Inadvertently on the Angels' Side

Our post about Teddy Roosevelt's health-care reform attracted a fair number of responses, in particular the ending snippet about the Progressive Party's opposition to privately contracted prison labor. As one commenter pointed out, this opposition wasn't borne out of genuine concern over the practice's moral shortcomings, but rather Big Labor griping over the downward pressure on wages. After all, why would a company hire unionized workers if it could enlist the services of inmates who...