The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-07-11
WOMEN TELL OF CONDITIONS SEEN AT MINE PRISONS
Most Exhaustive Report Yet Made In Work Of State
 Federation Committee
Continued From Page One.)

to be used as prison; but without exception the cells. dining rooms, hospitals, and kitchens were clean. The food furnished by the state was plentiful though coarse. The white bread was very inferior but for this we did not blame the cooks as we found that the flour furnished by the state was of a. very poor quail ity. In all the places we visited the convicts were housed in large frame buildings with provisions for as many as so men in the large sleep ing cells. At the mine prisons the buildings were at least two stories high with an open high basement below, making practically third story. The fire escapes are most inadequate-at Belle Ellen only two rickety wooden ladders. Around these prisons, there are towering wooden stockade at no great dls- tance.
 With 70 or more men in cell where beds are closely crowded together and with between 450 and 200 men in prison, the danger from fire lm- pressed us as being very great. we wondered that the state would per init releasing companies to use such fltmsy structures to house the words O. the state. While we grant that pris- oners might be so housed indepen- dently of the existence or this par ticular system, we mention this fact as contributing largely to our con- clusion that the state seems to be employing a method of dealing with its convicts based not on the idea of ultimately retaining erring human beings but on the idea of profit for the state and for the contracting or leasing company.
 Control At Mines
 Let us take first the prison camps al the mines where the condition is somewhat different from the condi- tion at the lumber camp. There are at the Banner mine 456 convicts, at Belle Ellen, 293; at Aldrich, 211. There are also number of state convicts at the mine at Flat Top which we were unable to ViSi.. The state em- ployes having control over the prisoners are, at each mine, a warden, deputy warden, in at least one case a second deputy warden, and the doctor. Besides these a chaplain comes twice a month. It is the duty of the warden to supervise the whole prison outside the mines and to ad- minister punishment when 1t Is needed. We talked to two of the wardens and to a deputy warden at Banner where the warden was absent from the mines. No one of the war dens or deputies that we spoke to had ever been in the mines, one of them declaring that ten men could not get him beyond the entrance. Once deputy in each convict using mine goes through the mine once day: Recall that there are hundreds Of men at work at time, that the mine is dark, and that the vision is inter rupted by walls of coal or rock and that miles of extent are embraced in the mines and you will see that for his many waking hours, the prisoner in the mines is without supervision of state representative to control, admonish, or protect him.
 The physician Is paid a small salary by the state. This is supple : mented by fees from the employees of the company paid out of their salary. It is his duty to say whether a man is we'll enough to work. It would seem that with paYr of his Income coming from the company there Is danger that he may consider the output of coal for tho company as of equal importance or greater import ance than the welfare of the prisoner. At one mine, white and piack prIson- CTS alike implored us to send them a good and fair phyisian.
 Assignment of 2 Tssi<s. 1 Q
 "Eeach man is assigned days task--so many tons of coal to dig and load. The men are divided into groups of seven or eight under the leader ship of a check runner as the boss man is called. The check-runner Is given the responsibility of seeing that the men complete the days task He is a convict. chosen we were told by a deputy warden very often for his known desperate character, which may serve perhaps to terrorize the men under him. The check runner, ccnvicts told us, is instructed that at whatever cost of labor on the part of the convict or by whatever means of compulsion he himself may use he must see that the days task Is com pleted. The only objective set before him is the tonnage for the company. Think what this means to the young first offender who may be sent to the mines for no greater offense than the 'boyish prank of stealing ride of a freight train, reckless youth but not a confirmed criminal. All of his working day, he Is under the control of a brutal, unintelligent, and perhaps hardened criminal. No laShes or whips are used in the mine, but the stout staff that all miners use to help them in their progress through the mine is always at hand In the absence of the warden and Tn the control of the check runner these sticks have been used as clubs Suppose a man does not complete his days task or that his work lags be- hind, he may De beaten or cured Dy the check k-runner. If he resists or if he fights, he will probably be re- ported to the warden for discipline We believe that the use of convict check runners in the mine is brutal and is a source of injustice that an honorable state shouldo not continue.
 ITO the warden falls the responsi- bility of inflicting punishment. By their own statements 1t seems not many of them go into the mines. We ask you, can these men judge fairly