18 BULLETIN 414, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
fornia, 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 found 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, ability, and willingness in the performance of honest 
work than free laborers. Of course, there are as wide differences 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 unable 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 generally 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 
live a regular and healthful life, which results in his marked physical 
improvement, while the fear of punishment produces a respectful 
