Report of the Committee on Politics in Penal and Charitable Institutions; Read by Eugene A. Philbin at the Third New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, held at Albany, November 18-20, 1902

Albany, NY, 1902. First Edition. Pamphlet. Very good. Staple-bound pamphlet. 9"x5 3/4". 8 pp.
No wraps as issued. Small chip to upper right corner of first page. Light toning to edges and margins. 1" closed tear at bottom of crease.
This is a report read at a New York State conference on penal reform in 1902. It was prepared and presented by committe chariman and progressive reformer Eugene Ambrose Philbin, cowritten by 8 other noted activist leaders, including Josephine Shaw Lowell and William Church Osborn. The report admonishes the presence of politics and profiteering in the administration of prisons and charitable organizations, the first seeds of corruption that have now blossomed into America's billion dollar prison industrial complex. The pamphlet reads today as an early warning and somewhat naive call to action, concluding with the hope that if earnest workers were to make a "black-list, which would contain the names of all politicians who sought to use the alms of the poor for their person profit, it would take but a short while to be assured of freedom from such interference." Alas, Mr. Philbin, there was not enough paper in the world.