s, which
so loudly profess to be training their inmates to become useful
citizens.

The third, and most important, consideration is that the enormous
profits thus wrung from convict labor are a constant incentive to the
contractors to exact from their unhappy victims tasks altogether
beyond their strength, and to punish them cruelly when their work
does not come up to the excessive demands made.

Another word on the condemnation of convicts to tasks at which they
cannot hope to make a living after release. Indiana, for example, is
a State that has made a great splurge over being in the front rank of
modern penological improvements. Yet, according to the report
rendered in 1908 by the training school of its "reformatory," 135
were engaged in the manufacture of chains, 207 in that of shirts, and
255 in the foundry--a total of 597 in three occupations. But at this
so-called reformatory 59 occupations were represented by the inmates,
39 of which were connected with country pursuits. Indiana, like
other States, professes to be training the inmates of her reformatory
to occupations by which they will be able to make their living when
released. She actually sets them to work making chains, shirts, and
brooms, the latter for the benefit of the Louisville Fancy Grocery
Co. Broom making is a trade largely monopolized by the blind, shirt
making is done by women, and there is only one free chain factory in
the State, and at that a released convict can not hope to get
employment. The whole thing is a cruel farce.

If, then, the States can be instrumental in robbing their helpless
victims of such tremendous profits, is it not high time for organized
labor to stop its idle howl, and to insist on decent remuneration for
the convict, even as labor organizations claim for themselves? In
that way workingmen would kill the germ which makes of the prisoner
an enemy to the interests of labor. I have said elsewhere that
thousands of convicts, incompetent and without a trade, without means
of subsistence, are yearly turned back into the social fold. These
men and women must live, for even an ex-convict has needs. Prison
life has made them anti-social beings, and the rigidly closed doors
that meet them on their release are not likely to decrease their
bitterness. The inevitable result is that they form a favorable
nucleus out of which scabs, blacklegs, detectives, and policemen are
drawn, only too willing to do the master's bidd