Raleigh, Aug. 4—George Ross Pou is under fire again. Prejudiced newspapers have started all over again in their effort to throw Pou out of his position. Article after article is appearing in these papers charging Pou with all manner of things. They slam and bang him all over the map but never tell what good he has done.
Mr. Pou is by far the best man the prison has ever had at its head. He is a big business man, knows what he is doing, and has as large a heart as any human being could ever have. While his knockers are busy knocking and banging him, he is going along paying little attention. He is attending to his work and is really getting morue out of the men under his charge than any man has ever gotten before. All his men whether prisoners or not, like him, respect him, and he in turn does them likewise. He is not the kind of a man to fly up and go off the handle at his contemporaries but considers what they say a matter of consequences.
Many is the time that we read that the prison is in debt but do these newspapers stop to consider a few facts. Whether it is in debt or not, do they stop to consider that George Ross Pou has a prison that the state is proud of, and not ashamed of for it being an inhumane Slave Factory?
When Mr. Pou started his work at the prison, he saw room for improvements and proceeded to make them as fast as he could. The prisoners were being brought into the prison in all sorts of physical conditions. They were brought in sick, lame, halt, with all kinds of illnesses, physical disabilities, and mental ailings. Heretofore they had been immediately shipped to camps, farms, or put to work in the prison factories; and out of the number his predecessor had, the death rate was enormous. This being due to no examination of the prisoner when he entered the institution. Mr. Pou saw the immediate need of doctors, some medical, some dental, foot specialists and innumerable others. He proceeded to fit up a place with surgical instruments, etc., where he could put these men in shape to go to work. When a man came in ailing, he was treated, and when he was well, he was and is sent out to work. Before Mr. Pou’s arrival, the prisoners were clad in the scarcest of garments. Now they are comfortably clothed in summer and warmly clad in winter. Instead of the old regulations which allowed prisoners but two pair of shoes per year the prison furnishes shoes as they are needed. Imagine that, two pair of shoes per year and a man working all day at hard labor. Before his advent into the prison the prisoners were allowed little, if any, tobacco; nor were they allowed any sugar in their coffee. In fact, they had little or practically no comfort. Now they are well kept. But all these things cost money and Mr. Pou has put quite a bit into this. Fair enough, this is not a thing to kick about spending money, for it’s what should have been done long ago, but has been left to “big-hearted George Ross Pou to do. He has done it and he has done it well.
It is well to remember, too, that Mr. Pou is now carrying well over 1,200 men on his rolls, where the gentlemen before him had had less than 800. As was said before, the death rate had been enormous before Mr. Pou began his administration. Now Mr. Pou has over 400 men more than ever and the death rate has been cut down 200 per cent. Was it worth while to spend those paltry dollars to save human lives? Indeed, it was and the broad-minded citizens of the state are all of the same opinion.
But even this, according to the banging folks, is not enough to convince them that so much money should be put into the prison. What are they going to say about the buildings Mr. Pou has erected during his administration? Ae they going to call that a deficit, too? Perhaps they will but if they stop to consider, they will see that this is a real investment and not any deficit. Imagine a man building a house and then considering that he did not have a thing and was in a hole. The money that these folks are yelling so much about is still in the state and is the property of the state. It is tied in what is far better than bonds or stocks. It is invested wisely and in the buildings and the improvements that that “big-hearted” George has caused to be erected and made.
There appears in one of our morning papers each morning an article telling about the prison being out of the rut in various governors’ administrations. It is true it was out of the rut but was it as big, was it as efficient? Did it have as much property? Did it have big camps all over the state? Did it have the same number of men working for it? Were conditions the same as they are now? Were the men in as good condition as they are now? Were materials the same prices as they are now? Were men being transported from one place to another at the costs by which they are transported now? Had the state erected a lot of new buildings? Emphatically we say NO and another NO.
While the “gang” goes ahead slinging mud and slush at George Ross Pou, he goes constantly on attending to his business, realizing and hoping that he has done his duty. He has, and every day continues to do so. The newspapers (some of them) continue hammering, but it will do no good. Mr. Pou was selected by a group of men by far wiser than the newspaper men; and if they have absolute trust in him then it stands to reason that he is the best man. He has done his duty, and he has done it well.
From page 3 of The Carolina Jeffersonian, Durham, N.C., Aug. 4, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073001/1925-08-04/ed-1/seq-3/
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