system, or even for indeterminate sentence. It is to be hoped that this will be remedied.

Some states have provided that upon the fourth conviction of felony the sentence shall be imprisonment for life, but after serving a period of time equal to the maximum penalty prescribed or the offense of which the person is convicted, less the usual commutation for good conduct, he may be paroled but can not be absolutely discharged. Persons who have thus enlisted for the war on society should have few furloughs.

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS FROM MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE.

Charles A. DeCourcy, Boston: The proposed constitutional change, providing for one set of laws for the entire country, does not seem to be practicable, even if desirable.

Julius M. Mayer, New York: I disagree with most of the report. I am especially opposed to changing the rule as to reasonable doubt. While the evils exist to which you call attention, I think the suggested remedies in the end would be subversive of fair trials and real justice.

G. S. Robinson, Des Moines: Although there is much in the report which meets my hearty approval, yet there is also considerable to which I cannot consent.

First, the interests and conditions of various states of the Union are so dissimilar in many respects that I do not think the time has yet arrived for a uniform code for all the territory in the Union.

Second, although it may be desirable to have laws compelling a witness to go from one state to another to testify in a criminal case, yet the power, if given at all, should be very carefully guarded to prevent abuse. As I have not given this matter special study, a successful plan of accomplishing this purpose does not occur to me.

The statement that "unfortunately the criminal laws generally are drafted by criminal lawyers who, as legislators, are seeking to protect a line of clientage, present and prospective, rather than their constituents," is a statement to which I cannot assent. I do not believe that the criminal laws are generally drafted by criminal lawyers, nor do I believe that as a class lawyers in legislatures are prone to legislate for their special benefit rather than for the community as a whole. I have never had much practice as a criminal lawyer. I have had considerable experience as a legislator, and the statement quoted, if true of any state, is certainly not true in this state.

I do not like the general criticism involved in the first paragraph, which commences on page 2, that judges presiding in the trials of criminal cases in courts of record are generally ignorant of the criminal law. I am ready to concede that greater knowledge is desirable on the part of most of them, but I would not like to make such a broad charge of ignorance as is implied in the paragraph referred to.

I also seriously question the propriety of having judges elected specially to try criminal cases who shall travel circuits from county to county to try that class of cases.

I cannot fully agree to the statements in the last paragraph commencing on page 2, which is in effect that few people sustain the legal principle that "in case of a reasonable doubt whether the defendant's guilt be satisfactorily shown, he is entitled to an acquittal." It is my opinion that where a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the defendant remains his guilt is not satisfactorily shown, and I do not favor such a change in the law as would authorize a conviction of the accused on a mere preponderance of evidence.

The discussion of the laws of New York and the Thaw case is interesting, but I am not prepared to express my opinion in regard to the matters discussed except to say that I agree that laws should provide for the safe-keeping of an insane person who has committed what would be a crime if he were legally responsible for his acts. The public welfare is certainly paramount to that of the individual in such

a case.

I am in accord with the suggestion that municipalities, cities or school districts, as the case may be, should see to it that school children are examined for physical defects and that the proper treatment is given for such defects when found.

I also agree with the paragraph which regrets the failure of Congress to provide for an indeterminate sentence and for paroles.

Hon. James Bingham, Attorney-General, Indianapolis: I do not agree that our lawyers and judges are not sufficiently advised or so mentally constituted that they cannot properly try criminal causes; I believe criminal practice is the simplest of all law business. I do not agree that the defendant in a criminal case should be convicted on evidence of less weight than that necessary to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Neither do I agree with the view that the question of insanity should be left to experts; experience has satisfied me that the present jury system of trying such a question is the safest after all. I do not pretend that injustice may not have been done in many cases, but I think that as a rule it is the safest plan.

I did not follow the Thaw case sufficiently closely to express any opinion with reference to it. My only source of information with reference to that trial was the newspaper reports of it. I do not think an experienced lawyer would want to express an opinion based upon such information with reference to any case.

Mr. Clark-On the program appears next an address by Governor Fort of New Jersey. He is unable to be present, and in his stead we will have the pleasure of listening to a paper by Dr. A. J. McKelway of Atlanta, secretary of the National Child Labor Committee for the Southern States. I take pleasure in introducing Dr. McKelway.

ABOLITION OF THE CONVICT LEASE SYSTEM
OF GEORGIA.

A. J. M'KELWAY, ATLANTA, GA.

The convict lease system of Georgia is an inheritance of the reconstruction period. At the outbreak of the Civil War there were some two hundred white convicts confined at the penitentiary at Milledgeville, the former State capital. There were no negro convicts, since, with the exception of capital felonies, the discipline of slavery sufficed for inferior crimes. The white convicts were gradually released during the war on condition that they serve in the Confederate Army, but during the famous "Marching through Georgia" the penitentiary buildings were burned to the ground. Henry Grady once said to a Boston audience, with General Tecumseh Sherman on the platform, that the only criticism the people of Georgia had for the General was that he was a "little careless with fire." The carelessness which resulted in the burning of the Georgia penitentiary had farreaching consequences.

After the establishment of civil government by the native white people of Georgia, in 1865, one of the first problems to be considered was the disposition of the negro criminals, who were becoming alarmingly numerous. The courts were authorized to sentence misdemeanor convicts to the county chain gangs and a number of crimes formerly felonies were reduced in grade to misdemeanors in a spirit of leniency to the ex-slaves. Then came the reconstruction acts of 1867. The State Government was abolished and General Ruger given entire charge of its administration. He found a pressing problem in the increasing number of criminals, the depleted revenues of the State and the loss of the penitentiary building. Accordingly he made the first convict lease to a citizen by the name of Fort, who paid $2,500.00 for the control of one hundred convicts for one year. In 1869 General Ruger's successor, the "Scalawag Governor," as he was called, leased five hundred convicts to a firm of contractors. With the precedent thus established, but without any authority of law, Georgia alone is responsible for the long continuance of the convict lease system. Georgia alone is responsible for its recent abolition, freely surrendering a revenue of something less than a million dollars a year to end the iniquity and the shame; but as to originating the system, Georgia might well say to the nation, "Thou canst not shake thy gory locks at me and say 'Thou didst it.'"

The legislature of 1871 authorized the illegal lease just described, and in 1876 a twenty-year lease of the convicts was made, the foundation of more than one private fortune in Georgia. The legislature of 1897-98 established a State Farm, where juvenile offenders, some of the women, the aged, the sick and the feeble-minded convicts were located; but it continued the lease system for another period of five years, the convicts now numbering two thousand and the price being $100 each per year. Again in 1903 a five-year lease was authorized, though the convicts serving a five-year term or less were sent to the counties to be worked on the public roads. There was a strong effort made by patriotic men to terminate the system at the expiration of each of these contracts, but by this time the system had become so thoroughly commercialized that every consideration save that of private gain or public revenue was lost sight of. Even the superintendent of the State Farm, where the children, the women, the sick, the infirm and the feeble-minded were confined, boasted that he had made the institution self-sustaining. The convicts under competitive bidding brought this time an average of $225.00 a year. The lease of 1904 terminates the first of April, 1909, and the system ends with this lease.

Of course there were protests against the infamy all along, but on account of the sacredness of contract as compared with the sacredness of human life, not every administration was able under law to deal with the problem, and the "Convict Kings," as they were called, were always able to control the legislature at the critical time when a new contract was to be made.

The system was organized as follows: A Prison Commission of three members had entire responsibility and authority under the law. The commission employed a clerk who was given one salary for each of three offices which he held. The small salaries paid the subordinate officials was one reason for the prevalence of abuses. Not more than one hundred dollars a month could be paid for a warden, but one of the wardens was given two salaries, one as inspector of the Felony Camps and the other as inspector of the Misdemeanor Camps, and was called the State Warden. Latterly there had been appointed a chief inspector and an assistant inspector, to see that the rules of the Prison Commission, which looked humane enough on paper, should be carried out. At each convict camp there was a warden, sometimes a deputy warden, a sufficient number of guards and a camp physician, all employed by the State for the care and protection of the convicts, as against cruelty and overwork by the lessees. During the period of this lease labor became so valuable that the convicts which had been leased by the State at an average of $225.00 per year, were sublet by the original lessees for as much as $630.00 a year.

It was admitted on the witness stand during the legislative investigation that the Prison Commission left the examination of the monthly reports from the convict camps to the clerk of the commission. The clerk testified that he did not have time to read them and that he trusted to the visits of the inspector and the assistant inspector. The chief inspector proved to be an old man seventy-three years of age, entirely incompetent for the work assigned him. He admitted that he trusted largely to the reports of the wardens of the camps and the wardens admitted that they were in the pay of the lessees. Thus the whole scheme of State supervision broke down and the lessees did what they pleased and worked the convicts to the last ounce of their strength and endurance.

The scramble after the money that was in the system led to accusations and counter-accusations of favoritism and graft. It