Another bill dealing with goods produced by convict labor will soon be considered in the House. It applies the same provisions to goods made by convict labor abroad. This measure has already been reported in the House.
Gruesome!—In Virginia, according to the Richmond Journal, the body of a convict dying in prison is forfeit to the State; no matter if he has friends or money to receive it and give it decent burial. When a man dies in prison, whether he was sent for one year or for thirty years, his body is sent to the medical colleges of the State for dissection purposes. If he commit some horrible crime, which demands a death penalty, this is not the case. His family may receive his body and bury it. But the life convict and the convict who dies in prison are not given this privilege under the present law.
A bill that has come before the committee seeks to remedy this defect in the present law. It amends the law now in force so that it requires only such bodies as are to be disposed of at the expense of the State to be sent to the colleges. No man who saves the little money which he may have earned within the prison shops and lays it aside for this purpose will any longer be refused the right of burial.
This matter has for a long time been a source of much agony of mind and bitterness among the convicts. A Confederate veteran at the State Farm fears the dissecting table. If the bill is passed it will bring happiness to a number of the poor men, who have no other peace to look forward to than that of a quiet grave.
National Agitation for State Use System.—Organized labor has called upon manufacturers and citizens generally throughout the country to support the National Committee on Prison Labor, in its endeavor to bring about in the different States a system whereby prisoners shall be employed directly under State control of roads, farms, or in manufacturing articles for use in the institutions and departments under the control of the State. For the past four years this committee and the labor unions, especially the United Garment Workers of America, have been fighting the leasing system, whereby the labor of the convict is sold to the highest bidder, the bid always being from 50 to 75 per cent. less than is paid to the workers in the same line of industry outside of our penal institutions.
The effect of this prison competition is illustrated by figures gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Missouri, which has just completed an exhaustive investigation into conditions at the Missouri State prison at Jefferson City.
The clothing factory at that prison reported an output for 1912 of overalls and other garments valued at over $2,500,000. The convict working force consisted of 887 men and 44 women, a total of 931, while for their labor the State received $200,629. The total amount paid out in wages and salaries for superintendents, etc., was $371,385. From these figures it will be noted that the cost of labor was so small when compared to that at a similar factory outside the prison walls as to be startling.
Free manufacturers are asked to compare their own payroll with that of the contractors at this prison where for healthy male convicts, 75 cents per day was paid, while for a few cripples and the women the figure was only 50 cents per day.
The National Committee on Prison Labor and the unions see that this unfair competition can be overcome by the work for the State, whereby no prison goods reach the open market, but these two groups need the support of all interested either for business or humanitarian reasons to bring about results which shall be effective and lasting.
From a practical business standpoint organized labor has brought this matter before the people of the country and awaits their action.