The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1918-03-14
Convicts For War Work
By Frederick J. Haskin

WASHINGTON, D. c., March 8.-A
bill to employ prison labor for the pro-
duction of war supplies, and to equip
United States prisons with the necces-
sary facilities for doing so, is now be-
fore Congress.
The government is suffering from a
shortage of labor which has become
acute in many lines of work. Contracts
have been delayed and supplies held up
until n some instances it has been
necessary for the government itself to
take over and operate certain factories
and,mills. 1t has eyer been necessary.
as.in the case of sawmills on the Pa
cific coast, to place soldiers behind ma
chimes for which civilian operators
could not be found.
Meantime, in many prisons through
out the country, men are engaged in
on-essential work. No prisons fed
eral or otherwise. under present laws,
are permitted to manufacture goods for
the government.
Now this new bill reads: when an
emergency exists. or when war is i'm
inent, creating a demand for supplies
which connot easily be produced or
supplied by privately owned or con-
Quoted factories not employing prison
labor. the agents charged with
the buying of war or governmental
supplies are hereby empowered subject
to the approval of the President =.
to place an order for such supplies with
the superintendent or other head of any
penal institution where persons are
confined by governmental authority,
whether federal or state, county or
municipal, or committed by courts
martial, naval or military, willing to
undertake the manufacture, production
and delivery of such supplies"
The bill further provides that the
government will pay for these supplies
at prevailing market prices, and that
the prisoners shall be paid the same
rate of wages and work for the same
number of hours that are the standard
of the vicinity in which the institution
| is located. The cost of maintaining
each prisoner is to be deducted from
compensation, and the rest is either
to be semitic his family or placed to
his credit in the prison bank.
1t is estimated that there are lis, 600
! prisoners in our state and municipal
prisons, and approximately $500 in
federal institutions: Out of these it is
believed that at least 100000 can be
put to manufacturing war supplies.
From penitentiaries that are already
equipped for such manufacturing work,
government agents will buy their sup
plies direct. 1t is carefully specified in
| the bill that there shall be no middle
man-no person or corporation engaged
in the manufacture of war supplies
with the aid of cheap convict labor.
| The prisons themselves must under
take the work, and deal directly with
| lllC eau VI uSDdI
which places an order.
1t was considered essential to make
this point absolutely clear, for the
mere suggestion of releasing prison
ers for contract labor would be suffi-
cient to bring delega alton of prison re-
formers to Congress. In the past it has
been the,practice of many prisons to
use their convict labor for profit Some
times a corporation that stood in with
the prison authorities would be per-
mitted to employ convicts at greatly
reduced prices. thereby enabling them
to undersell their competitors employ
ing free labor. Sometimes it was the
State itself which took advantage of its
prison labor to gain monopoly on the
marketing of certain lines of goods.
The prisoner was paid nothing.
With the advent of the prison re-
former this system encountered diff
culties. The prison reformers object
ed to it, and they proceeded to put their
objections before the public. In this
they were aided and abetted by indus
trial workers who had also suffered by
the practice, the cheapness of the
prison labor often forcing down the
scale of wages.
At this point, however, the sympa-
thies of the prison reformer and labor
diverged. Labor was naturally unal-
terably opposed to any prison compe-
tition at all, while the prison reform
er insisted that it was brutal to keep a
prisoner in idleness. A prisoner should
be provided with suitable work at a
reasonable wage, said the prison re-
former, and even a small wage was
better for him than no wage at all.
Many of these reformers, having de-
liberately gotten themselves into prison
for the purpose of studying conditions,
looked at the matter from the conyIcts
point of view.
On the other hand, labor, having
| yirtuously kept aWay from prisons hut