Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1916 — State Happenings [ARTICLE]

State Happenings

SAY PRISON LABOR MUST GO State Board of Charity and Heads of Penal Institutions Agree That Contract System Must Be Abolished —Committee’s Report. Indianapolis.—Prison labor has become one of the important questions confronting the state of Indiana, after the heads of the penal institutions and members of the state board of charity agreed that the contract labor system in Indiana prisons must go. Governor Ralston named a committee to investigate the labor situation in the prisons, and to recommend a system to succeed the contract labor systems, when the present contracts expire in 1920. His action followed a conference of officials and others interested in prison reform. Three distinct propositions were made to the conference, as follows: “That the state manufacture products, market them itself, and make the institutions selfsupporting. That the state operate large farms, supplying all state institutions with agricultural products. That the state pay convicts for their labor, allowing them to support dependent relatives.” One of the chief opponents of the convict labor system is Erward Fogarty, state warden of the prison at Michigan City. He asserted it caused ill feeling among the prisoners which hindered reform and declared every manufacturer who had hired labor in the prison had lost money. The state, he said, receives 65 to 75 cents a day for the convict’s work. That outside labor does not suffer by the condition, however, was p vel by the fact that no manufacturer had been able to make his business pay with prison labor. l