CONVICT LABOR FOE ROAD WORK. 
less competition with free labor and none with manufacturers, but, 
on the contrary, the creation of public utilities by means of con- 
vict labor is more than likely 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 in part by the 
following 27 States: Arizona, Arkansas, California, 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 Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. 
The above list includes only those States in which prisoners of the 
State penitentiary are being employed under the public-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 indicate the trend of convict labor under 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 engaged in productive work under the respective systems. 
Ta^ble 1. —Convicts employed under various systems from 1885 to 1915. 
System of work. 
1885 
1903-4 
1914-15 
296 institutions. 
186 institutions. 
186 institutions. 
Number. 
9,104 
15, 670 
5,676 
14, 827 
Per ct. 
20.1 
34.6 
12.5 
32.8 
Number. 
3,652 
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 
10.6 
1.8 
18.0 
51.4 
Public works and. ways 
16.8 
Total 
45, 827 
14, 827 
100.0 
32.8 
51, 172 
26, 719 
100.0 
52.2 
34, 873 
17,822 
100.0 
51.2 
65,799 
56, 675 
100.0 
Total of public-account , 
State-use, and public- 
works-and-ways sys- 
tems 
86.2 
In 1885 the State-use and public-works-and-ways systems were 
not reported separately, as all such work was then classified under 
the public-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 be noted that the table shows quite clearly the 
