-
tractor. In some cases a deteriora-
ton of quality and in others
an entire abandonment s." OF
certain grades of goods has become
necessary"
Every merchant knows that, other
things being equal, the manufactures
who sets the lowest price will not
only get the orders, but will also es-
tablish the price for the entire trade
because all his competitors must
meet his lowest price or so out OF
business. The prison contractor. with
his iifty-cent labor, his free factory
buildings, his freedom from all over
head charges. therefore easily don1i-
mates the market. During dull sea-