Besides the industries described above, the penitentiary system owns and operates with convict labor a number of farms. The legislature in 1885 authorized the purchase of a farm or farms for the penitentiary system, and in that same year the Harlem farm of 2,500 acres in Fort Bend County was purchased. This was the beginning of the employment of convicts upon state farms. In January, 1915, there were owned by the penitentiary system seven farms, with an aggregate acreage of 31,639, of which there were 19,509 in cultivation. Besides these, the system had under lease eight farms, with a total acreage of 26,458, of which 18,996 acres were in cultivation.2 During the year 1914 there were 4,600 bales of cotton produced on these farms, and the value of the cane crop worked into sugar and molasses was $125,000. On one of the state farms is a sugar mill, and on another is a syrup mill, and together they represent a large investment. The cultivation of cane and the manufacture of sugar and molasses began about 1888. There is considerable diversity of opinion as to the profitableness of cane cultivation on the state farms; but as to the manufacture of sugar and molasses, its abandonment has been recommended, if the conditions of withdrawal should be favorable.3

1 Ibid., pp. 37 and 52.

2 Ibid., p. 40.

3 Report of Penitentiary Investigation Committee, July 24, 1913, in House Journal, 33rd Leg., Reg. Sess., p. 72. Report of Committee to visit State Prison Farms, February 1, 1915, in House Journal, 34th Leg., Reg. Sess., p. 299.

The railroad known as the State Railroad was built by convict labor, and for twenty years it was administered as a part of the property of the prison system. It was begun at Rusk in 1893 or 1894, and the object in its construction was to secure timber for the iron industry. Some seven miles were built by 1895.1 During the years 1899-1902 it was extended four miles.2 But in the two years 1903-1904 seven miles of the road were abandoned, and a new line was begun. The object still was to reach timber for fuel for the iron industry. By 1905 twenty miles were built, and in 1907-1908 the road was extended to Palestine.3 It has a total length of 32.5 miles, and its value on June 30, 1915, according to the state railroad commission, was $528,544. At this date also there were bonds to the amount of $100,000, and current liabilities of $539,529 outstanding against the road. In 1913 the management of this railroad was taken out of the hands of the prison commission and given to a manager appointed by the governor.4 The road has never paid operating expenses, and it represents an unwise and unprofitable expenditure of the state's money.5

It has been in connection with the penitentiaries that the state has engaged in industrial enterprises. The other principal enterprise was the attempt to do the state printing. Neither on the operating side nor on the accounting side was the record such as to reflect credit on the state. There was a failure to provide the capital necessary to put industries on their feet, unwise experiments were made, changes in prison administration with each change in the occupancy of the governor's chair prevented continuity of policy and deprived the prison system of trained service, obsolete machinery was used, cost accounting was unheard of in the industries, and the bookkeeping and public reports were decidedly inadequate.

In the reorganization of the penitentiary system in 1910 it was provided that good conduct prisoners should receive out of the earnings of the prison the amount of ten cents per day for the period of their confinement.1 This provision was declared unconstitutional by the attorney general, however, and was therefore abandoned.2

1 Biennial Report of the Prison Board, 1894, p. 17.

2 Ibid., 1900, p. 66; ibid., 1902, p. 74.

3 Ibid., 1908, p. 14.

4 Laws of 1913, Reg. Sess., p. 279.

5 House Journal, 34th Leg., Reg. Sess., p. 42.

Besides the penitentiaries, there are two other corrective institutions. In 1887 the reformatory, or as it is now called, the state institution for the training of juveniles, was established.3 In 1913 the state school for the training of dependent and delinquent girls, known as the girls' training school, was established.4

The expenditures of the state for general administrative agencies have naturally increased with the growth of the state. The civil servants of the state have grown greatly in numbers, but in their selection for the most part the spoils system pro-vails, and with each change in the governor or in the elective heads of departments there is usually a turning out of employees from the janitor to the chief clerk. In 1879 the salaries of all employees were reduced in order to help inaugurate the Roberts "pay-as-you-go' policy. Increases took place thereafter, but without any uniformity as to the departments affected, until 1895, when reductions were again made, owing to the financial depression after the panic of 1893, and further reductions were made in 1897. In 1901 some increases were made, but there was no uniform advance until 1911, when the effect of the rise in the cost of living upon the salaries of employees seems to have been recognized by the legislature. The compensation fixed originally in the constitution for the governor, heads of departments, and members of the legislature has remained unchanged, though conditions have materially changed. At the time the Constitution of 1876 was framed and adopted the country was in the depths of the depression which followed the panic of 1873, and prices were low. The salaries of heads of departments which are not laid down in the constitution are more generous than those the constitution prescribes, and this works an unwarranted discrimination among the heads. The salary of the governor, which is $4,000, is! even with the furnished mansion and an incidental fund, pitiably small for a state like Texas.1 There is little doubt also but that a smaller legislative body, with none of the present restrictions on the length of its sessions, and with the members paid an annual salary, as are the members of Congress, would be a beneficial change from the present system.

1 Laws of 1910, p. 143.

2 House Journal, 34th Leg., Reg. Sess., p. 42.

3 Laws of 1887, p. 64. Laws of 1889, p. 193. Laws of 1911, p. 211.

4 Laws of 1913, Reg. Sess., p. 289. Laws of 1913, Called Sess., p. 7.

1 Recent court decisions hold that the appropriations for groceries and incidentals for the governor's mansion are unconstitutional. These decisions were in the so-called "chicken salad" case, which originated in an injunction obtained by W. C. Middleton to restrain Comptroller H. B. Terrell from issuing treasury warrants to pay bills made by Governor O. B. Colquitt for punch, salad, etc., used at a governor's reception, and for other items connected with the upkeep of the governor's mansion. The injunction was granted by the lower court, and was upheld by the Fourth Court of Civil Appeals. See Dallas. News, June 15, 1916, p. 10.