The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-09-15

NAAS
ing of every careful attention on the
part of all South Carolinians who are
interested in public affairs. 1t offers
e plan which would 60 far toward
solving two very serious problems
with which the people of this State
have to deal, namely, the care and
handling of convicts and the building
Up of a system of public highways of
a permanent character which would
link all parts of the State together.
Captain Whitford begins his article
by testifying that in his W expe-
rience, as director of the work with
which the Sanitary and Drainage
Commission is charged in Charleston
County, he has found convict labor
quite as unsatisfactory as it has been
proclaimed by the Abbeville Press
and Banner and other county news
papers in South Carolina. He is con-
vinced that where convicts are work.
ed in small bodies the expense of
guarding them and caring for them
is such as to make their use other
than economical, their efficiency I'M
der such conditions not being COM
parable to that of hired labor. But
because this is true Captain Whitford
would not have the ~convicts rejected
for bodybuilding purposes. Instead,
the point of his article is that were
they employed in large bodies the sit
uation would be so changed that they
could be used very proitably in
deed. One guard, for example,
could guard ten convicts as readily as
two; their food, being bought in
larger quantities, could be obtained
cheaply; the arrangements for car
ing for them at night and when not
at work could be carried out much
more efficiently in every way; and it
would be possible to operate them,
lot in the haphazard fashion which
usually prevails at present, but under
the competent supervision Of a skilled
and experienced engineer.
The plan appears to US to have
great merit. There has long been fair
ly general agreement that the best
use which could be made of convicts
would be their employment in road
building provided they could be cared
for humanely and pro6tably. The
difficulty with the present system,
where each county operates it's own
chain gang, is that grave doubt exists
as to whether either of these ends is
now being accomplished. The coun-
ty is handicapped at all points. 1t
is not an easy matter to get men who
will look after the prisoners as they
should be looked after. The pris-
cners have not always been protected
against harsh treatment or the ele-
ments. Sometimes the chain gangs
get so low in numbers that the cost
of guarding them is such as to make
the convicts a dead expense to the
county. In some parts of the State
the weather for many weeks on a
stretch is such that no profitable use
can be made of the prisoners yet the
cost of feeding them and clothing
them and guarding them goes on
just the same. They are worked as
q rule under men who know nothing
whatever of the science of road
building but who go about the matter
according to arbitrary rule of thumb
methods.
All of these objections to the use
Of convicts on the roads could be re-
moved were Captain Whitford's plan
adopted. Handling them in work.
ing parties of from two hundred to
five hundred they could be guarded
much less extensively, cared for pro-
perly and used efficiently; and there
would be no time of the year when
they could not be employed. 1t
looks to us as if Captain Whitford
has hit upon a big idea. We are
sure, however, that he would well
come, and The News and Courier ac-
cordingly invites, criticism from other
newspapers of the State and from it's
readers generally to the end that the
strength Or weaknesses of the plan
may be thoroughly brought out. Is
the present method of conducting the
chain gang satisfactory anywhere in
South Carolina? /