CONVICT l.ABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 23 



the organization suffers by the presence of diseased and crippled 

 convicts, incapable of performing a man's work, and those who, by 

 reason of idleness or self-mdulgence prior to conviction, are physically 

 soft and inexperienced. The presence of these undesirables, from a 

 labor standpoint, seriously hampers the development of an efficient 

 organization. 



A further source of inefficiency is frequently found in the difficulty 

 of securing superintendents and foremen who combine the qualities of 

 judgment and tact in the management and control of the convicts, 

 and of skill and ability in road construction. The attempt to avoid 

 this difficulty by the employment of two set of officers frequently is 

 rendered abortive by the creation of friction between the two branches 

 of control. Often the difficulty of securing competent superintend- 

 ents is increased by the fact that candidates must be acceptable not 

 only from the standpoint of their qualffications as road buUders and 

 guards, but also in respect to their political comiection, and usually 

 the salaries offered to candidates are so low as not to attract men of a 

 high order of ability. These various difficulties frequently result in 

 the selection of incompetent officials, superintendents, and guards, 

 and such a step is invariably reflected in the low plane of efficiency 

 of the convict force. 



Much of the inefficiency of convict work results from the use of 

 guarded convicts upon that type of road, which for its most econo- 

 mical construction requires a very flexible force. The construction 

 of top-soil and sand-clay roads can not be satisfactorily done with 

 gang labor, but requires a force readily divided into small units. In 

 dealing with guarded convicts it has been found that one guard can 

 successf uUy handle as many as 1 5 men when the character of the work 

 will permit the organization of squads of that size. Grading, quarry- 

 ing, and the construction of macadam roads afford such an oppor- 

 tunity, but the less continuous and more widely distributed work on 

 the cheaper road surfaces prevents the use of such large squads. 

 That this factor is of more than mere theoretical interest is evidenced 

 by the records of the Virginia Highway Commission. In this State, 

 where the convict road force is managed as well as in any State in the 

 Union and with a lower maintenance cost than in any other State, the 

 records of the cost of road work during the period from 1909 to 1915, 

 inclusive, as given in Table 5, show that while the work of grading 

 and the construction of macadam roads were conducted to consider- 

 a>)le advantage with convict labor, the convicts employed in the 

 building of gravel roads were able to show only a slightly lower cost 

 per mile than free laborers employed on the same class of work, whilo 

 the average cost of sand-clay and soil roads was nearly 45 per cent 

 higher. These records confirm tin; opinion of many engineers and 

 foremen that the use of convict labor on the light work ordinarily 



