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64TH CONGRESS, | HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. REPORT | */4
1st Session. | No. 75.
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iſsº
PRODUCTS OF CONVICT LABOR IN INTERSTATE
COMMERCE. : :
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JANUARY 24, 1916,-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed
M. º. **. /*a-c -
Mr. LEwis, from the Committee on Labor, submitted the following
REPORT.
[To accompany H. R. 6871.]
The Committee on Labor, to whom was referred the bill (H. R.
6871) to limit the effect of the regulation of interstate commerce
between the States in goods, wares, and merchandise wholly or in
part manufactured, mined, or produced by convict labor or in any
prison or reformatory, submits the following report, and recommends
that the said bill do pass without amendment.
The bill is as follows:
A BILL To limit the effect of the regulation of interstate commerce between the States in goods, wares,
and merchandise wholly or in part manufactured, mined, or produced by convict labor or in any prison
or reformatory.
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America
in Congress assembled, That all goods, wares, and merchandise manufactured, pro-
duced, or mined wholly or in part by convict labor, or in any prison or reformatory, -
transported into any State or Territory of the United States, or remaining therein for
use, consumption, sale, or storage, shall, upon arrival and delivery in such State or
* Territory, be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such State or Territory
to the same extent and in the same manner as though such goods, wares, and mer-
chandise had been manufactured, produced, or mined in such State or Territory, and
- º be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced in the original package
or otherwise. -
This bill is designed to remove the impediment to the effective
operation of the local laws of the several States upon the subject
of the sale within their borders of convict-made goods, imposed by
the construction of the interstate commerce clause, in the inaction
of Congress on the subject.
For a number of years bills have been pressed before Congress, of
purpose similar to this. In the Fifty-eighth, Fifty-ninth, Sixty-first,
and Sixty-second Congresses such bills were favorably reported, but
did not reach the Senate. In the Sixty-third Congress a bill identical
in form to this bill passed the House and was favorably reported in
the Senate, but failed of final passage for lack of time. During all
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2 PRODUCTS OF CON VICT LABOR IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE.
these years the public demand for such legislation has grown steadily
more insistent.
The Industrial Commission, after giving much time to consider-
ation of the subject, in its report says it would be of little use to
recommend the reforms it suggests to the States “if not supplemented
by national legislation, i. should, if possible, protect the States
adopting such legislation from other States which may still proceed
under the old system.”
Although more than 500 statutes had been passed by the several
States in attempts to regulate the sale of goods, wares, and merchan-
dise produced by cºnvict labor, in 1910 this committee stated that
“the desire of a number of States to solve it” is defeated because
“the ‘commerce clause’ of the Constitution is successfully invoked
in State courts to defeat the efforts of State legislatures.” There-
fore the bill submitted is in effect carrying out the principle of home
rule in respect to the States. -
Economists have demonstrated that a very small quantity of any
manufactured article, thrown into a static market at an abnormally
low price, will “break” the market and depress, if not practically
destroy, the value of the whole quantity of the commodity affected
for the time. While the number of convicts in State prisons is small
compared with free labor, their output, being sold for less than goods
made under normal wage conditions, suffices to blight many industries.
The Bureau of Labor stated (twentieth report):
In all leather whips and whiplashes, other than buggy whips, 90
per cent of the total product is prison made, and in blacksnake whips
and cheap whiplashes, 99 per cent. This industry has been almost
entirely abandoned to the prisons.
In saddletrees fully 90 per cent are prison made, only special pat-
ented shapes being attempted by outside manufacturers,
Of stove hollow ware—the cheaper grades of kettles, skillets, etc.—
99 per cent are prison products, the industry having been abandoned.
by the outside manufacturers, who as stove producers have become
largely the jobbers of prison hollow ware.
n many lines manufacturers have been compelled by prison com-
petition to entirely change their line of products. In cases where
that could not readily be done they have been forced to suspend
business altogether. -
In testimony before this committee the warden of the Minnesota
prisons, where binding twine is made, stated that their only compe-
tition is now the “trust.” Selling twine at 14 to 2 cents a pound less
than the ºvate manufacturers can, the smaller concerns have been
eliminated.
In the shoe industry manufacturers complain (reports, Bureau of
Labor) that they must sell their goods below a fair margin of profit
or often at no profit at all, must reduce wages, cut the quality, and
in some cases entirely abandon making grades similar to those made
in prisons. Twenty per cent of the regular shoe-factory output must
compete with convict-made goods; the competing output of the con-
vict factories is but one-eighth of this 20 per cent (16 per cent), yet
it serves to demoralize the whole industry.
Five States contracted their convict º to one furniture-making
firm in 1905, the competition being severely felt in the industry.
;Ihe same is true of cooperage in the Chicago market, where it was




PRODUCTS OF CONWICT LABOR IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE. 3.
estimated by the Illinois State commissioner of labor that 67.8 per
cent of all pork barrels, beef and lard tierces, and lard kegs used at
the packing establishments were made in Joilet Prison, and it was
shown that many private concerns had been forced out of business
and those remaining pushed close to the deficit line. In shirts, over-
alls, handkerchiefs, hosiery, and other similar lines exploited convict
labor, at wages (the return to the State) rarely equal to one-half the
pay of free labor, has seriously damaged the field of manufacture and
industry. -
THE EFFECT UPON LABOR.
The effect upon free labor of the competition with exploited con-
victs is very serious. In the cooperage industry, already mentioned,
annual earnings of free labor fell from $623 to $432 in ten years of
prison competition in Illinois. The workers in competitive shoe-
making suffered lower wages and idle time. In every trade and
industry entered by convict labor, the free labor has been injured by
competition both in wages and extent and regularity of employment.
Illuminating testimony to this is given by i. existence of a law in
Minnesota, a State having very ably conducted prison industries,
which forbids the prison to enter any business in competition with a
private industry established within the State.
The demoralization of industries and their abandonment to prison
manufacture, as in the case of certain kinds of brushes, of cheap
stoves and hollow ware, must drive workmen out of their trades and
away from their homes and wonted means of livelihood, to which
they have been accustomed and compel them to learn new trades,
or to sink to the level of unskilled labor.
THE CONVICT's SIDE.
Humanity and health alike require that the unfortunate convicts
should have both employment and exercise; and sound policy dictates
that such employment should be directed in channels capable in part,
at least, of requiting the cost of their maintenance, least they should
become too great a charge upon the public. There is, too, the prob-
lem of supporting the convict's family, toward which modern prison
administration permits the convict's labor to contribute. But if the
convict is taught a trade only when released to find that trade has.
been monopolized by the prison and useless to him, he is a victim,
not a beneficiary. t
While no one now advocates keeping prisoners in idleness, it would
seem that the interest of the convict and of society lies in giving him
work that will not destroy his chances of employment when he is free
again. No one who has at all familiarized himself with the subject
entertains the idea that any opponent of the present system of prison
labor suggests or favors the keeping of the prisoners in idleness. It is
conceded that no greater calamity could |. prison management.
Work and reformation must go on together if there is to be any ref-
ormation, but the prisons have not been established for the purpose
of competitive manufacture, nor are they maintained for the purpose
of swelling the revenues of the State in competition with labor and
capital. The productions of prison labor should compete in the least
possible degree with free labor and manufacturer, and this is agreed
y ºil. all economists who have studied the subject.




3.01437
4 PRODUCTS OF CON VICT LABOR IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE.
THE ECONOMISTS’ VIEws.
The systems of employment for convicts used by the States are
thus epitomized by the Twenty-second Annual Report of the Commis-
sioner of Labor, at pages 95–96:
The United States and every political division thereof have by legislative action
adopted regulations and directions as to the employment of convicts during the term
of their detention. Six systems of employment are generally recognized as follows:
The lease system.–Under this system the contractors assume practically the entire
control of the convicts, including their maintenance and discipline, subject, however,
to the regulations fixed by statute. In general, the prisoners are removed from the
prisons and are employed in outdoor labor, such as mining, agriculture, railroad con-
struction, etc., though manufacturing is sometimes carried on. The nature and dura-
tion of the employment are, within the restrictions of the law, fixed by the lease.
The contract system.—The employment under this system is usually within the
prison shops or yards, discipline and control remaining in the hands of the officers,
only the labor of the convicts being let to and directed by the contractors for manu-
facturing purposes. The State usually furnishes shop room, and sometimes also
provides power and machinery.
The piece-price system.–Not only the discipline of the convicts, but the direction
of their labor as well, is retained by the State under this system, the contractors, fur-
nishing the material to be made up and receiving the finished product, an agreed
price per piece being paid for the labor bestowed.
The public-account system.—There is no intervention of outside parties under this
system, the employment of the convicts being in all respects directed by the State,
and the products of their labor being sold for its benefit.
The State-use system.–This system is similar to the above, except that such articles
are produced as will be of service to the State in supplying and maintaining its various
institutions, and are appropriated to such use instead of being put ºn the general market.
The public-works-and-ways system.–Under this system, convicts are employed in
the ºnstruction and repair of public buildings, streets, highways, and other public
WOTKS.

Whether it be one or another, or all, or a new system, surely each
State has the right to carry out the method it deems best for the
State and for the convicts without interference. Yet as the law
now stands, efforts at reform in industrial methods in penal institu-
tions result in penalizing the State making the effort by making it
a better market for the products of like institutions in other States.
Some States, whose convicts are permitted to manufacture only
for State and charitable institutions, have sought to protect them-
selves by law against the sale of convict goods from without. Among
those which have at various times sought to regulate or restrict the
traffic in goods of this character are California, Colorado, Indiana,
Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Oregon, Oklahoma, Texas,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maine. But these restrictions have
failed, either wholly or in part, in consequence of the inability of
the States, under our system of government, to regulate their com-
merce with other States. Congress alone has this power.
The Congress shall have power * * * to regulate commerce with foreign na-
tions º among the several States and with the Indian tribes. (Constitution, Art. I,
Sec. 8.
This bill seeks to lift the protecting hand of Congress from convict-
made goods shipped from one State into another State—which ship-
ment, of course, constitutes an act of interstate commerce—and sub-
ject them, upon arrival at their destination and before sale, by the
importer, to the local law of the State into which they are shipped;
but for such permissive act on the part of Congress such goods would
remain interstate commerce, free from State control, until their


PRODUCTS OF CONVICT LABOR IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE. 5
delivery to the consignee at the point of destination, and beyond
that even until the consignee had disposed of them or broken the
package in which they were shipped. (Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat.,
419; Low v. Austin, 13 Wall., 29; Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S., 100;
Vance v. Vandercook Co., 170 U. S., 438; Lewis, Federal Power over
Commerce, 4, 5.)
While the right to sell an article of interstate commerce in the
original package, in the absence of congressional legislation regulating
the subject, is thus guaranteed by repeated decisions of the Supreme
Court, yet that it is competent for 8. by appropriate legisla-
tion to subject this right to State control has been fully illustrated
by the history and adjudication of the Wilson Act of August 8, 1890,
dealing with another subject of interstate commerce, along lines
identical with those involved in this bill.
The Wilson Act was as follows:
That all fermented, distilled, or other intoxicating liquors or liquids transported
into any State or Territory, or remaining therein for use, consumption, sale, or storage
shall, upon arrival in such State or Territory, be subject to the operation and effect
of the laws of such State or Territory enacted in the exercise of its police powers to
the same extent and in the same manner as though such liquors or liquids had been
F. in such State or Territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of
eing introduced therein in original packages or otherwise.
As is well known, this act was violently assailed on the ground of its
unconstitutionality, in that, as alleged, Congress had delegated its
authority over an admitted subject of interstate commerce to the
State legislatures. But its constitutionality was upheld by the
Supreme Court in the case of In re Rahrer (140 U. S., 545), wherein
Chief Justice Fuller declared:
No reason is perceived why, if Congress chooses to provide that certain designated
subjects of interstate commerce shall be governed by a rule which divests them of that
character at an earlier period of time than would otherwise be the case, it is not within
its competency to do so.
And again the same court affirmed:
It has been settled that the effect of the act of Congress is to allow the statutes of the
several States to operate upon packages of imported liquor before sale. (Rhodes v.
Iowa, 412.)
The court, however, held that the words “arrival in the State”
meant “at the point of delivery,” and not before actual delivery to
the consignee, where the shipment is interstate. (L. & N. R. R. Co. v.
Cook Brewing Co., 223 U. S., 70.)
Although it is admitted that the point has not since been directly
before the Supreme Court, considering these and other deliverences
upon this question, it is confidently submitted that the object of this
bill, the authorization of the State to prohibit by its local law, if it
desire, the sale of convict-made goods in the original package, im-
ported from without its borders, is not amenable to constitutional
objection. It is believed that the effect of the bill will be to enable
enlightened Commonwealths, as they see fit, to deal more effectively
with this important moral and economic issue.

O
NOV 2 + 1916
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