The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1915-08-27
CONVICT SHOULD Be PAID.

Reasonable Wage For His Services
Would Go Far to Reclaim Him to So
cety-Trades Should Be Taught Pris-
oners, and They Should Have Benefit
of Schools.
In an address before the Pennsylva-
MIA branch of the American Institute
of Criminal Law and Criminology in
Witherspoon hall, Philadelphia, on the
subject of THE Employment and Com
pensation of Prisoners John j. Man
ming, associate editor of the Garment
Worker, said, in part:
If there is one question upon which
the trade union movement is more
misunderstood than on the problem of
employing convicts advantageously I
cannot cali it to mind. and why this
should be SO IS beyond understanding
by any one who has followed our course
since this question has become acute.
AT the Minneapolis tMinn.) conven-
ton of the American Federation of
Labor, among other things, President
Gompers in his report had this to say
on the convict problem:
I'VE recognize the economic wisdom
in humane purpose in finding en-
ployment for those confined in our Pc
nal institutions, but we protest against
the labor of society's derelicts and un-
fortunates being made source of prof
it for the state or its contractors, to
In dot -
state and Of the people generally"
The organization of which | am q
member, the United Garment Workers
Of America, is one that has felt most
keenly the unfairness of the competi-
tion we have had to face owing to the
shortsighted policy adopted by sew
eral states in selling the labor of the
inmates of penal institutions AS this
system has materially curtailed the
opportunity of our members for en-
ployment and even though we have
suffered more than any other organiza-
tion or class of people from this sort
OF competition. we now, as always in
the past, have agreed and urged that
the state, instead Of furnishing men to
hAehC plOhto AOl Rbult NV 1O nave
none but a financial interest in the
convict should use this same labor, so
far as possible, in making clothing for
inmates of its institutions, and this is
the broad ground taken today by prac-
tically every international union whose
members have been forced to compete
in the open market with the products
Of convict labor
We believe. too, in addition to the
state employing the labor of the con-
victsfor the benefit of the state, that
an additional incentive must be given
the convict He should and must be
paid a reasonable wage for his serv-
ices; he must be given the benefit and
advantage Of working with improved
machinery. where machinery is used
to any great extent, and he should re
ceive the benefit of continuation
schools at some period of each day. so
that he can keep abreast of Industrial
conditions as they exist outside of the
prison, for in no other way can he
hope to make good on his release.
The trade union movement will not
only cooperate in such a plan as this,
but we will go farther for the convict
than any other group in society. We
will not only encourage him while he
is on the inside, but we will take him
into membership on his release, our
only requirement being that he be eff
Gent and in exchange for this eff
cheney and q desire to make good
we will protect him so far as we are
able from many of the unfair methods
he is now a victim of for no other rea-
son than that he once was a convict.
Indeed, it is less than three months
ago that | was one of committee who
talked with some of the inmates in
Sing Sing prison and laid this plan be-
fore them, which, | am pleased to say,
met with their hearty approval. and
they on their part have agreed that
they will not recommend for member
ship in a trade union any but those
whose record while in prison will vir-
tually guarantee they will make good"
on their release.
This, then, as briefly as may be, is
the position of the trade union move
ment toward the prison problem, for
In the final analysis we believe that no
thorough nor lasting reform in the con-
vict or the prison system, can be eff
fected, except it be based upon cor
rect Industrial system, and the only cor
rect Industrial system possible is the
best that is obtainable. If the people
who are really interested in prison re-
AI~s-
will find no more able supporters or CO.
operators in this movement than the
trade union movement.
Prassnenys Disnuta Ends.