The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-12-18
USE PRISON LABOR
That Is Sessions Plan to I'M
prove Kansas Roads.
He Says COnvicts Would Like
the Country Work.
NEED NO EXTRA GUARDS
Establish Modified Camps
Turnout State, Suggestion.
Many Road Bills Will Be Intro
duced i'm Legislature.

A way to dodge the constitutional
Limitation which prevents the state
from appropriating money for the
building or upkeep of roads, was sug-
gested to the county commissioners
during their session in Topeka, by
Charles H. Sessions, secretary to the
governor, in an address to the COM
missionerS.
There is no constitutional obstacle
to the appropriation of money from
the funds of the state to feed prison
erS," said Sessions who outlined plan
whereby the prisoners in the state
penitentiary should be mobillzed IN
camps over the state, for work on the
roads, while the county officers should
really have the direction, and the
state, indirectly should furnish the
labor of improving the highways
Sessions suggested that the county
and city prisoners might just as well
be sentenced to these camps, by every
police judge and justice of the peace
in the state, as not, and that most OF
them, instead of becoming liability
both moral and financial, would bene-
fit themselves, and be of benefit to the
communities in which they might be
employed.
Use State Prisoners.
He stated tht Warden ]. X. Codding
of the state penitentiary had said that
at least three-fourths of the prisoners
in the state pen could be put on
trains without guards, and trusted to
go to the camps of their own accord,
and that the system had been in sue
cessful operation in other states.
Most of the prisoners in the state,
county and city prisons, Sessions said,
would infinitely prefer to be out in
the country, where theI would not
have to undergo the derision of pass
Il Ii tk1A
streets Sessions drew a roseate pic
ture of the existence of a convict in
the country camps, far from the
haunts of men, where they would live
outdoors, do enough manual labor to
keep themselves healthy, and get good
food and treatment.
Another measure which was advo-
Gated by the speaker was the taking of
the road taxing power out of the hands
of the township boards and central
izing it in the hands of the county
authorities, under the advisory direc-
ton of a state highway engineer. Ses-
sions detailed the slackness and OBJ
stinacy of many township boards in
the matter of holding up needed road
improvements in their townships, and
the advantages to be had if their pow
ers were placed in the hands of the
county commissioner
Many Road Bills.
Road legislation in much variety
and quantity is expected to be a fea-
ture of the coming session of the leg
islature. Sessions told the commits
sioners that of the 125 representatives
who would shortly convene in the hall
where they were then meeting at
least fifty would bring with them bills
representing their own ideas of how
the road situations should be dealt
with
That the offer of federal aid in
road building, made at the last session
of the national ""~~-0ss. would act as
a stimulus which should eventually
result in the renIvsa4 OF the limitation
in the constitution of Kansas which
forbids the state to participate in the
building of roads, was indicated by
several of the speakers at the conven-
ton.