The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-05
DATA IS GATHERED
TO SHOW EVILS Of
LEASING CONV|CTS
Senator MOulthrOp Takes
Number of Dispositions
of COnvicts
COMMITTEES TO MEET
IN MOBILE ON NOV. Il
State and County Executive Commit
tees of Convict Association Will
Show Practicability of Work.
j.
ing Convicts on Roads
Rx DAVID HOLT


When the state and county executive
committees of the Alabama Convict I'm
provement association meet at Mobile on
November p the leaders in the movement
to do away with the convict leasing sys-
tenn in this state will have great deal
of data at hand with which TO display
the evils of the present system OF hand
ling convict labor, and to convince the
most skeptical of the practicability and
economy of working certain classes of
state and county convicts on the public
roads.
Senator Robert Moulthrop, chairman of
the executive and campaign committees,
has taken number of dispositions OF
convicts who have been worked in the
mines and lumber camps as state con-
victs and some of their stories of hard
ships, cruelty and abuse are enough to
convict the state of Alabama on the
charges of barbarity and inhumanty.
The eonvicts who have testified before
Mr. Moulthrop and his stenographer have
done so with the strong probability star
ing them in the lace tnat they Will be
summarily dealt with If the nature of the
evidence they have given against their
those prison authorities who are interest
ed In the maintenance of the present sys-
TEN, which is Infinitely worse than slavery
or peonage
Preparing Pamphlet
Valuable information on the subject OF
convict abuses and the opportunities for
improvement were gathered at the last
meeting of the executive committee, which
took place at Montgomery, September TO-
hos haa fad bU n
O'Neill and will later be condensed and
placed in booklet or pamphlet form for
distribution throughout the state before
the next legislature is to be elected. 1t
will be a sort of text book for the use of
advocates of prison reform upon the hust-
ings, and with its aid it is believed and
hoped that the public conscience may be
thoroughly aroused to existing evils grow
ing out of mismanagement and bad sys-
TEN of convict employment, and the pub
lie necessity of preventing crimes against
criminals.
While the Alabama Good Roads asso-
ciation, OF which John Craft of Mobile is
the president and Asa Rountree of Bir-
mhisham the secretary, will meet at Mo-
bile ON the same date, the meeting having
been called for November 20, y and -,
and many OF the good roads advocates
are also interested in the convict i'm
provement movement, the two organiza-
10 be confused confounded. The Good
Roads association is purely economic,
wniie the Convict improvement associa-
tion, while having economic features,
is almost entirely humanitarian in its
major aims and purposes.
TO ShOY Feasibility of Road Work
fheie are members of both associations
VINO question the eXpediency oil working
state and county convicts OIL the public
q q H.
V sion in the organization, as both recog-
nlze the higher Importance of the human
ltaiian aspect of the convict improve
ment work. The attempt is being made
however, to prove to all good roads ad-
vocates and those VINO are anxious to see
the present evils in our prison system
corrected that the working of certain con-
vets on the roads is practicable, econom-
ical and for the betterment of the con-
vlcts so employed
At the last meeting of the Alabama Con-
yict Improvement association M. f. Ber.
~ of Deatsville read letter he had just
received from William Hodges Mann gov
ernor OF Virginia, in which he said:
Il have your letter of August 25 and
beg TO say that we are now working about
lot0 convicts on the public roads; that
they are doing good work, and | believe
giving entire satisfaction. There are about
40 now in the pen.tentiary not on the
such character and disposition that they
cannot safely be sent out of the peni-
tentlary and have been leased to work un-
Ger contract. Some 80 are at our state
farm and 150 or perhaps 200 others, whose
health does not permit hard work, are
also on the farm where they are permit
ted to have fresh air and to do such light
work as will not be hurtful TO them
1t is pointed out that the state of vir-
glhia had many of the same social and
racial conditions with which to contend
IN Its penal affairs as has Alabama, and
that the success of which Governor Mann
speaks can be duplicated IN this state, or
even improved upon as the climate of
Alabama is the mider and affords a
greater period in each year when men
can comfortably work out of doors
Can Reclaim COnvicts
The remarkable success achieved in Col
orado by Thomas j. lyman, whom Gov.
J. F. Safroth gave the task of reforming
the states prison system. will be en-
bodied in the pleadings in favor of work.
ing convicts upon the public highways.
lyman has demonstrated that most of the
convicts can be reclaimed and made into
useful men when their terms expire by
the simple expedient of treating them as
though they are human beings. He has
further demonstrated the practicabiity
and economy of building public highways
with convict labor, even under the most
discouraging natural conditions.
Secretary O'Neill has notified the 1000
men who constitute sthe various county
committees of the Convict Improvement
association of the Mobile meeting In No
vember and has received number of as
surances that the meeting will be well at
tended The letters rendering the sup
port of prominent men in all parts of the
state continue to come in and it is now
evident that the convict Improvement
question will be an issue in the election
of all representatives and members of
the state senate. 1t has not become an
issue in the state campaign for the sim
pie reason that no state candidate has
been discovered who is openly opposed to
the general plan proposed by the advo-
Gates of convict improvement, while the
most of them are openly indorsing the
propaganda
Capt. Frank S. White. president of the
state organization. expects to attend the
Mobile meeting of the Convict Improve
n1ent association, and will be heard from
on that occasion. He is giving the SUBJ
jects involved the same careful study that
he would give to some deep and intricate
law case and few men in the state are
go well posted on the subjects of cop-