MICHIGAN 



RMDS ^FORESTS 



DETROIT, MICH., FEBRUARY, 1910. 



Michigan Road Makers' Association 



W. W. Todd, Jackson, President; P. T. Colgrove, Hastings, First Vice-P resident; C. C. Rosenbury, Bay City, Second 

 Vice-President ; E. N. Hines, Detroit, Secretary; E. B. Smith, Detroit, Treasurer. 



Board of Governors: Royal T. Taylor, Cheboygan; D. L. Case, Detroit; Frank F. Rogers, Lansing; W. W. 

 Traves. Hancock. 



WORKING CONVICTS ON ROADS. 



Horatio S. Earie, former State Highway 

 Commissioner of Michigan, and President of 

 :he National Convict Labor Good Roads As- 

 -ociation, takes issue with the attitude of 

 Fudge J. W. Adams of Kalamazoo, on the 

 i<m cf convict labor. Judge Adams de- 

 :lared that utilizing prisoners as road builders 

 mpracticable and worthy of no consideration," 

 hat he "wouldn't consider the preposition for 

 . minute," and that "in the south a majority 

 if the men are negroes, and if you feed a 

 legro and give him a place to sleep he is 

 atisfied." The learned judge said a good deal 

 nore quite a? unequivocal. 



Mr. Earle says: "Judge Adams is ignorant 

 if the blessings derived by utilizing convict 

 ilinr in improving cur roads. Truth will pre- 

 ail and Judge Adams will ride over convict 

 -;ood roads in Michigan. The plan is 

 !)le, and men just as good and just 

 s hone>t a> Judge Adams say so. 

 "George H. Wiley, an officer in the Ex- 

 'risoners' Aid society of Virginia, says: 'I 

 isited the Chesterfield quarry camp, and 

 dked privately with a number of the pris- 

 ners about how they liked camp life with 

 lab. r as compared with confined life. 

 Without a single exception they said: 'We 

 the camp life better; even if we do have 

 work hard.' I knew it was better for 

 i and better for the state, but I was sur- 

 <! t<i hear them say they liked it better. 

 bout the < nly reason I could get from them 

 5, that they felt better at the camp.' 

 "Judge Adams tells us that the convicts in 

 -nuth are negroes, he will acknowledge 

 ill he not, that they are not mostly negroes 

 -tate of Washington. Ex-Gov. Albert 

 Mead said in his message to the legisla- 

 rr of Washington in 1007. 'Owing to the 

 adequacy of existing laws, a large number 

 the convicts in the state penitentiary are 

 lemployed. This condition is costly to the 

 ate and inhuman to the prisoners, utterly 

 variance with the dictates of common sense 

 d sound business methods in the manage- 

 : of a penal institution. Work of this 

 'acter in the open air and sunshine, away 

 i m prison walls will have a direct return 

 j the public in the value of the reads con- 

 uctt-d. but society at large will reap a richer 

 Iward indirectly from the reformatory influ- 

 <oe on the prisoners.' 



"The message met with the approval of the 

 Lislaturcs and they passed an enabling act, 

 j in Washington state they build good roads 

 'th convict aid It is practicable, and has 

 (oved a success at state camp No. 1, the 

 1;rk selected was the building of a wagon 

 f i|ad along the face of a nearly perpendicular 



rock bluff along the bank of the Methow riv- 

 er, this class of work, involving the handling 

 by convicts of a large amount of dynamite. 

 The character of the rock encountered was 

 extremely hard, making drilling very slow. 

 Nevertheless, the average daily work accom- 

 plished by each man amounted to 2.42 cubic 

 yards of solid rock moved, and 1 cubic yard 

 of earth and loose rock moved. As the best 

 bids we had for moving this rock was $1.50 

 per cubic yard, and for loose rock and earth 

 combined was 40c, it will be seen that the 

 average value of the daily work of a convict 

 was $4.03. Work accomplished in 2,403 days 

 exclusive of Sundays and holidays, 5,820 cubic 

 yards reck excavation at $1.50; $8,730, 2,425 

 cubic yards loose rock and earth excavation 

 at 40c, $970, nearly fifty per cent profit over 

 contract price. This is just a sample of what 

 is being done with convicts in a state where 

 negro prisoners do not predominate. 



"Now if using convicts in Virginia and 

 Washington is possible, profitable, practicable 

 and beneficial to them and the public it can 

 be made so in Michigan and if the men on 

 our boards of prison control won't do it, Mich- 

 igan will think there is a woodchuck in the 

 wood pile and they will change the names of 

 the men comprising these boards. This mat- 

 ter is going to be fought to a finish whether 

 Judge Adams will listen to the proposition 

 one minute or not. We may have to teach 

 him that he is the servant of the people in- 

 stead of ordering them, it is his business to 

 take orders from them. The men quoted in 

 this article speak from experience, not from 

 theory. It might be well for the committee 

 appointed to investigate to go to some states 

 where convict labor is being utilized in im- 

 proving roads. 



"Judge Adams claims that Michigan could 

 only use the convicts six months in the year. 

 He is mistaken, they can be used in April, 

 May, June, July, August, September, October 

 and November out doors, the other four 

 months they could be employed inside the 

 prison yards some of them at making portland 

 cement, and the rest of them at making con- 

 crete tile to be used in road drainage." 



i 



ALGER COUNTY ROAD COST $14,000 A 

 MILE. 



The costliest two miles of road built in the 

 state cf Michigan last year and one of the 

 cleverest bits of engineering performed in 

 many months was in Alger county. In the 

 vicinity of Munising, a road was cut directlv 

 through a dense swamp at the cost of $14,000 

 a mile. 



Several years ago the project was put tip 

 to the county brard of supervisors and it was 

 laughed at. With but $2,000 pf {he amount 



necessary coming from the state, the board 

 last year following the good roads institute, 

 unanimously decided to build the thorough- 

 fare, which cuts off several miles of travel to 

 the nearest railway station. 



"It is a fact that the roads of the upper 

 peninsula are on the whole better than the 

 lower peninsula," says State Highway Com- 

 missioner Ely. "This is due to the fact that 

 the stcne is much harder and contains an ex- 

 tremely small portion of limestone, in com- 

 parison to that of the southern peninsula. But 

 stone is not the only material with which the 

 upper peninsula's great roads are made. Some- 

 time ago I was told that the county board of 

 Houghton county, purchased a large amount 

 of quartz rock containing low grade iron ore 

 and with it constructed a road that is wearing 

 like steel. They secured the quartz by paying 

 a royalty to the mining company but the board 

 members told me the road was one of the 

 cheapest ever built." 



CORDUROY ROADS EXTINCT. 



All of the state highway reward checks have 

 been mailed to the various county treasurers, 

 and according to State Highway Commission- 

 er Ely, the department was forced to refuse 

 rewards on just two miles of road in Michi- 

 gan during the past 12 months. 



This road was in one county and the state 

 commissioner declares that it failed to come 

 up to the state standard more because of the 

 inefficiency of the county road commissioners 

 than because of any attempt to cheat the state 

 and people of the county. Nearly 60 per cent 

 of the county road commissioners are men 

 who are new at the business or who are serv- 

 ing their first terms. 



"Corduroy roads in Michigan are practically 

 extinct," says Mr. Ely. "None have been built 

 in the state in the past year, so far as the 

 department has learned and many rods of 

 old corduroy have been torn up in the con- 

 struction of new gravel and macadam thor- 

 oughfares. The state specifications demand 

 that this be done as nothing is allowed in 

 road foundations that will rot. Nearly 99 

 per cent of the roads built in Michigan last 

 year were made of macadam or gravel. 



Frank N. Cookson is a candidate for the of- 

 fice of county road commissioner of School- 

 craft county. Cookson has been a resident 

 of Schoolcraft county for twenty years and 

 for the past sixteen years has been one of the 

 county's heaviest individual taxpayers. He is 

 a man of keen business judgment, is con- 

 servative, and has had many years' exper- 

 ience in road building and road repairing. 



