VOLUME I, No. 9. SEPTEMBER, 1911 THE REVIEW A MONTHLY PERIODICAL, PUBLISHED BY THE =NATIONAL PRISONERS’ AID ASSOCIATION= AT 135 EAST 15th STREET, NEW YORK CITY. TEN CENTS A COPY. SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS A YEAR E. F. Waite, President. F. Emory Lyon, Vice President. O. F. Lewis, Secretary and Editor Review. E. A. Fredenhagen, Chairman Ex. Committee. James Parsons, Member Ex. Committee. A. H. Votaw, Member Ex. Committee. G. E. Cornwall, Member Ex. Committee. Albert Steelman, Member Ex. Committee. PRISON LABOR LEGISLATION OF 1911 BY E. STAGG WHITIN General Secretary, National Committee on Prison Labor The state’s property right in the prisoner’s labor exists by virtue of the 13th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which provides that slavery or involuntary servitude may be a punishment for crime, after due process of law. This property right the state may lease or retain for its own use, the manner being set forth in state constitutions and acts of legislatures. To make this of material value the prisoner’s labor must be productive. The distribution of the product of the prisoner’s labor inevitably presents the problem of competition. The confounding of the evil of penal servitude with the methods of production and the methods of distribution which have grown out of it has produced a confusion in the thought underlying prison labor regulation by legislative enactment.