Commissioners Tittle and Brahan attributed the losses from operation largely to the fact that the convict population upon the whole was not performing a reasonable amount of labor, as was indicated by the falling off in acreage cultivated. This condition they ascribed largely to the statutory limitation upon the hours of labor, and, further, to the fact that the most effective means of punishment (whipping) had been interdicted by executive order. The farm managers and sergeants, and, in fact, very nearly every officer of the system, supported them in these views. Chairman Cabell denied the truth of their deductions as to the abolition of whipping, and he asserted that in his opinion these other officers exaggerated the influence of the limitation upon the hours of labor. Certain of the new officers of the system who testified before the investigating committee said that most of the officers and guards, having been trained under the old order, were not in sympathy with the new law nor with its purposes. This suggestion was reinforced by the testimony of such officers, as is indicated in the foregoing. The circumstances attending the abolition of whipping ought also to be considered. The prison act of 1910 did not prohibit whipping. It limited it and provided safeguards against abuses. Many of the officers of the system were not in sympathy with such limitations. In the early summer of 1912, Chairman Cabell moved that the use of the “bat” should be discontinued and prohibited. His motion was defeated by the votes of Commissioners Tittle and Brahan. Thereupon, Governor Colquitt ordered the commission to adopt Chairman Cabell’s motion. It did so, unanimously. It was generally known throughout the system that practically every officer thereof believed it impossible to control convicts or to make them work unless the threat of whipping hung over them. Yet the first news of the change in punishment methods went out through the press during a political campaign. In many parts of the prison system, so the investigation disclosed, the convicts got their first information of the change from new prisoners. The effect was bad. Convicts reasoned that the authority of officers directly in charge was negligible; that these officers had said they could not control convicts or make them work without the “bat,” and, therefore, since the bat has been taken away, they could safely decline to work.