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Show Via 1 Governor Major of Missouri (on left of group) and Governor Hodges of 'W Kansas (on right) working on Missouri'6 recent "good roads'' day. 2. :yX Governors inspecting Colorado's convict made highway. 3. Governor cT Major (loft) and Governor Hodges (right). 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Colorado H roads made by convicts. 9. Governor Hodges (center). 1 4 By CHARLES N. LURIE. I LImI A S a rjhape of tnc "Wfiat shall we witn our convicts ," ques-I W tion, the movement to put the j I men work slate H roads Is attracting nowadays an ever -. H Increasing amount of attention. Sev- JX tral states have experimented In the Tnatter, and some of them, notably Colorado, have demonstrated the suc- V"f , cess of the plan. :al The convict is taken out of tho coll. ijJLJ often dark, disease breeding and de-jwHl.-tnorallzing t.. body and soul; he Is taken into the open air to work out j9Bi 'ihe sentence which the law has 1m- ,'-''8H'l feosed on him. He must work hard, of 9 course, and sometimes tho toll may be 9B too much for him. but when it is not 'Hi e ls benefited physically and morally '-Wm and the state gains In much needed IfVVvflBj good roads. '.''cjM: "The value of road building to the I "' JB state has been proved and Its benefits I jH' to the convicts fully attested," says the H ..B, recent report of tho warden of the -aH Colorado state penitentiary. "Not only r- -B have splendid highways been shot st'SaB through regions hitherto almost In- yKB accessible, but many men, under skill- f'&'y&B e overseers, have been taught scien- v'SWl tiflc road work. Road building gives i the released convict a fair chance to work honestly and prosperously In tho open." Good Roads Movement Is Gaining No close reader of the newspapers needs to be told that tho good roads movement Is gaining momentum throughout the United States. Americans Ameri-cans are stung by tho reproach that their roads, taken as a whole, are tho worst in tho civilized world. Automo-blllsts Automo-blllsts returning from tours on the splendid European highways have exerted ex-erted themselves to obtain similar roads for their own states and for the nation. Tho absence of co-operation among the states stands in the way, since the construction and maintenance of roads are state matters, not national. The plan to have congress appropriate $500,000,000 for a national highway, to be known as the Lincoln highway, and the project to restore the old time National Nat-ional road to Its former usefulness have not made much headway of late, owing to the absorption of the lawmakers law-makers in the tariff and currency and other Important matters. Tho project to construct a Lincoln road from Washington to Gettysburg, Pa., Instead of tho Lincoln monument In Washlng- ton, nas not approved itself to many legislators. Plans for federal aid to stato projects of road improvement are, however, meeting with favor. Of tho recent state endeavors to Improve Im-prove the roads tho most interesting and picturesque has been that of Missouri. Mis-souri. Governor Major of that state conceived the idea of setting aside a day for the purpose, as he expressed it, of "lifting Missouri from the mud." All of the nblo bodied men of Missouri were called upon to put In an honest day's work on the roads. The governor himself set tho example, and Governor Hodges of Kansas, Missouri's neighbor, neigh-bor, showed his willingness to help by toiling with spade and pick like his brother executive of Missouri. Much good work was done, and Governor Major Ma-jor declared that the day was worth at least fl, 000. 000 to the state of Missouri States Still Very Far Behind. Taken as a whole, tho states are far behind In the matter of road Improvement. Improve-ment. Of the forty-eight states of the Union there are twenty-two, or nearly one-half, with less than 5 per cent of roads improved. Eight more have between be-tween 6 and 10 per cent. The state which has made the greatest progress in tho matter in recent years is New York, which had 6,876 miles of Improved Im-proved roads in 1904 and raised them to 12,737 in 1909. Next to New York in order of gain are Georgia, Washington, Washing-ton, Missouri, South Carolina, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Jersey, Florida and Maryland. The gain In New York Is duo largely to the fact that tho state has bonded Itself, by the vote of the people, to spend $50,000,000 for good roads, and $0,000,000 a year arc being spent by the state, in addition to an equal amount by the counties, in building state highways. high-ways. It will be noted that most of the states which lead In the march of highway high-way improvement, which is considered throughout tho world a mark of progress prog-ress in civilization, are southern states. Various reasons arc cited for this awakening of Dixie. Underlying them all ls the fact that the states south of tho Mason and Dixon lino are tired of being reproached for the Impassable condition of many of their "highways." South Carolina, Alabama and Florida are building sand clay roads, constituting consti-tuting a cheap and satisfactory typo of highway. Splendid Results on Colorado Roads. Georgia stands with Colorado in the matter of employing the state convicts on the roads. The former state has had moro than 4.600 prisoners "lifting it out of tho mud," to use the Missouri locution. Colorado has not put so many men at work, but they have achieved splendid results. The report of tho Colorado warden reproduces photo- ! graphs of roads built by the convicts and says, "Theso are considered by experts to be equal to any roads In the world." The question so often raised in connection con-nection wuh convict labor, as to whether It dors or does not compete (unfairly, ot course) with free labor, Is answered in Colorado and other states by the assertion that convict labor la-bor on roads does not so compete. Tho roads that aro built by the cqpvlcts would not be made If the matter wore left to the state or the counties. The state and its divisions would be deprived de-prived of the benefits derived from the highways If the prisoners were not called upon to build them. Besides, the outdoor labor Is In many cases beneficial to the convict himself Under the Colorado system tho convict con-vict ls allowed ten days off from his sentence for each month of labor on the roads. This is in nddition to the usual reductions for good behavior. In Colorado the employment of convicts on the roads has been very successful because of the fact that the cost of building of many of the highways through the mountainous districts of the state would be almost prohibitive if tho state were compelled to build them with free labor. "The entire country," says a recent statement by tho Chamber of Com- i merce of Colorado Springs, "has reaped reap-ed the benefits of Colorado's work in this regard because It has been able to I give to travelers from all sections of tho country access xo some of its most I splendid mountain scenery- It has furthermore set the eximple for many of the other states in the advancement I of some system for the employment of convicts on state and county roads." Governors Impressed by Work. In August of this year the house ot governors, composed of tho stato ex- W' i ecutives, mot in Colorado Springs in f annual conference. Tho heads of the (J state governments evinced the greatest 1 Interest In the road work of the con- 1 vlcts. Their Colorado hosts took them on automobile tours along the roads built by the men whom society has condemned as Its enemies. The governors' gov-ernors' enthusiasm was awakened by what they saw, and many of them were impressed so favorably that they asserted their intention of studying the system further, with a view to recommending recom-mending to their respective legislatures the adoption of similar methods. The warden of the Colorado penitentiary peni-tentiary says: "The benefits In this or any other state resulting from a broad and scientific sci-entific system of convict road building can scarcely be estimated. Considering Consider-ing the situation In Colorado and basing bas-ing our figures on actual experience, we are confident that wo can construct more than C.000 miles of the very finest fin-est roadways in the next ten years for less than $f.00,000. and this without adding anything whatever to the burden bur-den of the taxpayers." An interesting feature of the Colorado Colo-rado system ls the placing of tho men on their honor not to attempt to escape when working on the roads. The plan has worked well. Less than 1 per cent have violated their pledges by successful success-ful escape. "These men without guards, somo 300 miles away from the prison, have created a national reputation repu-tation for loyalty," says the warden. |