eONViCT LABOR FOE KOAD WORK. 5 



less competition with free labor and none with manufacturers, but, 

 on the contrarj^, the creation of public utilities by means of con- 

 vict labor is more than hkely to give greater employment to free 

 labor and to create a greater demand for the products of the manu- 

 facturer. This system is now practiced in whole or m part by the 

 following 27 States: Arizona, Arkansas, Cahfomia, Colorado, Dela- 

 ware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, 

 New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, 

 Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, 

 Washington, West Vhginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. 



The above hsb includes only those States in which prisoners of the 

 State penitentiary are being employed under the pubUc-works-and- 

 ways system and not those, such as Alabama, Maryland, Michigan, 

 and others, in which county convicts or prisoners of State institutions 

 other than the penitentiary are so used. 



TREND OF THE WORK SYSTEMS, 1885-1915. 



In order to mdicate the trend of convict labor mider the systems 

 above described, Table 1 has been prepared, in which the statistics 

 for 1885 and 1903-4 were compiled from annual reports of the Com- 

 missioner of Labor, and the statistics for 1914-15 were obtained by 

 correspondence conducted by this office with 186 of the 296 institu- 

 tions mentioned in the 1903-4 report of the Commissioner of Labor. 

 The statistics in the table are based upon the daily average number 

 of inmates enga'ged in productive work under the respective systems. 



Ta-ble 1. — Convicts employed under various systems from 1SS5 to 1915. 



System of ^\ork. 



1885 



1903-4 



1914-15 



296 institutions. 



186 institutions. 



ISO institutions. 



Lease 



Number. 



9,104 

 15,670 



5,676 

 14,827 



Per ct. 

 20.1 

 34.6 

 12.5 

 32.8 



Number. 



3,6.52 

 16,915 



3,886 



8,530 

 12,045 



6,144 



Per ct. 



7.1 

 33.1 



7.6 

 16.7 

 23.5 

 12.0 



Number. 

 2,925 

 12, 126 

 2,000 

 6,128 

 7,152 

 4,542 



Per ct. 



8.4 

 34.7 



5.7 

 17.6 

 20.6 

 13.0 



Number. 



950 



6,981 



1,193 



11,807 



33, 805 



11,063 



Per ct. 

 1.4 



Contract 



10 6 



Piece price 



1 8 





18.0 



State use 



51 4 



Public works and ways - 





16.8 











Total 



45,827 

 14,827 



100.0 

 32.8 



51, 172 

 26,719 



100.0 

 h2. 2 



31,873 



17,822 



100.0 

 51.2 



65, 799 

 56, 675 



100 



Total of public-afcount, 

 State-use, and public- 

 works-and-ways sys- 



86.2 







In 1885 the State-use and public-works-and-ways systems were 

 not reported separately, as all such work was then classified imder 

 the publif>account system. Therefore, in order to render a com- 

 parison practicable, the table shows for each of the periods men- 

 tioned the total number of convicts employed for the benefit of the 

 State. It should ])c noted that the table shows quite cl(Mirly the 



