“The condition is a serious one,” said Prison Keeper Madden today, “and I do not know what we are going to do after July 1 when all the prison shops must be closed. I know what it means to have a big lot of prisoners idle, for I was here back in the hard times of 1873 when one of the big prison contractors failed and the shops were closed down. We had trouble then, and there were not nearly so many prisoners as we have now.”
The act of 1911 abolishing the contract labor system created a Prison Labor Commission composed of the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, the warden of the State prison, the superintendent of the Rahway Reformatory and two other persons to be appointed by the Governor. President Wilson was then Governor and his appointments made the Commission Democratic. It has been claimed that if the original commission had been let alone something would have been accomplished ere this. In 1912 the Legislature was Republican. A bill was introduced changing the Prison Labor Commission so that it would be composed of six men, three Republicans and three Democrats. This was passed and Governor Wilson promptly vetoed it as also were many other bills sent to him by the Republican law makers. This bill was passed over his veto, together with a lot of others, thus revolutionizing the Commission. This is the Commission which has just been legislated out of office.
Prison Keeper Madden does not think the “State use” will employ nearly all the convicts. For instance, less than ten prisoners now do all the tailoring work for the 1,400 men in the prison, so that, in his opinion, all the industrial needs of the various State institutions will be met without using the labor of anything like all the convicts in the prison. It has been suggested that more convicts be employed outside the prison, and that then some of the others be employed in remodeling the old and unsanitary sections of the prison. This plan will likely be discussed by the Commissioners next Tuesday. Only about 65 prisoners are now employed on the roads of the State, and it is proposed that this be increased to 300. The suggestion is that at least 150 convicts be sent to the Prison Farm in Cumberland county, where only 87 are now at work. There is a law permitting the State to acquire a prison to mine and crush stone for good road work, and it is urged that this would be put in operation and 100 convicts employed in this way. An average of fifteen per cent. of the convicts are employed in the prison as domestics and general helpers, or are in ill health and cannot work. This leaves in round numbers, 600 convicts to be utilized in the prison industrial system.
It would take from six months to a year, however, to put all these plans into operation. Meanwhile the pressing problem is what to do at once.
An appropriation of $25,000 is available in the supplemental bill for immediate use for the establishment of the new prison labor system, but although the money has been ready since April 15, nothing has been done about utilizing it to meet the need.
Shale.—Says the Boston Transcript: Shale is to be no longer the outcast of the rock and soil families. It is fit to make into brick to be laid down for the best of highways. In the past to point at a bit of land and say, “Shale,” meant that the sale for any price above the waste lot figure was impossible. The shale land farmer never prospered. The word was good only for the novelist to write into the descriptions of places where ghosts were found. But shale is about to be respected. It may be fit punishment for that despised rock and soil derived from that rock that it should be placed under the feet of men, the hoofs of horses and the rubber of the auto tires, to be pulverized slowly into dust, but that does not matter. Shale is making a reputation. Governor Glynn of New York has announced that the tests of brick made from shale about the Elmira reformatory have proved that the bricks are right for laying down for the surface of highways. Samples of the brick sent to the makers of clay brick machinery have been found to fill all the requirements of the experts there employed, and that means that shale almost anywhere may be made into brick with such economy that it is forthwith regarded as one of the best materials for surface highways. The advantage of the shale about the Elmira reformatory is that the convicts there can be employed to collect the material and make the brick for State roads. The highway commissioner and a scientist are to direct the construction of buildings at the reformatory for the manufacture of brick. Convicts are to make the brick and put up the plant for permanent operations of the same materials. In many reports of industrial enterprises of late there is used the expression, economy was the result of finding the building materials on the spot or close by. The use of shale in many sections is bound to come under that head. Brick is now made of many materials which in the past have been tabooed. Sand is considered as good as clay for making brick, and it is handier to many places. The use of different materials makes a variety in the building materials of blocks. Cities look better because of that variety. But one of the best uses for brick appears now to be the surfacing of roads for the joy machines as well as the business motors of all kinds, and for horses. In the course of time the country turnpikes may be generally paved like city streets, at least with hard brick and that will have been done at reasonable cost to the country because of the employment of convict labor.
In Kentucky: The New York Evening Post says editorially:—“From Kentucky comes the report of a decision of its Court of Appeals which appears to be most unfortunate in its effect, but entirely justified by the facts of the case. The decision declares unconstitutional a prison-reform act passed by the Legislature in 1910, which provided for one of the State prisons becoming a reformatory for first offenders, and the other a penitentiary, for the education of prisoners, and for the assignment to them of a portion of their earnings under the prison labor contracts. The decision was not based on any objection whatever to the provisions of the bill; neither was it grounded on a “technicality”. The trouble was that the bill, which was in the nature of an addition of new sections to a pre-existing law, did not set forth the whole act as it would appear after amendment, as required by the State Constitution; also the payment of prisoners was not mentioned in the title. The Court disavowed any desire to interfere with the freedom of the Legislature except so far as distinctly required by the Constitution; but the opinion went on, “to say that this act does not boldly violate section 51 would be to say that the words of this section have no meaning or effect, and that a section of the Constitution has no more force than a legislative act.” There is no getting away from this view of such a matter, unless we are to take the position that there should be no Constitutions at all. In support of that position there is room for valid argument; but to have a Constitution, and yet set it aside when we please, is to invite the dangers that would go with the abolition of Constitutions without getting its advantages.”