The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-07-01
Scathing Report On Conuict System Made By Investigating Committee
Committee Re ports Many Abuses of the Convict System and Cites Cases of Gross Inhuman- ity and Cruel Treatment
 of Wards of the State

Alleging convicts have been used for the unlawful trans portation of liquor, that they have been unmercifully beaten, often resulting in death, and a great percentage of tuberculosis exists among convicts working in the mines, recommendation will be made by the majority report of the legislative recess committee on the convict lease system and public highways to the legislature, which meets next week, to take the convicts out of the min . and work them upon the state highways. A minority report will be made also by the committee.
 the bills proposing removal of con victs from the mines are being printed and will he ready for distribution as soon as the legislature reconvenes, ac- rording to the report of this connmit- l tee. They recommend $25,0OO,00O good roads bond issue for the state. 1 The majority report covers "A type written pages of legal cap and goes ton mills, turpentine stills and the mines in which convicts are used. It ! shows a large number of witnesses were examined, and that several l prisons where state and county con- victs are confined were examined as | to the physical conditions existing. l It is stated in the report that every coal mine. lumber camp, turpentine still and in fact every convict camp l in Alabama was visited by the com mittee that they observed the feed | ing of prisoners, the labor required of them and the amount of recreation | given. That their examination of Wit nesses consisted of members of the state convict board. wardens, deputy wardens. guards the physicians at the camps and the physician inspector, the chaplin and the convicts themselve" HUMAN SLAVERY
 1 One paragraph of the report | states: "The convict leave system | in the state of Alabama is a relic of barbarism. it is form of human slavery. It is next to inn possible for the average citizen l unfamiliar with the conditions to grasp comprehend the horrors attendant with such a system. It is hard to describe the crueIties. woe and misery growing out of
 such a system. Surely we have in- l herited it from the Dark Ages.
 No such horrible system could s
 have originated and sprung from | any nation or country that boasts
 of it's high and enlightened civil
 fzation, that is the pride of every
 citizen of Alabama.
 Another paragraph says: "At one of the turpentine camps, some IS or 20 miles from Tuscaloosa, located in a | dense forest of several thousan l acres almost completely away from | civilization, convicts are being workc l l under lease from the state. The super intendent of the lessee who has the charge and control of these men after 1 they are released from the stockade | in the morning until they are returned
 
 the woods in a drunken stupor with a bottle of wildcat linuor in his pocket and the evidence shows that this same superintendent has been using the state convicts in the manu- fracture of liquor and the transporta- tion of the same by the state convicts | to the city of Tuscaloosa"
 The report showed that at this camp convicts were required to rise as early as o'clock in the morning and walk | seven miles to their work of scraping turpentine and rosin from the trees and carrying it to wagons 200 yards 1 away at times.
 KILLED BY GUARD
 One witness testimony taken at this camp was quoted as follows: T would go out about 2.30 in the morn ing and get in from to 10 o'clock at night We just run from one tree to another. I have seen men and fall with cramp If would be the first un they would send me to the still. Would wake me m and I would go to the still and I would come back and catch my squad. I have seen cen victs killed in the woods at their work I saw the guard shoot a boy by the name of "NelseN as he was dipping" and I was ''bunching." The guard had beat him up so that I told them to bring him over and I wou!1 dip keg for him and he said he could not do any more than he had done
 He was a boy about 17 of IS years old and he had been running from one tree to another utnil he had gf&en out, and when they shot him he had set his bucket down and was stand
 ing by the side of the tree, was standing as close to him as from here to the door when they shot him. have seen them when they would beat convicts up and then pour high life en