The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-12-02
Permanent Highways Connect
ing State Institutions Urged.
Phillips County Senator Pro-
poses to Use Convicts.
PREPARES LEGISLATIVE BILL
Suggests Change an Method of
Handling Prisoners.
Asks Removal of State Re-
fOrmatory From Hutchinson.

Permanent highways connecting the
state institutions-materi supplied
by state convict labor and labor peni-
tertiary inmates and country prison.
ers-is the plan of John ii. Gray OF
Phillips county. sentor-elect from the
Fortieth district. Gray is in Topeka
today. He will prepare a program
of proposed legislative enactments
which will occasion decided shake-ups
in several institutions and completely
change methods of handling prisoners.
Gray comes from the out west coun-
try where every man and woman is
expected to perform full days work.
He doesn't believe in the idleness
which comes to county prisoners and
to many persons within state prison
walls. Besides he believes the pris-
oner labor can be of decided use to the
state. He wants this service utilized
in production of road building ma
terials and construction of permanent
highways.
One of Grayss first plans is removal
of the state reformatory at Hutchin-
son to some point in southeastern Kan
sas in the cement and vitrified brick
district. The Phillips county senator
would not dispose of the Hutchinson
prison farm. Instead he would re-
move the prison farm for women from
Lansing TO Hutchinson.
II believe the reformatory should
be taken to some town where inmates
of the institution might be engaged
in the manufacture of cement or vitri-
fled brick" said Senator Gray The
brick might be sold directly to the
counties engaged in road building pro-
jects. Counties securing these mater
ials would then pay the state the ac-
tual production y cost @cluding
nominal overhead.
Lansing Brick Too Soft.
at would be impossible to utilize
the state penitentiary brick plant for
this purpose as q vitrified brick can
not be made there. The Lansing brick
is too soft for road building.
MY plan is also to provide legisla-
ton which will call for the construc-
ton of a permanent road between all
towns in which state Institutions are
located. A portion of these roads, at
least, might be built with state con-
Wet labor. The counties in which
work is being done might also use per-
sons who are serving jail sentences.
In many counties there is nothing for
the men under jail sentence to do and
they are released because the county
doesn't want to pay their board.
Some arrangements must be made
for removal of the women's prison
farm at Lansing. BY taking the state
reformatory from Hutchinson to some
town in southeastern Kansas. this
change could be readily perfected"
Should Senator elect Gray succeed
in putting thru his proposed road
building project, it would provide sew
eral very important links of perma-
nent highways. In the northern and
eastern sections of the state the roads
would connect; Norton, Hays, Beloit,
Manhattan, Topeka, Lawrence, Olathe.
Kansas City, Rosedale. Lansing and
Atchison. One arm of the road thru
Topeka would extecd to Emporia,
then along the Santa Fe Trail to
Hutchinson, Larned and Dodge City,
with a second arm. extending from
Olathe to Osawatomie. Parsons and
XNinfia1d