Either it
withholds this vast body of men from production altogether, or else it
forces them to toil under conditions which bring forth results the
smallest possible and the most unsatisfactory. The men are not paid for
what they do. Whatever profit (in "contract" prisons) accrues from their
toil goes into the pockets of the contractors, or, perhaps, is used to
defray the cost of their keep to the community. Or, again, if it is made
to appear to go into the prisoners' pockets, it is deftly taken out
again the next moment by an ingenious system of fines, which no prisoner
can escape.
In short, prison labor is slave labor, and slave labor of a worse kind
than was ever practised in negro slavery times. For on southern
plantations, though slaves were not paid wages, they got wages' worth in
good food and lodging, and (uniformly) in humane treatment, including,
above all, the companionship of their wives and families; and they were
able, in many instances, to buy themselves into freedom. Most of the
negroes, moreover, had never known what it was to be free; their race,
for generations unknown, had been slaves in their own country; they had
never been free citizens of the United States, never had education, were
unconscious of any disgrace in their condition, and were as happy as
ever in their lives they had been or were capable of being--happier,
indeed, than most negroes are in the community to-day.
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