The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-28

nitely diagnosed the patient is sent to
| Wetumpka and given modern treat
ment lust so will the state surgical
hospital at Flat Top be of value. A
modern operation room has been an
nexed to the hospital and furnished
with apparatus. All of the convict sur
| gical cases will be sent to this hos
| pital In charge of DR.. John w. Watts.
assisted by DR., Pickens Mcqueen. DIR.
/ Watts, who PLANNED this system of in-
lprovement and building, has also
charge OF the sanitary conditions of
the camp involving the health Of hal.
a thousand men.
Alabama has awakened to her human
responsibilities She is not getting rich
| from their toll, while their labor Is
drawing pay. their bodies are being
fed and cared for by the best avail
able methods of service. The work has
| only begun at Flat Top. To we who
stand on the outside and peep. even
in ina gination, down into the dark
/ bowels of the earth and see hundreds
of men digging coal miles from the
sight of day. it seems a dreadful COM
pulsory vocation-hut strange. After
| they have become accustomed to the
mines, many of them prefer K TO work
| in the sun. ~And several families re-
side near now whose husbands have
served a sentence and work the mines
from choice.
1t is az most fearful thing 20 con-
slider as you look into so many prison
| faces that man can sink to such neces-
sity for punishment when life holds out
| such opportunity to each individual
! There are many at Flat Top who
pust dig until life ends There is
mo freedom for them. and there are
many with 10 and Is year sentences
and some who are working out the
costs of court. after having served q
short term. The costs! There is the
wrong of the fee system. Many a mar
Is giving his labor for the exorDitant
i costs of our courts and the delay in
bringing to trial. Think of the fami-
! lies of these unfortunates-their wives
and children. some of them are among
our cities dependents, hopelessly living
until tile man has served his time
| More than this, young boys are in
our pcnitentiaries working side by side
with hardened criminals. growing UP
| companions to vice. callous of their flu
| ture, what kind of men will they make .
| When they have paid their foes what
are we going to do with them catch
them and put them back again? Every
| juror and Judge in the state should
know The Alabama Industrial school al
East Lake. Then every county in the
state will man this school TO redeem
the bad boys of Alabama without the
wearing of stripes.
And the pity-women must go to
the mines-poor. degraded woman
what can she do--a few months or a
year for vagrancy and is she cured
! has she any more desire to live right
are there any influences for good there
| Alabama has got to open her eyes wider
J to these omissions. Her penitentiary
camps are not the place for women no
matter what her guilt. There must be
a reservation for the convicted woman.
The Alabama Home of Refuge for
girls is crowded, they need more land,
more room, and the Legislature of Ala
bama must do for them what Governor
O'Neal sees is necessary for the min
| Ing camp at Flat Top-change the con-
ditions-it will be credit to the state
| Every mother in Birmingham should
visit the Jefferson county jail and see
| poor degraded woman and know her
| destiny is even worse, and the cry will
| go up, something must be done with
the enactment of the laws of our state
and something with their enforcement,
and away with the fee system
When mothers voices ring from the
home. when she has sung ''baby bye"
to her own nestlings and sends her an
peal to the men that make the laws,
then that cry influences the world and
the governors are given the laws to
free the state from the suffering and
menace of almost hopeless conditions.
Governor ONeal had no secret visit
he had purpose and he carried it out
Alabama will have better mining
camps and the corporations are ready
to do their share. We have been wait