The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1918-05-25

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war. 1t means to put the United
States convicts in the manufacture
ing business for all time.
What else does it do? And let me
especially have the attention of the
gentleman from North Carolina Mr..
WEBB. The people who work in
his cotton mills and in the textile
mills in the district represent are
natives Of North Carolina and Ten
nessee. They are the plain, honest,
common people, and in many of the
towns where textile plants are locat-
ed the employees are the daughters
and sons of the very best citizens
that we have.
You propose to take the Federal
criminals and give them an industrial
education in the manufacture of tex
tile goods; and when you turn your
industrial classes adrift in the South
every year they are going to seek
employment in our southern textile
mills, and you are going to have your
constituents and my constituents, of
splendid character, working along
side Of men who have been convict
ed in the Federal courts. And who
are they? They will be murderers,
robbers, burglars, post-office thieves,
defaulters, counterfeiters, deserters,
traitors, rapists, and white slavers.
Those are the people whom you are
going to train industrially and turn
out, several hundred every year, to
seek employment in the textile mills
in the Southern States. You can,
not do this without the votes of
southern Members of Congress, and
| protest against it in the name of
my constituents and the constitu-
ents of my colleagues from the South.
Mr.. TESS. Will the gentleman
yield for question?
Mr.. AUSTIN. No; have not
time in five minutes. Every time
one of our brave and honest soldiers
is sheltered by an Army tent, he will
have the knowledge that his tent was
the work of convicts. By and by
every time you walk into an Office
building in Washington City the fur
niture will be the handiwork of con-
victs and not of free American citi-
zens. This is the entering wedge
and the beginning to inaugurate a
prison-manufacturing system in the
United States in competition with
honest, free, paid labor, and I enter
my earnest protest against it.
Mr.. TESS. What is the gentle
mans's objection to vocational train
ing of men who are in prison? And
would the gentleman prefer to have
returned to his district vocational
ly trained man or a criminal who will
always be regarded as an outcast and
IA convict?
Mr.. AUSTIN. l am perfectly will.
fling that my colleague from Ohio
shall have every one of these FEEDER.
al prisoners go to his district insteac
of mine after they leave the prison
do not want any of them.
Mr.. TESS. | want those who
come to my district to be trained, eff
ficient men, and not criminalsl
Mr.. AUSTIN. Yes; but many 81
them will anyways be criminals afftel
they leave the walls of the peniten
tiary. If you want people of thai
kind associated with the boys ano
girls in the cotton mills of your dis
trict, people of standing and respect
ability, you are welcome to them.
Mr.. TESS. They certainly will b,
criminal if my friend has his way
but they will not be criminals if they
are trained vocationally.
| Mr.. AUSTIN. Oh, the gentlema,
is talking about theory. He il
dreaming.
tsn,pdthea .m:"& ID gthe ththamt IL
Mr.. TESS. am not dreaming.
Mr.. AUSTIN. Let us get down
to earth. | would put these convict
at work on the construction of mill
tary roads. I would use them in tn,
building of levees on the Mississip
pi River. would utilize their labo1
In reclaiming countless thousands o:
acres OF fertile and valuable swan,
lands throughout this country.
| We have tried the detestable con
vlct-labor system in Tennessee, il
the coal mines. We have had within
the walls of our penitentiary factorie
which have been manufacturing fur
niture, stoves and so forth, and il
normal times they have undersolt
the goods manufactured by homes
labor, They have always succeed
ed in undertaking the manufacture
ers in all these lines and coal opera
tors, because the convict labor cost
| far less than free labor.
The counties have worked them O,
the road; States have worked then
on the public road. The union an,
nonunion people in Tennessee are a
gainst the use of convict labor il
mines and in factories. / conside
one of the proudest acts of my -lif
since early manhood was in fightin,
the vicious convict-lease system il
Tennessee. l appeal to members O
the South. This evil is coming hom
| first to us if this bill passes. This i
not war emergency case, and tn
President does not so state in his let
ter. We have the proof here tina
factories are thoroughly equippe,
and ready to furnish all the cotton
| goods the Government needs.
have textile mills in the district re
l