God--a crime against civilization and humanity.

Some of the specific charges against the system were that these
unfortunate beings, without regard to sex, were huddled together in
prison quarters like so many cattle. It has been a foul blot upon the
escutcheon of the South, second only to the murderous stains made
thereon by the lynchers. It is a disgrace even to the civilization of
medieval times. For cruelty and outrage it is unparalleled in the
annals of civilized society. Siberia itself is preferable to the
convict camp. Given the worst form of human slavery plus the
barbarities of prison life; add to this the horrors of a Spanish
prison, and you have somewhat of an idea of the iniquitous institution
of the barbarous convict lease system.

But as if compounding crime, it is asserted with many of the
appearances of truth, that Negro boys and girls, upon trivial charges,
are convicted and sent to the convict camp for the express purpose of
securing to the lessees of convicts the benefit of their unrequited
toil until they reach their majority. Thus confined among confirmed
criminals they naturally partake of the character of their
environments, and conceive and multiply vice and criminology. This
system punishes the real criminal unjustly. The ill-gotten gain it
offers furnishes the incentive to thrust the innocent into prison
pens.

Then, too, it is claimed with the appearance of truth that
unscrupulous white men in certain Southern localities actually trump
up charges against Negro men and procure their convictions and
sentence to the convict camp for the double purpose of affording the
lessees the comparatively free labor of the alleged criminals and to
deprive them of the right to vote. While heartily approving of such
reasonable punishment as shall deter crime, I can command no language
strong and severe enough to condemn in fitting terms the cruelties and
deviltries heaped upon the Negro in certain sections of the South in
the name and for the sake of those who profit by the convict lease
system.

It is undisputed that some of those sent to the convict camp have been
properly found guilty; some have been illegally convicted; some
deserve proper punishment, while some, by reason of their tender
years, should have been put into reformatories, where they might have
been rescued from a life of crime and brought up as law-abiding
citizens. Such institutions may have been intended to protect society
from the di