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INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS. ///-- I \"-- I 0""1 I April, 1913 AFFILIATED WITH THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR IN ALL ITS DEPARTMENTS I ~!&'l. I DEVOTED TO THE CAUS~ OF ORGANIZED LABOR \1 -f151.,\ II THE ELECTRICAL WORKER OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and all Its Departments. OWNED AND PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS CHAS. P. FORD, International Secretary, GE:"fERAL OFFICES: PIERIK BUILDI:"fG SPRI,,"GFIELD, ILL. Subscription, 25c per year, in advance. This Journal will not be held responsible for views expressed by correspondents. The tenth of each month is the closing date; all copy must be in our hands on or before. Second Class privilege applied for at the Post Office at Springfield, Illinois, under Act of June 29th, 1906. 4@Js, 2 INDEX. A Surprised Gentleman ....................... 872 American Federation of Labor News .......... 890-891 Correspondence ............................... 884-889 Executive Officers ...•......................... 873 Editorial ..................................... 874-879 Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnet- ism ...................................... 898-901 Foreign Labor News .......................... 892-894 In Memoriam ................................. 871 ono O'1C') Local Union Direr-tory .. _. _ .••••••••••••••••• • uvu-.J.J.~ Missing Receipts .............................. 881 Miscellaneous .............•................... 895-896 Notices ....................................... 873 Obituary ..................................... 870 Official Receipts .............................. 880-881 Poems worth. reading ......................... 897 The Individual Value of Trade Unions ........ 867-869 Telephone Operators' Section .•............... 882-883 THE ELECTRICAL WORKER OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS Second CI... priYiIeae applied fer at the Poot Oflice at Sprin.6e1d, Illinois, under Act 01 June 26th, 1906 Sin,1e Copies, 1II e- VOL, XIII. Ko. 2 SI'IIIUFIELD, ILL., APRIL, 1913, 25e per Year, in """'- The Menace of Convict Labor (By John Mitchell.) The problem of the convict, what to do compete with the prison contractor with him, how to treat him, how to keep whose untaxed plant in the prison turns him employed without bringing about out the same class of goods at infinitely disastrous competition with free labor, less cost; when the very wife of the con­ what to do to relieve his family-de­ vict employed by the prison contractor prived of the support which likely he loses her job because of the competition gave it when free-how to make his in­ of her husband working within prison carceration most profitable morally to walls, the convict is unquestionably a him and to the community, furnishes a very grave menace industrially to the theme upon which much has been writ­ community. And this industrial menace ten and said and is a subject which every comes not alone to the free laborer, to person in the nation is deeply concerned, the honest wage-earning men and women whether he realizes it or not. whose jobs are taken from them. The Consideration of the questions of the honest employer who seeks to stand on management of prisons, the discipline his' own feet and conduct a reputable prevailing therein, punishments, "honor business that shall enable him to pay his systems," etc., may be left for those who employes living wages, who seeks to are banded together to bring about re­ build up the commercial life of the coun­ forms in these respects; the particular tryon a fair basis, and, of course, the object of this discussion is to bring home community itself as a whole, which suf­ to all who shall read it a comprehension fers as a result of demoralized business of the bearing of the question of convict conditions, pays the penalty which con­ labor has upon their own lives. tract convict labor imposes. There are those who hold-and their When we realize that nearly 15,000 number is not small-that the man in convicts are suffering from tuberculosis, prison is not usually a dangerous crimi­ that little is done to stamp out the dis­ nal; that "the average convict is the ease among prisoners, that in one prison most docile spiritless creature in the wide alone having a population of 1,400 there world. Of the great army of law break­ are 350 men suffering from various con­ ers, it is onlY' the failures who land in tagious diseases-some of them of the prison; and this consciousness of failure most loathsome character-and when we crushes the convict's spirit even more understand, further, that these men are than does the iron routine of the prison." in many instances engaged in making Surely then, they contend, if he can be shirts (one prison alone sending out put to some useful work which will at 4,000,000 shirts a year) which are sold least reimburse the State for his main­ under various labels all over the country, tenance and at the same time serve to in making cigars, shoes, stockings, over­ educate and fit him to make an honest alls, trousers (including boys' knicker­ living when he is released, the State owes backers) and petticoats, it is easy to see it other citizens who are honest and law­ what a menace to the community the con­ abiding and whose taxes support the re­ vict is physically. formatory institutions, to give the pris­ Just as it is evident that the convict oner such care, education and treatment has been, is, and will continue to be un­ that when he leaves the prison pe may til conditions are radically changed, a not be morally, industrially or physical­ dire menace to the moral, industrial and ly a menace to those about him. physical health of the community, so it Reform is coming along seyeral lines, is true that little, if any, salutary change' but heretofore the released convict, job­ can be brought about until the contract less, untrained, branded, has had little prison labor system with its attendant chance to be other than a menace moral­ evils, is abolished. Every investigation ly to the community. of prisons and prison management has When factories employing free labor brought ont the fact that to this system aTe closed because their owners cannot are due many of the worst conditions 868 THE ELECTRICAL WORKER that exist. ciency, cannot come anywhere near sup­ A barbarous social abuse sure to grow plying the market which the law has thus ()ut of the contract prison labor system supplied for prison-made goods. Some 18 in securing the needed laborers. A E.tates have successfully employed con­ Bub-committee of the House of Represen­ victs in road making, in breaking stone tatives, considering, three years ago, a for road repair and bUilding, and in cul­ report of the Baltimore grand jury, tivating farms to supply the prison ta­ learned that the authorities of penal in­ bles. These are methods for employing stitutions were anxious for long-term prison labor that have been shown prisoners, "in order," says the report through practice to be productive, as "that their financial showing shall be im' nearly as possible, of unmixed good, the proved and that they may get appropria­ outdoor work being particularly desir­ tions for new buildings, on the ground able, from several standpoints, for con­ of their being entirely or partially self­ victs afflicted with tuberculosis. o supporting. , The report further char­ acterizes this attitude as very commend­ For years the trade unionists have able! It is probably safe to say that been fighting-and much of the time it some of the men killed in the recent ex­ has been a terribly one-sided battle­ plosion in the State coal mine in Ala­ against the competition of convict labor, bama were poor and ignorant men sent and in this, as in many another social to prison-and thus, in this case, to death struggle, in seeking to protect them­ -for petty offenses. One investigator selves they have been defending the in­ terests of non-unionists and of society makes the statement that of 2,591 per­ sons imprisoned in 1910 in the New Ha­ in general. It was largely the efforts of ven (Conn.) county jail (one of the chair the molders' union, associated with other trust factories) fully 2,000 "had not com· labor organizations, that brought about mitted any crime at all," having been the constitutional amendment above re­ sentenced for petty quarrels, for drunk­ ferred to by which the "State use" sys­ enness, for trespassing on railroad prop­ tem was established. Organized labor is erty, for vagrancy, and similar offenses. sponsor for the bill introduced in Con­ gress to limit the commerce between the A prinicple at least highly promising States in goods manufactured wholly or for reform has been applied in New York in part by convict labor. This legisla­ State for fifteen years. PursuanL Lu Lhe tion wiii curtail Lo a large ex Lent the petitions of trade unionists and other cit­ markets of prison contractors, thus ren­ izens who agreed with their plan, the dering their at present enormously constitutional convention of 1894 adopted profitable business less remunerative, an amendment that only such goods protect to some considerable extent the should be made in the prisons as were to innocent public from the perils lurking be used in the public institutions of the in prison-made goods, and serve to State and its subdivisions. The national hasten the day when a wise system such committee on prison labor is authority as the "State use" system in vogue in for the statement that the prison popu­ New York will be established universal­ lation, even with greatly increased effi- ly. The Individual Value of Trade Unions (By Robert Burton Bruce in The Carpenter) In a former article we sought to show of not one but every pair of eyes in hope the universal worth of labor organiza- thJtt each and everyone will be inter­ tions to nations, communities and gen- ested in our present and former views.

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