The prison labor problem, like the poor, seems to be ever with us. It was yesterday's problem, it is to-day's and will undoubtedly be to-morrow's. The yesterday of the problem was not so serious, for it was an easy matter to toss the poor criminal into a dungeon to die of disease or famine, or to make a slave of him, social conscience neither accusing nor excusing. The to-day of the problem is witnessing the dawn of a new awakening of social and industrial responsibility unfelt before. Who shall say what the to-morrow of this problem shall be? That it will be a trying problem is assumed. As long as we have crime and criminals, and they are not growing less, we shall have to face the essential problem of the prison-labor.

To teach the untaught criminal to work, and to keep him at it; to keep peace between contending laborers within and without prison walls; to make prisoners pay their way in dollars and cents and not ruin the prisoners; to dispense justice in the social and economic realm of the prison world; to satisfy the insatiable whims of the idealistic reformer who wants perfection of system immediately if not sooner-all this is called for to-day in our prison problem. In the face of such a task we must confess that we may hope for no more than simply to qualify in the race, and rather expect to be distanced in the conclusion.

There are things which delay the solution of the problem. While we know this solution will come to-morrow-in the to-morrow that never comes, which still is always arriving-there are checks and hindrances which are trying indeed. In the first place, lack of knowledge is a great handicap in the unraveling of the tangle. We have our National Committee on Prison Labor which has done well in gathering the facts for us; our social students are doing not a little of a sort of telescopic observation, but we are still waiting for a fuller classification and analysis of facts. The science of penology is new and uncertain as a science. It is growing, but it is slowly growing. We are still in the penumbra of ignorance and prejudice, hoping that the eclipse will soon pass. And while we wait we trust the state and nation will not fail to encourage the splendid work of our scouts-our commissions and social students who can and will bring the needed light.

But ignorance is not the only thing blocking our way. It is sad to relate that the demagogue is abroad in the land, stirring up prejudice and antipathies. Prison systems and policies can well stand the honest and truly patriotic muckraker, but calamity comes when this petty and detestable muckraker wants to favor his own personal interests at the expense of every one's reputation and even the welfare of the state. One great hope cheers us here: they that be for us are greater than they that be against us. It is altogether fitting in the face of this enforced delay to study and to confer, to watch and to wait, to possess ourselves in hopeful patience.

At the outset it seems to be the essential thing in the consideration of prison labor to state in some sort of a comprehensive way what the phases of the problem are. As a kind of finger board to point the arbitrary way I take, let me indicate them thus:

1. The putting to work of every prisoner in all our prisons.

2. The keeping of him employed in the face of narrow politics and hot competition.

3. The providing of such employment as will produce the best result upon the criminal and bring the best returns to the state.

4. The following of the lines of least resistance as long as we can deal honestly and still get results. Here are four phases of the general problem of prison labor. Under one covering we have here, as it were, four nuts that we shall find hard to crack.

Our first task is the evident one of getting every prisoner in all our prisons to work. In this day of enlightenment, it does not seem that it should be necessary to insist upon such a procedure. But when we consider the fact of the enforced idleness, or at least the half-idleness in our prisons, and especially in our country jails, we must insist that the fist task before us is to see to it that every prisoner in all our penal institutions gets busy. Eight months ago when some of the responsibility of our state penitentiary at Salem fell upon me, over one-third of the men at that institution were passing dreary days in enforced idleness; they were rotting in their cells, smoking their heads off in a desperate effort to kill time. This enforced idleness which has been so prevalent in our prisons is utter folly from every standpoint. It ruins men. It costs the taxpayer. The ordinary criminal does not find it to his liking to be thus shut up in his cell. The tramp on the outside of the prison wall thinks he wants surcease from toil, and, strange to

say, he usually works hard for it. But when it is handed to him in the allopathic doses of the ordinary prison, he begs for the chance to work. And he ought to have the chance. "Labor was the primal curse," Cowper tells us and adds this significant saying, "but it softened into mercy, and made the pledge of cheerful day." Labor is absolutely essential for the full development of the criminal. Just note what happens when the usually untutored, unskilled convict goes to work. He learns to use his hands, he becomes an artisan; he learns to be a co-laborer, his social life is unfolded; he learns application and his moral nature is strengthened; he lifts his head in pride over a task well done; he comes to himself to save himself. That such development is needed, and is really being wrought out, is to be witnessed where this system is employed. That such helpful influences should ever be withheld from the needy criminal is utter folly.

The second phase of the general problem is that of keeping the prisoner at work in the face of trying opposition. It seems a strange thing indeed that any one should desire to withhold the privilege from another of producing something that world wants and needs, but strange things do happen. We are told that for the last one hundred years there have been those who would like to produce a non-producing unit of the criminal, or eliminate his product entirely from the commercial world. Just now perhaps the greatest aspect of the prison labor problem is that of its difficulties in competition with free labor. But the deeper I go into the problem the more I am convinced that this great cloud upon the horizon has little storm in it. From the cries and prayers that have come to me during the past eight months of my office, I think I see the difficulties, and from my own knowledge of the case, I think, too, that I can see behind the difficulties the clear sky.

May I state these difficulties in this three-fold way:

First, there is the manufacturer without the prison walls, who has been looking with envious eyes over the fence upon the manufacturer working within. He has seen what seems to him unfair play, and I hasten to say under some of our present systems he is often unjustly discriminated against. He sees the state or the corporation getting labor for nothing, or nearly so. He often sees free rent and free power. But the most exasperating of all, he sees no way to secure this productive franchise except by "System's" method of "long green." Of course, all these conditions do not often prevail, but there is usually enough of them present to mar the game of open competition.

In the next place, free labor has its hue and cry, and they, too, not often without cause. Those who know anything of the labor situation, know that, even though the prison competition is small, still it is sufficient as a disturbing factor. It is not the volume or the percentage that plays havoc, but the nature of the competition. Markets are flooded with cheap and shoddy goods, and consequently the most needy unskilled laborer who has previously manufactured these goods is thrown out of employment. But the most serious damage is the lowering of the living which transpires because the prisoners are state-fed, and their families, if they have any, are usually taken care of by charity. With labor so cheap the state or the lessee has too much of a chance for monopoly in many quarters, and we have seen the state become a rank monopolist, notwithstanding the public feeling of hatred for such a thing.

In the third place the difficulty of keeping the prisoner at work arises from an overzeal in securing money for the running expense of our penal institutions. Prison managments have too often arrogantly defied all labor organizations in haste after the dollar. It is simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. Free labor has a right to resist the proposition of being preyed upon to save the tax payer, coddled with that bit of sop that it does not matter, for "at last labor pays all the taxes." Prison boards and officers are servants of the state and ought to serve the prison to help it serve every one in the state. They ought not to set themselves up in business as rivals or competitors in crowded markets, forcing their goods on to the market, which, although cheap, are still undesirable because they are too cheap and disturb the markets. The zeal of the superintendents and the prison boards ought to be matched by a safe and sane discretion in choosing the industries which will help and not hinder trade.

But I am chiefly concerned in giving my reason for a belief that these difficulties are only transient, and that sooner or later they will disappear. I have a feeling that an enlightened publicity would bring a solution for all the difficulties that may arise with the outside manufacturer. Prison authorities should be bound to let contracts only that had been regularly advertised and let them only to the highest bidder. If the public is aware of the whole business and all the manufacturers have an equal chance, there can be no complaint except for their own stupidity that the contract was not theirs. Publicity is a great thing in our day; graft and subterfuge cannot abide its light. Also free labor's cry

for protection, and the prisoners desire for a chance will in the coming day be realized if we work and wait. When the prisoners' plea for mercy and the free laborers' call for justice shall both be echoed back from the hill of the Almighty's good time, the answer will be in unison, "peace and good will." I do not mean to infer that free labor is not merciful to our prisoners, for I have found it different. When in Oregon we want some one to help out our prison reform work we find none more willing than the labor circles, and especially those fraternities which are closely allied to labor. Not long ago two of these groups of laboring men presented our prison boys a magnificent piano and moving picture machine as a token of their sympathy. Personally I have every reason to know that outside labor is not antagonistic, but is sympathetic. Their chief objection is directed against the state or the corporation that is exploiting prison labor. To see the trouble settled we must eliminate the demagogue, from whose glib tongue issues the venom of prejudices; we must outlaw the lease system and much of the contract system of prison labor, at least that part that publicity is wanting. Then I feel sure that free labor and all concerned will join in our wholesome reform. And we think the day-dawn of this new order is at hand.