| Show THE TENNESSEE MINING TROUBLE LATE dispatches irom from the scene of the recent civil cj vil war I 1 la a to tennessee u bessee state that quiet now pro prevails vails the militia however are on the ground and cannot be withdrawn for some gome time there are over 1600 convicts in the state of tennessee A large percentage of these are leased eased to the tennessee coal and iron company thet the act under which the lease was entered into pissed passed the state legislature in 1889 and went into effect on oil january 1890 to run until january 1896 dissatisfaction has for a long time been manifested against the leasing system in 1869 owing to troubles then existing the contractors surrendered their lease and the matter was settled by a board of arbitration tra tion the question at issue in tennessee is really the employment ot of convicts as competitors of free miners the crisis which has been brought about so tragically will have the effect of bringing the true situation before the whole american I 1 people and attempts at a solution will be the result the mi minimum task aak of a convict is 10 said to babur tons of coal per day and his cost for feeding and guarding 20 cents the lessees lessels pay little more inore than this cost therefore at 2 50 per ton the contractors make 10 on an outlay of little more than 20 cents from this it can be easily seen that in time prison contractors could own and operate all the coal mines in tennessee competition on such terms Is out of the question there is still another reprehensible feature about this convict business there are contractors and sub con tractors and a host boat of other middle men rhey are all political heelers of some kind their interest to la to keep an ai large a number humli er of convicts as possible in the prisons in fact it was proved in open court a short time ago that a convict losses lessee had offered a bonus to several district attorneys for each conviction vic tion to the credit of the tennessee Tennes eee coal and iron company however it must be stated that it offered to surrender its lease at the special session of the legislature held bold last winter it was not accepted without entering into party politics it is a fact that tits record shows that all the republican members of the legislature voted for acceptance while the democrats voted the other way As a consequence the contractors had to hold on to their lease which does not expire according to its terms until 1896 one year ago there was trouble at the mines at that time the stockades were burned and the convicts set at liberty as was the case a week ago |
