The contract system, as practiced at the time of the above report, had many of the features peculiar to the lease system, and the constant tendency of legislation and the improvements in prison methods have been toward removing those features and improving the system, but the perfect has never been attained, and the tendency appears to be to pass by and beyond the system to something better. This is evinced by the character of the reports and legislation in New York State. Following the report above referred to, and in January, 1871, the State commissioner on prison labor of New York, after hearing a great deal of testimony, con cluded that the following propositions were believed to be fairly deducible from, and fully sustained, by the evidence:

"I. The contract system of prison labor is bad and should be abolished.

"II. The industries of a prison, as well as its discipline, ought, ordinarily, to be managed by its head.

"III. The successful management of the industries of a prison requires experience and business tact; qualities that can be acquired only by long practical familiarity with such management.

"IV. It would not be wise to commit the industries of a prison to the manage ment of its head so long as he is not only liable, but sure to be displaced on every transfer of power from one political party to another.

"V. Considering the extent of the industries carried on in our State prisons. and the frequent changes of officers therein, the result of which is that inexperienced persons are for the most part at their head, it would be unwise and unsafe to change the system of labor while the system of government remains what it is at present.

VI. In order to a safe and successful change of the labor system from contracts to State management, it will be an essential condition precedent that political control be eliminated from the government of our State prisons, and that their administration be placed and kept in the hands of honest and capable men. "VII. The only process by which our State prisons can be removed from the arena of politics-whereby alone a safe basis can be secured for a change in the labor system-is an amendment of the constitution; and to the attainment of that end the strenuous efforts of all good citizens should be directed.

"VIII. While the products of prison labor are not sufficient to sensibly affect the general markets of the country, there is no doubt that in particular localities these products do come into injurious competition with those of outside labor; and whenever such competition occurs it is the result of the undue pursuit of one or but a few branches of labor in prisons to the exclusion of all others, a result which points to the multiplication and equalization of trades in institutions of this class.

"IX. The opposition of the workingmen of the State is to the contract system alone and not all to industrial labor in prisons; and not only do they not oppose such labor, but they desire that criminals should be reformed as the result of their imprisonment; and they believe that this can be effected only through industrial labor in combination with other suitable agencies and as the result of the acquisition, as far as that may be possible, of trades during their incarceration."

In January, 1884, Charles F. Peck, commissioner of labor of New York, in his first annual report to the legislature, submitted the following conclusions in regard to the unfavorable aspects of the contract system:

"In submitting to your honorable body the recommendations as to the future policy of prison management which seem best adapted to the moral training of the convicts and attended with least injury to existing interests, it is proper that the evils to be avoided and which attach to existing systems should be briefly stated.

The contract system as at present administered has been found imperfect for the following reasons:

"First. The object of the law is reform for the convicts. The object of the contractor is to make money from his labor without regard to his reform.

"Second. It is destructive of prison discipline necessarily, from the fact that the prisoners are for ten hours a day under the control of the contractor and his agents, who are in no wise responsible for their reformation.

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Third. It renders impossible a diversity of employment suited to the different capacities of the prisoners and the conditions necessary to their moral training. Fourth. It is the intention of the law and to the best interests of society that

the terms of the best conducted prisoners be shortened. It is to the interest of the contractor to keep them longer in prison.

Fifth. It makes impossible any proper classification and separation of the prisoners, but places in daily contact the comparatively innocent with the most hardened and depraved.

"Sixth. The profits of the labor of the convict belong to the State, the laws of which he has transgressed. The contract system gives those profits to parties not representing the State or interested or responsible, except for monetary considerations, which are a constant menace to the discipline of the prison and the reformation of the convict.

"Seventh. Manufacturers engaged in similar industries and employing free labor claim to be injuriously affected in their business by the operations of the contract system.

"Eighth. The mechanical and laboring interests are opposed to the contract system on the ground that it tends to loss of employment and reduction of wages.'

In other reports of the State commission of prisons of New York the policy of the State in contracting or farming out the labor of the convicts is spoken of as highly injurious to free labor in that the products of such labor are sold in the open market at a price so low that, while the contractors were thereby enabled to reap large profits. those who were engaged in the manufacture of similar articles by free labor, were unable to compete and pay the wages necessary to a decent subsistence, and that under the contract system the labor of convicts was farmed out for such small prices that the State, in effect, got nothing; while the contractors were enabled to undersell other manufacturers, and thus decrease the wages of free labor, and in some instances destroy industries that were valuable for the general welfare.

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Comparatively few of the concerns engaged in any industry are in a position to compete for the contract for prison labor and, therefore, it is sold out at extremely low rates. For example, at Auburn Prison, the contract for the labor in making women's calico and gingham dresses and wrappers was at the rate of 50 cents per dozen, 30 cents per dozen for waists and skirts, and at like rates for the labor in manufacturing many other articles. At the State Reformatory at Elmira are contracts for the making of heavy overcoats at 40 cents each, and umbrellas at 4 cents each. At Sing Sing are contracts for making shoes at 6 and 7 cents per pair, and at the Albany Penitentiary shirts were made on contract for 30 cents per dozen. Like low rates for labor prevail at the other prisons and penitentiaries. How much this cheap labor may tend to cause the abuses produced by the so-called "sweat shops" in the great cities, where manufacturers seek to compete with the manufacture of prison contractors suggests itself. At Backwells Island the labor was largely farmed out or contracted out to various firms and companies whose product was thus brought in competition in the market with the product of other manufacturers using free labor only. In order to meet the competition the latter were forced to cut down their prices below cost, or largely reduce the wages of their employees, or, as in some instances, discontinue that branch of industry. The average earnings, per diem, of convicts so contracted out was from 12 to 35 cents per day; but as the State furnishes and keeps in repair the buildings where this farmed-out labor was done, and in most of the industries owned and kept in repair the machinery used in connection with the labor, the real earnings to the State above expenses are much less."

By a provision of the constitution of the State, and, by laws that went into effect January 1, 1897, the contract system of employing convicts was abolished in New York, and the State commission of prisons in commenting on the fact in the annual report for 1898, states as follows:

"The old system of contracting out the labor of convicts to the highest bidder, which was a species of slavery, passed away when the prison labor provision of the constitution and of the law went into effect January 1, 1897, and is already being looked upon as a relic of barbarism that the State did well in superseding by a more enlightened and practical system. But few manufacturers were situated so as to compete in the bidding. Those with large plants, permanent locations, and many employees could not do so. The contracts therefore, were taken by those who were less firmly located and more adapted to speculative ventures, for a mere pittance which gave the State very little income after paying the additional expense caused, and the repairs of the buildings and machinery it furnished. 250A-VOL III- -3

The presence of contractors and foremen, not officers, was not helpful to discipline. The contractors were able to make the price of articles manufactured so low as to cripple the business of the manufacturers producing similar goods by free labor, or to lessen the wages of their employees. When we consider the fact that under the contract system shoes were being made in the prisons for 6 and 7 cents a pair, laundered shirts for 30 cents a dozen, trousers for 75 cents per dozen pairs, ulster overcoats for 40 cents each, and umbrellas for 4 cents, while large manufactures of brass and of iron and of furniture were also carried on at similar insignificant prices, the result no longer seems strange. It is no wonder that the industries of free labor languished, and the manufacturers and laborers were joining in annual appeals to the legislature to relieve them from a ruinous and unfair competition, by forbidding the manufacture of various classes of goods in the prisons. The State was not getting a fair value for the labor of the prisoners it was compelled to support, and the manufacturers and their employees were suffering by the unfair competition of the labor sold out to the contractors, who made the profit without fear of strikes or the chance of loss.

"Another abuse which developed under the contract system as it was prac ticed in New York was the passage of laws permitting penitentiaries to contract with other counties than those in which they were located for the care of those convicted of misdemeanors in such counties, and permitting the magistrates to sentence to such penitentiaries, instead of to the jails of their own counties. The penitentiaries were paid at the rate of $2 or more a week for each prisoner, and also had the labor of the convicts they received. The actual cost of the board was about half the amount received, so that a good profit resulted from the enterprise. This was the first step in turning the penitentiaries into boarding houses. Later, laws were procured in the interests of the penitentiaries, permitting courts of the State to sentence for terms of five years, or less, to the penitentiaries those convicted of felonies. The State thus transferred to the penitentiaries the labor of the felons sentenced for five years or less, and it had to pay to the penitentiaries $2.10 for the board of each, though there was ample room for all felons in the State prisons which the State was maintaining, and where it could keep prisoners at about half the price paid. But an even greater objection was, that such a law broke down the separation between misdemeanants and felons, putting those guilty of the greater crimes in association with those who, were, perhaps, more unfortunate than criminal.

"Finally, laws were enacted in the interests of the penitentiaries, permitting them to contract for the care and custody of convicts of other States, without regard to the length of sentence. At the end of their term this class of convicts was discharged at the penitentiary door, and the State of New York, and its penitentiary towns in particular, made a dumping ground for criminals of other States and Territories."

In 1895, the State commission of prisons found about 900 convicts from other States, some under sentence for life or long terms of forty years or more, in association with misdemeanants, in the penitentiaries.

While the contract system, as it is now conducted, is radically different from that under which convicts were employed in 1887, still the following quotation from the reports of legislative committees in Ohio and Pennsylvania, made during that year, indicate the adverse feeling that prevailed in those States against the system at that time.

The committee in Ohio, after taking the testimony of many witnesses and duly considering the questions submitted to it, arrived at the following conclusions: "The contract system interferes in an undue manner with the honest industry of the State. It has been the cause of crippling the business of many of our manufacturers; it has been the cause of driving many of them out of business; it has been the cause of a large percentage of the reductions which have taken place in the wages of our mechanics; it has been the cause of pauperizing a large portion of our laborers and increasing crime in a corresponding degree; it has been no benefit to the State; as a reformatory agency it has been a complete, total, and miserable failure; it has hardened more criminals than any other cause; it has made total wrecks, morally, of thousands and thousands who would have been reclaimed from the paths of vice and crime under a proper system of prison management, but who now have resigned their fate to a life of hopeless degradation; it has not a single commendable feature; its tendency is pernicious in the extreme. In short, it is an insurmountable barrier in the way of the reformation of the unfortunates who are compelled to live and labor under its evil influences; it

enables a class of men to get rich out of the crimes committed by others; it leaves upon the fair escutcheon of the State a relic of the very worse form of human slavery; it is a bone of ceaseless contention between the State and its mechanical and industrial interests; it its abhorred by all and respected by none except those, perhaps, who make profit and gain out of it. It should be tolerated no longer, but abolished at once.'

The committee in Pennsylvania reported in substance, as follows:

"On a full examination, a very large field for careful investigation, taking the principle involved in the first and second questions, which raises the inquiry as to the influence exerted or the effects produced by the labor of convicts in prisons, contracted for or sold to the best bidder, and the product of such labor brought into competition in the market with the product of industries of individual voluntary labor, or the interests of free labor,' and the manufacturing interests of the Commonwealth.' Your committee is of opinion that the principle is injurious to the interests of free labor.'

The contractor of prison labor has many advantages which it is not always easy to estimate in money when the matter of profits is considered. Among them are to be estimated, no rent for buildings, no insurance, no cost for storage, and the want of all competition in the price paid for convict labor, either by the day or other fixed period, and the compulsion under which the convict toils, the time saved by his location near his work, and the supervision of the convict in performing his taskwork. It is true much depends on the trade carried on and the agreement made between the institution and the contractor. There is no doubt that very large profits are made by contractors, or some of them, and it is equally true that very large losses are made by the State in many cases.'

The contract system is now practiced in the State of Michigan in conjunction with the State-account system, and is spoken favorably by the prison authorities who contend that as good results, in every respect, are secured by its use as by any other system. Nevertheless in 1884 when the agitation of the question of the employment of convicts was severe, the commissioner of labor of the State, in a report upon penal institutions, stated that the contract system should be abolished, because

"First. The contractor has no interest in the prisoner, except in his ability to produce. The prisoner is the ward of the State. His employment is a means, not an end, and no contractor with arbitrary rules as to time, etc., should come between the prisoner and the State. The incentive to labor should be shortened terms, care for dependents, and payment of a stipend when discharged.

"These men are required to work an average of 10 hours per day for the year, 8 hours in midwinter, and 11 hours in midsummer, and they work diligently. They have not the relief incident to outdoor labor-no rainy days-all their time is employed, except nights and Sundays. Is it not idle to expect reformatory or educational influences to be exerted, except those incident to industry, or to operate upon men who work 10 hours per day? The inmates are tired, the keepers have been with the men all day, and the warden or superintendent has been engrossed with the management of the financial and commercial transactions of the prison.

"Second. The sale of the product should be regulated by the State.

"Third. If there is any profit in his employment it should not go to the contractor. If the contract system is retained the State should own the plant and machinery as well as the shops, and thus open a wider field for competition."

The subject of contracting convict labor is treated in the first annual report of the bureau of labor of Kansas, in which the objectionable competitive feature of the system is spoken of as follows:

"With the rapid multiplication of machinery. a much less degree of skill is required in many branches of industry, and the skilled mechanic, who may have spent years in the mastery of the details of his calling, suddenly finds himself at a disadvantage, even when confronted with the competition of free labor; but when to this is added a mass of labor, fed, housed and clothed by the State and hired en masse for a mere pittance, to compete with him for the means of livelihood, it makes his lot hard indeed. He feels it is an act of injustice on the part of the State; and he finally comes to regard the farming out of convict labor as a blow aimed directly at the class he represents."

The direct and severe competition with free labor and industry that is possible

by the concentration of a large number of convicts on any one industry under the contract system, is conclusively shown by the testimony presented in the fourth biennial report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Illinois. While the laws and rules regulating the employment of convicts under the contract system, as now carried on, may have been modified since this report was prepared, still the testimony is so conclusive and direct on this point that it is here given in full.

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"One of the oldest, largest, and most prosperous shops in the Joliet Penitentiary is devoted to the manufacture of cooperage, chiefly for the packing of meats and lard, and chiefly for the Chicago market. The firm engaged in this business has had contracts for convicts at Joliet for many years, and now employs there in all 204 men. In addition to this establishment the same firm has contracts and cooper shops in the northern penitentiary of Indiana at Michigan City, where they employ 169 men. The product of these two shops flows for the most part to the Chicago market, though some portion of it reaches the neighboring citiesMilwaukee, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and even Kansas City.

"Through the courtesy of this firm this bureau is placed in possession of a statement of the amount of their business in Chicago for a term of 11 years1875-1885, both inclusive. This shows the number of each of four kinds of packages manufactured and sold in Chicago for each year, as follows:

"This shows a total of 5,124,687 packages sold in Chicago in 11 years and 745,261 sold last year.

"In order to arrive at some facts upon which to institute a comparison an inquiry has also been made as to the status, past and present, of the manufacture of cooperage by private parties in Chicago. A canvass has accordingly been made among the principal shops, and so far as possible exact figures for a corresponding number of years have been procured from the books of the various firms visited. The records of 26 establishments variously engaged in the manufacture of both so-called tight' and 'slack' work were thus obtained. Of these, however, 15 only are and have been for a series of years engaged in the manufacture of provision cooperage of the specific kinds turned out by the prison shops, and upon their statements the following summaries are made: “First, a tabulation of their annual output for a series of years gives the following results: