Prisoners Put In Dungeon

If Specified Amount of Work Is Not Done

GEN. FRED GREEN

Is Mixed Up in Matter - Offers to Dispose of His Stock in Reed Furniture Co

The Detroit Times of Friday has the following:

An ex-prisoner of the Michigan reformatory at Ionia has written a letter to The Times in which he censures the prison authorities severely for the manner in which the convicts are treated. The writer signs his name as John Watson, but an investigation by the Times yesterday showed that the fellow was known in the prison as John McDonald and served three years for larceny from the person. He was released last Saturday and left Ionia for Port Huron. A representative of the Times followed McDonald as far as Port Huron, where all trace of him was lost.

McDonald alleges in his letter that the Ypsilanti Reed Furniture Co., that has the prison contract for employing prison labor, is a "get-rich-quick" concern, and that if the prisoners do not do the amount of work specified they are thrown into a dungeon and given a dose of solitary confinement. The letter also states that there are prisoners who have done their utmost to finish their task each day, but have been unable to do so as the work is too much, but they are put in the dungeon just the same.

While the Times was investigating McDonald's letter it was discovered that Brig.-Gen Fred W. Green inspector general of the Michigan National Guard, and member of the state military board, is not only a stockholder of the Ypsilanti Reed Furniture Co., but is the manager of the sales department, and was the person that put through the big before the advisory board of the Michigan reformatory giving the contract to the Ypsilanti Reed Furniture Co.

When Green learned that the Times' representative was investigating, he was a trifle agitated. As a state officer Green draws a salary of $1,000 a year and expenses, and when he was first told of the investigation he said he would resign his position of inspector general, but later on he said that he would sign his stock in the Ypsilanti Reed Furniture Co. back to the company. 

"When I secured this contract for the company, I was the attorney for it," said Green. "Since the contract was signed I have secured five shares of stock at $10 a share, and this stock will be turned back to the company this afternoon. I talked this matter fully over with Gov. Bliss, as I am responsible to him for my state appointment, before I entered into it, and he said that it would be all right.

"I did not pull any political wires to get the contract. I only visited two members of the advisory board of the institution, and I believe that I wrote to a third member. The bids were sealed, and we big 50 cents a day for labor, while the former contractor paid only 17 cents and 35 cents. This is the best contract the state has ever had, and it is making money for the state."

Out of 402 prisoners in the prison, 262 are employed on Green's contract, and it is claimed that the convicts turn out about 350 chairs a day.

Green says that the prisoners are not thrown into dungeons if they fail to do their tasks. He says that but very few of the men have been able as yet to do the work laid out for them.