18 BULLETIN 414, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



f ornia, Connecticut, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New 

 Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington, in 

 which a majority of the convicts are white, are separated from 

 those for the southeastern States, where the majority of the convicts 

 are negroes, it is foimd that in the former section 355 convicts were 

 estimated to be equivalent to 174 free laborers, which would indicate 

 a relative efficiency of each convict of only about 49 per cent, whereas 

 in the southern States it was computed that the labor of a daily 

 average number of 3,167 convicts could not have been performed 

 with less than 3,307 free laborers of the same States, indicating that 

 the convicts of that section, under the direction given them, accom- 

 plished approximately 5 per cent more than the free laborers. 



Because of this extreme variability of the relative efficiency of 

 convict labor and free labor, a study of the causes which bring 

 about a difference in the efficiency of the two would seem to be more 

 profitable than an attempt to indicate by figures the amount of the 

 difference. These causes are of two classes, the first being found in 

 the character of the convicts and free men considered as individuals, 

 and the second in the organization and control of groups of each 

 kind of labor. 



Considered as an individual worker, it seems to be generally assumed 

 that the average convict is less efficient than the average free worker. 

 As a class they undoubtedly possess a lower order of intelligence and 

 less initiative, abifity, and willingness in the performance of honest 

 work than free laborers. Of course, there are as wide diffeiences in 

 character among convicts as among free men, and many convicts 

 prove themselves to be the equals of the best free laborers. But a 

 larger number, by nature possessed of normal ability, seem to have 

 permitted their faculties to become dulled through long careers 

 of idleness, viciousness, and crime; some are mentally or physi- 

 cally defective, and thus imable to compete on a parity with free 

 labor; and others, abnormally quick and intelligent, are shrewd 

 enough to evolve all sorts of schemes to avoid work which is dis- 

 tasteful to them. While the foregoing remarks are true with respect 

 to convicts as a class, it should be noted that the negro convicts 

 of the South are generaUy conceded to present an exception to the 

 rule. Other conditions being equal, they are regarded by all those 

 best qualified to judge as more efficient workmen than the available 

 free labor of the same section. The reason for this condition is 

 probably found in the fact that the best classes of negro laborers are 

 not generally obtainable for road work, and that when the negro of 

 criminal tendency falls into the hands of the law he is compelled to 

 five a regular and healthful life, which results in his marked physical 

 improvement, while the fear of punishment produces a respectful 



