CONVICT LABOR 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-indulgence 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 qualifications as road builders and 
guards, but also in respect to their political connection, 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 
successfully handle as many as 15 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- 
able 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, while 
the average cost of sand-clay and soil roads was nearly 45 per cent 
higher. These records confirm the opinion of many engineers and 
foremen that the use of convict labor on the light work ordinarily 
