The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1913-07-31

the innocent for the state to appro-
pirate the earnings of convicts upon
whose support women and children
have been and are dependent In
deed, it is difficult to find anywhere
an honest man who will undertake
to show that the prison contract
labor system is not empty of fairness
and good sense.
Of course, public opinion and not
prison wardens must remedy this
state of affairs 1t exists in Iowa,
and Sanders has had to make the
best of it.
To every man possible, Sanders Of
to earn money for himself In the
case of those convicts under contract,
fair proportion having competed
their contract task are urged to
work overtime for their own gain.
The Prisoners Run a Paying Farm.
But many convicts by the terms of
the prison contract are rejected
Sanders has spent Wakeful nights de-
vising methods of turning the labor
of these men to the best account.
The money gained provides an addi-
tional general prison income which
shall go to increase the allowance
! per man per month made by the
state of Iowa, and thus make pos
sible better conditions for the health
of mind and body of the 500 convicts
| and part of it goes to the prisoner
himself. A large fraction of the men
| today are able to send money to
those dependent upon them outside,
or saved toward a new start in life
when they are discharged.
The first large accomplishment of
the warden was inducing the board
of control to buy 200-acre farm, a
few miles from the penitentiary.
Yes says a prisoner, 1.-The warden
tand the boys pull off quite a rural
sketch. They've spilled over now,
and have to rent a lot of land or go
on shares on crops raised on other
land. Must be working over 800
new acres, and COWS and pigs and
chickens. We boys get pork, milk,
fruit and vegetables ana butter once
a day off'n the farm. Figure it any
how you like, there's profit"
By such ways and means is the
money resources of the penitentiary
and of the cOnvicts made larger.
Greater earning capacity of the
prison helps to make possible the
plans that this persistent direct
thinking, direct-acting musician, pro-
fessional ball player, umpire, and
high school principal has in his
mind, or has carried out already.
One of these ideas is that the state
gains little when it snatches from
man his last shred of self-respect by
putting him in prison stripes. If
punishment means breaking mans
spirit, if the purpose of a peniten-
tiary is to take a criminal and with
malice aforethought go about max
ing him worse by such indignities as
clothes which are ill-fitting, ridicu-
lous, or bizarre, then Sanders is
wrong, because Sanders believes that
the sparks of decency should be kept
alive and if possible made to flame
up into new manhood. No man who
comes to the Fort Madison prison is
refuses to obey the rules. Then he
goes into check for a while. An
other breach of the rules and he goes
into the old stripes-the uniform
which is a relic of the hysterical
pains taken by society to prevent an
escape.
= The explanation of the mystery
the mystery of Sanders power over
his men-the mystery of their keep
ing faith lies in the fact that the
men he picks out as fitted to 'go out
side" are convicts but are not GRIM
mails. That is the answer to the