The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1914-01-18
The Toll of Slavery

II
| prisoners otherwise busy. set them e
| piling up paving stones on one side ot
| the ward and then taking down the pil'
| and repiling it on the other side Aftel
| week OF this most of them were mani
| acs. 1t was not the severity of tine
| labor tnat destroyed their minds, but
| the usclcssncss and objectlessness OF
| IT. Sane men require reasonable en-
ployment; idlencss, or irrational work
dlsintogrates their minds. They want
to see and To fofcsec ineligible re
| suits from their toll; mere toll without
such results is maddenlng, or 1t rotS
mems minds as scurvy rots their bod
les, The reason is, that tho mon arc
human; and if you have hitherto sup
posed that convicts are not human, the
insanity winch so constantly follows up
on prison idlcness or misemployment
should correct you.
Useless Convict-buiit Wall.
Others may describe the horrors, al.
most indescribable, of contract labor in
prisons; [ saw nothing Of that at At
Janta-type of another widespread sys.
tenn Of prison work-though / heard
enough about IL from men who had
undergone it in state prisons. But dur
ing the first few days of my imprison-
ment | saw r building gang at work
Ito call it work) upon new wing des-
tined TO contain dormitOries for the in
mates. 1t was TO be n seemly structure
of granite. massive and we'll proper
toned. But after three days work on
it was stopped and was not resumed
until q week or so before | lctr this
prison, six months later. Meanwhile
I read in the Congressional Record the
report Of debate IN the house, IN
which, on the authority of q Texas rep
resentotive, charges OF graft or waste
wero laid against persons concerned IN
seemed incredible, but of which | was
able to find no refutation. The hos
pital building is open to the same critl-
cism, and another, which | believe is
designed TO be the laundry, had got no
further, at the date Of my arrival than
n square hole in the ground, and when
I left had been furthered by single
course of stone or cement laid round
the hole A New York contractor, graft
or no graft, would have had all three
Of them finished and in commission in
the same time, and with no better ma
terial in the way OF laborers than our
prison could supply.
The thlrty-four foot wall surrounding
the buildings, mile in circuit, built
of cement, had been completed before
my time. [ read in report of the war
den 9 that its existence was duo TO his
enterprise, and that he looked upon 1T
as a worthy monument to his activity
and intelligence. AT every hundred
yards or so Of it's length 1T was strength
ened by a tower, containing accommo-
datious for a guard day and night, who
watches with his rifle in hand, ready
to shoot down any prisoner who seems
to be acting suspiciously. NO such
shooting by a tower guard has as yet
taken place to my knowledge, and none
ever will on the pretext suggested, for
the wall is absolutely mscalable; be-
ing five or six feet thick, 1T is impene-
trable, and its foundations going down
six or eight feet below the ground, 1t
cannot be beaten by tunneling; yet the
towers and the guards are there.
But the point is that the wall itself
is quite preposterous and unnecessary.
Escape for prisoners was quite as diff
cult before it was built as after There
are n hundred guards in the pcniten-
tiary-one for every eight prisoners-all
armed and eager for action; every ar
ticle OF prisoners clothing bears the
prison mark, and the population outside
the walls is penetrated with the idea
that the apDrehenslon of escaping prls-
oners Is morally as we'll as financially
"rontaDIc. Every prisoner knows that
an attempt to escape would be suicide
you migno get hurt, +" as the prison
rule book cuphemistically phrases it
and they generally prefer suicide in
some other form.
The wall, then, is superhuous; fence
Of electrified wire would have served
as good purpose at about ne-thou-
sandth Of one per cent of the cost. And
what did the wall costs Let the prison
archives declare. And then, perhaps,
it would be interesting to investigate
the discrepancy, il any exists, between
the price which the United States paid
for the work and the actual cost of
erecting 1T.
The wall was some time in the build
ing, but It seems, to have been the only
thing built in the prison, work upon
which was continuous and energetic.
And it was useless work, better left
undone. The warden was proud Of it,
however, and there it stands.