The Washington times., 1923-04-20
TIES
IN OTHER
STATES
Reformed Convict Cites Cases
in Which Prisoners Were
Allowed to Die.
BY VIOLA BROTHERS SHORE,
r...a.... 49,. ea-,vaca

O09mOpOAAASAI
NEW YORK, April 20.-"1ou
read about men being horse
whipped in the prison labor camps
of Florida and are amazed" Louis
Victor Eytlnge, q reformed ex-
convict who is getting $1O,OOO a
year as an advertising expert,
observed today. "But you prob
ably will be shocked when | say
men are still hung up by their
thumbs in prisons in this country.
Eighty Killed in Arkansas.
Eighty convicts have been beat
on, shot and killed in Arkansas
prisons in the past two years.
I'm an old-time hell hole in the
prison at Yuma, Ariz,, eleven men,
chained to a stone floor, almost
naked, were bitten to death by
mosquitoes.
I'm a southern camp for con-
victs 1 saw men forced to work
waist deep In tamarack and tur-
pentine swamps. their bodies cover
cd with boils from the poisonous
oOze.
81 have seen convicts handcuffed
to trees and dashed.
AT a camp in Georgia I saw
convicts chained to mules and
forced to work all day in a broil-
ing sun, their meals being brought
to them as though they were cattle
''Others were chained to wheel
barrows and plows.
I'm Texas they give an escaped
man chance for his life against
bloodhounds. Finding a man freed,
they order him down with. guns and
then let him fight it out with the
dogs.
Young Boys in Mines.
I'm Kansas young boys work
underground in the coal mines with
all sorts of degenerates.
These are things I know from
my own observation.
Texas still preserves the cat
o'nine tails and flogging is a regu-
lar thing.
1.-THE parole system of Texas per-
mits discharged prisoners to be
hired for IS or SO month. And
conditions are so bad-they are
anderfedk and often cannot collect
their miserable wages-thaEs the
men ask to be taken back to- prison.
II they kick up about work or
food they are apt to find them
=
short notice.
Men Chained To Bunxs.
"In Georgia saw eighty.five
men chained to their hunks. which
were too high for comfort-from
Saturday evening till Monday
morning with no sanitary facilities
except a gutter running alongside.
which, however, had no water in
aI-safA
I'm the cultured State of Massa-
chusetts, the old cell block has no
running water or toilet accessories
and the men eat their meals in the
same cells with their unemptied
slop buckets.
''In Mississippi, convicts stand
guard over convicts. Stool pigeons
and bootlickers, bully, lie. fawn and
curry favor at the expense Of other
prisoners.
mot one penal institution in the
country is making men and women.
Crime is an absence of control
of the moral backbone to resist
temptation. Our aim should be to
build up that backbone. Eduea.
tional and real religious work Ohe',
non-orthodox kind is the most
negligible factor in the prisons Of
today.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the men
IN prison today are not habituaI
criminals. They are accidental
criminals or subnormal. The real
crook often manages to keep out.
Prisons Are Failures.
Even from a financial stand
point. our prisons are failures.
Making them self-supporting is like
holding a dime in front of the tax
payers eyes and keeping them from
seeing an outlay of dollars.
ut is cheaper for society to take
a young chap when he makes his
first break and find out the mate
rial that is in him, and how it can
be best directed into useful chan
nels, even If it costs $1,000 to do it.
s1 aR